AllFreeNovel
Share Us
How? I… I don’t know. Aleks has never brought it up. When we first got together, I couldn’t keep from wondering just how vampires bond their mates to each other. For shifters, it’s easy. We have a ritual known as the Luna Ceremony for a very simple reason: it revolves around our goddess. To claim our mates and form a bond, we have to ask for the Luna’s blessing, mate under her watchful eye when it’s a full moon, and leave a claiming mark on our chosen mates.
Vampires don’t have a goddess. No god, either. The way they worship their thirst and their need for blood is the closest thing the fanged supes have to a religion. That, and their fanatical need to form communities where they have easy access to human blood donors. Their bonding relied on blood—I know that much—because blood is everything to a vamp.
At this point, though, I’m afraid to ask my vampire. I don’t want to be pushy. With everything that changed after Roman’s assasination and my life-saving surgery, Aleks has more than enough on his plate. Relying on him to soothe my insecurities for the countless time just isn’t fair.
He’s done everything he could, starting with pointing out that the locket with Julia’s picture in it is kept in a small wooden box in the top drawer of his bedside table. I didn’t ask him to, but I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make me feel a little better that he wasn’t walking around with it on his person.
And we all know that I’m a terrible liar.
He loves me. I know he does. Just like I know that, if we were ever fully bonded, it would be an unbreakable tie. It already is. I tried to snap it when Walker threatened to kill Aleks if I didn’t leave with him, but though my “gift” hadn’t vanished yet when I attempted to break my fledgling bond with Aleks, it didn’t work. I still remember how much the blowback hurt.
But does he loveme? Or is he in love with the idea of having a beloved?
He hasn’t called me Julia again since the first night I fed him. He treats me like a queen. It’s a huge difference compared to what my life’s been like the last decade or so, and I should be thrilled that he loves me.
Just… if he does? Then why aren’t we bonded yet? It’s almost like one of us has one foot out the door, and I can’t tell if it’s Aleks—or if it’s me.
Ugh.
What makes it worse is that I’m having these thoughts when I’m lying in Aleks’s bed, his scent embedding in my skin, surrounded by the musk unique to our mating. There’s no reason to believe that he isn’t all in, except maybe for the fact that it’s been more than two months since he claimed me as his mate in front of the former leader of Muncie and we still don’t have any kind of bond.
The Luna Ceremony is out. When I woke up in the hospital after being shot with a silver bullet by the Wicked Wolf’s ex-Beta, I realized that the Luna—the goddess that whispered to me my entire life—had gone silent. Without her blessing, I can’t bond Aleks to me. And my vampire doesn’t seem too keen on making me his by the vampire rites.
At least I’m here. I’m safe. I’m loved. Sure, I don’t have a job—after Roman’s death, I couldn’t go back to the Cadre building even if Aleks offered me to stay on with him—and I can’t help but feel like a giant mooch, but he loves me.
I’ll cling to that fiercely because, Luna, I don’t know what I’ll do if he doesn’t.
CHAPTER2
THE BRUNCH QUEEN
Most people don’t believe this, but vampires eat.
Well, obviously. Though they’re considered to be undead, they need something to survive on, otherwise they wouldn’t exist. For the fanged supes, it’s blood. Human or other supes, they’re not picky, and a vamp suffering from thirst is almost as dangerous as a feral shifter off of their leash.
But just like how pop culture has it that the bloodsuckers can’t stand to be out in the sunlight, it’s the same when humans believe that vampires only survive on blood. With the right level of sunblock—Aleks keeps a store of SPF 500 in our bathroom—vampires can face the light of day, and while blood makes up a substantial part of his diet, he does eat real food occasionally.
Younger vamps, like Leigh and the others, eat it more often. That’s why I’m not surprised when Gretchen decides we should meet for an early spring brunch at a classy joint closer to the center of Muncie, fittingly called The Brunch Queen.
I only worked alongside Leigh for a couple of weeks in February, but it was enough to form a fast friendship. She was a secretary like me before Roman promoted her to patroller so that she could work alongside her beloved, Tamera. Neither one of us work the front desk at the Cadre building anymore, but I hang out with them and Gretchen pretty often. Because two of the three of them are fully Cadre—with Gretchen refusing to give up her carefree vamp lifestyle even if her mates want to serve their community—Aleks doesn’t worry about me going out with them.
And even if he did? All I have to do is remind him that I wear his fang around my neck. In Muncie, that makes me untouchable, and we both know it.
When I still hadn’t heard from him around noon, I figured he would be busy until night fell again. Normally I can find ways to occupy myself in the apartment, but every now and then the loneliness gets to me and my wolf. Gem, another recent friend of mine, is the female Alpha of the Mountainside Pack. While she’ll always answer the phone for me, she can’t just drop what she’s doing because I’m bored.
Luckily, the Trio can.
Gem used to call them the Nightmare Trio. Can’t really blame her. The first night she arrived in Muncie, Leigh, Tamera, and Gretchen decided she would make an excellent late-night snack. Aleks actually stopped them from attempting to feed on Gem, and that’s how she ended up becoming his roommate. Of course, he only did so because he sensed she was an alpha female—like Julia had been—and he thought she was his beloved.
She wasn’t, but they’re still close friends even now. To Gem’s annoyance, the Nightmare Trio became my friends, and though she can’t stand them, for my sake she refers to them as the Trio now. It stuck, and so I do, too.
I messaged Leigh earlier to see if she was free, knowing that the message would be passed along to her two beloveds. As the name implies, as sunset spotters, Leigh and Tamera patrol the borders of Muncie during the shift when the sun goes down. I figured they weren’t working and I hoped that meant they might want to do something with me today.
That’s how I ended up at the Brunch Queen with three gorgeous vampire females. Because Tamera and Leigh are Cadre, we get our pick of a table, and because late April in Muncie can be beautiful, we chose a four-seater outside.
We place our orders with the human server. The Trio, of course, each order a Bloody Mary with their small brunch meal. I go for steak and eggs, and an orange juice.
My drink comes out first. Since a vamp Bloody Mary is literal, their drinks take a little longer to prepare.
