Page 76 of Silent Stalker
Laughing, I headed to the Civic. “What about my safety? He’s clued in I’m a most delicious dessert, too.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine, unless you wish him to be rougher with you, in which case I wish you the best of luck.” Ben waved, got into his car, and rolled down the window. “Try not to indulge in any more detours.”
As Ben could make us both miserable through dumping work on our heads, I eyed Emerick. “No detours.”
“I see you have learned when Ben means business.”
“He will find some way to torment us. Maybe you’re the brood master, but Ben has control over our schedules. I don’t want to know what he’ll do with my schedule if he decides I need to be put back in my place.”
Emerick laughed, popped open the truck of his Civic, and put the bags inside. “Paperwork, certainly. He’ll also schedule you in for learning to stay awake during the day.”
“I don’t understand how I was able to before,” I admitted.
“Magic of some sort. What type or how? That I can’t tell you.”
I got into the Civic, buckled in, and wondered if my mother might know—and if I’d be brave enough to ask her. I waited for Emerick to get into the car before saying, “I’m not sure what to say to my mother.”
“Awkward silence is allowed. Just give my maker a hard time and question if he’s good enough for your mother. That should be within your zone of comfort, I expect.”
As I could see myself doing that, I nodded. “Okay, so, my plan is to antagonize my potential future stepfather? That does seem like something I would do. No staking. I can handle that part.”
“I am grateful you have learned when it is appropriate to stake other vampires. I’ll admit, initially, I had some concerns, especially when it dawned on me the rest of my eternal life might involve holding my wife back so she won’t stake people she shouldn’t be staking.”
“As long as I can come home for dessert, I will only stake and drain miscreants out of necessity. We’ve been over this before. They taste bad. You taste good. While I dislike wasting perfectly good blood, if I didn’t have to kill them in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
My stomach, as though listening in, decided to take that moment to gurgle a demand for something other than blood. I gave my belly a poke in an effort to discipline it.
“It seems adapting you back to regular food is going better than anticipated, as I heard that.”
Damn it. “What’s for dinner?”
“How does a good steak sound? I have enough for your mother and my maker, and it will not bring shame to our brood.”
“I’m in, but hold the blood in the gravy, please.”
“I think I can manage that much.”
