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“I’ve tried,” I shrugged. “I have. I’ve tried with all of them.”
And I had. None of them seemed to stop long enough to listen to me properly. Sometimes I swore I could strip naked, climb atop the dinner table, and howl and still none of them would really see me. I was just the guy they assumed would be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. While it was true I hated shoes, I was pushing for more than that.
“How’s the first baking video doing?” Dakota asked.
“I don’t think any of them have seen it yet. If the twins had, we’d know. They’d be all over me for not using a green screen or because my nose was shiny or some shit. They live on their phones. It’s gotten a couple hundred views. It would probably get more if I used the family hashtag or tagged one of the dads, but I didn’t want to. I still don’t want to. If this works, I want it to be because I made it work.”
“If I had your family, I’d use them,” Dakota shrugged. “Seriously, I would. I mean, for all the headaches they cause you, the name has to be good for something.”
My phone chimed in my pocket and I swallowed a deep breath. A few comments had come in here and there. Lots of people linked me to the blogs and videos of older hearth magic workers. I’d seen all them before of course. I studied their books and recipes growing up. None of them were vampires and that’s where I had my edge. We were once creatures of the night – but now we could be anywhere. Our cells knew how to separate the dark from the light and that made a world of difference in magic.
“Afraid to look?” Dakota asked, taking another sip of his espresso and running his fingers through his dark hair.
If I were into dating, Dakota would’ve been cute. Except everyone knew he had a huge crush on Blithe. It never went past that point, but I almost asked if he was sad about Cord to buy myself more time before I looked at the phone. Only, I wasn’t Trista or Travis and being an asshole didn’t come naturally to me.
So I did the bad thing. I looked at the phone. Everyone was tagging me in one of Trista and Travis’s videos. I watched it and Dakota rounded the counter when I started to shake. The phone slipped through my fingers as sweat seeped out of my palms. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to see the end of the video.
“Fucking aye,” Dakota swore under his breath stooping down to pick up my phone. “Those fucking—”
But I was gone. I was out the door with my wolf whispering into my thoughts. I was more vampire than wolf. My wolf came out occasionally. We consulted on magic a lot, but for the most part I lived as a non-shifter. My inner beast tried to soothe me, but there was nothing inside me except rough edges left by years of the twins being the twins.
Outside I glanced around. When the twins were too much I usually dashed off to Blithe or Duke. They weren’t perfect, but they were a safe space. They didn’t let the twins be their worst selves.
“To the gateway!” My wolf howled into my thoughts and I ran.
I didn’t stop running until I came out the other side into the woods near Heartville. I’d only been there once before shortly after Adrian had his baby. Maybe I should run to him instead – send him to wrestle the twins. Send him to be the harbinger of justice. No. No!
I sniffed the air. There was more than one dragon around here, but Duke’s scent was still there, easier to find than Blithe’s. Dragons always smelled stronger than the rest of us. I followed his scent. The back door was locked. The front door was locked. Most of the windows were locked. Then I got lucky. The laundry room window was barely cracked. Cursing under my breath, I let out a long breath, as I jammed my fingers under the window. Someone was going to shoot me or pounce me if they saw me breaking and entering, but it didn’t matter. I had to be inside – somewhere Trista and Travis couldn’t get to me. Somewhere I’d never have to speak to them again.
Once I was inside the laundry room I called out softly, but no one answered. Cord had his kittens today and I didn’t want to wake them up. Blithe would blow a gasket. Hell, maybe Duke would eat me for being in the same house with his egg. Maybe their mates would chase me off. I gave myself a good mental shake. Those worries belonged to my wolf, not to me. I was a vampire. I could be helpful. I had my early childhood education degree and probably cooked better than Duke or Blithe.
“Guys?” I called out again and poked them over the family link too.
Duke blinked. He was always blinking over the family link. His ‘inner dude’ heard most of us before the rest of the family ever knew what was going on.
“Basement,” his inner dude yawned over the link. “Who?”
“Me? Scott,” I said, almost laughing, but the hot tears were rolling down my cheeks now.
“Who made sad?” The inner beast yawned again.
“The twins,” I sighed over the family link as I tiptoed through the house following his guidance.
Down in the basement, I settled down behind Duke. He was still out cold, but his inner beast had woken up. I buried my face between his shoulder blades and cried silently. Everything hurt. They couldn’t let me have anything to myself without making fun of me. Now I was miles from home without my phone and crying in a nest that didn’t even belong to me. How had things gone so bad, so quick?
Chapter Two
Terrick Lost Fang, Prince of the Lost Fang Coven
About 8 Hours Before Frost and Juda’s Conversation
Jert was being an ass again. He was mother’s third mate and the most worthless man to ever roam the world. If anyone was going to bring down the empire my mother ruled over for centuries it was going to be him. I missed my little brother’s birthday party yesterday. The kid was two. He wasn’t going to remember it. Hell, with how many birthdays we had, he wouldn’t remember most of them if he were anything like the rest of them.
Still. Here was Jert pacing in front of me and lecturing me like I was a six-year-old boy, instead of a man. I was the eldest of the current group of kids. That’s to say, I was the oldest living at home.
“Jordan adores you,” Jert stopped pacing and looked at me.
“I know,” I nodded.
