Adopt a Vampire
: Chapter 5

It didn’t even take an hour to go to my apartment, pack the essentials, and come back. I set up shop at the dining room table, working steadily on my laptop and snagging Barrett’s home printer before digging into my research. I quickly realized the doctor’s license would definitely be the hardest part of creating a new identity for Hector, as there was no legal way to transfer it. Understandably. The only feasible way was if he changed his name, and it might work because few people really dug deep into an identity. If you met a doctor in his office and saw his medical license on the wall, you took it as truth. So long as the government systems didn’t throw up an error while he did taxes and applied for medical license renewals, we’d be hunky dory.

Hmm, how to do this quasi-legal? That would be the best method, as we’d raise less red flags that way.

A tap on my shoulder brought my head around, and I blinked up at Barrett. “Problem?”

“It’s past lunchtime,” he answered, somewhat exasperated. “Do you not have an appetite?”

“Pretty sure it’s broken at this point,” I admitted lightly. Glancing at the clock above the sink, I realized it was past one p.m. No wonder he’d prodded me. “All right, who’s for lunch?”

Sitting down in the chair next to me, he extended his arm. “Me.”

“Uh, no,” I denied quickly. “I fed on you last night. It cannot be healthy to do so again already.”

“Werewolf, remember?” Barrett looked at me steadily, patiently. He must have a wealth of patience to handle two hundred people on a regular basis. “I heal very quickly.”

I stared at the bared bronze skin in front of me with a strange mix of hunger and doubt. “Are you really sure?”

“Jesse, will you just eat already?” Barrett sounded exactly like an exasperated mother with a picky three-year-old.

Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “Yes, Mom.”

He chuckled in response. “I feel like it some days.”

“I bet.” Feeding still felt new and unnerving to me, and I sucked in a breath for courage before lifting his wrist to my mouth and carefully biting in, then immediately wanted to groan. He was really, truly delicious, even more so than the first time. I wasn’t sure how, exactly. His blood had more…body to it? A deeper sense of flavor? I sounded like a wine connoisseur, but I didn’t know how else to describe it. If he were chocolate, he’d be the dark kind, the one that was mostly cocoa and creamy. I also felt more comfortable feeding from him than I had with Luis and the others. There wasn’t any reason for it, but the feeling persisted.

I licked the wound clean, not wanting to waste a drop, and started to pull back.

“Oh no you don’t, mister,” Barrett scolded. “That was less than what you had for breakfast. Go another minute at least.”

Seriously, he sounded just like a mother. Amused, I resisted the urge to say something smart alecky. I’d stopped because I really did feel satisfied, but he was right in that this was less than I’d had from Luis. If I wanted to regain my weight and strength, I needed to eat more. At least a little.

He finally allowed me to draw back, and I honestly felt myself slide into that gluttonous state where a nap sounded good. Apparently, feeding on werewolf was not unlike eating a Thanksgiving turkey. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Dropping his wrist to his lap, carefully right-side up to avoid smearing blood on his pants while his skin healed, he jerked his chin to indicate my piles and piles of paper. “How goes it?”

“Mm, well, some of this I already knew.” I had to fight the food coma as I pointed to my stacks of paper. “We can register birth certificates with the registrar of the county, and Hector can sign those as ‘attending physician’ and get the ball rolling on new identities. Once we have a birth certificate in place, we can get social security numbers easily, and from there things are more or less a snap. I’ll periodically update the records so we have immunizations, school history, and so on. Hector will have to help sign anything medical. We’ll create bank accounts as well. I’m still researching how to deal with Hector’s medical license. Has he needed to transfer it before?”

Barrett dashed my hopes by shaking his head. “No, Hector’s only seventy years old. His license is due to expire in the next five years, hence our concern, but he’s got no experience transferring it to a new identity.”

“Hmm. Rats, I’d hoped he’d done this before and could give me an idea. I think the easiest thing to do is to put in for a name change and then fudge the dates. I’m not sure, though, it’ll take some more research and thought on my part. But today”—I gestured broadly toward the paperwork—“I’d like to get about twenty identities started. The sooner we do that, the easier it is down the road. Who needs one next?”

“We’re actually all in decent shape except Hector.” Barrett sat and thought about it for a moment. “Most of us took advantage of the move to change names and such, as no one would know us here. I guess I’ll send you the twenty oldest members who need some prep for the next round?”

“Yeah, that’s probably the best way to start. I need to know what names, birthdays, and so on they want on the paperwork. They’ll be the ones who have to remember it all.”

“True. Okay, I’ll make some phone calls and help you get started.” Barrett dug out his phone and then paused, giving me the sharp evaluating stare he sometimes did. “What about your license?”

“Haven’t figured it out either,” I admitted sourly. “I’d rather not take the bar exam again, but it might come down to it. We’ll see. I have plenty of time to think about it, as I only recently moved here and people know I should be thirty-three.”

“You’re not, though?” His tone lilted up in question.

“Technically,” I answered with a shrug.

He gave a hum, then picked up his phone and made those calls.

We spent the rest of the day working together to build a future for his pack. I liked it. I hadn’t been able to openly be me, in all my weirdness, for years. So much of what I could do, see, sense, even feel had to be capped at human levels. I’d always hid part of myself while in public. Here, I could catch a sheet of paper before it fluttered off the table with inhuman reflexes and Barrett didn’t replace it odd. Here, I could react to the conversation he had on the phone, even when he didn’t put it on speaker, and he didn’t question why I could hear it all so clearly.

It was incredibly relaxing.

I knew the instant the school bus must have let the kids out at the neighborhood, as the front door abruptly crashed open before several small bodies tumbled through. Barrett didn’t even look, just continued as he had been, ignoring the furry bodies that raced through the kitchen and out the back door, heading for the pool.

Watching them go, I finally asked the question that had bothered me. “So…I take it you don’t need a full moon to change over.”

“Nope. The call to transform is much stronger on those nights, hence the legend. The younger members have a hard time staying human, but we change back and forth at will.” Barrett shrugged casually, although his eyes watched me sharply under his dark eyebrows. “Surely you have more questions than that.”

“Well, yeah,” I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck and wondering how frank I could be. “But some of it is selfish curiosity, and some of it I’m pretty sure is rude to ask, and I’m still trying to figure out how I fit in with all of you. I’ll figure stuff out as I go along.”

He propped his chin in his hand, leaning against the tabletop as he studied me. Barrett’s dark brown eyes were incredibly penetrating when he really focused on something, like now. I had the vague sense I should squirm or duck away from him, but something kept me from doing so, and I stared levelly back. I could see in the slight curve of his mouth how this pleased him. “For all that you’re polite and nonconfrontational, you do have a spine of steel. Not many can look an alpha werewolf in the eye. That’s good. If you do choose to go into a vampire clan at some point, odds are you won’t become a doormat.”

“But you don’t think I’ll thrive there, either,” I observed, canting my head in question.

“No.” His eyes remained on me, evaluating. “Like I said before, you’re not ruthless enough. You need a lot of ambition and bloodthirsty resolve to make it in a vampire clan. Or so I’ve seen. It’s why I offered you a place with us, which I grant you is strange, the races don’t mix like this normally, but…” He shrugged, adequately displaying he didn’t care what the world thought of his decision.

“I don’t mind if it’s strange,” I assured him softly. Feeling a little shy, I admitted more slowly, “And I like it. Having a safe place.”

“You need to stop saying things like that.” He groaned, dropping his head so he held his forehead. “Look, Jesse. Werewolves are very, very tactile. If you haven’t figured it out yet, we have no concept of personal space. And when you say things like that, it makes us just want to hug you for a few hours.”

“Hmmm.” I pretended to consider this. “Be hugged by nice-looking people. Wow, not sure if I can survive it.”

He might have snorted a laugh before throwing an arm around my shoulders and snagging me, hauling me into his chest for a hug. It was an awkward angle, with us both in the chairs, but I went with it. Earlier was the first time I’d been hugged in, well, years. And now I was getting another? Go, me! I’d been starving for touch as much as food, to be honest, and Barrett smelled fantastic. I said that as a man, not just a vampire.

I leaned into him with a sigh of pleasure, my arms coming up to gently hold his waist. Yeah, I could definitely get used to this.

“Oooh, please tell me I’m interrupting something,” a new voice chimed in, sounding lecherous and amused.

Pulling back, I blinked up at the young woman. She looked vaguely like Barrett, with the same thick black hair, dark brown eyes, and high cheekbones, but more youthful and with a dusting of freckles over her nose.

“Ria,” Barrett greeted in a martini-dry tone. “Jesse, this is my younger sister, Ria. She thinks it’s funny to dig at me, so ignore her usually inappropriate comments.”

“I happen to have a thing for forbidden love, and a male werewolf and vampire pairing would be the epitome of that,” Ria explained brightly, her whipcord thin body bouncing in place with false exuberance. “So tell me I was interrupting something?”

“Nice to meet you, Ria,” I responded smoothly. “And I doubt half-starved vampire is your brother’s type.”

“Actually,” she answered with impish delight, “his type is— Oww! What the hell, Barrett, don’t step on my foot like that! I’m attached to it.”

“You won’t be for much longer unless you stop,” he growled at her. And I do mean growled. I swear his vocal cords changed so he could put the right growl into it. “Now. I texted you for a reason. Jesse will need to partner up with you to set up the new identities for the pack.”

“Sweet, so you’re working on that?” Ria—whom I now looked at properly—had a geeky vibe to her. It might be the yellow-tinted, thick-framed black glasses on her nose giving her that appearance, or maybe the oversized sweatshirt and casual flip-flops, as if she only dressed for comfort and nothing else.

To me, Barrett explained, “Ria is our computer guru. She keeps track of everyone’s movements, tries to stay on top of the other territories, and does whatever hacking needs to be done. She tackled most of the identity changes during this last move, and I heard much grumbling because of it.”

“I’m a hacker, not a lawyer,” Ria complained to him in a tone suggesting she’d said it at least several hundred times.

Looking toward the heavens in a clear bid for patience, Barrett replied wearily, “Yes, Ria. I heard you the first thousand times. But you managed all right, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, barely. I’d much rather Jesse do it.”

“For that matter”—I gave her a grin—“Jesse would much rather Jesse do it, too. But I’d like your help in setting up the new bank accounts. I don’t know what bank you’d prefer to use, after all.”

“We tend to do everything online these days.” Ria put a finger to her full lips and looked me over. “Shouldn’t we feed you first?”

I blinked at her, then glanced at the clock on the wall. It wasn’t even four yet. “Isn’t it a little early for dinner?”

“He had a late lunch,” Barrett explained to her. “Maybe later.”

Not bothered, she shrugged. “Let me know when you’re hungry. You want to come to my lair tomorrow? A little late to start in on things today, and we’ll have all weekend.”

“Sure, that’s fine. Uh, where’s your lair?”

Ria pointed a finger dead ahead of her. “Right next door. Just come over when you’re ready.”

“Sure.” I might have added something else, but a ripple of snarls came from the front door like a tidal wave of warnings. Barrett shot out of his chair, already halfway to the door before I could untangle myself from the laptop cord and follow him.

I didn’t see anything threatening at first—not counting the thirty werewolves either changed over into furry form or snarling out the open front door—but eventually I got the right angle to see the dark SUV parked out front. It didn’t take a genius to figure out someone had come calling unannounced. The question was: weres, vampires, or witches?

Luis came in to stand right behind me, and I didn’t think it was my imagination that he’d moved into the position to serve as my guard. “I’m already so used to smelling Jesse, I tuned them out until they got close,” he said to the room in general, sounding vaguely put out.

“You’re not the only one,” Barrett reassured him. Well, he likely meant it to be reassuring, but he had a hard look in his eyes and a flat tone to his voice. His attention never wavered from the SUV. “Jesse, I’d prefer it if you stayed in the house until I see who this is and what they want.”

Seeing the sense in that, I nodded. “Okay.”

With a grateful look at me, he swiftly exited the house, standing within six feet of the vehicle. He planted his feet and said in a low tone, “You dare much to just waltz onto our territory.”

The door slowly opened and a short man with unruly dark hair stepped out, carefully keeping his body language calm, but he had an air of agitation. He looked otherworldly to me, like Huxley had, his skin a paler porcelain than human skin could attain, his movements smoother, much like a dancer’s. I’d never been able to view myself from the outside before, but it made me wonder, did I move like that? Look that way? “I didn’t think you’d answer if I called,” he said in a distinctly British accent.

Oh. This must be Oscar. I recognized the voice.

“I might not have, but it would have still been a better decision than what you’re doing now.” Barrett heaved out a gusty sigh, sounding beyond irritated, and the entire pack went doubly alert. I had to think it was a mannerism he did before shit really hit the fan. “All right, Oscar. You’re here. I’ll give you two minutes to say your piece, then you leave.”

Oscar seemed amused at this, if the eloquent lift of a brow was anything to go by. “You think we can discuss this in two minutes. Very well, let’s attempt it. I wish to speak with our young vampire.”

“You mean you want to speak to my vampire, and you’re flat out of luck,” Barrett retorted. Part of me warmed at hearing the words “my vampire” out of his mouth. “Anything else?”

“Alpha, do see reason. He’s young. You informed me of his unfortunate turning by a rogue. There’s much he needs to know, to learn, and only another vampire can adequately see to his education. It’s even worse he’s arrived in such a poor state.” Oscar’s eyes shifted unerringly straight at me, and even with the awkward angle of a wall and doorway blocking most of his view, he studied what he could of me, and his expression became patronizing. “A very poor state.”

Have you ever met someone and wanted to buy them a taser for their bathtub? It wasn’t what they said, per se, but how they said it? The condescending, slightly arrogant way they looked at someone that just irritated the fuck out of you. I felt the distinct urge to wrap both hands around his throat and restrict the airway. I didn’t think I was alone in this, as quite a few grumbles came from the people around me.

I had about as much desire to follow this man as I did to stalk a serial killer.

Oscar didn’t seem to realize my feelings toward him. He kept talking to Barrett as if he was the only one who needed to be convinced. “Mr. Jesse needs to be taught how to properly feed. How to manage his new body, how to make the right connections in the vampire world in order to make his way through it. Staying, hmm, here…”—the way he said “here” was filled with distaste, and wow, it seemed the mask was off—“will not help him achieve any of this. It’s understandable that you took him in, werewolves are such pack animals. I quite see how your instincts came into play in this case, but it’s really not suitable, Alpha Barrett.”

Barrett didn’t respond. With his back to me, I couldn’t read what he was thinking from his expression, but his body language shouted tension. I didn’t want him to think Oscar was right. Well, Oscar actually did have a few good points, but it wasn’t like I was interested in going with the man. I’d rather shoot myself.

I moved three steps exactly, to stand outside of the door, still obeying Barrett’s wishes to stay out of reach of the other vampires but in full view to give my own opinion on all of this. “Barrett.”

He turned his head, and I could read the conflict on his face. I made my resolve audible. “I have no wish to go with him.”

Barrett softened a touch, just enough to give me a faint, approving smile. “All right. Oscar, your two minutes are up.”

Oscar bristled openly, staring at me like I’d lost my mind. “I realize you are young and ignorant, but you cannot possibly think staying here will be beneficial to you! You need to learn how to live properly as a Vampire.”

I could hear the capital “V.” “Mr. Oscar, you misstepped, vitally so, when you sent a minion out to meet me. In that one instance, I learned what it will really be like for me inside a vampire clan. I don’t want to live the rest of my life in conflict. The Walker Pack is a family. A warm, generous, happy family. I have no enemies here. I will stay with them for as long as they will have me.”

Jaw dropping, Oscar stared at me for a long moment. I didn’t think he expected this kind of resistance. Perhaps he thought Barrett held me like some sort of hostage, or bartering chip. Maybe he held the opinion I was there as a pawn in a power struggle and thought he could advance by showing up in person and throwing some words around. He never expected I would choose to stay, or that the werewolves around me would encourage it.

“Go, Oscar.” The alpha spoke in a tone encouraging direct and instant obedience.

Oscar glared at him, the sharpness in the expression nearly lethal. “When you’ve come to your senses, call me and we will discuss this again.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Barrett stared him down. “I’ll pencil that in. How does never sound?”

Ignoring him, Oscar appealed directly to me. “You will see soon this is a mistake. Call me and I will arrange to pick you up myself. I will arrange for you a good mentor. You won’t lack for guidance.”

He made it sound like I needed a master for my grasshopper self. And maybe, to him, I did. But you didn’t use this tone when addressing another adult. Really, I did not like this man.

Seeing the futility of staying there any longer, he blew out a breath and climbed back into the SUV. A moment later, it reversed out of the driveway and retreated back the way it had come in.

Barrett came to stand directly in front of me. He seemed perturbed but also happy, as if I had surprised him in the best of ways. “You really have no intention of leaving?”

“With that douche?” I snorted and shook my head. “No way. Although if this causes you trouble, and I do need to leave, just say the word. I’ll move somewhere else.”

Luis barked out a laugh. “Even if it does mean trouble for you to stay, you’ll stay anyway. You’re pack now, Jesse. You said as much, and we don’t abandon our own.”

Well. I grinned up at him, pleased. I think I was just officially adopted.