Page 41 of Johann

“Beheading or fire,” Alexei murmured.

Roman turned to Jay, who had come back into the kitchen and was rummaging for glassware in the cabinet. “Johann.”

Jay didn’t even turn from his search. “What? He’s not going to hurt us. Are you, Alexei?”

“No. No, of course not.”

Gabe—and when had he and the dog come back from the backyard?—glared at Alexei from his spot at the door. “Whatareyour intentions toward Jay?”

Roman scoffed, stirring his sauce. “Did you not hear? He is theboyfriend.”

Danny, among them once more because apparently no one could stay out of the kitchen for more than thirty fucking seconds, smiled happily at Roman. “Remember when you were my boyfriend?”

“I prefer husband. Lover. Mate,” Roman declared, turning from the stove to kiss him soundly, and from the way Danny looked so flushed and happy afterward, the guy couldn’t be made completely of ice.

Alexei’s ears perked up. There was thatwordagain. “Mate? You two are mates?”

No one answered him right away, but everyone was looking at him with strange intensity. Looking atthem, Alexei realized, as Jay had come to stand at his side, a stack of glasses in his hands.

“So Jay…told you about those?” Danny finally asked hesitantly.

“You have two mated pairs in this room, mobster,” Soren said, that intense grin once more on his face.

Alexei startled a bit at that “mobster,” but he couldn’t dwell too hard on his past being outed when he had a room full of vampires and a head full of questions. “Oh. Okay. How…I don’t understand quite how they work. How do you know you’ve found your mate?”

Alexei had no fucking clue if this was polite predinner conversation to have with a vampire crew or not, but he wanted to know, and no one seemed about to bare their fangs and tear his throat out in anger or anything.

Jay for his part was now ignoring the conversation completely. He’d set his glasses aside and had his attention focused on the cattle dog at their feet.

“A pull,” Roman answered, eyes boring into Alexei’s. “An intense, unshakable draw to another. My demon wanted him, and I just…knew.”

“Your demon?” Alexei asked. Maybe Roman was—what—some kind of supervamp?

“His beastie,” Jay answered from his crouch on the kitchen floor, his voice strangely flat. “The vampire part inside him. The part you see when my fangs are out.”

“Ah. Okay.” Alexei would come back to that later. “And how are they…chosen? What makes someone mate material?”

Was Alexei’s desperation—his fucking obsession with being bound to Jay in whatever way possible—coming through in his questions? Probably. It was hard to care, though, when he was actually getting answers.

“We don’t really know,” Soren answered, his gaze fixed on Jay and Ferdy. “Fate, they say. Can’t really argue with that. Roman and I ended up in Hyde Park, of all places, and our mates were just…here.”

Alexei tried to wrap his head around the likelihood of that. “But you’ve both been alive for centuries? Like Jay?”

Soren and Roman both nodded.

“So the odds of two of you finding your mates here…”

“Oh yes,” Soren giggled a little wildly, seemingly at some joke of his own. “Twoof us.”

Danny cleared his throat. “Shall we eat?”

twelve

Alexei

Dinnerwasn’tnearlyasawkward as Alexei had feared.

With the minor inquisition—What are your intentions? Who’s mated to fucking who?—out of the way, it seemed like the group was content to proceed with the night as usual, chatting with one another easily.

---