Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 93727 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93727 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
“It’s a good thing they didn’t show up when we were in the barn earlier,” I teased as she pulled on a pair of brown canvas overalls. She turned back around as she pulled the straps over her shoulders.
She let out a huff of air. “Yeah, good thing.”
“I told you I’d be back in a few hours,” I reminded her, moving closer.
“You did,” she confirmed with a small nod. She reached out to pat me on the chest before moving around me.
“Hey, where you going?” I asked, turning to catch her.
She paused before the door as I wrapped my arms around her waist and bent my head to kiss the back of her neck.
She had a tattoo there that I hadn’t noticed before. Pulling back a little, I studied it. One small circle about six millimeters in diameter and three dots the size of the end of a ballpoint pen lined up beneath it. I traced it lightly with my tongue, making her shiver.
“It’s me and the boys,” she said softly. “Ian has the same one, but his circle is the second one, because he’s the second oldest. When Grant and Seamus are old enough, they’ll get theirs.”
“They’re more like brothers than cousins,” I replied in understanding.
“Yes.” She stayed in my arms a moment longer before pulling away. “I tried to get Ian to make his circle the head of a sunflower, but he wouldn’t do it.”
“Why a sunflower?” I asked as she pulled open the door and started back out of the room.
“You’ve seen him,” she said easily. “When he was little, he was shaped the same way—all skinny arms and legs, but his head was huge.”
“It was not,” Ian yelled from the kitchen.
“It was,” Rosemary confirmed. “But thankfully, he eventually grew into it.”
“You were perfect,” Halle consoled her son as we entered the room, her voice shaking with suppressed laughter. “Your head was just the right size.”
“Yeah, like a bowling ball,” Rosemary added.
“It’s all right, Ian,” the youngest boy said with a grin. “Not all of us can be perfect from birth.”
“You were cross-eyed until you were five!” Ian shot back.
“Boys,” Halle said, her voice ringing with warning. She looked over her shoulder at Rosemary and lifted her eyebrows.
“Daniel, this is my family. The shortest one over there is Grant, and the other one is Seamus.”
“The pretty one,” Seamus added.
“And this is my Aunt Halle.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said with a nod. The boys were on the far side of the table, still standing near the back door. Halle was closer, but I knew better than to try to shake her hand. Not only was it…impolite to touch another Vampire’s mate that wasn’t family, but it would also most likely be uncomfortable for the woman.
Halle nodded back while the boys offered hellos.
“Strange that the two of you never met before,” Dalton said, leaning back in his chair.
“I think the last time we spoke, you’d just met,” I offered, while Halle sat silently.
“Makes sense,” Dalton replied. “Boys, go outside and make yourselves useful.”
Grant and Seamus deflated, but neither of them said a word as they turned back toward the door.
“There’s an old dirt bike under the tarp in the barn,” Gary said. “Picked it up at an estate sale. You get it workin’, you can have it.”
“No shit?” Grant asked, grinning.
“No shit. Go see what you can do.”
“Damn, Pop,” Rosemary said as she walked toward the stove. “Just giving stuff away.”
“You’ve already got one,” he replied with a scoff. “And it’s in much better condition than the piece of shit in the garage.”
Dalton laughed. “At least it’ll keep them busy.”
“For the next year, probably,” Gary agreed.
Rosemary ladled some kind of soup into two bowls and brought me one of them.
“Thanks,” I said quietly.
They must’ve put an extra leaf in the table, because it was much bigger than it had been when I left. Around it were folding chairs that I’d seen earlier in the day stacked against the side of the barn. I sat down in one between Gary and Halle as Rosemary sat down across from me. The empty bowls and glasses littering the table indicated that everyone else had already eaten.
Rosemary had waited for me to eat dinner.
“I doubt those two will stay away from the door for long, so we should probably jump right in,” Dalton said as I lifted a bite to my mouth.
It felt like Halle was staring a hole through the side of my face, but when I glanced at her, she was looking at her mate.
“I’ve brought over a file that has everything we know so far,” Dalton said, setting a USB drive down in the center of the table. “It’s embarrassingly small. We’ve been tracking the disappearances and mapping them, but there doesn’t seem to be a pattern beyond the fact that every Vampire was newly mated. Some came from large families. Some were loners. Many of them quit administrative roles in Command. Only a few had been on the teams, which we could take one of two ways. Either they didn’t think that taking highly trained Vampires was worth the hassle, or, more likely, the pool was just a lot smaller. There’ve only been fourteen team members who found their mates in the last ten years, and four of them were you and your brothers.”