Page 12 of Plaidypus
My little brother would pay for bringing trouble to our house, and I’d be the one to make him pay. I lunged for him, determined to throttle him until he swore to behave.
With a grin, my brother fended me off, making use of his newfound strength to hold me at bay. “Don’t mind my sister. She’s overprotective and feisty but absolute garbage at the offense. Honestly, she’s garbage at the defense, too, but she tries so hard I feel I must indulge her. Since my sister is determined to make everything work perfectly, according to her personal opinion, I’ll be blunt. I am the one who contacted the CDC about the vampire, and I hadn’t meant the foxes. I meant me. I almost killed my sister—and that was after draining that poor moose dry.”
Leonard looked us over, and he nodded. “And you are certain there were no other victims nearby? No other vampires of any sort as a result of the crash?”
“Unless the moose is actually a vampire, no.”
“She’s a zombie,” the wolf replied. “There are no markers of her being a vampire in her DNA. Vampires are typically created in pairs.”
“Nadine?” Matthieu snagged me by the shoulders and pushed me away, effectively limiting my ability to strangle him. “Did you see any other animals or anything like that after the crash?”
“No, it was just the moose. And me. I’m not a vampire.”
Leonard eyed me, and he held up his scanner. “Can I use this to confirm that?”
“It depends,” I countered.
“On what?”
“If we get a head start to flee to the United States before the town figures out he’s a vampire and goes on a hunt?” I glared at the lycanthrope. While supposedly from the CDC, when it came to my brother, it’d take more than a claim and some scanner before I trusted him.
The stakes were too high—and in the wrong hands, rather pointed, made of wood, and lethal when used against my brother.
Just because Leonard looked and sounded like the average Torontonian, his Canadianness wasn’t going to lull me into a false sense of security. Much like a beaver, Canadians could be dangerous in a corner. Of course, at least one beaver had bitten off somebody’s nipple, a fun-fact that tended to make me giggle at inappropriate times.
Somehow, I kept my mirth to myself.
“Not only will I give you a head start, I will provide a vehicle with the appropriate protections on the windows so you can make the journey in safety. When I drop the vehicle off, I’ll also bring two bags of blood to see if he’s capable of using bagged blood. If he can, two bags should be sufficient for a day or two. Most can’t; we suspect the life energy of the body is as important as the blood to a vampire.” Leonard turned his attention to my brother. “We’ll need an accounting of how you’ve been sustaining yourself.”
“I’ve been giving him blood. A little every day. I check my blood pressure, and I make sure it stays in the average range,” I admitted. “He doesn’t go after animals or anything like that.”
“That’s not healthy, Miss Lavigne.”
I glared at the lycanthrope. “Do I look like I care? If the people in town find out he’s a vampire, they’ll kill him—and your girlfriends, too.”
“They’re not my girlfriends, Miss Lavigne.”
I eyed him. “Well, why not? Look at them. They’re gorgeous.”
“They’re emotionally unavailable. They’re vampires.”
“It’s true,” Nancy said, grinning at me. “But thank you for the compliment. It’s obvious you haven’t been around vampires before your brother. We just don’t make good partners. We can be decent friends, but we just lack certain… connections. The soulless part of us being soulless bloodsuckers isn’t totally incorrect. Wecanfeel affection for humans, we just don’t usually. While I’m sure Leonard might be useful to some nice lycanthrope woman at some point, do you know what I see when I look at him?”
“What do you see?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. “And I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“No offense. We’re Americans, anyway. It would take a little more than calling me a soulless bloodsucker to offend me. How dare you say we’re gorgeous?”
“Right. How dare I, eh?” I questioned why I’d invited Leonard into the house. Damn it. If I’d kept him outside, things would have been different.
Then again, as my brother had called them in without telling me about it, maybe he deserved his fate. I had no idea what three vampire women and an incubus would do to him, but he deserved it.
I needed my hot chocolate, and the kettle would take at least another five minutes to give me its boiling bounty. Until then, I’d have to deal with the invaders, and hope I could get them out of my territory and away from my brother.
“Anyway, it’s simple. Leonard looks like a tasty treat, and I don’t mean a fun time in bed. That’s part of what makes us soulless vampires. Humans are food and entertaining bed partners when we are in the mood, and that’s about it. We’re no longer human. In Chicago, we try to control our predatory instincts and remind ourselves human aren’t just food, but that’s what we’ve become—soulless, bloodsucking monsters. Some of us are just nicer monsters than others. Honestly, there are a few humans I quite like, and I’d be rather miffed if anything happened to them, but it’s rare. I usually look at someone and think about how good of a dinner they are. Scared yet?”
I stared at her, and then with narrowed eyes, I glared at my brother. “Have you been looking at me like I’m dinner, Matthieu?”
“No. You’re my sister, it just happens I bite you once a day. I don’t even like biting you. It’s awkward, and honestly, you don’t even taste all that good.”
