Aric and Garret didn’t even react to the crash. They were used to his growing rage now.
Garret leaned over the railing of the loft above them. “It’s been two weeks, Evan. We’ve searched everywhere. Every building, every hole, every shadow. He’s not here. I think the vamp has moved on.”
“Or he’s waiting for us to stop looking. The second we stop looking for him and let our guard down, he’ll…”
“Say it,” Aric murmured, his eyes dark and exhausted.
Blood trickled from his palm where he’d clenched his fists so hard his claws had dug into his skin. “I can’t. Can’t say it anymore.”
A sigh exploded from Aric’s lungs, and he sat on a musty bale of hay, rested his elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands. The dark-haired king looked up at Evan. “I’m calling off the search.”
“What? Why?”
“Because Garret’s right. We’ve looked everywhere, and there’s no trace of him anywhere. He disappeared the night he failed to kill Nicole. He’s not hunting her.”
“You know as well as I do that’s not how vampires work. Especially not killers. He won’t leave her as the one who got away.”
“You’re obsessing about this—”
“I’m not.”
“You are!” Aric’s voice cracked with power. “I get it, man. If I thought Sadey was in danger, I would bring hell to earth to protect her. But there’s no threat to Nicole anymore. The killings stopped, and no one has reported feeding him. He’s not in the area anymore.”
“Dawn and I are trying for a baby,” Garret said suddenly.
Evan jerked his attention to the tattooed behemoth above. His anger faded like fog. “Why would she want to have a baby with you?” Evan joked. “You’ll taint the genetic line. She’s smarter than you, and prettier.”
“Shut up, man,” Garret said through a grin. “Look, she wants a baby.” He leaned his elbows on the creaking railing. “I want one, too. A little girl maybe that looks like her.”
“I thought you two wanted a potbellied pig,” Aric said.
“Well, we thought about it, but she wants one to relieve her mothering instincts. And I love her. I think about her looking down at our baby, and it warms my cold, dead heart. That has to mean something, right? I don’t really want her to stifle her instincts. I want her to have everything she wants in life.”
“I shifter vamp monster baby. This is going to be interesting.” Evan sighed and rested his back against the wall. “Congrats. You’re going to be good at this.”
The smile fell from Garret’s lips, and he shook his head. “Forget it, man.”
“No, I was serious,” Evan called up to him. “I always thought you’d be good at fatherhood. I know you and Torunn were trying for a baby before you were Turned. You wanted to be a dad in your human life, and you got interrupted. It’s okay to want it now that you’ve met Dawn.”
Aric crossed his arms over his chest. “The vampire community will lose its shit. Again.”
“What else is new?” Garret muttered. “We lost most of our members, Shane is probably going to bolt any day now, we keep having wars with other vampires, got our asses handed to us by the Bloodrunner Dragon, shacked up with two shifters and a human, and no vamp in their right mind is going to sign up for this shit-show. Might as well add a bloodsucking snow leopard shifting baby. What’s it going to hurt at this point?”
Aric snorted. “That’s the attitude. Why the fuck not?”
“Look,” Garret called down, “Dawn has been missing me, and it’s hard to try for a baby if I’m out hunting every night. I know Sadey’s been missing Aric, and Evan? Your lady will be okay with you coming home. I see you checking your phone all the time. You two text all night long, and why do you think that is?”
“Because she likes my dick?” Evan teased.
“Oh, nice,” Aric admonished him.
“Because she’s worried about you. You’re out here hunting something that scared her down to her soul. When you leave a woman alone like that, their mind goes in a hundred different directions. I made that mistake leaving Torunn for months on end, and I don’t want that to be my story with Dawn. And I don’t want that to be your story with Nicole either. You gotta stop hunting and start living.”
Evan snorted. “Vampires don’t live.”
“You know what I mean.” Garret jumped over the railing and landed on the old wooden barn floor with barely a dust mote disturbed. “Let’s go home. Let’s get back to our life, and if at any point that asshole shows up in Winterset again? We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
They were right. Evan knew they were right. He couldn’t keep them away from their lives anymore. Couldn’t train Nicole that being with him meant being alone so much.
He knew they were right, but he still couldn’t help the feeling that this wasn’t over. Paranoia? Maybe, but when it came to Nicole’s safety, he was okay with being cautious.
She’d become so important to him over the last two weeks. He couldn’t remember his life without her.
Evan followed Garret and Aric out of the old abandoned barn and into the night.
He looked up, and there were the stars. He felt claustrophobic on nights when he couldn’t see them hanging high above him. He didn’t have sunlight anymore, but he had the stars, and his life had become about consolation prizes. Until Nicole.
His phone vibrated in his back pocket, and he checked the screen. There was his pretty girl. She’d sent him a picture with a silly filter on it. She had cat ears
