I forced myself to take a slow breath in and out rather than bark the immediate refusal I wanted to give.
I had already agreed that we needed to be a team.
Ultimately, she was my mate. My equal.
I needed to at least consider her perspective.
And yeah, if I was being honest, she probably did have the best chance of finding anyone in the office who was acting different. We’d watched turned vampires go that way in the past, but seeing any slight changes required having known them before.
“I’ll try to wrap my mind around the idea,”I finally said.
Her eyebrows shot upward, and she looked over at me.“Really?”
“Really.”
Her lips curved upward the tiniest bit.“I’ll hold your hand the whole time. You can touch everything before I do.”
“Now you’re just antagonizing me.”
“You can take it.”
“I don’t know. You might have to kiss it better.”
“It, being...”
“My ego, of course.”
Her smile grew just a little.“You’re lucky you’re so hot.”
“You’re lucky I’m so hot.”I released her hand to pull her closer, draping an arm over her shoulders again.
We reached the doors of the small restaurant, and stopped outside. Bloom studied them, her expression growing grave.
“They’re going to understand.”
“I don’t think they will. Turned vampires are the reason we’re in hiding.”
“If you were the one who was turned, they’d do the exact same thing. They’ll get it.”I squeezed her arm lightly. “If they say anything that even implies otherwise, we’ll leave.”
She gave a quiet sigh and a small nod, and we went inside.
Before we even reached the table, they were all throwing their arms around her, hugging her fiercely.I grabbed the coffee cup from her hand, so she didn’t drop it
They all spoke at once.
“We were so worried about you!”
“Don’t even fucking think about drinking coffee again.”
“Why didn’t you ask us for help?”
And my personal favorite:
“Thank god for Maverick.”
Thank god for me indeed.
Bloom was wiping away more tears as we sat down, after all four of her family members hugged me too. It had been a while since I hugged anyone but my mate. Rhone and I didn’t do that.
