I stand awkwardly at the front door, bouncing between my heels and the balls of my feet. I hope Callum answers and not his aunt; it would be kind of weird for me since I’m showing up unannounced, and while I initially wanted to surprise Callum, I kind of wish that I had texted him. 

The door opens and Callum appears before me. He seems surprised before he smirks and leans against the doorframe, looking smug. 

“Seems like you couldn’t stay away, huh?”

“You came to my house,” I remind him. “And my dad knew you were there the whole time. He decided not to ground me or Ramsay anymore, since we’d find a way to break the rules and I already had, but he has some new rules for us.”

Callum invites me in. “I’m glad to hear that,” he says, closing the door behind me. “Now I can plan our first official date.”

“You mean me throwing up on you and you sneaking into my room and hiding from my dad isn’t your idea of an official date?” 

“Those were… experiences. Get-to-know-you activities.”

I roll my eyes as he guides me to his living room. I sit down on the couch and Callum lays down beside me, settling his head on my lap and smiling up at me. His eyes are so easy to get lost in, between the beautiful, deep red color and also because he’s my mate and I’m drawn to him. 

I reach down and begin to run my fingers through his dark hair, smiling as I do so. When I realized my mate was a vampire, I didn’t think I’d have a chance at this kind of feeling or opportunity. Yet, a day later, I’m sitting in his house with his head in my lap. 

Callum’s eyes close, which I’m kind of happy about so I can stare at him without him commenting on it and making fun of me. 

“My dad wants you to come to our house tonight for dinner.”

His eyes open and he looks a little nervous. “Okay… am I going to be interrogated?”

“Probably by Ramsay, but my dad is usually pretty quiet. Joseph is friendly and Raina is usually going to events or doing things for her job so she doesn’t hang around.” 

Callum hums as the front door opens and a woman walks in. 

She has a tote bag with an embroidered flower bouquet on the front and she seems extremely relaxed for a vampire that runs a club called Vampieress’ Dungeon. Her hair is long and copper colored, and it is tied back in an assortment of braids. She’s wearing a mini skirt and a crop top, and I’m sure she’s old, but she doesn’t look a day over thirty. If I didn’t know she was Callum’s self-identified aunt, I’d assume they were friends or roommates. 

Her eyes find myself and Callum and her mouth draws into a thin line. “Callum Adler, that had better be the boy you told me was your mate or I’ll ground you for the next twenty years,” she says, scowling. “You told me your mate was on some kind of lockdown.”

Callum’s cheeks are pink, which is kind of funny since I haven’t really seen him blush yet. “He is my mate! I’m not a cheater!”

“Your human reputation says otherwise,” she mumbles, approaching us and setting her tote bag on the coffee table. “You must be Lennox. I’m Helen.”

I stand up and shake her hand. “It’s nice to meet you and I’m sorry for the confusion. My dad has never undone a punishment before and I’m honestly pretty embarrassed to have been grounded as an eighteen year old.”

Helen laughs. “Trust me, this fledgling has been grounded more times in the last year than I have been in my entire seven hundred years of existence.”

Callum’s cheeks are still covered in a blush. “Helen, I’m trying to impress him!”

“You impressed me by not rejecting me after I threw up on you,” I cut in. “Now I want to hear about these groundings and your first year as a vampire.”

Helen smiles. “I think we’re going to get along perfectly fine, Lennox. However, I will remind you not to sneak into my club again. Since you’re Callum’s mate and I trust him, you are invited as a guest, but you will not drink and you will stay by his side. This is a privilege, but if you break my trust, I will ban you until you’re twenty one.”

“I honestly expected you to ban me completely,” I tell her.

I was sure the news of Ramsay and I breaking in as kids of a pretty well known vampire would get back to her, and even more so once I figured out Callum was my mate. 

“I know that my club is a safe place for supernaturals and I can make exceptions. Humans don’t have regulations for supernaturals since they don’t know we exist, so we set that precedent,” Helen tells me, grabbing her tote bag. “I have some bookkeeping to do, but I assume I’ll begin to see you frequently.”

Callum grabs my hand and pulls me away from the living room. “Most likely, nice to see you, bye Helen!” he calls, pulling me up the stairs. He brings me to his room, which I haven’t seen before since I stayed in a guest room the last time I was here. 

His room isn’t dirty, but it is messy. There’s a lot of books, much like mine, but they’re not kept in neat stacks and instead sit in assorted piles all over the room. Clothes are sticking out of the hamper and he has different photos decorating the walls, his nightstand, and his desk. 

They are pictures of who I assume are his parents, himself throughout the years, Helen, a group of people whom I kind of recognize from the club, and assorted pictures of the sunset and natural scenery. One photo that catches my eye is a picture of a huge wolf, and I know instantly that it’s a werewolf. 

I take it off of the wall where it’s hung up. 

“That’s a friend from the local pack here. He doesn’t come into town much because the pack keeps away from the city, but they let me go into their territory. Helen is friends with the Alpha of the pack.”

I’ve always been chased off of the local pack’s land when Ramsay and I tried to sneak on it. It’s weird to think that Callum and Helen, two vampires, have been welcomed onto the pack land. Since I’m a werewolf who isn’t part of their pack, though, it’s not too surprising that they don’t want me there, but two vampires?

I put the picture back and force a smile. I know I was raised well, with a loving family and in a good environment, but it still hits me when I realize I’ve missed out on a part of who I am. I don’t know why I was left to die by my pack, wherever they are. 

“We could go meet them at some point, if you want,” Callum suggests. “I know it’s not the same as your own pack, but it might be nice to at least talk to people like you.”

Dad has always been a little tense when it comes to discussing the werewolf pack. Even though they aren’t the pack that abandoned me, Dad still admits he feels a bit of irritation toward them because of what happened to me. He tries to hide it since he doesn’t hate werewolves, but there is some obvious tension regarding them. 

“That would be nice, but they probably won’t let me on their pack grounds.” I shrug and sit down on his bed. “I’m an Alpha werewolf so they’d probably see me as a threat.”

“They allow other wolves on their pack grounds as guests. I’ll ask Helen if we can bring you as a guest, if you’d like?” 

I smile. “Maybe in a few months.”

Callum smiles back, sitting beside me on his bed. He grabs my hand in his, lacing our fingers together and making me blush. Callum’s cheeks are pink as well. 

Since I didn’t go out much when I was younger, I never got a chance to date anyone or really explore a relationship. I’m not sure if that’s something werewolves do if they know they’re going to meet their mate someday, but I might have if I had the chance. 

Joseph and Raina are both single as far as I know and Ramsay and I both didn’t have the chance to try to get out into the world. This is a whole new journey for me, but I’m glad Callum seems to be willing to go through it with me. 

“I want to know about how you got grounded,” I say, smiling as he scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Come on, it can’t be more embarrassing than me puking on you.”

“It’s not, but I’m trying to present myself as the sexy, edgy, controlling vampire that you saw at the club.”

I laugh, recalling how anxious Callum made me feel when we were at the club. “I like this side of you more.”

Callum rolls his eyes again, but he still has that fond smile on his lips that I’ve seen quite a bit when he looks at me. “Okay… I got grounded a lot when I was first turned and Helen took me in. She has a standing rule that newly turned vampires need to wait for six months before going to her club because they need to be healthy and have control over their instincts since the club welcomes more than just vampires. I thought it was a stupid rule so I tried to sneak into the club a couple of times but I couldn’t do much because the bouncers knew who I was and brought me home.

“The worst grounding I ever got was when I… ugh, please don’t hate me for this, but I had sex with a shifter on one of the couches of the club. If I knew I had a werewolf mate I never would have, I swear, but I didn’t and the sex drive is pretty high when you're supernatural. There’s a pretty big rule in the club about no sex but I was kind of feeling on top of the world because I realized I was immortal and the adoptive nephew of the owner of the club and a respected vampire. So, yeah, I got grounded pretty bad for that one.”

A part of me feels defensive and angry that Callum has had sex with other people, but I know he didn’t know so it’s unreasonable. Plus, he kind of got what he deserved by being grounded for having public sex. I can’t imagine ever doing that; I would be absolutely embarrassed if I ever did that. 

“You were a menace from the sounds of it.” I sit up to make myself more comfortable against his pillows. 

Callum smirks and moves to lay in between my legs, resting his head on my stomach. “I was kind of dealing with that whole human to vampire scenario, so I did some not-so-Callum things to cope with it. I’ve grown now, though, even though I’m still young in my supernatural life and I have a mate now to go through it with me.”

“What did you see your future looking like? As a human?”

“I didn’t have a path in life, honestly. I got a degree in accounting. I saw myself working at a boring desk job like my dad, getting married to someone that my parents liked because they’re kind of judgmental and homophobic so it would’ve had to be a girl, and having a nuclear family. I… I didn’t necessarily want to be turned, but it kind of gave me a chance to figure out what I like and what I want to do.”

I pet his hair as I listen to him. “You’re happier now, then?”

“I like who I am now but I feel bad my parents are grieving me and think I’m dead. It’s kind of mixed but overall I’m glad that things turned out the way they did.” 

Callum smiles up at me but I can tell there’s pain in his eyes that he’s trying to hide from me. As much as I want to comfort him, I’m not entirely sure what I can do. I don’t know him well enough to just kiss him and make him feel better and I don’t know how he even likes to be comforted when he’s upset. 

“I’m fine,” Callum promises me, smiling much more genuinely. He reaches up to brush his thumb across my cheek. “Besides, I have a new future to plan now that I have a mate and immortality. Wait, if I was human, would I still be your mate?”

“Yeah, mates can be any species. It would’ve taken me longer to find you and explain everything, though.”

We fall into a comfortable silence, with Callum still laying on my stomach while I play with his hair and look at the pictures on the wall. For being a vampire, he seems to enjoy sleeping past doing it at night out of habit, since he starts dozing off and relaxing completely. 

There’s a knock at the door and Helen cracks the door open. She enters quietly and sits down at the end of the bed, raising an eyebrow at Callum. 

“I swear, he sleeps more than some humans despite being a vampire.”

“He told me he still kind of has the habit from before he was turned,” I say, feeling a little awkward. 

Talking to Helen feels like the equivalent of talking to Callum’s parents and it should be a big deal to meet your mate’s parents, in my opinion. Granted, usually things work differently in couplings and you wait longer than a day to meet parents, even in supernatural relationships. 

“He’s been talking nonstop about you since yesterday. Every time I’ve seen him since he met you, he’s been going on and on about you,” she says, looking at me fondly. “I’d ask more questions, but I’ll wait until he brings you to a more… formal setting where we can have a real conversation. I was just going to let you know that I’m leaving and there’s food in the fridge that you’re welcome to help yourself to.”

“Thank you,” I say gratefully. “Uh, Callum mentioned that you could help me to meet with the local werewolf pack at some point? Since I didn’t really grow up around werewolves, you know? Not now, but like, in a few months?”

Helen nods as she stands up. “Sure, I can do that. Just let me know when you feel ready and I’ll put something together.”

I thank her once more as she leaves. It surprises me how long Callum sleeps, but once he gets up, he says he wants to get out of the house for a bit. I agree with him and we get into his car, which is different from the one I rode in when leaving the club. I guess my confusion shows, because Callum tells me that he and his aunt use one car for the club with their chauffeur, which she has now, and he uses the other car to drive in the city. 

“Where are we going?” I ask, sitting in the passenger seat and immediately turning on the heat because it feels cold in the car. 

Callum seems amused by my fumbling with the heat controls as he puts it in reverse to turn around in the driveway and leave. “A mini date before I get interrogated by your brother and family.”

I hold his hand across the console. “I’ll protect you, I promise,” I tease, unable to stop the grin on my face. 

“My hero,” he responds, and he doesn’t sound as sarcastic as I would have expected.