Page 24 of Definitely Dead

“Looks like the fun police is here,” Aster muttered. Eyeing the group near the entrance, he slid away from the table and pushed to his feet.

A scowl pulled at Sunne’s lips. “You don’t have to leave.”

“I think I do.” Then he turned on that million-watt smile with a shrug. “I’ll talk to some people around town about the committee and let you know something in a few days.”

Sunne nodded, but it still didn’t sit right with him. Recently, he had begun to wonder if he had read the entire situation wrong. Rather than a crush, he had started to think that Aster just liked needling his grumpy mate to get a reaction out of him.

And it worked.

It also made for a lot of tense encounters that always left Sunne feeling like he was being pulled in two different directions. Of course, he understood Tyr’s irritation, at least to a point, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t find Aster’s antics kind of amusing.

“Oh, hey,” he called when the kid turned to walk away. He grabbed the vial from the table and held it up. “Don’t forget this.”

Aster glanced over his shoulder but waved him off. “You keep it.”

He walked away then, slowing only when he passed by Tyr. While Sunne couldn’t hear what he said, he definitely heard his mate’s answering growl. With a resigned sigh, he slipped the valerian root into his jacket pocket and sipped his coffee.

His monkeys. His circus. Still not his problem.

He looked up only when the group approached his table, grinning when he received a chaste kiss to his forehead from his mate. Grabbing chairs from a nearby table, all three men dropped into them, causing the ancient wood to squeak beneath their weight.

“Lelien, you remember Rune.” Tyr jerked his head toward the male on his right.

Sunne smiled. “Nice to see you again. Did Lizzie make it across the river okay?”

Rune leaned back and stretched his long legs out beneath the table, his cerulean eyes dancing with humor. “Yeah, she made it across. Not before she gave me an earful about looking out for you, though. Kid’s got fire.”

“I don’t know what you’re smirking about,” Tyr interjected. “You’re doing a pretty shit job. We haven’t seen you all week.”

Both of Rune’s eyebrows winged upward. “And whose fault is that?”

Ignoring their bickering, Sunne looked across the table, dipping his head in greeting. “Hey, Finn. How are you settling in?”

“This place sure as hell ain’t Texas, but I’m figuring it out.”

Sunne nodded in a show of support. “What about the other thing?”

“Oh, you mean being a vampire?” Finn reclined, mirroring Rune’s laid-back posture. “Still working on that one.”

“Our best guess is that a vampire accidentally killed him while feeding,” Tyr explained, taking Sunne’s cup and draining the last dregs of coffee at the bottom. “Then they panicked and tried to change him.”

“The Ministry is a lot more lenient about converting humans than it is about killing them,” Rune added.

Well, that sounded terrible. Plausible, but absolutely brutal. It didn’t, however, explain how Finn had ended up a dead vampire instead of the regular kind.

“No idea,” Finn answered with an easy shrug when Sunne posed the question. “I remember the vamp gnawing on my neck, but not a whole lot after that.”

They spent another thirty minutes discussing theories about Finn’s demise and answering his questions about the Underworld and being an Otherling. Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, Cian brought three extra mugs and a carafe of coffee, placing them on the table before leaving without a word.

Eventually, he and Tyr said their goodbyes, and Sunne promised to check in on Finn later in the week. He didn’t know how much he would be able to help the cowboy, but he could offer friendship if nothing else.

Outside, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his wool coat and rounded his shoulders. He kept waiting, kept hoping he would magically become accustomed to the cold. He hadn’t. The iciness still clawed at him, still stung, and he still hated it as much as he had that first day.

“So, what did Aster want?”

He choked back a sigh at Tyr’s accusatory tone. “He didn’t want anything. We were just talking.”

“I don’t like him.”

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