Daniel Jacobson-Lupei awoke to the loud crashing of thunder. He was not afraid of thunder—he liked it, and the smell of the rain was cool and refreshing as it wafted across his bed from the open window. He was nice and warm, because Vasile was snuggled up next to him, his arm draped across Daniel’s bare stomach.

Daniel gazed fondly into the face he loved, the glow of the pink Himalayan salt rock night light illuminating it in the dark of the tempestuous night. They’d made love before falling asleep, he remembered. He remembered lots of things now that he had Vasile. It was always easier to think after Vasile had fed from him, and he’d done so this night. Daniel lightly touched his arm, where Vasile’s fangs had entered his brachial artery, but there weren’t even any scabs to mark the location. Just a faint tingling and a super hot memory. It made Daniel’s rim tingle and his soft cock twitch.

He was fascinated by Vasile’s fangs. They weren’t like fangs from TV show or movie vampires. No. They were like viper or cobra or rattler fangs—long and thin and slightly curved, and they folded up into his mouth when he wasn’t using them. Daniel could remember that Vasile had described how they worked—that they were hollow and connected to some sort of sinus thingy with some sort of venom, but not venom, and when he made the blood drinking holes in Daniel’s body, he also injected that venom stuff into him, and that’s what made the orgasms and the clearer thinking.

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Daniel hadn’t seen a snake like that up close. He knew people milked snakes to make anti-venom. Could he milk Vasile to make a deadly poison? That would probably be wrong, because there was no reason to make poison except to hurt people. Or maybe to kill predators that came into the chicken houses, like weasels.

Daniel suddenly had a FANTASTIC idea. Oh, it was so good. His muscles all clenched, and he gave a happy shiver of excitement, almost screaming at how good the idea was, except that would wake Vasile. Daniel now knew that he talked too loud sometimes, so he was trying to remember to be careful, even though he couldn’t always.

He slid out from under Vasile’s arm and carefully tiptoed to the dresser that held his clothes, remembering that Vasile got stern when Daniel didn’t wear “proper clothing” for going out. He stared into the drawer and tried to remember how to assemble “proper clothing.” Socks were good, so he put on a thick pair. What else…?

Pants! Last time he didn’t wear pants, Vasile had spanked him. But just for fun. It was sexy, not painful. Maybe he should skip the pants so Vasile would spank him again. A quick glance at the open window reminded him the night was a little chilly, so he decided pants were probably wise, and he didn’t want people to see him make unwise decisions and treat him like a child again. So, he slid on a pair of loose, comfy pants that had pictures of watermelons on them and were nice for being cozy around the house.

Finally, dressed in socks, flip flops, watermelon pajama pants, tank-top, dinosaur-print necktie, and a bright yellow rain hat, Daniel felt properly attired to carry out his plan. What was he going to do again? He stared at the front door, where he had ended up, trying to remember why he was going out.

Go back to bed, Daniel. That’s what you were going to do.

“No, it was some-something else. You can’t trick, can’t trick me. I know you, you wolf. You think you’re, you’re in charge, but you’re not. You’re NOT.”

Only because I can’t get your scruff between my teeth, since we’re knit together as one, you imp. Wait until Vasile catches you out of bed. I’ll insist he punish you.

“Lies! Liar. You can’t, you can’t tell him anything I don’t want you to. Now, tell me the plan!”

Daniel was beginning to be angry. These days, since a shift around Christmas that had done something to his brain, he didn’t have a lot of patience with things not going his way, and when his mind refused to remember something he wanted to remember, that was the worst. He sullenly kicked at the rag rug in front of the door and quietly thumped his head against the front door, trying to knock the memory loose.

Stop that, Daniel. Your head is disorganized enough without you rattling your brain cells all over the place.

“Tell me,” Daniel said, with a distinct pout.

No.

A particularly hard thunk to his forehead made him wince, but he’d show that darn wolf.

Daniel, the wolf spirit said warningly in his mind.

Thunk.

Stop it.

Thunk.

You’re going to wake Vasile with this racket, and he’ll stop this ludicrous snake hunt—eep!

“Right! I-I-I remember! Thank you, wolf,” Daniel said with a grin, flinging open the door and marching into the stormy night, and air of purpose in his step.

*****

The alarm tone on his phone pulled Vasile out of a very confusing dream about hiking through the rain and wrestling giant anacondas in the jungles of Philadelphia.

“Apparently my subconscious needs both geography and herpatology lessons,” he muttered to himself, stretching to feel the delicious stretch of his well-nourished muscles. Having fed from his Beloved the night before, he was feeling vital and energetic, ready to take on the world. Or, just a long day of filling mail-order herb shipments for Susilauma Herbal with his brother- and sister-in-law. That was the nice thing about the set-up here at Susilauma: the togetherness. While some of the family had moved away, and a couple had work off the farm, most of them lived and worked together, spending their lives in close-knit familial community. It was one of the healthiest ways to live, he thought, and rare in this modern age.

It occurred to him that he didn’t hear Daniel knocking about in the kitchen, as he usually did if he woke up alone. Either Daniel slept through the alarm, and Vasile had to waken him with many kisses, long past the point when Daniel was awake and only pretending he couldn’t get up so as to get even more kisses, or the darling man would be up with the birds, making elaborate breakfasts, or doing other domestic tasks, or—more rarely these days—disappearing to visit a sibling at a nearby cabin.

Vasile did the necessaries, and ventured into the kitchen, dressed, shaved, and ready for action. Sure enough, the front door was wide open, and chilly air, freshened by the previous night’s thunder storm, gusted in to ruffle the pages of the book left on the table, which Vasile had been reading aloud to Daniel the night before. A battered copy of Swallows and Amazons he’d picked up in a used book store by Carbondale. He’d found that if he read at just the right speed—not to slowly, not too quickly—Daniel could follow the plot without losing track of the action. He still had trouble with movies, conversations, and reading to himself, but this was something they enjoyed together now.

“One of those days, I see,” Vasile said, smiling indulgently, taking his light jacket off the hook, closing the door behind him, and heading for his first port of call.

Jeremy and Rob hadn’t seen him, which was surprising. This was usually where he’d be, though he did occasionally go to the Big House to see Frank. Oh well, Vasile could grab a bit of breakfast with the family and enjoy it with his Beloved before work.

Except Daniel wasn’t at the Big House, either. Vasile furrowed his brow and pulled out his cell phone, scrolling through his text conversations and locating the family group chat, sending out a quick text to everybody.

Daniel MIA. Anybody got him? – V

After hearing back from everyone that nobody had seen him, Vasile had to force himself to keep a tight reign on his panic.

“Okay. Let’s be methodical about this,” Frank said, squeezing Vasile’s shoulder and trying to keep his own obvious concern off his face. “I’ll let the wolverine contingent know we’re missing our special boy. Quentin, go check the south greenhouse, since nobody’s there yet. Jenna, take a quad and canvas the market gardens. I’ll text Rob and Jeremy to shift and check his favorite spots in the woods. Nick already said he’s not in the horse barn, and the Triplets would have seen him with the goats. My love, why don’t you check the whole house, in case he’s—I don’t know—unearthing GI Joe figurines in the crawlspace or something.”

“Of course, darling,” Patty said, vanishing down to the basement.

“I don’t want you to have to shift, Vasile, since I know it’s painful for you, so we’ll do the sniffing around,” Frank said, referring to Vasile’s nature as a pricolici—Romanian vampires that could change into wolves. It wasn’t like a shifter, who shared an animal spirit that would painlessly take over. His changes were bone-breaking and excruciating.

“I appreciate it,” Vasile said, wryly. When he got his hands on his Beloved…well, he’d get his hands all over him, checking for injuries, and then making him squeal as Vasile brought him pleasure over and over, keeping him too busy to go wandering off on his own. Vasile shook his head in fond exasperation.

“We really must put a tracker on that man,” he said, only half meaning it.

“Oh! We’re so stupid. Did he take his phone? Check out the Life360 app,” Frank said, whipping his own phone out to do as he suggested.

They both checked, but the phone was stationary at Vasile and Daniel’s cabin. “Rats.”

“Well, I’ll get someone to stay at our place in case he comes home, and try to track the general direction of our empathic link. I wish it were more like a homing beacon, but what can you do? He’s not afraid right now at least, but I keep getting odd flashes of forest floors, and he feels very determined. I can tell he’s looking for something, but I can’t imagine what it could be,” Vasile said, his eyes going fully black as he focused all his Vampire senses on his Beloved. “I just thought he had a bee in his bonnet about work, until I realized he was nowhere at home.”

“Yes, the link is a nice bonus, but it’s not perfect. Take your phone and let us know if you find him. We’ll call if he shows up, or if Jeremy and Rob find him.”

“Right. Wish me luck.” With that, Vasile jogged off in the direction from which came the vague mental pulses of the empathic connection forged through his and Daniel’s True Mate/Beloved bond, established through blood, shared body fluids, and a destiny designed by the universe to bring and hold them together.

*****

Daniel was beginning to wonder if he was going the right way. He was quite sure that venomous snakes lived in jungles, and a forest was very nearly a jungle, but he’d been hiking for some time, and hadn’t found a single black mamba or python or anaconda or diamondback.

The rain no longer sluiced off his hat and down his back, but his socks had quickly become far too soggy and frigid once he stepped out into the rain, so he’d abandoned them a ways back, though he’d kept his flip-flops on a while longer. However, the toe thingy had popped out of the sole part of the left shoe after perhaps the second hour, and he’d been barefoot ever since. His feet were cold and scratched, but he didn’t let that bother him. He had other things to focus on, his eyes riveted to the thick leaf cover of the forest floor, looking for any sign of movement that could be a snake.

Why oh why are you so focused on finding a snake? Wolf asked. We could just get someone to drive us to the nearest pet store and buy a nice captive-bred one.

“Vasile wants it,” Daniel insisted, “And pet stores don’t, don’t sell the poison—the venomous kind.”

Vasile never said anything of the sort. This was all your idea, and it’s a silly one. Shift, and let me take us home. You’ll never find the way on your own.

“No! I told Vasile I’d get him a snake so he could, he could, he could refill his fangs, and he’s counting on, on me.”

Daniel, wolf’s tone was gentler. That’s not a real memory. You just got an idea to find a snake and decided to do it. You left Vasile in bed, and he’ll be wondering where you are by now. Look how high the sun is. It must be close to lunch time by now. Do you want him to worry?

“He can worry, but he’ll be, he’ll be glad when I find, when I get one for him,” Daniel said, digging in his proverbial heels, and refusing to believe that he’d just made everything up.

But listen to the mating bond, Daniel. Vasile is concerned.

“Not, not a LOT though,” Daniel said defensively as he clambered over a fallen tree, tearing his watermelon pants and scraping his inner thigh. His left leg was aching at the hip joint and ankle, where his uneven gait put the most pressure, but he soldiered on.

Plus, you just walked through poison ivy with bare feet. Why don’t you shift and let me take us home?

“I told, I told, I TOLD you that we can’t go back, go home until we find one,” Daniel said.

Daniel’s wolf knew, if Daniel didn’t, that Daniel suffered from obsessive tendencies, brought on by the damage to his brain, especially now that some of his short-term memory had minimally improved. The wolf, who steadfastly worked at repairing the injuries, had been unable to find the source of the problem, and had clearly not gotten to the responsible section of brain yet. This need to track down a snake had nothing to do with his rational mind, and everything to do with being locked into a compulsion and unable to break out on his own. He needed outside intervention and redirection, but there was nobody around to give it except the wolf spirit, and he had been thoroughly ignored.

“I see one!” Daniel suddenly cried, launching himself through the air and landing heavily on his stomach, pinning a frantically fleeing snake with his upper body and arms, with no concern for the fact that if it was, indeed, a venomous type of snake, it could easily turn back along its own body and give him a very dangerous bite.

As it was, it did bite him, but its teeth only barely broke the skin of his forearm where it latched on. With a crow of triumph, Daniel sat back on his heels, gripping the snake tightly in his hands while it thrashed and wriggled.

“This is, is a brown snake, probably.”

The fact was, Daniel didn’t really know much about snakes, even before his injuries. He’d watched a few episodes of The Crocodile Hunter when it was popular, and he’d seen plenty of snakes in the gardens, and had known from his youth that he needed to be careful of copperheads, cotton mouths, and timber rattlers in their region, but the codex of his memory was more than a little scrambled, so he just pulled a name out of the pool of snake names available to him. The important thing was that he’d caught one.

“Whatcha doin’ there, fellah?” came a lazy drawl.

Daniel turned to find the speaker. A large naked man stood maybe ten feet away, gazing at Daniel with calm, mystified interest. He was tall and bulky in a way that said “shifter” to Daniel’s eye, and the man’s musky scent confirmed it to Daniel’s wolf. His hair was gray, but his chiseled face was smooth and free of signs of age. That was also an indication of a shifter, though Daniel wasn’t certain what kind. He sniffed the air deliberately, but didn’t get any hint of wolf, and couldn’t identify the species.

Daniel held out the snake—its teeth still sunk into his arm, body flopping in all directions—and grinned triumphantly.

“I caught, I found a cobra for, to give to Vasile,” he bragged.

“Oh yeah? Ain’t seen many of them around. Thought they was native to India, if Kipling is to be believed. But what could he know? You must be an expert snake tracker to find one o’ them kinds ‘round here.”

Daniel preened and stood up. “Yes, I am. I’m the, I’m probably the best in the, in the world.”

“Wouldn’t doubt it. Wouldn’t doubt it. Nice tie, by the way.” The stranger stared, as if trying to recall something, when suddenly his expression cleared, and he smiled gently and wandered closer, lessening the gap between them.

“You one of them Susilauma boys?”

“Not a, not a boy. I’m an adult, a grown-up. I have a degree.” Daniel said, suddenly sullen.

“No offense meant. Got a degree in snakes?”

“Agriculture.”

“Makes sense, with your clan farming like you do. You know who I am?”

“No.” Daniel shoved the snake in his pajama pants pocket, then grabbed it again when it tried to make an immediate escape.

“Didn’t reckon so. We ain’t rightly met in person, but I’ve heard of you, I’m thinkin’. I’m Andrew Meyer.”

“My brother, I have a brother, a doctor brother named Andrew!” Daniel said, face lighting up. He reached out to pull the man into a one-armed hug, keeping the struggling snake in his other hand, and lifted his chin to kiss the shifter’s jaw several times.

Andrew put his warm arms around Daniel, and began rubbing his upper arms.

“Boy, you are freezing. How long you been out here?”

“Not a boy, I said,” Daniel growled.

“Right, right. I’ll be more careful. You been snake hunting long?”

“No, nope. Just today, just since the rain.”

“It stopped raining about four this morning,” Andrew muttered to himself. “You’re a long way from Susilauma. ‘Bout twelve miles or so, mebbe. What’s your name?”

“Daniel.”

“Yeah, I thought as much. Heard through the grapevine you’d been…well, it don’t matter. Come on back to my house, and we’ll get a box for your snake so you can take it home, then I’ll give you a lift.”

“I can, I can just walk,” Daniel said, not because he didn’t want to go with Andrew—any shifter named Andrew had to be trustworthy, after all—but because he was in a hurry to return to Vasile now that he had his prize.

“Faster if I drive. Reckon you’re anxious to get home,” Andrew said.

“Oh! Yeah, okay. Yeah, a ride. I’ll get a box and ride,” now that he thought of it, his legs and feet were pretty sore.

“Sweet. My clothes’re over there a ways, and my car ain’t far. I was just runnin’ as my animal, enjoying the clean smell after the rain. We can be at my house in fifteen minutes.”

Daniel followed the other shifter through the woods until they reached a plastic grocery bag that held some jeans, underwear, a sweatshirt, socks, boots, a wallet, and a set of keys. Andrew hurried into the clothes, and hustled Daniel toward his car, waiting not far beyond in one of the many lots for tourist cars in the vast parkland.

Andrew turned the heater on full blast. Shifters ran hotter than human folks, but this boy…man…had been out in freezing weather for hours. Daniel’s toes and fingers were tinged a bit blue at the tips, and his face was flushed. He could do with a shift, once Andrew got him home and called his family. Daniel was beginning to look drowsy, but Andrew didn’t want him to sleep until he was sure hypothermia wasn’t an issue.

“You got a mate, don’t ya? I thought I heard that.”

“Vasile. He’s my, he’s my True Mate and I’m, I’m his Beloved. He’s a vampire. Vasile is,” Daniel proudly explained.

“Oh, that’s nice. An interspecies mating. Good for paranormal relations, I guess. You’re a good example for all of us,” Andrew said smoothly.

“Yes!” Daniel agreed, pleased. “And we sell herbs.”

They kept up the conversation until they arrived at Andrew’s house, where he invited Daniel in, gave him an empty plastic butter tub with holes punched in the lid for his snake, wrapped him in a blanket, and gave him a mug of hot instant coffee. He’d have given him dry clothes, but shifters don’t like their mates smelling like other people, and Andrew wasn’t certain if that unwritten rule applied to vampires, so he just cranked up the heat in his house and got on the internet to find the phone number he needed.

*****

Vasile was glad he’d fed from Daniel the night before, because even he would be getting tired after so much hiking had he not. He could probably go a few more hours before his muscles started to burn, but he didn’t think he’d have to. His empathic link had recently informed him that Daniel was feeling celebratory and pleased with himself, so he wasn’t worried in that regard. He was a little nervous about the fact that he could sense that Daniel wasn’t alone, but he could just as likely have been picked up by the police as anybody else.

Aside from the link, Vasile had encountered a discarded sock and, later, a broken flip-flop. Both Daniel’s. His darling had come this way. All he had to do was keep going, and he’d get to him sooner or later. He stuffed his hands in his coat pocket and pulled out his phone to check the time.

As he turned up the screen to look, the phone rang and vibrated in his hand, startling him so that he fumbled it a few times before he caught it and answered it.

“Vasile.”

“It’s twelve seventeen PM. Do you know where your mate is?” a teasing voice came over the line.

“You know I don’t, Brenda. Just tell me please.”

“Some guy named Andrew Meyer from over in Stonewall called. He found Daniel near a campground or something, and brought him back to his house. I’m not clear on the details. His address is on White Oak Street. Are you anywhere near there?”

Vasile pulled up a map on his phone and located Stonewall. “Good grief, how far did Daniel walk last night? What time did he even start? He must have gone at least twelve miles if he was close enough to a shifter from Stonewall. If I run, I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“Okay, I’ll let Mr. Meyer know you’re on your way and to hang on to Daniel. If you weren’t close, Dad was gonna drive over there and get him.”

“I’ll handle it. Thanks, dear.”

“You’re welcome, hon. See you when you guys get back. We’ve got the herb stuff handled for the day.”

Vasile turned in the necessary direction and took off. He didn’t have lightning speed like some fantasy novel vampires, but he was incredibly swift, and he was tireless, especially when regularly fed on the blood of his Beloved. He easily maneuvered around trees, bracken, and forest debris. Once he reached the edge of the woods to break out into farmland, he located the main road into the town of Stonewall and ran along it at roughly forty miles per hour, listening closely for traffic, for which he would slow down to a brisk jog. Only one car passed him before he reached the town, crossed some railroad tracks, and found White Oak Street.

There was an equal distribution of trailers and houses in the town, many with sheds and outbuildings behind them, but Andrew Meyer’s address was a small, metal-roofed cottage with green siding and a well-kept lawn under old-growth spruce trees. The property next door looked like it probably housed a private daycare, if the roughly four billion plastic toys and multiple swing sets were any indication.

He sent a quick text to the family chat loop to let them know he’d arrived. When he rang the doorbell, he should have known what to expect, but he was still nearly knocked off his feet when Daniel exploded out the front door and barreled into Vasile’s arms.

“I found, I found it, Vasile! I caught one! I got it, I got it for you!” he exclaimed, practically vibrating with excitement.

Vasile took a brief moment to take in his Beloved: the bare, scratched feet, the torn pajamas, the inappropriate clothes for the weather, and the charming, boyish excitement. He tamped down the protective instincts that would have him fussing, not keen to dampen Daniel’s genuine pleasure. It wouldn’t serve to bring up to Daniel that he shouldn’t have wandered off at all. He wouldn’t be able to make the mental shift, yet. Vasile would have to bring it up later.

“What did you find, darling?” he nuzzled Daniel’s neck, assuring himself that, apart from a few scrapes and maybe a chill, his Beloved was well.

“The snake,” Daniel said, as if Vasile should have known.

“Ah, yes. Of course. Well…uh…very well done, love. I’m proud of you.”

Daniel grinned, “Come see it.”

He tugged Vasile over the threshold, and it was only then that the vampire noticed their host. He reached out to shake to the man’s hand, and found sparkling gray eyes smiling back at him. The man was very obviously a shifter. They just had a certain look and presence, even to those paranormals that couldn’t smell them.

“Good afternoon. I’m Vasile Jacobson-Lupei. I apologize for intruding, and thank you for your generous hospitality. To both of us,” he added, meaningfully.

“Andrew Meyer. It weren’t no trouble. Daniel and I were just about to have us some lunch. Care to join us?”

Before Vasile could answer, there was a flurry of movement at the edge of his vision, and a sudden sharp, prickling pinch of pain just under his right eye. He jerked back, but the source of the pain remained attached to his cheek.

“Whoa there. Hold still, fellah. You seem,” Andrew stepped in close and cleared his throat, unsuccessfully suppressing a chuckle, “you seem to have a garter snake stuck to your face.”

Of all the sentences Vasile might have predicted he’d hear in a life that would span centuries, he would never have anticipated that one. Andrew delicately extracted the tiny, needle-sharp teeth from Vasile’s flesh, and Vasile was glad the man was a shifter, as it would be difficult to explain away the complete lack of wound once he’d brushed off the small droplets of blood. Such a tiny injury would close up more or less instantly.

“I got it for, for you Vasile. Just like, just like you said, like you wanted.”

Andrew popped the snake into a plastic spreadable butter container and handed it ceremoniously to Vasile, even adding a slight bow.

“Your man here looked pretty long and hard for that snake. Must have been something pretty important to you,” Andrew said, eyebrow raised in curiosity.

“Yes, it must have been,” Vasile said, not a bit less confused. “Thank you, Daniel. I don’t deserve you.” He kissed Daniel’s temple. “Darling, you should shift. Why don’t you go take off your wet clothes? I don’t suppose we could trouble you for something warm for Daniel to wear home, Mr. Meyer? We’ll return it cleaned, of course.”

“Just call me Andy. Daniel says he’s got a brother Andrew—that’s liable to be confusing. Let me grab something t’ wear. Don’t know as I have much that’ll fit him.”

Apparently vampires didn’t care about that sort of thing after all. Andy had to dig deep in the back of his closet to find something that would fit the much shorter and slighter shifter. When Andy returned from his bedroom, Vasile was seated on the living room carpet, and Daniel was a long-legged black, brown, and silver wolf, that was busily rubbing his body all over Vasile, rolling onto his back, and wiggling like a puppy. When Andy spoke, the eyes that peered at him from the wolf’s intense face were strikingly intelligent and vividly green.

“I got some gym shorts that have been tight on me longer’n I remember, so these might work, and they’d be long on him. These wool socks are tall enough to tuck the shorts into, and Daniel can just keep this sweatshirt,” Andy said, holding out the tidy stack.

Daniel immediately shifted and snatched the clothes before Vasile could take them, mooning both the other men spectacularly as he leaned his forehead against the arm of the overstuffed couch to keep his balance while he stepped into the shorts. At least Vasile got a clear view of how his injuries were healed.

“These fit,” he announced before flopping down onto the couch cushions to pull the socks up his calves.

“Good to hear,” Andy said, once again trying to stifle a laugh.

Vasile gave him a wry grin. “Welcome to my daily life.”

“Bet you wouldn’t change it for anything, though,” the shifter said.

“Not on your life. Daniel is my heart and soul.”

Daniel stomped across the room like he had a plan, practically swimming in the hooded Myrtle Beach sweatshirt, and Vasile’s heart clenched, hoping it wasn’t another unexplainable mission he’d have to intercept. “Where are you going, darling?”

Daniel turned and looked at him like he was completely dense. “Lunch.”

This time, Andy laughed out loud. “I did promise lunch, and it’s mostly ready, ‘cept I turned the heat off on the stove when the phone rang. Just some leftover squash soup, cheese, and crackers. I figured we’d want something hot and fast.”

“You figured, figured right,” Daniel said, passing through a doorway and plunking down at the kitchen table visible through it, and picking up his spoon in anticipation.

“Daniel,” Vasile said, managing to sound mildly exasperated. “Manners.”

“Oh. Right. It was nice, thank you for inviting, having us to lunch, Andrew, not my brother. Vasile likes tea, but he’ll drink, he can drink coffee.”

“A pleasure. While we eat, maybe you can tell me about why you needed to go snake hunting in the rain. I bet your True Mate wants to hear the story of your epic adventure, too.”

“He does,” Daniel said with confidence, flashing a megawatt smile at Vasile, and beckoning him to sit in the seat adjacent to his at the round, four-seater table.

While they ate soup and cheesed crackers, Daniel—with prompts from his wolf that he sometimes repeated out loud—told a very vague and unfollowable tale of bravery and cunning that basically confirmed Vasile’s suspicions that Daniel had been tromping through the rain and cold most of the night and half the day with no clear reason except that he thought he had to catch a venomous snake for Vasile. It was a physical effort for Vasile not to pull Daniel into his lap and clutch him tightly. When he thought of that gorgeous boy pressing on as he shivered in soggy pajama pants for Vasile’s sake…it was too much to bear. He settled for holding Daniel’s hand, until he got shaken off so Daniel could cut some Colby jack to put on a Ritz. Then he gripped the back of Daniel’s neck and was not rebuffed.

Once they’d helped with the dishes, Vasile turned to Andy. “I can’t believe it, but I never once asked what kind of shifter you are. Do you mind sharing?”

“Not at all. I’m a bobcat. That’s why I live alone—we’s the solitary type, you know.”

“No mate yet?” Daniel asked with interest, reaching back without looking to try to  squeeze Vasile’s dick through the front of his pants. Vasile intercepted him and linked their fingers together, bringing Daniel’s hand up to kiss his knuckles.

“No, not yet. I’m hopeful, though. I was traveling through this area, when my bobcat spirit got pretty insistent I should stay. Insisted I go out runnin’ this mornin’ too, even though I don’t usually go out that time of day. Feels like I might’a met you for a reason. We’ll see how it plays out. Let me get my keys and I’ll take you folks home.”

Andy brought them back home and was asked to stay to family dinner. If the Jacobson-Miller clan was grateful, they let you know it. By the time dinner was over, Daniel had completely forgotten about the snake, and Vasile quietly let it go near one of the market gardens, where it could eat pests like grasshoppers. He still wasn’t quite sure what purpose the snake had been meant to serve, but he was touched Daniel had worked so hard to get it for him.

After the Snake Incident, Andy became a regular fixture at Susilauma Farm over the next few weeks, specifically at Daniel and Vasile’s cabin. He was often invited for meals, a pack run, and other family events, and thought it was nice to connect with a family that had so many True Mates already integrated into it. It made him a little envious, though, and he began to wonder if it was time to move on and take up the search for his own True Mate. That is, until a visit from Daniel’s roundabout brothers-in-law, Jaxson and Leo, brought his True Mate right to him.

***TO BE CONTINUED***

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