Page 80 of Roman

Danny

Dannywasinpain.

Roman’s absence was an ever-present ache in his chest, which was ridiculous—his vampire had barely been gone a day. But nonetheless, there it was. Pain.

Danny couldn’t help but fear that their goodbyes over the phone were the last they’d say to each other.

From across the kitchen counter, Soren rolled his pale eyes at him.

“What?” Danny snapped. “I didn’t even say anything.”

“No,” Soren drawled. “You’ve just sighed approximately five hundred times in the past ten minutes.”

A blatant exaggeration.

Soren rolled his eyes again. Danny hoped they got stuck that way if the blond vampire kept it up. “He’ll be fine, human.”

Danny fiddled with his now empty coffee cup. He’d for some reason decided caffeine was the solution to missing Roman, but so far it had just added an elevated heart rate to his sad-sack symptoms. “You don’t think Luc will hurt him?”

Soren made a noncommittal noise. “Hurt him, maybe. Kill him though? Probably not.”

“Probablynot?” Would Roman forgive him if Danny stabbed his annoying friend with a spoon?

Soren grinned that maniacal grin, but his eyes weren’t unkind. “I wouldn’t have let him go if I thought he’d get himself killed, human. There are very few people I actually like in this world. He’s one of them.”

“But what if…even then…” Danny forced himself to voice his fears out loud. “What if he decides to just keep moving? That’s it not safe enough…or worth it…to come back.”

Soren shook his head at Danny, exasperation in his voice. “He’s not going to stay away from you forever. Hecan’t.”

“How do you know that though?”

“Because I believe you’re mates. Real fated mates.” Soren’s grin dropped, and he looked at Danny seriously. “I’ve been around a long time, little human. And I wasn’t always as isolated from the vampire world as I am now. I’ve seen mated pairs. I’ve talked to a few. And they all described a…pull to that other person. One that’s stronger than anything they’ve felt, one that might not even make sense. I see that pull between you and Roman.”

Danny didn’t think he was imagining the wistful look in Soren’s eyes. “And you’ve never felt that pull yourself?”

“You don’t see me with a mate, do you?” Soren asked harshly.

“Sorry.” Danny should really stop prying into other people’s love lives.

“It’s fine.” Soren waved a hand at him, his mood turning in an instant, as it often did. “Go pick up your boring brother.”

Danny huffed. “Will you stop calling him that? Just because he didn’t entertain his stalker doesn’t make him boring.”

“No, his being boring makes him boring.”

Danny wasn’t so sure. He’d heard Soren talking to Roman earlier. He was pretty sure “boring” was Soren’s code for “straight.” Danny could have told Soren that his brother was bi and that Danny knew he’d been with men in the past.

But that wasn’t Danny’s truth to tell.

He kept his mouth shut about his brother. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t have any blood orgies while I’m gone.”

“What’s a blood orgy?” Soren sounded disturbingly intrigued.

“I don’t know, it just sounds like something you’d do.”

Soren’s grin flashed again, more unhinged than ever. “It does, doesn’t it?”

See? Disturbing.

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