Page 4 of Soren

Danny was still looking at Gabe as if this had anything to do with him. “Yes. But the thing is—I was hoping—”

“We need you to watch the mutt.” Trust Roman to make a request sound more like a command.

“The mutt,” Gabe repeated.

The mutt in question, a six-month-old blue heeler mix, was currently lying under the kitchen table, nosing at Gabe’s feet, clearly hoping for some dinner scraps to drop down from above.

Gabe would have been offended on the puppy’s behalf if he didn’t know for a fact that Roman had chosen the dog himself, gifted it to his pet-starved husband, and could often be caught looking at it with a fondness he usually reserved for Danny alone.

“Ferdy’s just so young,” his brother pleaded. “I don’t want him with a sitter. He needs someone heknows.”

Gabe cleared his throat. “What about your, uh…roommate?”

“Soren?” Danny laughed at the idea.

Gabe controlled his flinch but only barely. He found himself glancing around furtively, as if speaking the name out loud was enough to summon the little monster.

Gabe wouldn’t even be surprised if that were true.

“He could help out,” Danny offered cautiously. “But I’m not so sure he could be trusted to remember that mortal puppies need to be fed twice a day. Or that they need water. Or bathroom breaks.”

Gabe looked over to Roman to see if he was offended by this assessment of his friend, but he was nodding along sagely to Danny’s words.

It wasn’t really a big ask. Gabe had no problem watching his brother’s adorable puppy for a few weeks. “Okay. Yeah. I can take him. I’m sure he won’t be able to manage too much destruction in my apartment.”

Danny shook his head, shifting in his seat. “Um, but not at your apartment? We were hoping you could stay here, instead.”

Gabe raised a brow at his brother.

Danny blushed but stood his ground. “He needs familiar surroundings, Gabe. He’s just a—just ababy.”

Gabe couldn’t help but laugh at his brother’s overprotectiveness, but it wasn’t an unreasonable request. Danny’s house was their childhood home. Gabe had grown up there—still had a room that could be considered “his”—it wouldn’t exactly be a hardship.

But…

“And Soren will be here too?” he made himself ask.

“Yep.” Danny had the grace to look a little nervous at the idea. “Like I said, he can help out. And with Mom too. So you can still visit her while I’m gone?”

Gabe’s throat went dry at the thought. He tried to restrain any bitter feelings, but this felt an awful lot likehewas getting a babysitter, not the puppy. Someone tasked to make sure Gabe wouldn’t shirk his…family duties…with Danny away.

“Roman promises Soren will behave.”

Gabe looked again at Danny’s husband. Tall, imposing, not a strand of his jet-black hair out of place. Roman’s expression was neutral enough, but there was a set to his jaw when he looked at Gabe that Gabe didn’t love. He knew he wasn’t Roman’s favorite person. Roman cared fiercely for Gabe’s brother, and Gabe had been letting his brother down for far too long.

Then again, Roman wasn’t Gabe’s favorite either.

The man was a monster. Aliteralmonster.

Because Roman was a vampire. A fact Gabe had found out last winter when Roman’s ex-friend, Lucien, had attacked him viciously one sunny winter morning.

Of course, Danny was a vampire now too.

But that just wasn’t the same, Gabe reasoned. Danny was…Danny. He was still Gabe’s little brother, only now with a new…particulardiet.

And Danny would still be human if Roman hadn’t come waltzing into the picture. Roman and his other little vampire friend.

Soren.

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