I haven’t left my room all day and I’m bored as hell. Right now, I’m grateful that I have to sleep because otherwise I’d be even more bored. Ramsay knocked on my door a while ago, but I pretended to be asleep until he left, and the same thing happened with Joseph about twenty minutes ago. 

“Lennox? Open your door,” Dad says, not knocking. “Your mate stopped by and left you a gift.”

Callum stopped by? Of course Dad wouldn’t let him in because he’s all pissed off at me, but it’s still nice of him to do that. I’m not even entirely sure how Callum got our address, but his aunt is the vampieress and knows everyone, according to city discussion. 

I crack open the door and hold my hand out. 

Dad sighs and hands it to me, which means I have to open the door wider because it’s quite a large package. “Do you want anything particular for your birthday dinner?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“It’s only noon. You’ll be hungry later.”

I scowl. “I don’t want to eat dinner with you or my siblings. I’m staying in here.”

Dad sighs again but I ignore him and shut the door. His footsteps recede and I look at the gift for the first time. It’s a big box covered in white paper with balloons on it, and I lock my bedroom door before setting it on my bed. I have no clue what could be in here, but it’s heavy. 

I rip off the paper and open the box and my eyes widen when I see that it’s full of books. They’re all different titles, mainly centered around vampires and such, but many of them I’ve never seen before. There’s some on the history of werewolf packs and shifter groups. One that draws my eye, though, is one that was published only five years ago. It got a lot of attention within the supernatural community because it was written by a werewolf of a local pack. 

I have never seen a collection this big. Obviously, books about supernaturals are pretty hidden from the public eye because the world is still run by humans and they like to turn a blind eye to our existence. It’s hard for us to get them and we’re within the community. 

And Callum just gave me twelve books about supernaturals! He’s better than I am; I’m extremely possessive of my books and I wouldn’t just give them away like this. I grab my phone and send a picture of the box. 

Me: I want to start by saying thank you… but how did you know where I live?

Callum: My aunt knows people who know your dad so I was able to get the address. Got a mini interrogation from my aunt & she really wants to meet you

Me: Too bad she’s going to have to wait for a month 

Callum: Yeah, but don’t plan on me waiting that long. I’m going to be knocking on your door every day until your dad lets me in ;) he didn’t seem too happy to see me today though 

Me: Yeah he’s not a big fan of me at the moment and that extends to you. You can sneak in through my window. Vampire sense of smell isn’t strong enough for him to know

Callum: Unless we have sex

Me: You’re not getting into my pants in a month so we don’t have to worry about that 

Callum: Fair, I’ll come over tonight then ;)

I smile at my phone screen before putting it on my nightstand and pick up one of the books. I take it to my desk and grab one of my colored pens to annotate it. Joseph gets so annoyed when I annotate and write in my books but it helps me to break them down. 

I’m surprised that Joseph hasn’t come to bother me yet. Of all of my siblings, it’s no surprise that he’s the most comforting and emotionally in tune. He must not be home or he’s really mad at me. If he was mad, though, I guarantee he would’ve yelled at Ramsay first because I may have gone to the club, but I am not an instigator. That’s Ramsay’s role. 

I’m so enveloped in the historical factors that lead to human slavery in the vampire community that it takes me a second to snap to attention to the knocking at my door. 

“Open the damn door,” Joseph’s voice echoes from the other side as he pounds on the door. 

I groan and listen; I don’t really want to see anyone, but Joseph is insistent. He’s not quite stubborn, but he’s resilient and refuses to walk away, especially when it comes to me and Ramsay. He’s a bit weaker when it comes to Raina because she’s the big sister. No one wants to tangle with her when she gets angry or even irritated.  

I open the door and Joseph pushes his way in. “Sure, you’re totally invited in. How’s this stellar day going for you?”

“Happy birthday,” Joseph says, sitting down on my bed. “Heard you got into some trouble last night.”

“We were safe the whole time!”

Joseph snorts. “I’m not talking about you sneaking out! I’m talking about you throwing up on Callum Adler! That guy is taken care of by Helen Adler, the owner of the club you went to! Lennox, I would have died of embarrassment if I were you.”

I scowl. “I almost did. How did you know?”

“I’m extremely likeable, you know that. I have a lot of friends at that club and I usually end up there to get information or drink. I don’t know Callum that well, but I know enough people that they told me my little brothers snuck in and you puked all over him.”

“You’re missing a key detail of that story,” I say, closing my book and turning to fully face my brother. 

He raises an eyebrow. “And that would be?”

“Callum is my mate.”

Joseph’s eyes go from curious to shocked in seconds. His jaw drops open and he looks kind of funny with how surprised he is. It’s not unfair for him to look this shocked; I wasn’t expecting to be mated as soon as I turned eighteen and much less to a vampire. 

“Oh… wow.”

“Yeah… Ramsay and I stayed at his place last night.” I shrug. “He brought me a bunch of books for my birthday.”

Joseph looks over at the pile of books right beside him. “Can I look through them?” 

I nod; Joseph is kind of like me in the sense that we both like to read and go deeper in our education surrounding certain aspects of the supernatural community. There are schools for people like us, but Dad chose to homeschool us. There aren’t many schools that allow both vampires and werewolves and the ones that do often have cliques and lots of fights and Dad wanted us to be focused on school and not fighting. 

It’s part of the reason that Ramsay and I are so close; we didn’t have other people to socialize with. Even Raina and Joseph didn’t have friends until they started getting involved in the community and going out to clubs and bars. 

“Callum accepted you then?” Joseph asks me, to which I hum agreeably. “Cute. Can’t say I’m surprised with how his aunt is and the fact that she owns the club.”

“Yeah, we learned that little fact pretty quickly,” I say, my cheeks pink as I recall the events of last night. “He accepted me but I’m grounded for a month so I can’t see him. Dad’s really pissed.”

Joseph bites the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, it was. Dad’s tough on you because he wants you safe.”

I sigh, since I know it’s true but I’m still refusing to answer his text message. Any other punishment would be fine, but preventing me from seeing my mate when he can’t understand the connection that I feel to Callum? It’s beyond infuriating. 

“I know that. He was never that strict with you or Raina.”

“Tensions are worse between vampires and werewolves right now,” Joseph points out, still looking through my new books. “And you walk a fine line.” He stands up and pats my shoulder even though I keep facing away from him and reading my book. 

“I still don’t want to have a birthday dinner,” I say bitterly. “I know he cares, but I’m an adult. He’s being unreasonable with some of his decisions for this grounding.”

Joseph sighs. “I’m sorry, Lennox. I think Dad’s ordering in from Gino’s and said you can eat alone,” he tells me. 

Gino’s is my favorite take out place to get food from even though my family hates it. It’s Italian and all of their food has a lot of garlic, which is my favorite but turns my family away. Even though garlic won’t kill them like in fictional stories, it grosses them out and can make their mouths hurt if they eat it.

Joseph leaves my room and tells me he’ll bring my food up later so I don’t have to go downstairs. He’s probably upset that I don’t want to spend time with the rest of my family since I’m usually more forgiving, but I’m irritated and my stubbornness is taking over. 

I spend the rest of the afternoon reading and exchanging texts with Callum until Joseph knocks at my door and hands me my food and my multivitamin, saying that Dad told him I forgot to take it this morning. He asks once more if I want to eat downstairs, to which I scowl and close the door. It’s not his fault and I shouldn’t take my annoyance out on him but that’s a stupid question.