Page 53 of Lucien

Slick Hair answered Jamie’s question with an eye roll. “This is our territory, human. When we saw your boyfriend here the other night, he promised he was just passing through.”

“We don’t like strangers here,” Messy Hair—Dane, apparently—added. “They tend to get bitey with the locals.”

“The only one he’s been biting here is me.” Jamie wasn’t sure it was the best idea to admit that, but these two obviously knew Luc needed to eat, and Jamie figured he was a consenting adult and should be allowed to give his permission.

“We don’t really give a shit, actually. He’s still not welcome here.” Well, damn. Slick Hair was awfully rude.

“How does the territory thing work?” Jamie asked. He figured if identical cranky vampires were going to invade his space, he might as well get some answers, especially since Luc had apparently returned to his nonverbal state.

With the vampire in front of him seemingly content to vibrate in place like some sort of off-kilter, fanged washing machine, Jamie also tried to take the opportunity to step out from behind him.

He was quickly shoved back by one broad hand, Luc’s growl rising in volume.

Okay, no moving away from the angry vampire wall. Got it.

“It’s first come, first serve,” Dane explained grudgingly. “We were here first, we’ve settled in, and we get our say in which vampires stay or go.”

“Simple enough,” Jamie mused. “And how long have you two been here?”

“Twenty years.” Slick Hair sounded awfully proud of that fact.

Jamie nodded, his chin brushing against Luc’s shoulder. “Cool, cool. Well, I was born here, meaning I’ve been here twenty-threeyears. Twenty-three and a half, to be fucking precise. So, you know, sounds like I’ve got you beat.”

Dane rolled his eyes again. Rude. “That doesn’t count. You’re human.”

“So what about if Luc here turns me? Then I’d be part of your vampire club, and I’d still have been here first.”

Not that Jamie was planning for that to happen right this second, but maybe Luc’s intentions toward him would be enough to placate these (admittedly kind of childish sounding) first come, first serve rules.

Luc went very still under Jamie’s fingertips. Jamie wasn’t quite sure if that was him finally settling down a bit or just the eerie calm before the storm. Jamie gave his shoulders a little squeeze in reassurance. “We’re mates,” he explained to the twins. “Fated husbands or whatever. So if he turns me, this will beourterritory. What’s mine is his and all that, like the law says.”

“What the fuck is happening right now?” Dane muttered to Slick Hair.

Jamie made a shooing motion with his hand. “Sounds like you two have a lot to think about. So maybe you should go now and start the process.”

Slick Hair growled at him. It was less impressive than Luc’s growl, in Jamie’s humble opinion, but it still wasn’t very nice. “He hasn’t turned you yet,human, so maybe what we should actually do is put him down right here and now.”

Oops. There was that vibrating again. If Jamie didn’t get these two out of here in the next two minutes, he had a feeling he was going to have a vampire bloodbath on his hands.

Time for some good old-fashioned threats.

“Are you so sure the two of you can take him without at least one of you going down with him?”

Slick Hair puffed his chest out. “You think we can’t take him two against one?”

But Dane didn’t seem so sure, biting at the inside of his cheek while looking to his brother. “Fox…”

So Slick Hair’s name was Fox. Look at Jamie, learning who was who. Unless they changed their hair next time. Then again, Fox was clearly the dick of the two of them, so maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to figure it out even without the hairdo tell.

“He hasn’t eaten any of your townies,” Jamie argued. “He definitely hasn’t killed anyone. And he won’t. Not unless they deserve it.”

The twins protested immediately.

“That’s not—”

“Fuckthat.”

“Fine.” Jamie waved off their objections. “He won’t killanyonein city limits, even if they definitely 100 percent deserve it. You have my word. If he does, you three can fight it out or whatever.”

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