looks around, trying to figure out what “this thing” is referring to before smiling like he’s got it. “It’s okay, I’ll protect you.” He definitely doesn’t get it.
“He’s talking about you,” Marcus says as Karsyn makes a beeline to me and sits down beside me.
Claude isn’t deterred as he leans forward and gives Karsyn the biggest smile. I have to hand it to the man, he’s attractive, but my god, he’s not going to get Karsyn this way. I’d be surprised if Karsyn doesn’t kill him by the end of it.
Karsyn pretends the man is nonexistent by pulling out some papers and reaching for the stapler.
“Has anyone ever told you how sexy your accent is?” Claude asks.
“Were these all of the papers?” Karsyn asks, trying his hardest to drop his accent. He sounds a bit like a Southern hillbilly, and I have to try my absolute hardest not to laugh. Who puts that much emphasis on the E in “were”?
“Aw, Karsyn, where’d you go over the weekend? You lost your accent!” Briar teases as she walks in.
Claude reaches out and sets a hand on top of Karsyn’s. “I was just telling him how sexy it is. I can only imagine the way you’d whisper dirty words to me.”
“Get your hand off me,” Karsyn growls, accent surging back in full force.
Claude doesn’t listen and just like that, Karsyn flips open the stapler and slams it down on Claude’s hand, leaving a staple behind.
Marcus lets out this strange little noise of delight that makes me stare at him in wonder.
Claude, on the other hand, looks extremely confused as he pulls his hand back, plucks the staple out and flicks it toward the trash can. “Does everyone around here hate compliments?”
“I don’t,” Briar says.
Claude glances at her. “Ew.”
“Oh my god. Who is this man?” Briar asks, now also disgusted by him.
“It’s not you, it’s just your body,” Claude says, as if that makes it better.
I’m assuming he means her lack of male parts, but I’m convinced he could have come up with a different and much better way to say it.
Claude turns to Marcus. “Brother—”
“Brother?” Karsyn growls and another staple goes flying as he clutches onto the stapler. “This is your brother, Marcus?”
Marcus’s entire body stiffens as he sits in silence for at least a minute. He’s either hoping everyone forgets the question or maybe trying to come up with a lie. “Karsyn, there’s no choice in the matter. He might have information to help us, so we must suffer,” Marcus explains. “But once he’s done, we could off him if you want. Tell him you’d like to see him naked and have him meet us in a secluded spot—”
Claude clears his throat. “It would be greatly appreciated if you all stopped fantasizing about my death. I gave up an extremely busy schedule to be here.”
“Thank you for coming, Claude,” I say, since it’s clear no one else will say anything nice to him.
He snickers and I realize that I thanked him… for coming and like a twelve-year-old, he thinks it’s funny. It’s only funny if it was my joke. “You’re welcome, cutie pie.”
Brooks walks in with Orin and DeGray, who all take a seat. When DeGray slides in next to Briar instead of Karsyn, Karsyn stares at him, but returns to stapling his papers since Claude’s hand is not within stapling distance.
“Okay, Claude, you said you had something?” I ask.
“I do!” He pulls out a freaking binder packed full of papers. “I’ve always been curious about the origin of true vampires. We know that true vampires are unlike regular vampires in multiple ways, but most notably, they can have offspring. While extremely rare, it happens on occasion. But what I was most curious about is when true vampires came into existence. While records are few and far between, we see a pattern when we start to question when they came around. Marcus and I were born in the year 1709. Seemingly to the same mother, which was quite questionable for many years. No other vampires report having siblings, but for twin children to be born to the same human mother and both to be ‘monsters’ is unheard of. True vampires all were born around twenty years of each other starting as early as 1690 and as late as 1712. Were they born vampire, were they turned into vampires after birth? None of us really know. We were merely infants, but we aged and grew and while we could eat human food, we