Page 59 of Wolfgang
“Killing my mother would upset me.” Eric spoke slowly, as if to drive the point home. Like Wolfe was some kind of simpleton.
“I’ll think of something.” At Eric’s suspicious look, Wolfe sniffed. “Somethingelse, I suppose.”
Wolfe moved to the vanity, combing his hair back into place. He’d simply have to work within the bounds of Eric’s ridiculous sentimentality. He didn’t want to know what the consequences of offing one of Eric’s family members would be, especially after being asked so deliberately not to. Separate bedrooms? Separatehouses?
Eric seemed to take him at his word and left it at that. Wolfe watched him through the mirror as he sat up and donned the robe Wolfe had left for him, leaving it untied, much to Wolfe’s delight.
“What aboutyourfamily?” Eric asked, after a minute.
“They’re long dead, darling.”
A pregnant pause.
Wolfe turned from the vanity with an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t kill them.”
Eric nodded, his belief in Wolfe’s words clear on his face. “But you didn’t love them.”
“I didn’t. And as far as I know, the feeling was mutual.” Wolfe went to work picking their discarded clothing up from the floor, setting each item in the hamper. It wouldn’t do to start acting slovenly now. “They knew something was wrong with me very early on; they set up strict punishments from the beginning. Trying to prevent public embarrassment, I suppose. I quickly learned the importance of minding consequences, so I suppose I should be grateful for that lesson. And then they lost our fortune after the war, lost what was rightfully mine, what I had worked so hard to be respectable enough to earn, and I had little use for them after that.”
“And then you turned, and it all went wrong,” Eric said softly.
Was that what Eric thought? Wolfe suppressed a laugh. “Iaskedto be turned, pet.”
“What?”
Wolfe strode back to the bed, pleased when Eric leaned against him, his head nuzzling into Wolfe’s stomach, his arms draped casually over Wolfe’s hips. “I found a fated pair. I saw what they had: immortality, eternal youth, the power to do what they pleased when they pleased. And, I suppose, each other. I wanted it.”
“And the drinking blood thing didn’t dissuade you at all?” Eric mumbled the question into Wolfe’s robe.
“It did not.”
Eric huffed, his warm breath tickling what skin it could reach. “You’re really one of a kind, did you know that?”
“Of course.” Wolfe smoothed a hand over his mate’s hair.
“Jesus.” Eric started laughing, a deep, husky, delighted sound. He’d laughed in Wolfe’s presence before, of course—in disbelief, in surprise, in release—but this was different. Relaxed and joyful and so lovely it hurt.
All that would have been ruined, Wolfe was sure of it, if the mother had been allowed to speak with him.
Eric’s chuckles tapered off, but he didn’t release Wolfe from his grasp. “When you turned, did you see your parents again?”
So inquisitive today. No matter. Wolfe didn’t mind answering his questions, if it kept him so content. “I did not. I changed my surname, and I fled.”
Eric tilted his head to peer up at him. “Am I going to have to fake my death or something? When I don’t age.”
“It depends on how hard people will look for you. How much they care. Otherwise, you could simply disappear.”
Eric pursed his lips as he thought. “She’d try to find me, I think, out of a need for control more than anything else.”
“Then we’ll kill human Eric.”
“That’ll be kind of cool, right?” Eric’s smile was surprisingly loose and easy for the topic at hand. “Starting fresh, I mean. Although, I guess I couldn’t be a doctor anymore.”
Eric could be anything the fuck he wanted. Wolfe would make sure of it.
“There are ways, darling. Forged documents. Compulsion. You can be what you wish.”
But Eric wasn’t listening, too lost in his own thoughts. “I could move more to research, maybe.”
