Page 15 of Kidnapping Their Third

Kimble looked over his shoulder to watch Imani and her flock. She was nodding her head at Cora while both her shifters had similar expressions of relief on their faces. They were eager to get their vampire to safety.

“If you don’t call, I’m coming to get you,” Imani warned. “And I wouldn’t be just me. I’ll call your family.”

Cora grimaced. “Don’t, I'm begging you! That’s hellfire no one needs in their life.”

“Then we better talk,” Imani warned with a small grin. “Love you, Hellion.”

Kimble watched Cora blink rapidly, as if trying not to cry. “Love you back, Dance Queen.”

Pike called his goodbye to the guys as they tugged Imani down the hall to the stairwell. Kimble didn’t move out from the doorway until they’d disappeared. He was about to retreat into the apartment when a door down the hall opened and a small figure wrapped in a bright yellow, fluffy bathrobe appeared.

“What’s going on out here? It’s nearly five in the morning!”

“Sorry about that, Mrs. J!” Pike called out over Kimble’s shoulder. “Some friends stopped by unexpectedly.”

Kimble didn’t want this woman close to his flock. Snarling, he made sure to show his fangs and pushed power into his aura. He wanted to look big and scary because there was something odd about this woman’s aura. Pike and Cora couldn’t see it, but she wasn’t what she appeared to be.

“Yes, yes,” the woman said, waving a gnarled hand in the air. “You’re a big scary vampire.”

“Kimble’s just a little upset,” Pike said, tugging Kimble’s arm. When he didn’t move right away, Pike spoke firmly to Kimble. “Mrs. J couldn’t hurt a fly. Stop growling at an old woman and come back to bed.”

“Listen to your bear, vampire,” Mrs. J said as she turned and shuffled back into her apartment, mumbling to herself. “Vampires, all of them stubborn as mules.”

When her door closed, Kimble let Pike pull him into the apartment. It felt good to see the door close, shutting the world outside and his flock in with him.

“Cora, everything okay?” Pike asked.

Cora yawned. “I don’t know. My emotions are all jumbled up, and my brain feels foggy. I need more sleep.”

Eager to give his human comfort, Kimble took her hand and led her back to the bedroom. A small smile appeared on Cora’s face.

“Are you going to tuck me in?” she asked.

“Flock,” Kimble said as he pulled down the bedsheet.

“The word flock is starting to take on the same usage as fuck,” Cora commented, confusing Kimble.

Pike barked out a laugh. “What?”

“You can put fuck in just about any context and it works,” Cora explained, stifling another yawn. “Think about it. Flying fuck. My last fuck. Fucking great. We could fuck. Telling someone to get fucked. It can be a noun, adjective, adverb, or whatever. Kimble’s using flock in a similar way, and we have to figure out what it means from the context.”

Pike grinned as they reached the bed. Cora covered a yawn as he straightened out the covers. “So should we be saying flocking great or flying flock?”

Kimble hadn’t understood what Cora and Pike were talking about until then. The humor hit him hard, and he laughed. He hadn’t laughed in so long it was rusty at first, only a little chuckle. But the longer he chuckled, the stronger it got until he doubled over, having a hard time pulling enough air into his lungs between peals of laughter.

When the laughter finally abated, he straightened up to find Cora and Pike both staring at him with wide eyes. That’s when an entire sentence finally made it to his lips.

“Kockam cie.”

I love you.

Chapter 6

Pike

Pike woke up in the early afternoon starving. On his right, Cora was sleeping peacefully, and beyond her, Kimble lay with the unnatural stillness that came with his daytime sleep.

As he expected, Kimble’s eyes shot open as he eased off the bed. The vampire’s brow wrinkled as he watched Pike stand up and stretch. Circling the end of the bed, he leaned over and gave Kimble a gentle kiss on the forehead.

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