Page 31 of Nightshade

Aleks took a deep breath and stepped forward, holding a hand out toward Altair. “This is Altair, Mama. The witches were holding him prisoner for a very long time, and he escaped. Leo found him and hid him from them.”

Mama frowned at Altair, not as though he were a problem, but like maybe he was a new son who needed fattening up. She stepped in front of him, looking his face over, then reaching up to pat his cheek. “Those witches are a menace,” she said. “Someone needs to stop them entirely.”

Aleks cleared his throat, ducking his head, and fidgeted like he very much didn’t want to continue speaking, so I did it for him.

“He’s a vampire, Mama,” I told her.

She scoffed, waving me off. “You think I can’t tell when a man doesn’t breathe or have a heartbeat, solnyshko?” Then she turned back to Altair and motioned toward the seat closest to the oven. “You sit there. Warmest seat in the house. It helps when the blood doesn’t run on its own.”

Was she suggesting that vampirism was just like being a lizard, and he needed to keep warm? Unbidden, the image of Altair sunning himself on a rock came to mind, which reminded me that no, the sun would very quickly burn him to death. Still, if his heart didn’t beat, I supposed that might be rather cold.

Me? I ran hot.

Maybe he’d let me warm him up.

I shook the idea off and went over to pull out the chair for him.

That, of course, was when Viktor decided to pipe up. “So we’re going to ignore that Leo has brought home a blood-sucking parasite?”

Dammit. I knew it had been going too well.

CHAPTER 16

Altair

I dropped into the chair hard enough to make the feet clatter on the wooden floorboards. Leo was still standing behind me, his hands on the chair, trapped behind my shoulder blades. It was almost a comfort, but I could feel his tension at my back.

The man at the table—Viktor, the scary one—looked so much like Leo. He had the same square jaw and dimpled chin, the same gray eyes, and thick dark hair. Viktor’s grew longer. It was more unkempt. But even if they’d had the same hairstyle, I didn’t think I’d ever mistake them for the same person.

Leo was all smiles and brightness, rushing to try and make people comfortable.

His twin sat there, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at me. His eyes were like stone in winter, and there were no smile lines around his mouth. In fact, his face was so smooth and placid that it was easy to think he’d never smiled at all.

“Ruu-ude,” Evie sang. She dropped into the seat at one end of the table, pursed her lips, and raised her eyebrows high.

“It’s all right,” I said, folding my hands in my lap and crossing my legs. “I’ve heard worse.”

“Yeah?” Viktor snapped.

“Yes. I’m a brown man with a preference for same-sex romantic liaisons in America, darling. I don’t know how much the world has changed since I’ve been away, but I’ve been alive long enough to know that people change very slowly, if they change at all.”

Viktor’s nose flared. A sound rumbled low, and I thought it was coming from deep in his chest. “Man is a generous moniker for what you are.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it is, but I have met and been charmed by enough of your family that I doubt anyone who belongs among them could come up with worse than what I’ve been called before.”

“Then I shouldn’t waste my time insulting you.”

Nothing about the way that Viktor leaned forward in his seat, the way he glared, said that I’d won this bout or that he was willing to let it go.

As much as I’d prefer to pretend that everything was fine and this was over, it’d be better to have our stances laid out clear, and at the tight set of Viktor’s jaw, I thought he’d give me the truth, at least.

“Because you’d rather kill me?”

“Absolutely.”

“Viktor,” Leo hissed.

At the end of the table, Evie blanched. Her eyes widened, gleaming and green, like until that very moment, she’d thought this was all a joke.