Useless as a mage, Silvia Copse finds herself so upset that she goes and gets black out drunk at the bar. So drunk that she can't tell up from down, she picks up a man with red eyes, white hair, and skin of ice.
What does a useless mage do when the...
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Silvia stared at all her boxes piled up and sighed as Alec brought the last of them to the stack and collapsed on the carpet. They'd been packing all yesterday and this afternoon, and she had to be out by the morning. Like hell she was cleaning the carpets and painting. She'd barely lived here, spending all her time in the mage complex. The place was as pristine as the day she'd moved in, though granted, a tiny shack that was half the size of Neil's fancy high-rise apartment.
"I'm sorry I can't offer you a place without your dad knowing." Alec bowed his head as he sat on one of the boxes with a six pack of his favorite soda. With the dim lights, his sandy hair almost looked brown, but his blue eyes always glittered with a youthful brightness. She wondered the last time she looked that happy.
"Yeah, you live with Ty, and I doubt my father's general would lack to mention my tenancy." The last thing Silvia needed was her father breathing down her neck about her horribly she was doing on her own. It was hard enough to get away from protective parents when kids did well.
Both her and Alec were born in the battlegrounds, and her father had been reluctant to part with her, but also understood he had to for her safety. Alec had never lived there, not after his parents had passed away in an ambush barely after he'd been born. At least she had a parent left. Most mages were missing at least one.
"Where are you going to go?" Alec asked with genuine concern as he opened up his soda. She loved how much Alec really cared. They'd been besties since kindergarten, when Alec had clung to the only other Copse in class.
"I was thinking of living with a vampire. You think that would fly?"
Alec spit his drink all over himself. "Please tell me you're joking about defecting, Silvia." Alec frowned, not amused.
"Not defecting. He has an apartment around here and offered to let me stay in it, no strings attached. The guy sleeps during the day and spends most nights in the battlegrounds, so it's nearly vacant. Is it a conflict of interest if I live with a vampire?"
"Yes, Silvia." Alec groaned. "I thought you were joking. What vampire offered you a place to say?"
"The one I picked up while so plastered at a bar that I couldn't tell a vampire from a cactus."
Alec blanked at her. His expression fell to disbelief, a brief moment or horror, and then he tightened every muscle in his body. Despite trying his best, Alec couldn't stop the laughter that poured out of him.
"You drunk picked up a vampire?" Alec had to put his drink down so he didn't spit all over himself again. "And he still tolerates you after all that. Your dad's brain would fry if you told him that."
"Yeah, I'm not telling him," Silvia threatened, and Alec bowed his head to concede.
"Silvia, we've been friends since I was a toddler. I'm not tattling on you." Alec paused, plucking at the tab on his pop can as he worked up enough courage to say what he was thinking. "He really wouldn't sleep with you?" Alec snickered, and she shoved him off his box.
