Page 90 of Hunting His Vampire Mate

Ethan nodded back grimly. “She’d help with this. I know she would. Say what you will about her, but she places a lot of value on life.”

“We could stay in the city for a little while,” Bryan suggested, giving his mate a shy sort of look. “My sister has been begging for us to stay with her for months.” To the rest of us, he added, “I’m pretty sure she likes Tobias more than me now.” He paused, giving Danny a hesitant glance before turning back to Tobias. “It’s probably a good thing anyway. Rico is probably going to need a couple more weeks, at least. He’s having a harder time with the cravings than I did.”

Beside me, Danny stiffened ever so slightly.

“Each vampire is different,” Simone told us. “Some are very fortunate and require almost no supervision, even in the very beginning. Others take much longer to settle into their nature. Rico will adjust, in the fullness of time.”

Bryan nodded, looking troubled. “He’s keeping a positive attitude,” he said, a bit more doubtfully. “But he’s going to need us.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to stay longer?” Tobias asked, turning to his mate. His concern was written all over his face. “Staying in the city for a little while, I mean.”

When Bryan had been under the control of an evil warlock, he had hurt a lot of people here. Bryan had mentioned having a difficult time in the city since.

“If I’m being honest, it’s hard.” Bryan shrugged. Then he added, “But what you guys are suggesting has the potential to save countless innocent lives. There’s no way in hell I’m standing in the way of that. I still want to heal people. Because that matters, too. But for right now, we can do that here just as well as anywhere else. And I can be a little bit more okay every day, I think. I just need to give myself some time.”

The look of raw devotion that dawned on Tobias’s face almost hurt my heart to see.

Like he loves Bryan and would do just about anything for him?Danny asked, looking over at me, his eyes shiny again and his whole face filled with light, even despite the mention of Rico. He added,I know the feeling.

The storm inside of him had quieted down and I could sense now, for the very first time, the wonder that had flooded into Danny at the proposition Thierry and I had put before the group. The idea that maybe we could use our skills—the dark upbringing he’d never really had much of a say in—and turn it into something good and pure. That we could bring light out of the darkness.

Together.

“Assuming this is even possible,” Poppy said. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned thoughtfully, her eyebrows knitting together. “We’d still need to test it somehow. I’d prefernotto do that on a psychopathic vampire before we know a summon-my-true-love spell even works on someonewitha conscience. Without driving them crazy, inadvertently cursing them, or blowing them to bits.” She paused. “Where would we find someone crazy enough to let us test this on them? How would we even ask that of someone?”

Thierry shot her a dark look. “No asking will be necessary. You will try your spell out on me first, once you have created it. I insist.”

* * *

The following evening, Danny settled down on the porch steps of our rented house beside me, where I had been sitting and watching the last dregs of sunlight vanish behind the mountains in the distance.

We were a little more than an hour drive northeast of the city, between Gold Bar and Index, at the base of the cascade mountain range. The area was breathtakingly beautiful and, more importantly, remote. There were no neighbors for at least miles in each direction.

And it was ours, now.

Thierry had announced last night that he was moving back into his old apartment in Seattle, above Nathaniel’s bar. And that we were welcome to stay for the remainder of the two-year lease he’d signed on the house. I’d balked, wondering about the rent. Simone and Nathaniel had traded a glance and chuckled a bit at my expense. Apparently, the vampires were quite well funded, and I was the only progeny of the king’s right-hand man. Paying the rent wasn’t going to be an issue.

“Are you happy?” he asked suddenly.

Danny knew that I was deliriously in love with him, so I understood what he had really meant by his question. I barelyeven needed to consider the answer, either. “I don’t regret becoming a vampire.”

And I didn’t. Not when the alternative would have been letting Danny go. I would have traded a lot more than my humanity for him. I would have traded everything I was, body and soul, a thousand times over.

“I’m sorry,” Danny said, slipping his hand into mine.

“What for?” I asked, even though I thought I knew.

“For how long it took me to realize how I felt about you. I kept you waiting for years.”

I smiled a little at that. “Two can play that game. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I was such an idiot about it after you told me.”

“Pretty sure I’m used to it by now.”

I turned to shoot him a glare, but he caught my cheek with his hand and met my gaze.

I love you, Michael. And I always will.

Peering into his eyes, feeling the depths of his emotions surge up within him through the bond, it was impossible to do anything else but melt into a giant puddle. Danny had that effect on me.

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