Chapter Six

Division Eight Headquarters

Saturday, 3:00 PM

Zeven pushed open the door to his and Harley's bedroom.

"You were gone a while. Did something happen?"

Did something happen? Shit, boy did it. "Let me tell you about it and let you decide if I'm the best husband ever hitched or a complete idiot."

Harley reached out one hand which he immediately took. She was chuckling. "Even before your explanation, I know the first is true. But who knows? You are an overachiever. You might go two for two."

He sank into the chair beside the bed so he could peek in at the sleeping babies. "I bought a goat."

Seconds ticked by, but she didn't release his hand. "Say that again. You did… what?"

"Technically two goats. I bought a nanny goat and a tiny little terror of a baby. I went out the door intending to buy some fresh goat's milk and next thing I know; I'm handing over the money. I don't have any idea how it happened or what I was thinking, but it's done and I'm hoping we can make it work."

She was staring at him with her mouth hanging open.

"I think you're considering my idiot status right about now."

She shook her head and didn't deny his assessment. "Where will you keep a goat?"

"There is a shed behind the house. I have it tied in there for now, but that isn't going to be good enough for long. I think the baby already started eating Quinn's flowers."

She was definitely holding back laughter. "Do you even known how to milk a goat?"

"The old guy I bought it from gave me some information. It didn't seem all that hard. I think I can figure it out."

"Did you think about what all it will need?"

"I got half a bag of feed and some hay. The rest I'll pick up after I figure out a pen."

She chuckled quietly as she climbed into his lap. "I guess that means we have a goat. Your status as an overachiever is still pending."

"Oh, please, you'll love me either way."

"True."

He caught her neck and tilted her face up until he could claim her grinning lips in a kiss heated enough to distract her. There was no point in letting her imagine just what kind of hell he'd faced to get the goats from the market to the shed. The kind of kiss that might even help him forget the damage they'd done to the backseat of his Charger…

* * *

Interstate Route 40, near Kingman, Arizona

Saturday, 8:00 PM

The hours slipped by, and luck was with her making the traffic lights and conditions perfect for fast driving. And the Division Eight sedan might look boring from the outside, but it was packing enough power to hold its own with most hotrods.

Something about having Quinn sleeping next to her seemed to calm her wolf. The only other vampire her wolf spirit ever accepted was Bella. And that had taken a long time. She'd expected to have that mass of inner anxiety that she used to have when tracking dangerous prey. But that feeling was notably missing.

Why was Quinn different?

She stroked at his soft hair. Instead of fear, she sensed curiosity. Was it because he lived with wolves? Had their scent lingered enough to help accept him? Or was there something else?

Whatever it was, they would have plenty of time to explore it while tracking down Bella. And he should be waking up soon.

The thought filled her with excitement.

No, that wasn't right. Even if her wolf was already beginning to accept the vampire, she needed to remain vigilant. There was still so much she didn't know about him and his intentions. Just because Bella had proven herself over and over that did not mean that she should automatically trust Quinn.

Before Bella, she'd have doubted his every motion. More than that she'd have just blindly believed that he was the next villain she had to put down. Thinking back, she had to wonder if she'd been wrong. Had there been other vampires with honor?

Perhaps there had been. If she'd killed them without ever considering if they were guilty or not… She mentally shied away from that dark possibility.

She wasn't that person anymore.

She had enough of the undead blood on her hands already. She'd spent enough of her life guided by her vendetta. Those years may have at times been misguided but there had been many hunts when she was sure she'd stopped violent killers and saved innocent lives. She needed to accept those triumphs as well as the ones when she may have been in the wrong. She'd done the best she could with the information she'd had.

Now that she knew better, she could make better choices and take the time to judge each vampire individually.

She switched the radio from classical to something a little lighter.

Quinn awoke when the soft music from the radio shifted to pop country. The final notes of one song faded and Taylor Swift's song, Love Story, rose and fell with the emotional tale of young lovers.

The pillow under his cheek tensed. A warm thigh.

"If you're awake, you should sit up."

It was a shame to give up such a comfortable place to rest. Saying so out loud would likely not result in a better option. He sat up, taking stock of the situation. This was his car. He was safe from the deadly sunlight. The sun itself was nearing the horizon directly in their path. They were traveling west. "How much further to reach Vegas?"

"We still have another couple hours left to go."

"Would you like me to take a turn driving?" The song continued as a lovely background with its ballad about how love could be both challenging and ultimately triumphant.

"How do you feel? Any lingering aches? Fuzziness?"

She sounded like a doctor or scientist, asking about side effects. Or was that exactly what she was asking? Maybe this was the first time she'd ever had the chance to talk with someone she'd knocked out with her chemical. Twice.

"If you're alert enough to pout, I suppose you're fine." She turned the music up a couple notches and started humming along with the song.

He closed his eyes and leaned back in the seat. Did she like the song or was she simply trying to keep him from talking? It was a sweet ballad. The kind of music Harley seemed to prefer when Zeven was away on jobs. He'd grown to enjoy them quite a lot as well.

The song had reached the last verse when the lovers finally overcome the odds, are reunited and promise to be together. He found himself humming along with her. Who doesn't love a happy ending?

"Do you actually like that kind of music?"

"I like the story and the emotion." There was so much more to it than that simple answer. He'd always loved how music created a medium to share the most raw and powerful emotions that motivated people. "This particular song reminds me of all kinds of other art that describes that beautiful urge to love someone and fight for the chance to be with them. Romeo and Juliet. And overcoming the forces that would prevent their happiness."

"Romeo and Juliet both died. They didn't overcome anything."

"Perhaps they did in their own way. They never truly gave up, never once considered that the world could be better if they were apart. That kind of pure desire is—"

"A dangerous temptation."

"An unstoppable, elemental force of nature."

"Interesting perspective."

"If we think about love in the same way as gravity."

"Then what? You describe it like fate, as if it were inevitable, regardless of a person's will."

"Not at all. People defy gravity all the time. The same goes for love."

"I disagree. Perhaps attraction is out of a person's control. Maybe that is as simple as pheromones or chemical reactions. But the choice to love another person begins and ends with the decision to change. Without that intentional motion, there is no love, nothing more than just two bodies seeking satisfaction."

"The rawest form of that attraction is lust."

"Yes, lust and love are not the same."

"If a couple is lucky, they may find one of those. And if truly blessed they get the chance to fight for both." Even as he said the words he wanted to reach for her.

"Pretty deep discussion started by a pop song." The car jumped forward speeding even faster than before. "Maybe I should change the channel."

He hid his grin and tried to focus on the too-bright sunset. It was less painful than having the girl brush away his interest before he'd even told her how beautiful her eyes were. Or how too many more hours of riding together this close while not touching, might feel more like torture.

"We should talk about a plan. How will we find Bella once we get to Vegas?"

"If Joseph hasn't found any more information, we will go to the best hotels and ask at the desk. She's not very imaginative when it comes to subterfuge. She will likely have used the same name as she did on her flight."

"I noticed she used a version of your name. I never got the feeling from her stories that you two were a couple. Was I wrong?"

"We were never a romantic couple." Though he knew Bella had once harbored such feelings, he'd never been able to see her as more than a sister. The result had been a close relationship but perhaps one that Bella had found less than satisfying. "How did you meet Bella?"

"I washed up on her beach and we eventually became friends."

"That sounds like a shortened version of something quite interesting. How does one wash up on a shore in modern times?"

"Funny story really. I'll tell you about it sometime."

Sometime… He was good enough at taking social cues to know she was shutting down the personal talk. But he wasn't ready or willing to do that. If she wasn't going to share her past with him, he'd have to take the initiative. And share his. "When I met Bella, she was only ten years old. She was the cutest little brat you'd ever want to meet."

"You knew her brother first?"

"Yes, but only by a few minutes. I was allowed to live with them so Georgie and I could go to school. Back then the choice of going to school or not was a big one and only a few were lucky enough to get the option. Bella always hated that they wouldn't let her go even though she was smarter and more diligent than either me or her brother."

"Sounds like Bella."

"Every time we came home, she would make us teach her everything we'd learned. She might as well have gone with us. The result was the same."

She chuckled.

"Even before we were turned, the difference in our ages meant almost nothing. We spent nearly all our time together. We might as well have been real siblings." He wouldn't mention it out loud because it didn't matter anymore. But there had been a time that he and Bella had tried to leave behind the label of siblings. After their maker had left them, they'd been confused and desperate to fill the gap in their emotions. But even that hadn't felt right. To him it hadn't been very meaningful, and he'd been glad to return to a more comfortable relationship.

* * *

Division Eight Headquarters

Saturday, 9:00 PM

Zeven couldn't believe he'd somehow built a pen for the goat in such a short time. With only two trips to get supplies he'd managed to sink posts, hang fence and nail together some improvements to the shelter in less than six hours.

Which was damn good because the amount of damage a pair of goats can do in just a few hours was astonishing. He was sure he'd be apologizing to Quinn for weeks. And that would be after he replanted the flower garden that the old vamp had been nurturing for decades.

There was no doubt about it. His ass was in deep trouble. Hopefully anything that couldn't be replaced could be salvaged enough to recover eventually.

Wait… had he just referred to disappointing his vampire boss as deep trouble? It was pretty damn amazing how much his life had changed. And for some reason, he had not even a single regret. He was certain that reason was named Harley. Just a year ago, his biggest problem was not getting his targets killed in the most efficient way or perhaps getting a ding in his car.

And now… the damn goat had eaten his back seat during the short ride home. Eaten it. And somehow looked cute during the crime.

But Harley was about to come meet the goat and if she liked it, he'd forgive the beast completely.

Harley opened the gate on the decorative-only fence around the small backyard. "Zeven, you back here?"

"I'm here." Here was sitting on a bucket of goat feed inside the brand-new pen. "Come on over and meet the gremlin."

"Gremlin…. Oh!" Harley leaned over the goat pen's gate. "She's so tiny!"

He didn't dare move too much with the itty bitty hyperactive goat perched on his knee. "The nanny goat, Queenie, is over there trying to figure out how to escape."

She slipped into the pen and crouched down beside the most villainously cute creature on earth. "Hey there, little cutie. Do you have a name?"

It jumped from his knee and into her arms where it proceeded to headbutt her jaw.

"The old man didn't give the name for that one."

"Well, if her mother is the queen, she would be a princess, wouldn't she?" Harley was giggling and snuggling the newly named beastie.

All the effort was worth it, just for that laugh.

"Princess is the cutest little thing I've ever seen!"

"Next thing we'll have to do is figure out how to milk Queenie. I've got all the basic tools thanks to the old man. I still figure it might take a couple tries to figure it out."

"Will it be okay to use her milk when she's feeding a baby?"

"I asked the same thing. But she's used to feeding more than one so it shouldn't be a problem." More evidence of the changes in his life. Now, he hesitated to interrupt a baby goat's meal schedule. Sure, if he had to choose between his young getting a meal or the goat, then the answer was harsh… for the goat. But he was glad that didn't seem to be the situation.

"She's a lot smaller than I expected. How do we actually do the milking? I think you'd have to lay on the ground to reach."

He held back a laugh while noticing that she hadn't offered to do the milking. "I have a little scrap wood left over that I'm going to use to build a table to milk on."

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense." She looked around the little pen. "You could save space if you make it a shelf that folds flat against the wall when not in use."

"I married a smart one."

"And I married a man good with his hands." She gave him a saucy wink before putting Princess down and leaving the pen. "Better get to it. I'll think of some way to reward all your hard work."