Scarlet Vamporium: Vamporium #2 by Poppet[vampire] Page A

legs.
    Sitting next to me, he looks around the spacious kitchen, a wistful smile displayed across strong features. “Wow, this smells like home tae me. I hav'nae smelled freshly baked shortbread since my Maw passed.”
    Selene woos him like a pro, lifting the cooling rack and wafting semi-warm squares glittered with sugar under his nose, “Please have one. In fact you can take some home with you, I always make far too much for just myself and Ellie to finish without help.”
    His grin widens into a grateful smile and he inclines his head respectfully, “Thank you verra much, that's kind of ye. Ma brother Jamie will appreciate it tae.”
    Leaving the laden grid next to the elbow he's leaning on, she sits opposite us, folding her hands primly while giving him a tight smile, “Are you okay?”
    Still chewing, he nods.
    “Good. Tea or coffee?” she asks, getting up again.
    Lifting his hand in a stop motion, he swallows, “I'm fine, thank you.”
    Ignoring me because she knows I won't want either, she sits back down, exhaling a heavy sigh, “Okay, which one of you is going to tell me what happened tonight?”
    “I told him what I am,” I blurt.
    There, happy now?
    “It wasnae her fault. And there's nothin' wrong with her being different. I dinnae understand why she's in trouble fer existing.”
    Selene hones in on Doug's answer, her eyes brightening to phosphorescent quicksilver, “What do you mean by it wasn't her fault ?”
    He glances at me, squeezing my leg under the counter where Selene can't see, “One of the local lasses wanted tae take her down because Roddie was being too attentive. Heather has a thing fer Roddie and she took offense tae Rod being friendly, plus she was well blootered. Ellindt reacted when Heather came fer round two. It wasnae her fault. None of it was.”
    “Blootered?” I ask, lost again.
    “Thoroughly inebriated,” he explains.
    “What did Ellindt do exactly?” she interrogates Doug, as if I'm not even in the room with them.
    “Her eyes lit up, like yers are busy daeing.”
    Selene's frame goes rigid and she mutes her irises back to blue. “Then what happened?”
    “We got the heck outtae there. We came straight here, tae sit in the moonlight and just talk.”
    “So no one at the party witnessed this?”
    Doug shakes his head, and I'm distracted by the way his sun streaked hair slips across the black leather of his jacket with the motion.
    “So why did Ellie tell you what she is?”
    “Ah guessed when her eyes brightened, and it was confirmed when she opened the road fer me tae drive up.”
    Selene pounces out of her chair, “Ellindt!”
    “What? He doesn't think we're weird! He wanted to protect me from any of his friends guessing. He didn't judge me or want to kill me, he thinks it's perfectly normal.”
    Thinking hard to her, so she'll hear it, I yell, We're here for human love. Half the battle is won!
    She sits heavily back in her chair, pouting her lips when she exhales an exaggerated breath. “Ellindt, your uncle is on his way. What am I supposed to tell him? How do I prevent Zarak from taking you?”
    “I'll talk to uncle Venix. This isn't Doug's problem, it's ours.”
    He looks from me to her, and back again, “What exactly is the problem?”
    “Zarak likes to whip me, he's just looking for an excuse to take me back to his dark cave and get me alone,” I grumble, folding my arms and glowering moodily at Selene.
    “Which one was Zarak?” he asks.
    Selene goes so pale she looks like an opal, “You saw them? Outside?”
    “Aye,” he says.
    “Then it's their fault for exposing the community, not yours Ellie,” she says to me. “You were completely within your own boundaries to do what you did. You trusted your intuition and it wasn't wrong.”
    She looks delighted, clapping her hands together and prancing back out of her chair to withdraw the amphora of blood from the fridge. “Doug, are you sure I can't get you a drink?”
    “Dae ye ha'e somethin' stronger