Page 89 of Hunting His Vampire Mate

I scoffed at that, gesturing in the direction of the bar. “Isn’t it? An entire table in that bar is filled by couples who have done it.”

“And the rest of the bar is filled with the people who have not!” Thierry snapped, exasperated. “It’s not as though someone can simply wave a magic wand and cause a murderous vampire to meet their fated mate!”

I stopped dead, blinking at him, my jaw falling open. “Wait. Has anyone ever actuallytriedthat?”

Thierry froze, startled.

“There’s no telling whether that would actually work,” Thierry breathed. But something strange twisted into place across his face. Almost like he was afraid to hope. “Surely, some witch or warlock somewhere out there has attempted to write a spell to conjure their one true love.” He paused, frowning. “And if they could do such a thing, they wouldn’t need to rely upon the Verum Amor to see thefaceof their true love, would they?”

“What if that spell could be modified?” I demanded.

“That’s preposterous,” Thierry replied. But his tone didn’t match his expression one bit. I could see the wheels spinning.

“What if it wasn’t? What if Danny and I could hunt down murderous vampires? And instead of killing them, we could…”

But then I trailed off, suddenly at a loss.

We could, what? Rehabilitate them somehow? Enchant them so that they would cross paths with their one true love, in the hopes that it could spark some degree of humanity in them? So that it could stop them from being monsters?

Thierry was right. It was a ridiculous idea.

But the older vampire hugged himself. And if I hadn’t known better, I might have imagined that he was a bit frightened by the direction our conversation had taken. But then something went steely in his expression.

“We’d need proof of concept that such a spell would even work,” he said, finally. “And it might have consequences we wouldn’t intend. We ought to know what those are, before we start flinging it at every psychopathic vampire that crosses our paths.”

“Our?” I blinked in surprise.

“Obviously, I’m going to help you test this idea. You lot would just screw it up.”

When I stared at him, speechless, he rolled his eyes and added, “My brother is surely gone. But there are others like him out there. Others who ended up the way Danny might have, if you hadn’t pulled him back from the edge. If there’s a chance I can help them avoid the same fate as Nicolas, I must try to find it.”

“Youdocare,” I accused him.

“And if you tell anyone, I promise that I will gut you and—”

“Use my innards to decorate your bed chamber,” I cut in, shaking my head at him in exasperation. But I couldn’t help the slow smile creeping across my face. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You keep saying shit like that, but you know you love me.”

Thierry sniffed dismissively at that, his icy scowl returning. “Perish the thought.”

* * *

“So, what do you think?” I asked, hours later.

Tobias and Poppy wore identical expressions of dismay. Tobias was the first one to speak. “That depends. Are you in any way joking?”

“I think it’s a marvelous idea,” Simone put in, leaning back in her chair. “Your first day back into the world and you’re already attempting to make it a better place. You remind me of a few others I know.”

She shot Bryan a meaningful look when she said that last part. From the way Bryan ducked his head, I could tell that if it was still possible for him to blush, his cheeks would have been bright red.

“The Verum Amor is a difficult spell,” Poppy said faintly. “It requires you tomean it.You need to long for the face of your true love in a way that most people—even those who still have their emotions—aren’t able to pull off.” Her tone grew sharper,more incredulous. “And you need to be an experienced witch or warlock in order to cast it in the first place. And you’re talking about, what?Modifyingit? Are you insane?”

“So, write a new spell,” Thierry remarked, glaring back at her. “Do you truly believe you aren’t witch enough to do such a thing? All evidence to the contrary begs to differ.”

Danny stood beside me, his arms crossed over his chest, and I could sense the storm of emotions brewing within him, whipsawing so fast that I couldn’t pick anything specific from the maelstrom. But he shot Thierry a startled glance at that.

He wasn’t alone. The vampire clearly wasn’t exactly liberal with his praise. Poppy looked just as thunderstruck by the compliment as the rest of us.

But Tobias frowned at Ethan, clearly turning the idea over in his mind. “We’d need to ask your mother for help, most likely. Apart from Poppy, she’s the most gifted witch in the coven.”

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