“So who are we recruiting?” Leon asked.
“Let’s bring Caleb,” I decided.
“Yes – I love Caleb! And he’s your sanguis frater now too, right?” he cooed, turning to me and reaching out to brush his thumb over the pinprick silver marks on my neck.
“Yeah.” I batted his hand away. “Gabriel told you?”
“Yup. But he says I’m not to keep going on about how cool it is because Vampire covens are bad and if I make it sound too cool then other Vampires might get ideas about joining up which apparently isn’t a good thing – but I have to wonder if he’s right about that, because it seems kinda like a good thing to me and I want my favourite Vampire to have all the good things.”
“It’s against the Vampire Code for a reason,” I said, knowing that was the truth even though I couldn’t say I hated it so far. “There are issues with pack hunting and bloodlust and-”
“Those sound like good things to me, shamesy. Maybe Caleb will agree and we can get you a new recruit. Let’s go find him!” he ran off down the passage and I shot forward, picking him up and throwing him over my shoulder as I raced towards the royal quarters while Leon whooped.
I placed him down outside Caleb’s room and rapped my knuckles on the door. It opened and Caleb beamed as he spotted me.
“Sanguis frater!” he cried excitedly and we hugged. “Did you watch that documentary on that blood river in eastern Voldrakia I told you about?”
“Yeah,” I said as we released each other. “It got me so thirsty, I had to wake Darcy up to feed from her.”
“Yeah, that shit got me so thirsty too. I knew I was gonna feed on the next person I saw until I bumped into Washer,” Caleb said, wrinkling his nose.
“Ergh, Nova made me feed from him once for a class demonstration,” I said in disgust. “He ground himself all over me and my fangs wouldn’t extend again for a week.”
“Shit, he gave you fang fear?” Caleb gasped.
“Massively,” I said and Caleb turned to Leon, hugging him too.
“Oh, I bet fang fear is the worst,” Leon said sadly. “Lions get mane fear if someone touches our hair without permission. It happened to me once…I’ve never really gotten over it.” He shuddered and Caleb pressed a hand to his arm.
“That must have been awful,” he said as Leon nodded sadly then Seth suddenly popped his head out from under Caleb’s arm through the door.
“I got pube fear once when someone got their pubes tangled with mine while we were going at it. It. Was. Awful,” he said, smiling as he looked around at us all to join in.
“That’s not the same at all,” I said irritably and Seth whimpered, looking to Caleb.
“Yeah, you can’t compare those things, man. It’s actually kind of insulting,” Caleb said with a frown.
“Actually you can,” Leon jumped in. “I once got my pubes tangled in a lot of cutlery, and now I can’t even have a spoon down there without getting pube fear.”
“How the hell did you get cutlery tangled down there?” I asked I confusion.
“Were you playing chip-chop pube?” Seth asked knowingly.
“Exactly, dude!” Leon cried. “Do you know how many people act like they don’t even know what chip-chop pube is? It’s a classic game.”
“A classic game involving pubes and cutlery?” I scoffed, folding my arms.
“What are the rules?” Caleb asked in amusement.
“You have to see how much cutlery you can hang from your pubes,” Leon explained.
“It only counts if it stays hanging for more than ten seconds,” Seth added.
“What, so…your dicks are just out while you play in front of other people?” I asked, unsure why I was curious about this game because I definitely didn’t plan on giving it a whirl.
“Yup,” they said at the same time and I looked between them as they grinned at each other, sensing the two of them together would be like mixing two very explosive potions in the same cauldron. They were both just so…peppy.
“So shall we go?” I asked and Leon looked to me.
“Yes! Let’s go on an adventure,” Leon said brightly.
“Ooh, what adventure?” Seth asked, padding closer to us eagerly.
Leon explained as we followed him down the passage towards the exit and we were soon outside, the summer sun shining down on the bright green grass, daisies and dandelions popping up everywhere.