Page 32 of Don’t Hook the Merman

“What’s he gonna do?” Violet asked. “Splash water on you?”

Syrus gave her his haughtiest look. Everyone seemed so determined to depict him in an unflattering light today. Maybe these drab human clothes were to blame. Didn’t Luke own any brightly colored garb? Colors that caught the eye were a sign of strength and deadly ability. No one would have dared speak so about Syrus if he was in his true form, beautiful and dangerous as it was.

But Riley relaxed at Violet’s offending words, his face reverting back to its human disguise with alarming speed, revealing once again the semblance of a handsome youth with deep-brown eyes. “I’ll bring Colby his donut,” he said. “Seth stays behind the counter.”

“I will bring it,” Syrus corrected quickly. “You both stay behind the counter. Luke, you sit with Colby. And you”—he pointed at Violet—“Luke’s family, you stay with them.”

Violet crossed her arms in a belligerent pose. “I need my coffee and sweet roll.”

Syrus resisted the urge to bare his teeth in annoyance. But then again, Luke must have been hungry as well. He hadn’t eaten anything before they left, despite giving Syrus a minute to gnaw on frozen tilapia.

Syrus turned his cold gaze to the vampires. “I will take a collection, then.”

Seth’s eyebrows rose almost to his head covering, which Syrus had to grudgingly admire. It might not have been very brightly colored, but it was at least a form of adornment. “Well, all right, then.” Seth cleared his throat and shot a glance at Riley. “And I think it might also be time to call the moms, don’t you?”

Some time later, two beautiful women who smelled of stale blood and floral notes waltzed into the bakery. Riley’s mothers, supposedly, who were just as undead as their son.

Perfect. They were now absolutely surrounded by vampires.

But Syrus had been overruled in his objections to the phone call, first by Violet, for whatever reason, and then by Luke himself.

“Syrus,” Luke had murmured. “Seth may be newer to the area, but Riley and his moms have been here for a decade. There’s never been any trouble, no missing people.”

No missing people that Luke knew of, that meant. And what were the odds he’d really been paying attention? But then again, there were certain advantages to being able to recognize by sight the local threats to their safety.

So Syrus had allowed Seth and Riley to call “the moms,” who’d made their way over while Colby munched happily on a chocolate sprinkled donut (“I’m letting him have the frosting this time,” Luke had confessed, both sheepishly and nonsensically), and Luke and Violet sipped their coffees. While an array of pastries had been provided by Seth, the two older humans had yet to touch them.

The vampire moms reminded Syrus very much of the females in his pod: lovely, sharp, and undeniably deadly. The one called Sybil was a tall, pale, curvaceous creature with an abundance of dark hair. And then there was Daphne, a petite, dark-skinned woman who eyed Colby with such undisguised delight that it almost made Syrus like her.

Their arrival apparently meant it was time to parley. “No, no,” Daphne said when Syrus demanded once again that all vampires stay behind the counter. “We can’t be lurking on our feet in the distance while trying to have a nice chat. Let’s be civil, shall we?”

Without waiting for agreement, she and Sybil sat at the table next to Syrus and Luke’s contingent. Riley and Seth joined them after an appalling delay—apparently the vampire moms first required hot tea for their “nice chat.”

Luke, for his part, seemed to be taking it all in remarkable stride. He was a little tense, yes, and his hands shook noticeably when he lifted his coffee to sip, but he wasn’t yelling or swooning or asking Syrus to guard him with his body.

It all had Syrus feeling vaguely…disgruntled. Why had he thought Luke’s adaptability applied only to himself? But apparently Luke accepted all vicious creatures with equal aplomb. How upsetting.

If nothing else, it was a relief to sit. Syrus’s feet were aching in a dull, pained way, and he wasn’t eager to show weakness with the other predators in the room.

The conversation began with an explanation from the vampires. A story of Sybil and Daphne, vampire mates with a long history of stability, adopting a newly turned vampire child. Of their taking refuge in these woods, isolating their charge until he was no longer a danger to himself or others. Of that same child, grown and relatively stable, finding his mate in the new human baker.

“No one here kills to feed,” Seth added at the end. “We’re careful, and we’re cautious, and we’d never hurt the people in this town.”

Syrus remained skeptical, but Luke nodded slowly, as if convinced.

“Now, Luke,” Daphne said after a sip of her cooling tea. “Why don’t you tell us all about how you found your merman?”

Luke glanced at Syrus, a silent request for permission to share his story, and Syrus gave a regal nod, somewhat mollified by the gesture. He shuffled closer to his human, pressing his leg even more tightly against Luke’s.

Luke cleared his throat and told them in a remarkably steady voice about hearing Syrus’s song, finding him on the beach, and tending to his wounds. At the mention of Syrus’s transformation and the subsequent blood exchange, all four sets of vampire eyes gleamed.

“Fascinating,” Daphne murmured, her eyes darting between Luke and Syrus. “And, Syrus, how did you come to find yourself stranded on the shore?”

“I was captured by humans and put into a tank,” Syrus told her flatly. “Poked and prodded, and then I escaped.”

There was a hush from the vampires, followed by a significant exchange of glances.

“The whale song in the basement!” Seth suddenly cried. “Was that you?”