Page 67 of By the Pint

I nodded to show him I was listening, and took my thumb higher, to caress the soft skin at his wrist.

“He started coming to the after parties. Never getting close enough for me to get a good read on him. But I knew he was there for me. I didn’t know how I knew, I just did. He would always be just outside of my reach. Like every time I tried to get to him, somehow someone else would step in our path. Sometimes he would leave the venue with his arm over one of the wing-bunnies. Which, I have to admit, I had to give it to him. We were in a room full of seven-foot athletes, and here’s this skinny, five-five vampire with lanky hair down to his waist, picking off the most beautiful girls one by one.”

Despite my feelings for Killian, I found myself laughing. He hadn’t changed. In the four centuries since I last saw him. It was a strange but … comforting thought.

“One night, he managed to corner me, and he asked me out on a date. I thought sure, everyone wanted to fuck the famous Casey Freckleman, this vampire was no different. But when I probed his mind, I saw that he was very, very straight. He didn’t want to fuck me, and he didn’t want to eat me. But the real reason for his semi-stalking was hazy, like a fog in his mind, just beyond my grasp. Anyway, curiosity got the better of me and I said yes to his date.”

Casey’s breath sped up infinitesimally, his pulse beating that little bit harder at his throat. I tried not to lean in too closely, to lick my lips, even though my mouth was flooding itselfwith saliva at the prospect of warm human blood directly from the source.

“He took me to this place in Bordalis, The Fly Trap. A vampire restaurant. Literally nothing on the menu for me to eat, not even water.”

Now that sounded like the Killian I remembered. Not considering another person’s needs for a second.

“So, you’re a mind reader.He said that into my head. That was the first time anyone had ever spoken inside my head. I didn’t know how to reply, so I just thought my answer. He wanted to make me a deal. Quit wingball, make it dramatic, and public, and make it so that people would rather eat their pets than work with me again. I’d become his familiar and he would grant me everything I’d ever dreamed of. Immortality, ultimate strength, ultimate power.”

Something in the way Casey had said Killian made him quit wingball clanged about in my brain. Why did he need him to quit one dream for another? “So, you didn’t punch your teammate? It was staged?”

“Well, yes, it was staged. Semi-staged. I mean, it was a real punch. The guy deserved it. No one upstages me on my home turf and gets away with it, Mosquito.”

The casual use of the nickname he’d given me tugged at something deep in my gut. Not want this time, but longing.

“Anyway, Killian said all I had to do in exchange for turning me was one unspecified favour at an unspecified future date. Not gonna lie, ominous as fuck, but a small price to pay.”

“And you never found out what that was?” I asked, kicking myself for not delving into these specifics when his mind had been an open book.

“He cashed it in a couple of months ago. Said if I could get your business secrets from you, then he would turn me.” Casey shrugged. “Honestly, I thought he was going to ask me tokill someone. So, when he requested this instead, I was …” He broke off.

“Confused?” I offered.

“So. Fucking. Confused. But I’m nothing if not savvy. Seemed like the deal of the century to me. And I got to meet you.”

I scratched at a spot at the back of my neck. Something did not sit right with the whole ‘deal’. Why now? Why Casey? Killian knew I was a mind-reader, we’d both inherited that gift from our sire, so he would expect me to block my thoughts from Casey. That Casey would come away empty-handed. Was this his plan all along? Never fulfilling his end of the agreement because Casey would be unable to fulfil his? And if it wasn’t, and he did actually want business advice, what specifically about my business knowledge did he want? The man had only ever cared about feeding and fucking. What had changed?

“And what’s he like now? As a master?” I said, pushing the uneasy feeling aside.

Casey laughed. “He’s … ah … You know, I’m less of a familiar, and more like a manager to him. He told me his old familiar quit out of exasperation, and after I’d been there two weeks, I realised why. He’s chaotic. Messy. Does whatever he wants on the turn of a silver. I mean, he’s lots of fun to be around. A party animal. And I love him …”

A crack feathered across my heart.

Casey saw it reflected in my expression and gave an almost apologetic look back. “I do love him. But he’s like the wayward offspring of a long-lost sibling who I’m suddenly responsible for. Like he’s my six-hundred-and-twenty-year-old ward.”

I found myself laughing along with Casey. I lifted my fingers and they slotted into Casey’s perfectly. Neither of us looked at our hands or mentioned it.

“So, you’ve started the application process?” I asked, veering off the subject of Killian.

Casey nodded. “Yep. Already been for my psychoanalysis and bloods and MRIs. Only thing left to do is pay the fees.”

“MRIs? Why do they need MRIs? That’s a bit excessive, isn’t it?” Considering once a vampire was turned, any human defects like badly healed broken bones, diseases and illnesses, even ongoing ones, would be, well, healed wasn’t the right word, but they’d no longer exist.

“That’s what I thought too,” Casey said. “Killian said the Assembly insisted. And I saw the Assembly headed letter in his memories, so I guess it’s just something extra they do these days.”

You don’t have to do this. You can stay human. Keep everything you have the way it is now, I said into Casey’s mind. It was the first time I’d suggested something like this to him. And I couldn’t read his reactions.

He closed his eyes and blew out a breath. “I know,” he said firmly. “This is what I want though. It’s who I am. What I was made for.”I feel it so deep within me, I don’t think that can ever be changed. “Now, tell me what your problem with Killian is.”

22.

Casey

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