Page 37 of Roman

That was interesting. “Your demon?” Danny asked.

Soren shot an amused glance at Roman. “Now you’ve got the boy calling it that too? So dramatic, Rome.” He looked back over to Danny. “I meant metaphorically. I don’t see the distinction between the two selves as clearly as Roman does. I guess in my head, I just call that little, bloodthirsty voice he’s talking about myinner vamp.”

“Do you…talk to yours? Like Roman does?” Roman had told Danny he sometimes had brief conversations with his demon.

Soren hummed in thought. “Sort of? But don’t we all talk to our own brains sometimes? It’s just like any other voice in your head, any other set of urges. Like, a little stronger, a little clearer, maybe. A little more vicious definitely. But I’m not all that sure it’s so separate from the rest of myself.”

Well, that did sound a little less dire than Roman’s choice of words. But that brought up another question for Danny. “Why do you sound so much more, I don’t know, modern than Roman?”

Danny watched as Roman flushed slightly while plating their pancakes. Soren’s pancake did indeed look to be a paler color than what Roman was serving himself and Danny. “Soren has always been better at blending into human society than I have—rolling with the times, if you will,” Roman explained. “If I focus, I can do better, but mostly I am fine just letting people think I am…eccentric.” He shrugged. “Or European.”

“What about work?” Danny asked. “How are you running about all the time in your fancy suits without any income coming in?” Maybe it was crass to bring up money, but given the annoyingly large role the lack of it played in Danny’s life, he was more than a little curious.

Soren spoke before Roman could, seemingly happy to answer any and all Danny’s nosy questions. “We work sometimes. When we feel like it.”

The blond vampire giggled a little as he poured an ungodly amount of syrup over his pancakes. “I was an acrobat once. That was a lark. Roman over there was an undertaker, the morbid fuck. But mostly we’ve had time to acquire and expand on some pretty crucial investments.” He took a bite and continued around a mouthful of pancake. “Plus, we’ve got that whole compulsion thing that helps smooth the way out of a lot of situations. You’d be surprised how rarely we have to use money at all, if we don’t want to. But anyway, you won’t have to worry about working if you don’t want to—you’ve basically got yourself a vampire sugar daddy there, cutie pie.”

Danny found himself spluttering a bit. “I wouldn’t—that’s not—what?”

Roman hadn’t taken a bite of his food yet, had just been looking back and forth between Danny and Soren, as if in disbelief of the situation he had found himself in. “Soren,” he said now, a little sternly. “You overstep.”

Soren gave a huff and rolled his eyes. “Just speaking the truth. You don’t always have to dance around every subject, Mr. Mysterious.”

Danny felt the need to defend his vampire. “Roman’s been pretty open about answering my questions, actually.”

“Well, that makes you the first.” Soren eyed Danny with a strange look in his eyes. “Opening up is not Rome’s forte.”

Danny felt his chest warm at the thought. Roman reallywasdifferent with Danny, it seemed. Why did that thought make him feel so good?

Roman cleared his throat, then muttered, “He is correct though. You do not have to work if you do not wish to. As your mate, I will provide for you.”

Danny didn’t even know how to feel about that statement. “But—I like my work.”

“Why?” Soren asked. He didn’t sound mocking, only genuinely curious.

Danny shrugged, a little uncomfortable at the scrutiny. It was one thing to have all his questions answered; it was another thing to be questioned himself. And he couldn’t tell them the whole truth, the one that involved him thinking,Because at any moment, you could walk away, and then where would I be?“I don’t know. I just do. I like helping people. I like being there for people at their worst moments, offering comfort where I can.”

Soren frowned. “But you can’t always fix them. You humans are so…breakable.” He threw a look at Roman then, one Danny couldn’t quite decipher.

“No,” Danny agreed. “We can’t always fix them. But we’ll always try. That just has to be enough sometimes.”

Soren sighed lightly at his pancakes. “All that work for lives that end so quickly anyways. Little blips of existence.”

Danny tried his best not to feel offended. He didn’t think Soren was trying to bait him on purpose. The blond vampire even sounded a little sad at the thought.

Danny tried to put into words something he barely knew how to express to himself. “That’s the thing though. That’s part of what makes it beautiful. You know it doesn’t last. So you do your best with the time you have. Help who you can, find comfort where you can, love as much as you can. It can hurt definitely. It can really suck sometimes, how quickly things disappear.” Danny was embarrassed to find that he was pushing tears back at this point, the discussion bringing up emotions he tried to keep buried around other people.

“But there’s beauty in trying anyway,” he insisted, voice thick.

Soren’s pale eyes softened at Danny’s words. “I understand what Roman sees in you, little human.”

Danny didn’t know how he felt about being called “little” by someone even shorter than himself, but he appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.

He looked across the table at Roman. He was staring at Danny with heat in his eyes, looking proud and possessive and…something else. Something even deeper Danny couldn’t bring himself to name yet.

Before silence could settle fully over the table, there was a knock on his front door. Danny frowned. He didn’t know anyone who would just come over without warning. The most likely option was Chloe, but she would definitely call first. She wasn’t a complete heathen.

Roman caught his frown, muscles tensing. “Not expecting anyone?”

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