Brother Blood

Chapter 12: snowflakes

I carried the bathroom rugs up from the utility room once they were clean. The rugs and towels always surprised me with their fluffiness; my favorite part of bathroom cleaning. I arranged the rugs and headed back to the living room. Aidan was vacuuming; Mel was carefully dusting around her photos, but when she saw me motioned to Aidan to turn off the vacuum.

"Will you go check on Grant?" she said. "He went out to help Casey with the bales."

I nodded, heading out into the wind. Flurries weren't sticking to the ground yet but were swirling around the yard. The guineas had retreated to their newly cleaned roost. Casey and Daria were headed back up the hill as I approached. Daria had snowflakes caught in her dark hair.

"Grant said he'd finish up," Casey said. "He...may not want help."

She glanced back at the barn and sighed. "Nothing is ever simple with this pack, is it?"

"Do you wish you were still in charge?" Daria inquired.

"Oh heavens no. But the one thing I will say in Keith's defense is that we stayed out of trouble. Ralph and Mel try, but Conor, you are trouble."

"I know," I admitted. "Thank you."

I managed a smile, passing them to get down to the barn. I could hear the falling bales as I entered, my eyes taking a moment to adjust. Grant was in the loft, tossing the small bales into the stalls. He jumped from the hayloft to land gracefully on the floor next to me.

"Hey," I said, trying to not sound startled.

"I couldn't do that before," he remarked. "I would have broken something."

I found a pair of pliers as Grant dusted himself off, handing it to him. He snapped the bands around the bale and I helped him spread the straw. It didn't take us long, but by the time we finished, the snow was starting to stick to the ground outside.

"Your father left?" I asked.

"He did," Grant said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "Says he might be back tomorrow. He wants me to sleep on it before he heads out of town. As if I could sleep. He threatened to fly my mother up here to convince me. Are you going to meet with Stefa?"

"Aidan's driving me. If I don't go, she'll come here," I pointed out. "So you're planning on staying?"

"For now," Grant replied. "If I left, you'd have to come with me. I don't like myself very much as an uncontrolled vampire. And I am...content here."

"You seem calmer than I thought you would be," I noted.

Grant let out a bitter laugh. "Not calm, terrified, Conor. You know what my first thought was when I saw my father? I wondered if I would be fast enough to sink my teeth in his neck and drain him before you could stop me. My first thought, Conor. If that doesn't make me a monster, I don't know what will. My father is telling me how amazed he is at my self-control. What self-control? Five more minutes with him and I would have killed him in your living room. He tried to touch me, hug me and I just...ran."

"So you have some control," I insisted. "You are not giving yourself enough credit. We'll get...."

"I'm losing it," Grant interrupted. "Look me in the eye, Conor, and tell me I have control."

He stared at me with his dark red eyes. I rolled my sleeve as he shook his head.

"No Conor, you can't."

I held out my arm and he pushed me away. I grabbed his shoulder, but he swept my feet out from under me. I hit the barn floor with a thud, but was able to grab his wrist to drag Grant down with me. He snarled, hopping back up to his feet. When I stood, he swung a fist that connected to my ribs with a crack. I bent over with a wheeze, though grabbed his collar before he could dart past me. He choked and I managed to swing my fist into his face. Blood from my knuckles dripped into the straw and he couldn't fight the urge to sink his teeth into my arm. It was too soon for me; I knew, but I was worried about Grant being around my pack. I would just have to be careful with Stefa tonight. My fingers spasmed when Grant released my arm, shoving me away. I fell into the straw.

"You shouldn't have done that." His voice was low and gravely. "You'll die."

"And my pack?" I coughed. "What about them? You need to hunt more. You need to stop punishing yourself. I can't keep this up, I know. But neither can you."

He reached down to help me to my feet. My knees wobbled and barely supported me; I had to wrap an arm around his shoulders as we made our way back to the house. The world around us was white, clean and cold. Blood dripped down my arm, marring the first snow of the season. Aidan met us just as we made it to the garden.

"We should head out soon if we want to make eight o'clock," Aidan told me. "Did you two get into a fight?"

"With each other. We're fine," I promised. "You have the keys?"

"Check in with Mel first and we're going," he replied.

I nodded, removing my arm from around Grant. I rolled my sleeve down my arm to hide the blood and headed into the house. In the kitchen I grabbed a pack of lunchmeat and a couple bottles of water before waving at Mel. She didn't let me get away so easily.

"Aidan has my cell," Mel said. "You have an hour at this coffee shop before he's been instructed to bring you home. Do not fight him, Conor, got that?"

I nodded and ducked out of the house before she noticed how pale and lightheaded I was. Aidan was in the truck. Grant got the door for me and hopped in before I could protest. Aidan started the truck and we headed down the road shortly. I downed two water bottles and ate the lunchmeat, trying to take the edge off my dizziness. Aidan glanced at me with some concern.

"Grant, you two didn't really fight, did you?" he questioned.

"I wouldn't drink his blood."

"You are crazy," Aidan snorted. "Look. You two don't have to be the special snowflakes of the pack. There isn't a competition. Part of being in a pack is being part of a family, a team who tells each other things. I don't know what the two of you learned at the Hunters' School for Lost Boys, but you will get each other killed. You'll get us killed. Do you hear me?"

"I thought you were the chill one," Grant remarked.

"I am the chill one. But the others keep their distance because their self-preservation is better than mine. So start talking. What should I expect out of Stefa? All I know is that she's scary, and Conor is in love with her."

"She's the one who finally turned me," Grant supplied. "Hunters captured her almost a year ago. Even so, Conor knows her the best. She confided in him."

Aidan waited for me to speak. I knew that I couldn't avoid the subject; I would be talking to her myself in an hour.

"She was a clan leader in the Midwest," I said. "She was betrayed by the other leaders to protect their own clans. She'd look out for the younger vampires when we were being tortured. When the facility started making me fight vampires, she told them to go easy on me or she'd kill them. I didn't know about that until later. She grew up in Indiana and lost her brother to the Vietnam War. She was turned sometime after college; she didn't talk about it much."

"How old is she?" Grant inquired.

"She was born in 1952," I answered. "In her sixties, I guess. She doesn't look much older than we do."

"No offense, Conor, but she doesn't sound like your type," Aidan remarked. "You and Katie, that I could see. You and this Stefa? Not so much."

Grant laughed. "Wait, Katie and Conor were..."

"Not together, not really," Aidan explained. "Not for lack of effort; Katie pursued, but then Conor vanished. And she and Brian are... perfect for each other. You know how it is."

"Mates are a weird concept," Grant shrugged. "Humans are barely monogamous and they only live eighty years. We could live forever. What makes being bitten so different?"

"Wolves mate for life," I offered. "Maybe it's that."

"Maybe," Aidan allowed. "Being a wolf doesn't explain the silver or the full moon. I think it's just one of those weird things. Are vampires monogamous?"

"No idea," Grant laughed. "But I'll let you know when I find out." 

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Conor has a hero complex, I think. Sometimes he acts like an alpha, even though he's not.