Page 17 of The Vampire Oracle

“One minute. Take it or leave it.”

“Bye, Beck.” Laughing, I rolled out of bed and worked to get my jeans on. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“Alright. See you down there, beautiful.”

I paused at his words. “Do you really mean that when you say it?”

He blinked at me before nodding. “Of course.”

I was used to men telling me I was gorgeous and beautiful, but it felt… weird and different coming from him and Abel. Moving from the room, I went back to mine, changing before going downstairs.

Kier was already in the kitchen, handing me over something in foil. “You and Beck were too busy having sex to even come downstairs and eat.”

I almost smirked at him. “You saved me food. Oh my god. You must want me really badly.”

He nodded, leaning on the island. His eyes darkened when they landed on me. “Is it working?”

“No,” I deadpanned, going around the island to get away from him.

He shrugged before standing up straight. “I have a few meetings tomorrow for the whole academy incident. Jinn and Cain will be over to help you with the others to start training.”

I nodded. “Are all fathers going to the meeting?”

“Yeah.”

“If you see Nero there, will you tell me if he’s okay?”

He cocked a brow. “Oh, a new boyfriend? You know, Nero and I are pretty close, became fathers together.”

“Liar,” Beck said, touching my hips. I liked it when he touched me. It made me feel like we were normal again, even briefly. “You barely like Nero.”

“We’ve gotten closer since our last few missions,” Kier shrugged. “He’s something else, sometimes. Ready?”

With a nod, Kier took us out to the garage to his big ass truck and drove us towards the station.

The closer we got, the more nervous I got. It’d been a while since I last spoke to Cozen. He worked on my arm once or twice but made no major repairs. Money was tight, and I never wanted to use him. Plus… pain reminded me I was alive. Sometimes I felt like I also deserved the pain I had. I wasn’t the best person ever, and all the sins were catching up to me in the form of karma.

Losing my arm was karma. Cozen was branded because of me. Jade was beaten or taken advantage of. This was my karma. I deserved every second of my pain, but now I needed two functioning arms to pass these tests. It was a time when things were different before it got worse.

Humans were always the ones above others, but after the Revelations, we became lesser. The vampires grew until we were confined to walls that barely helped. Soon they will have killed everyone, and we would all just be mindless servants to a vampire instead of being mindless soldiers for a war that I didn’t even want. I just wanted things to change for the humans, to show them we could fight and be safe.

At the train station, Kier checked his watch again. “What does this kid even look like?”

“Scrawny, brown long hair. Shorter than me. But he might be a bit taller now that it’s been almost five years.”

“How come if he’s your friend, it took long to see him again?”

I shrugged. “Too many memories of the past. I don’t honestly know.”

“I think it was guilt more than anything, keeping us apart from each other,” a heavy, velvety voice.

I twisted to see…

Cozen.

But not the one that I remembered. He wasn’t scrawny anymore; now muscles covered most of his body. His hoodie clung to his arms and shoulders. His hair was short now, pieces falling against his beautiful olive skin. His face wasn’t round anymore, jaw sharper with high cheekbones. Silver piercings sat along his ears and a necklace around his neck.

“Cozen.” I blinked. “You’re… different.”

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