Page 22 of Plaidypus
Damn. Even the incubus thought I was hopeless. “You’re wishinghimluck? What about me?” I pointed at my brother. “Ask him. I’m the queen of striking out.”
“I am not answering that question. I recognize when any answer is a bad answer,” my brother muttered. “The only way I win this game is by not playing at all.”
Mina grinned. “You found me a smart one, Nancy. However, I’m going to have to dock you for having found us a skittish lycanthrope. Also, someone needs to tell her vampires, lycanthropes, incubi, and succubi all have superior hearing, so we heard every word of that.”
All three vampire women snorted.
Theresa waved her perfect hand in the air. “All the new lycanthropes are skittish, and she’s got a good reason to be skittish. Don’t you mind Mina none, Nadine. We understand your position. Until yesterday, you were convinced anyone to come into your turf would be here to hurt your brother. Considering you’ve been running low on blood for at least a few weeks now, it’s sensible for you to be wary, tired, and well, skittish. The idea is for us to stick around until you’re ready to hit the road and we can provide a vehicle here that’s safe for your brother. You’ll go to Toronto to pick up your new truck, and we’ll be following along behind you to make sure nothing happens. After you’re across the border, you’ll be on your own, but I don’t think you’ll have any problems. Just leave your brother in the truck until nightfall, stop at one of the spots the CDC tells you is good for feeding your brother, let him get a drink and some fun, and on your way you go.”
Mina raised her hand. “I’ll play tag and help him with the fun part. It’ll be a lot easier to teach him the ropes that way, and the CDC will be more relaxed. Right, CDC?”
Leonard huffed. “Will you stop calling me that? I’m not the CDC.”
“Well, you got pissy when I called you the CDC’s dog, and you really didn’t like when I called you the CDC’s mutt. If I just call you CDC, you’re significantly less pissy. When the CDC tells you to jump, you jump, and you usually ask how high when you do it.” Mina wrinkled her nose and matched his huff. “You’re whipped!”
“I’m being paid a hundred thousand a year, plus expenses and bonuses, to ask how high when they tell me to jump. In USD.”
Damn. “How often do they ask you to jump, what sort of education and resume do you need for that sort of paycheck, and are you literally telling me you’re paid that much to meet women of the same species?” The vampires broke down into giggles, and as I’d already made a fool out of myself, I shrugged and sipped my hot chocolate. “What? I thought it was a good question.”
“It is a good question,” Leonard replied. “They’re just laughing because they know how often the CDC sends me out, what sort of work they make me do, and how annoying earning that money can be. I’m paid bonuses when I am meeting single lycanthrope women, which is half the reason why I don’t just accept the first interested woman to cross my path. It’s far more enjoyable to find her a partner she’ll truly appreciate in the future.”
I settled in to eat my breakfast, chewing between yawns. “Are you telling me you’re paid that much to be a matchmaker?”
“Essentially. I’ll continue my matchmaking even after I find a mate, although I’ll probably work with more men than women. It’s easier to keep the women calm when she’s not worried about a rival coming along. Ideally, should I find a mate, she’ll help with the work. Pairs are often great at helping to settle new lycanthropes, especially those with unexpected infections.”
“Like me.”
“You’re as unexpected as it typically gets, yes. Hotspot infections are uncommon to begin with. The most common source of infection is willing intercourse or blood transfusions, where the new lycanthrope wants to receive the virus. I’m almost never called out on cases like that unless the donor lycanthrope is anxious over the infection process. Then I just go on a road trip to have a talk with the lycanthrope unless it can be handled on the phone. I also talk to the recipient and go through basic lycanthropy training. Before you leave to go to the United States, we’ll have that talk. I expect Nancy, Theresa, Tilly, and Mina will take your brother out on his first hunt a few hours away while you make your preparations to leave.”
I tensed at the thought of my brother going out on his own to learn how to be a vampire. “What about Damon?”
“I will be serving as your personal chef and hot cocoa provider. That way, you can handle your affairs, I’ll keep an eye out on the property, and if somethingdoeshappen before you leave, help is a phone call away.”
“Really?” I asked, my eyes widening. “But how? We’re hours away from anything.”
The incubus chuckled. “The big man downstairs owes me a small favor, and he has a vested interest in your brother’s situation.”
I frowned and eyed my brother. “Whathaveyou been doing?”
“Nothing, I swear!”
“Are you sure?” I frowned. “Why else would, uhm…”
“Lucifer,” Damon provided.
“Okay.” I could handle the Devil being involved with my personal life without panicking. I breathed in deep, counted to ten, nodded, and exhaled. “Why else would Lucifer care about you?”
My brother shrugged. “I really don’t know. The worst thing I’ve done lately was pimp out photographs of you mourning over your truck to help the crowdfund so you could have a new truck. I milked that for all it’s worth and made a big deal of it. That was a little evil of me.”
I gasped, well aware my brother had taken numerous pictures of me crying over the wreckage to go with the ones of me fawning over my lost baby before the crash. “You didn’t.”
“I did,” he admitted, scratching at his head. “I’m sorry. I really wanted to make it up to you, and people just don’t believe stuff unless they see evidence, and they were the only pictures I had of the truck in the aftermath. I also took some pictures of the moose.”
“Icy,” I informed him. “Her name is now Icy, and she’s my moose.”
Leonard sighed. “You’re really going to put up a fight about the moose?”
“I hit her. As such, she’s my moose. That’s the rules. If you own a moose tag and you hit a moose with your vehicle and the moose dies, the moose becomes yours. I have moose tags.” To prove I had moose tags, I put my breakfast on the window seat, got up, and went to the entry stand where I kept my tags, dug out my keys, and unlocked the drawer, pulling them out. “This year, I got two calf tags, one bull tag, and three cow tags. The moose bred like rabbits the past few years, and people aren’t hunting much because of the hotspots.”
