Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

The manor was bursting with life when Atticus pulled down the long, winding driveway.

His heart jammed itself in his throat as he pushed the car door open. The lights were on in the house, turned low for sensitive vampire eyes. The glow shimmered in the thick, diamond panels of the old glass as he jogged up the brick steps to the front door.

The manor was two hundred years old and boasted a heavy, forest green door. A massive arch of roses hung over the entrance, almost obscuring all the brickwork some master mason had painstakingly crafted. Since Zia and Harland got together, a lot of the estate had become wild with life and color — a marked change from the strict orderliness the boss had always demanded. Normally Atticus felt a small squeeze of tenderness whenever he looked at the wild, towering rose bush, but not that night.

Being family, he could have barged right in. He wanted to. But instinct held him back. This was another vampire's domain, and as much as it pissed him off that Carmine was inside, Atticus didn't love the idea of Harlan throwing him out a window for startling his family.

Biting the insides of his cheeks so hard he tasted copper, Atticus banged the meat of his palm on the door and waited.

C'mon, he thought, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Hurry up!

The heavy door swung open on silent hinges. Harlan stood in the doorway, his long, gray-streaked hair loose. He was dressed as casually as he ever got outside of workout gear: a pristine white button down, slacks, and a wristwatch worth more than the manor on his wrist.

Harlan Bounds was a man obsessed with the finer things in life, which explained why he had his two year old daughter perched on his hip.

Serafina had inherited her mother's round cheeks, cleft chin, and penchant for babbling, but she had Harlan's intensity. That intensity wasn't diminished by her cuteness, nor by the fact that her wispy hair was gathered into a palm tree on the crown of her head. Both chubby hands clutched her miniature bottle of synth, specially calibrated for growing vampires, when she fixed her dark eyes on Atticus.

For just a moment, she gave him a look of such profound shock and hurt that he almost took a reflexive step back. And then she exploded.

"Atty!" she wailed, lunging for him so fast that Harlan had to move with her, lest she pitch herself out of her father's arms.

There was a messy hand-off as Harlan extracted the bottle from her hands and Atticus fumbled to get her securely in his arms. Serafina sobbed with huge, pitiful tears.

"She missed you," Harlan dryly noted. He stepped back, allowing Atticus to cross the threshold. "You're not allowed to leave again."

"I missed you, too," Atticus assured the toddler, stroking her back as she clung to him. As much as he wanted to charge through the house to find Carmine, he took his time giving her a tight hug.

It wasn't the first time Serafina exploded in a fit of emotion — something he was certain she picked up from Zia's side of the family — but he was horrified to have been the cause for tears.

She railed at him in her high-pitched, gasping babble. It was impossible to understand her, but he got the gist of it. He'd messed up and she wanted him to know it.

Luckily her fit only lasted a few minutes before she was back to her normal bubbly self. Atticus brushed the tears from her chubby cheeks as she pulled back to yammer at him, telling him some grand story he could only partially comprehend.

"Atty bite?" He blinked, taken off-guard when she stopped mid-sentence to point a chubby finger at his neck. " Baba bite?"

Baba was the Turkish word for father, like anne was the word for mother, and what Serafina called Harlan about fifty percent of the time. Daddy was used whenever she really wanted something. The strategy had a very high success rate.

It took him a second to process her question. Blanching, he stammered, "Ah, no, Fina. That's…"

"That's Carmine's bite," Harlan bluntly explained, handing the bottle back to his daughter. "I only bite your mother, princess, just like you will only bite your anchor someday. Some very, very distant day."

A flush crawled up Atticus's neck to sear his ears. He had no idea why. He wasn't ashamed of Carmine's bite — far from it — but something about the situation made him feel a bit like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Harlan had been blasé on the phone, but what would he really think about Atticus pursuing a blood bride?

Harlan's opinion was the one he respected most in the world. If he disapproved, if he thought Atticus should back off…

I can't. I won't.

"Where is she?" he croaked.

Harlan tilted his head in the direction of the kitchen. "The girls are doing a makeover."

" Anne's haircut," Serafina chirped before taking a noisy slurp of her synth.

Atticus's brow furrowed. "Haircut?"

A hint of a smile curved Harlan's lips. "My anchor thinks that because she trims my hair, she can handle Carmine's." He shrugged. "I'll pay to have it fixed."

"See!" Serafina squirmed so violently that Atticus was forced to hastily lower her to the floor. She scampered off on socked feet, her palm tree ponytail bobbing.

"Walk," Harlan called after her. "And careful with your synth, princess."

Atticus made to follow her, but he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Harlan fixed him with a familiar, scrutinizing look when he said, "Tell me what's going on."

Harlan Bounds was an old-school vampire. Raised in the vicious, dog-eat-dog world of the Amauri crime family, he was taught early on to never ask for something when it could be demanded instead. To the soft, polite people of the EVP, Harlan was as hard and rude as they came.

But for Atticus, there was a lot of comfort in the directness with which his adopted father spoke. He and Carmine were similar in that way. Harlan could always be trusted to say what was on his mind, and he never hesitated to act when he deemed it necessary. He was steady. When Atticus needed to lean on someone, Harlan was there, as strong and dependable as steel.

He didn't even know how to explain the enormity of the thing inside of him, let alone the complexity of it, so instead Atticus rasped, "I want her."

"You don't seem overjoyed by that."

"No, I am. She's perfect. I…" He rubbed the tense muscles of his nape. "There's nothing I don't like about her. I'm fuckin' obsessed with her, boss. But she's a bride."

Harlan's expression didn't change. "Not anymore."

A vicious stab of pleasure struck him. That's right, he thought, the fingers of his right hand curling into a fist. Junger's dead.

But the pleasure of that knowledge was short-lived. Atticus squeezed his neck again, saying, "She's venom neutral."

"Obviously."

"I feel so guilty. She's— Isn't it weird? That I'd want her when I've spent my whole life trying to protect Adriana from being a vampire's mate? Doesn't that make me a bad person?"

It was only then that Harlan's expression changed. He arched a dark brow. "That's not what you've protected Adriana from, boy." Atticus opened his mouth to object, but Harlan beat him to it. "It's not. We didn't leave the syndicate life to protect your sister from finding a mate. We left because we wanted her to have the choice."

That was true enough, but it didn't make a dent in the guilt that sat heavy and thick inside him. He wanted her so bad it made him ache, and he knew he was in too deep to back out now, but… "What if Carmine doesn't feel like she has a choice?"

He was fucking haunted by the memory of her bite, but also by the whiplash of horror and shame he felt when he realized the intimacy they'd shared had been a ploy. The idea that Carmine might feel like she had to return his advances, even subconsciously, ate him up like acid.

Harlan's brow inched a little higher. "It's interesting that you think I'd let you get away with that."

"Boss…"

"You want her to be your anchor." It wasn't a question, and neither was the statement that followed. "You want to be her anchor."

His throat felt like it was closing in on itself, but he managed to choke out, "Yeah, I think I do."

"There's no I think in that scenario. You've got to figure that shit out and be one hundred percent sure," Harlan commanded, just as serious as he was when he held a life in his hands. "When you do, then you treat her like you would any other potential anchor."

Atticus's heart lurched. "How do I make sure she wants me back? Really wants me?"

"I don't know," Harlan replied, eyes gleaming with dark humor, "maybe date and shit."

A startled laugh burst out of him. That was the exact piece of advice he gave Harlan when he was attempting to woo Zia, his employee at the time, and it was about as helpful for him as it was for Atticus — which wasn't very helpful at all.

"Are you enjoying this?"

"A little." He paused before blandly adding, "Have you considered buying her a car?"

"I don't think she has a driver's license. If she did, I'm pretty sure she would have stolen the RV."

"That would've been smart."

"Carmine's super smart," he replied, smiling like the besotted idiot he was. "Did she tell you she's a mortician?"

"She mentioned something about needing to find a morgue. Glad to know it was for strictly professional reasons."

A squeal of child's laughter echoed down the hall. The house was a warren of short doorways and interconnected rooms, meaning sound didn't carry very well. For Serafina's laughter to have reached them all the way by the front door, it had to have been explosive — and par the course for the little vampire.

Like bees to honey, both men were drawn toward the joyous sound. The closer they got to the kitchen, the easier it was for Atticus to pick up on the scent of cherries buried beneath the comforting smells of the home and its occupants.

His heart thudded unevenly against his ribs as he stepped into the kitchen and took in the scene.

Carmine sat in a wooden chair in the middle of the room, her back to him. She was dressed in some clothing he vaguely recognized as Adriana's, with Serafina perched on her lap, her back arched over one of Carmine's arms so that her little head dangled upside down.

Adriana, her wavy auburn hair pulled up into a bun and dressed in her usual sweater and jeans combination, was wiping what appeared to be splatters of Serafina's synth from a cabinet. Buzzing around them was Zia, her extravagant curls gleaming in the low light and a pair of slim silver scissors in her hand.

On the floor, coiled like a winding river of ink, was Carmine's hair.

Adriana noticed him first. She looked up from her task and locked eyes with him. For a moment, the world went still. Atticus braced for her judgment, her disgust that he'd preyed on a vulnerable blood bride, but it didn't come. She took one look at the bites on his neck, pointed, and instantly began to guffaw.

"I knew it," she wheezed, slapping the tips of her fingers against the counter. "I knew it! Zia, you owe me a girl's night!"

"What? How can you possibly— Oh!" Zia turned, as did every other head in the room. She took a long look at his neck. A wide, mischievous grin dimpled her cheeks. "Welcome home, Atty! It looks like your vacation agreed with you. Look at him, Adriana, he's practically glowing. "

His cheeks were hot and he couldn't tell if he was relieved by their reaction or annoyed, but none of that mattered when Carmine craned her neck to look at him.

Zia'd cut most of her hair off, leaving it a glossy, shoulder-length fall of blue-black. He couldn't say it was skillfully done, but he liked the way the ends curled around her neck and jaw, framing the delicate features of her face rather than hiding them.

And it was a thing of profound beauty, watching the way her eyes went huge and dark when they fixed on him. Almost like she didn't mean to say it, Carmine whispered, "You came back."

He was moving, but he didn't make the decision to do it. His body acted on its own, forcing him to cross the short distance between them at a pace that was by no means casual.

"'Course I did," he replied, laying one palm on Serafina's head while his other hand sought out the shorn ends of Carmine's hair. "You look so fuckin' pretty, doll."

"Language, Mr. Caldwell!" Zia snipped her scissors at him. The rose-shaped marriage sigil between her brows, the very same one Harlan sported, crinkled with displeasure. "There are impressionable young minds in the room."

He tossed the witch an apologetic smile. To think there was a time when she was scared of me.

"My bad, Mrs. Bounds. It won't happen again."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, it will."

"Probably."

"You shouldn't swear around children," Carmine told him, as prim as a schoolmistress. "It's not good for their development."

"Atty's first word was shit," Adriana chimed in, sounding far too pleased to relay that particular tidbit. "And his second was head."

Carmine's eyes, so big and blue in her face, went wide. "It was?"

Atticus shot his sister a glare. "It's what our mom called our dad. It isn't my fault I thought that was his name."

"Charming," Harlan muttered.

"It's better than Adriana's."

Carmine leaned closer and whispered, "What was Adriana's?"

Taking any opportunity to get closer to her, Atticus pressed his lips to her ear and murmured, "Piss."

A laugh, sweet and clear, bubbled out of her. Something in Atticus's chest swelled, made him straighten up and push his shoulders back. Pride. He was damn proud to have made his suspicious, wily little vampire laugh.

"Was it really?"

"No," he admitted, grinning, "it was Atty."

"That's much nicer." She hesitated a moment before whispering, "Do you really like my hair? It feels strange."

"I'm sure it does," he replied, thumbing the line of her jaw, "but it's gorgeous, doll. You're gorgeous."

Her gaze searched his for a long moment before she nodded once, decisively. "Did… Did the other thing go okay?"

Aware of Serafina's nearness — hard to miss when tiny fingers were rooting through his pockets — Atticus leaned in close again. "He's dead. You never have to worry about him or anyone else again."

Carmine sucked in a sharp breath. "Will you get in trouble?"

"Nah. Remember when I told you I was a hunter?"

"Yes."

"I didn't just find people, and I was very, very good at my job."

Carmine's expression was inscrutable when she asked, "Is that still your job?"

Do you still kill people?

He knew the question was coming. Atticus had never hidden his intentions for Junger from her, but it was one thing to hear a threat and quite another to know he'd follow through. Now she had to face the reality of what he'd been, what he was, and who he could be.

He felt a bit like they were standing on the edge of something, a perilous but unseen cliff. "No," he murmured, stomach swooping, "not unless someone I care about is threatened."

For one agonizing moment, he was certain he'd plunged off the cliff alone, but when Carmine tilted her head into his touch, he knew she'd jumped with him. "I can live with that."

Knees practically gone to jelly, he breathed, "Good."

"So… I'm free?"

Unable to resist her pull, Atticus pressed a reverent kiss to the shell of her ear. "You're free, doll."

"Thank you. For all of this. For everything." She paused, and for a moment they existed in their own tiny little world. One that was just them, just the way they looked at each other, the way gravity itself felt different when they breathed the same air. "Why didn't you tell me Adriana was like me?"

Skimming the very tips of his fingers over the jut of her chin, he answered, "That's her secret to share, not mine."

"It might have made me trust you faster if you'd told me."

"Maybe, but it still wouldn't have been right."

Carmine's lashes lowered, obscuring his view of her eyes, when she touched the back of his tattooed hand. He sucked in a breath, rocked by the feeling of her smooth skin on his scarred knuckles. "I would have trusted you faster… but I trust you more because you didn't."