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“I miss having Lauren living at home, or at least staying a month or two a couple of times a year, but I amsoproud of the young lady she’s grown into, and I’m thrilled with the men she’s sharing her life with. Gavin has proven to be honorable and good. Still scary as fuck, but he’s good for my baby.”
“I gotta tell you,” Sophia said, “I thought Aaron might take him out if you or Nathan didn’t, when I first heard.”
“Mom trusted my intuition,” Lauren told Sophia. “It’s taken a while for the two of them to truly be okay with each other, but they’re family, now.”
“And you’re okay with Zander,” her mother pointed out. “He’s important to Gavin, so you’ve accepted him as family, too.”
“Yeah, but in all fairness, Gavin sees you every week or two, and I only have to put up with Zander a few times a year.”
Sophia laughed, and Lauren shrugged. “Mom’s right, though. I had to get over being pissed at him, which is weird that it was harder to forgive him than it was to forgive Gavin, but it was.”
“Gavin was following orders,” Lauren’s mom said, “Abbott gave them. I get it.”
“Plus, he lied to you and hurt you in other ways. It’s all in the past and over with, but yeah, I had to deal with it before I could truly be okay around him. I still don’t really trust him, but I don’t have to. I trust Gavin, and he’ll handle Zander.” She shrugged. “Besides, Gavin made up with our Shifù, after they’ve been enemies for over a thousand years. The least I could do was learn to deal with Zander.”
“Did you ever find out what started their centuries-long battle?”
“I believe that’s best kept in the past.” Lauren knew Gavin had fucked — body and mind — one of her Shifù’s great-granddaughters, who wasn’t strong enough to be considered a demigoddess, but had enough divine blood a vampire should’ve known she was off limits. Gavin had escaped with his life only because he could go to mist, and then he’d gone to one of Shifù’s enemies and given the powerful goddess information that allowed her to hurt Shifù, and things had gone downhill from there. Centuries of horror stories, but Gavin had only been able to get at his enemy of old when he came out of his secret realm — until directions for how to get into the realm practically fell into his lap.
Nick and Nathan were under an umbrella with a water mister and fan blowing on them, and Nathan said, “As much as I’m enjoying watching Kirsten in a bikini, I think I’ll join the vampires downstairs for a few hands of poker.”
Gavin had given Nick half a million dollars in casino chips the day before, in case he wanted to play with them, and Lauren had immediately picked up how uncomfortable Nick was with the offer. Each game took a fifty-thousand-dollar ante to join, though, so he’d only have enough for ten games, if he couldn’t hold his own.
Lauren practically held her breath while she waited to see what Nick did, and she breathed out in relief when he said, “I need to stop by our bedroom safe on the way, but I could do with some air conditioning and a little less sun for a while.”
Nick stepped to the edge of the pool, and Lauren climbed the steps to give him a quick kiss.
“I’ll see you in a few hours,” Nick told her. “Love you.”
“Love you, too. You’re going to need your best poker face and your strongest shields.”
The poker rules with vampires were basically anything goes so long as there wasn’t pain. They couldn’t rip their way in, but if a vampire could get in and read your mind without you knowing it, they were free to do so.
But Gavin had worked with them both until not even Zander and Kendra could get in without them knowing it.
* * * *
A few moments after the sun sank below the horizon, the vampires boarded the elevators and joined their daywalkers on the roof.
There were no twinkle-lights tonight, and the main seating area was out from under the pergola, so they’d have an unobstructed view of the many fireworks displays in the city and surrounding counties.
Gavin made his way to Lauren and Nick. He sat beside Lauren and leaned to kiss Nick first and then Lauren.
Dandy jumped up, his feet on the outdoor loveseat so he didn’t put his weight on any of his people, and Lauren hugged him and kissed the side of his snout. “We love you too, Dandy. Lay down and be good. It’s going to go boom soon, and it’s fine.”
Prince Dandelion was fine during storms and fireworks, but he needed his humans to tell him it was okay before he could relax.
Gavin looked around at the assembled supernaturals. Nick’s parents, who’d arrived later in the day but were staying with them a week, Zander and Spence, Kendra and Eric, Fawn, Queenie, Sophia and Aaron with their nine children, Marco and Cora, and finally, Kirsten, Nathan, and Mordecai. Four lions, a whole passel of dragons and swans, three werewolves, six vampires, an ancient god, the Harlequin, and one magical human, who tied them all together.
His extended family.
The vampire now known as Zander had made him part of his family, but now Gavin had his own family. It included Zander and others from that coterie, but this was the family he’d drawn to him. The people he would go to war for, if necessary, to keep them safe.
And then there was his immediate family — a magical human, a lion, and a dog.
I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve having the two of you and Dandy to rise to every day,he telepathed to Lauren and Nick,but it means everything to me to have the two of you in my life.
* * * *
