Page 59 of The HalloQueen

One side of her lip lifted in a sneer, “Mo-mo?”

“Sorry, I’m like… it’s been a hell of a week, wine is good, and I have no more fucks to give today. You’ll have to indulge me.”

“Indeed.” She took the paper from me, folding it and sliding it into the pocket of her pants, “Thank you for this. I was hoping to speak to him before Yusuf does, do you know if they’ve connected already?”

“Uh, I don’t know, I haven't seen him today.”

“Are you sure about that?”

I scrunched my face, “Yeah, I’d be pretty fucking sure if my Significant Other was here.” I snorted at the double meaning, “oh my god, a SignificantOTHER.”

Pursing her lips, she said coldly, “I shall leave you to your evening, Bels. Thank you for your hospitality.”

Flapping a hand at her I scoffed, “no problem. When you talk to him tell him to take that stick out of his ass and apologize, will ya?” I herded her toward the door, waiting until she crossed the threshold before saying, “Wait - I uninvite you, or whatever. You are not welcome here!” I spoke with a giggle, mimicking the motion of a cross in front of me.

“It was…a delight to meet you.”

“You too, Mo-Mo. Have an awesome night.”

I closed the door in her face and sighed. Mo-Mo was H-O-T hot. How great that they could all reunite right after our fight. That was fucking spectacular timing on their part. Gone for a year, then one argument between us, andpoof! They magically reappeared.

“Well, pardonez-moi for not knowing the conjugation of your silly ‘poof’ word.”

His voice echoed in my mind and I smiled into my hand. Did I want them to work it out? They’d been together 200 years and he and I made it a whole six days before we argued, and logically I knew it was probably smarter to let him go back to them and move on. But hormonally, it had been 25 hours since I’d seen him and I missed him already. If they reunited, they could go back to whatever the hell it was that they did, he would get out of here and I could pretend like none of it had happened with my shares intact.

I went back to the kitchen for my phone and tapped the screen, noting that he still hadn’t texted me, and clicked my tongue. He’d said I should text him if I ran into Yusuf again, but he hadn’t said anything about Monique. He’d probably enjoy the surprise of her call.

Or it would shock him to death. “Cease his existence” as he’d say.

Regardless, if he wasn’t going to bother to text me, I didn’t need to text him. Closing up the house for the night, I poured some more water into the cleansing pot and reached into the drawer beneath the slow cooker to grab a head of garlic. It could stay next to my bed just in case - there had been too many vampires around for my liking. I was a simple girl - my preferred number was zero.

24

THOMAS

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do,” Yusuf’s shoulders slumped in defeat, not having expected my hesitancy.

“You didn’t know what to do?” I snapped, “How about talk to me? How about tell me what the fuck was going on instead of just disappearing without a word after everything we’d been through? You disappeared. I woke up and thought something horrible had happened to you two. It terrified me.” I hit my chest as if I could rip my heart out and show him the pieces he’d left broken behind.

He came and sat in the sand next to me, giving me a few feet of distance. “Thomas, please.”

“Please, what? Try to be understanding after two hundred fucking years, Yus? Are you fucking kidding me?”

He sighed and raked his hands through the sand, “I understand why you’re angry. But, she left and I didn’t know what to do.”

I turned to look at him, “What are you talking about? I woke up that morning and you were both gone. Both of you. You left together.”

Yusuf shook his head, “No, we didn’t Thomas. I’d overheard her telling one of her friends that she was bored. Tired. It sounded like she’d had something planned for a while, but because we’d been together for so long I didn’t think she’d actually leave. Call me naive. I figured it was one of her moods; you know how she got.”

I nodded, Monique was prone to outbursts. If she wasn’t Queen of the Castle she would feel slighted and act out. I always thought it was because she’d been turned so young, our guess was she was probably 21 or 22 when she was changed, but her need for external validation was a constant point of contention in our relationship. If for any reason she felt like Yus or I had done wrong by her, she’d go off and feed off the lust of mortals seeking their desire and praise in their beds.

“I knew how she was. But that didn’t suddenly change overnight. We both knew that she had issues with that.”

“Yes, that’s why when she walked out that night I thought she was just doing what she always did when she was angry. I figured she’d go down to the club, dance, and feast for a few hours, stumble home drunk on lust and we would talk it out in the morning, but when I went down to the club to join her, she wasn’t there. The bouncer said she’d not been there all night. I panicked and immediately began searching for her.”

Scoffing, I bit my lip, “And it didn’t occur to you to walk the five blocks home to tell me that our wife was missing? You didn’t think that was something I needed to know? I didn’t deserve to know where my two bonded partners were? I had no idea, Yus. No idea. Where the fuck have you been?”

He dug his hands into his coarse black hair, “I was ashamed, okay? I panicked and I ran after her and it was like I went into a blind rage. I couldn’t focus on anything but finding her and then when I realized that I’d never told you what happened I was embarrassed to contact you. Then I came home to tell you face to face, and you’d already left and the house was empty, so I put it up for sale. I figured you’d gone too and we’d all need the money to do whatever we were doing.”

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