Page 75 of Scout’s Honor

Dallas woke slowly, with light streaming in the one window of the cabin. He realized he’d slept deeply with no thoughts of needing to guard Bonhi. The cabin felt safe, and Bonhi could take care of herself.

They’d slept for only a few hours, but he felt pretty good. The cabin had provided food in the middle of the night and a door had appeared in one wall that led to a well-stocked bathroom, which Bonhi had been very happy about.

Dallas rolled onto the floor and put his prosthesis on first, then went for his pants, checking that the bottle was still in his pocket. He pulled his pants on and looked around the room, and out the window. All was quiet and he relished it.

Bonhi made a noise in her sleep, then another. He went to the bed, and her hand was curled around nothing, stabbing into the mattress. She grabbed the blanket in both hands and twisted it, then bit it, growling. Dallas smiled and slipped into bed, pulling her into his arms. She calmed and settled back into him.

Dallas smelled coffee. He looked up and there was a tiny coffeepot with one steaming cup in it, next to a plate of fresh-looking muffins.

After a bit, Dallas slipped away from his mate and went to the coffee, adding cream and sugar, then taking a sip. It was the best cup of coffee he’d ever had.

Bonhi sat straight up in the bed, one word on her lips. “Vampires!” She looked at him, her expression amazed. “I had the strangest dream.”

Dallas put the coffee cup down, grinned, and pitched forward into his massive jaguar. Bonhi slumped back onto the bed, eyes wide, mouth open.

It wasn’t a dream, he told her.

Dallas shifted back into a man, winked at his mate, and took another drink of coffee.

Bonhi looked dazed. She put a hand to her head, then her chest. “But… but…”

Dallas motioned her to the window. She got up naked, making him smile at her beautiful body. The blankets and pillows changed back to pink when she left the bed, and Dallas knew she wouldn’t be getting back in it.

Dallas took Bonhi’s hand and pulled her to the window, where the portion of the field they could see was littered with vampire corpses.

“Disgusting,” Bonhi said. She found her clothes and pulled them on.

Dallas turned to make her coffee, but another steaming cup was already sitting there for her.

She drank some black, then went back to the window, saying, “We need a magical cleanup crew.”

An image entered Dallas’ mind of a baby pushing its way out of the ground, head-first this time, and when it got all the way out, it plopped in the dirt and turned into a house. A feeling of coming home filled him, making him grab Bonhi’s hand. “Big-Butt Baby is back!”

She looked confused. “Who?”

“The magical house. It’s got a name I can’t remember, but you’ll like it when you hear it.”

“It’s back? How… do you know?”

“Ah, well, I have a feeling, just like the one I had when it appeared in the first place.”

She smiled at him, her eyes lighting up full of delight and acceptance. “I want to see it.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

Dallas wrapped Bonhi’s knife in a swathe of fabric. “First thing I do is make you a scabbard for this.”

“Oooh, yeah,” Bonhi said, slipping her hand in the crook of his elbow. “Talk dirty to me.”

He put the knife in his pocket. “It’ll be leather and you’ll wear it around your waist.”

Bonhi shivered and kissed him, saying, “I like the sound of that.”

Dallas kissed the corner of her mouth. “Anything for you, Bonbon.”

She snuggled into him, and they stood that way for some time, breathing in each other’s scent.

Eventually, they went outside into the sun-drenched clearing, where corpses lay everywhere, all dressed the same, most of them rotted to bones or even dust. Magic tinkled behind them and they both turned around. The roof of the cabin seemed to collapse, and the walls seemed to melt into the ground. All around them, vampire clothing and bones sank as well, until the little meadow was cleared.