Accidental Sire (Half-Moon Hollow #6)

“Yep, Mad Max is a good idea,” Jane said. “I’m going to go get some more blood.”

“I’ll get it for you,” I told her, hopping off the couch. “As a peace offering.”

“Thank you,” Jane said, slowly breathing out of her nose. “Because now I’m going to have to Google ‘Firthing,’ and I think it’s going to make me really angry.”

“Those poor people on the Internet,” I muttered, walking out of the living room.

I poured Jane a generous helping from the very last of the Rothschilde, shaking my head at my own inability to make conversation like a normal person.

A soft voice behind me asked, “So you and Ben were friends at school?”

“Yipe!” I yelled, dropping the bottle. But thanks to my quick reflexes, I caught it before it hit the tile near Gigi’s feet. “What the hell?”

“Sorry,” she said, grimacing. “I thought you would hear me. Jane said your senses are off the charts.”

“They are, if I’m not berating myself for insulting my sire’s favorite things,” I told her. “Yes, uh, Ben and I met at school, at a party at my dorm.”

Gigi’s brows rose.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just when we were together, Ben never wanted to go to parties. We watched a lot of Netflix, hung out with his parents, that kind of thing.”

Gigi’s big blue eyes took on this wistful, faraway quality. Was she pining for the nights she spent on the couch with Ben or just pining for the days when she was still human and could eat the comfort food Jolene and Nola were throwing back? What the heck had happened to her to make the Council establish a poison-screening policy? Was that the sort of question you could casually ask someone at a girls’ night? Why did being a vampire have to make socializing so complicated?

“Um, I think Jamie made him go. Ophelia threw the party. It was a mixer for human and vampire students, you know, living-undead unity and all that.”

Gigi’s sleek sable brows rose more.

“It was a punishment for Ophelia, for beating up her roommate.”

Gigi nodded. “The world makes sense again.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You know, everybody makes these little comments about Ophelia. I mean, I get that she can be sort of difficult, but she’s been really nice to me. Even before I was turned, we were friends.”

Gigi poured herself a glass of blood from the warmer. “Yeah, I tend to hold grudges against people who hire witches to have me magically contract-murdered. I’m funny that way.”

My jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Girls! Tom Hardy’s sweaty and covered in sand, and you’re missing it!” Iris yelled from the living room.

“Coming!” Gigi yelled back, and gave me a little smile before walking out of the kitchen.

“Who says something like that and just walks out of the room?” I asked no one in particular. “Who are these people?”

With no more contract-murder info forthcoming, I delivered Jane’s blood and retreated to my couch corner to enjoy a non-Austen movie. Jane and Company kept up a pretty steady streaming commentary on Tom Hardy’s various disgruntled faces, Immortan Joe’s stick-on abs, and potential water-shortage solutions that didn’t involve humans as dairy cows. It was like watching the DVD extras but with more cursing and spilled blood. When I tossed in the occasional joke, Jane grinned broadly at me, like she wanted to take a picture and label it “Baby’s First Snark.”

Max was sitting back and letting Furiosa handle her postapocalyptic liberation like a boss when I heard a car pull into the driveway. I craned my neck to peer out the front windows. A tall, deliciously handsome blond man climbed out of a black SUV and jogged up the front steps. He knocked softly on the door and poked his head into the house.

“Permission to cross the border into feminine territory?” he asked in a slight Russian accent.

My eyes went wide. Was this the Russian guy Jane had talked about? The one who could help Morgan pass Russian Literature? Because I could take a summer class in Russian Literature.

“Nik, honey, I’ve told you, that’s a super-creepy way of putting it,” Gigi scolded, bouncing up from the couch and throwing herself into the hot Russian’s arms.

Oh, seriously, she was dating this one, too?

“Ew, older sisters present,” Iris called as he bent his head to drop butterfly kisses down Gigi’s neck. “I don’t need these visuals.”

“Consider it payback for all the times I walked in on you and Cal,” Gigi shot back, kissing the man’s full lips.

Iris shuddered and dropped a throw pillow over her face, while Nola cackled. OK, so Gigi had clearly moved on from Ben to this new Greek-statue-like gentleman with the nice hair and sexy accent. So where did that leave Ben? Was that why he had been so grumpy before we started working—having his proposal shot down in favor of statue man? And then why he was so excited to be at work? Because it meant that he got to spend time with his ex-girlfriend again?

I was living in a vampire telenovela, I swear.

“I thought you were playing cards over at Dick’s,” Jane said, pausing the movie.

“We were, and then Dick slammed a good hand on the table with a little too much enthusiasm, and Jed got hit in the eye with a bottle cap,” Nik said. All of us winced in unison. “Jed was startled and turned into a six-foot great white shark with legs.”

Nola groaned. “Not the mutant land shark again.”

Gigi snorted. “It’s one of his favorites.”

“Ben was not expecting to see the mutant land shark standing in front of him. He panicked and flipped the table at Jed, hitting him in the face with it, broadside.”

“I’d better go get my medical bag.” Nola sighed as she stood. She paused for a moment, snatched her glass off the coffee table, and glugged back the last of her drink.

I raised my hand. “Wait, what?”

Jane was suddenly alert, sitting up. “Is Jed OK? Did he bleed very much? Did Ben . . . OK, just tell me. Did Ben try to eat Jed?”

“No, no,” Nik assured her. “We would have called you if there were serious injuries. Gabriel and Dick are icing down Jed’s face now. And Ben handled it very well. As soon as he saw that Jed’s nose was bleeding, he ran upstairs and locked himself in a bathroom. He is very fast, by the way, even for a vampire. He’s still there, actually, waiting for you to give him the all clear to come out. Gabriel told him he’d be fine, but Ben wants to hear it from you, so he doesn’t get ‘docked points.’ He does realize you’re not actually keeping score on his performance, yes?”

“Aw, that’s great!” Jane cried. “And no, let’s let him keep believing there’s a point system. If it’s this effective, what’s the harm? Meagan, you’re sworn to silence.”

“Can we go back to ‘mutant land shark’?” I asked.

“We think maybe Ben wasn’t as tempted by the blood because Jed’s a shapeshifter,” Nik said.

“Can’t you just let me be proud for a moment without putting conditions on it?” Jane asked him.