Teeth

Chapter Twenty-Three

Feeding had not been as enjoyable as usual. For the first time since being turned, Spencer had found no thrill in the hunt. There had been no pleasure to wipe the questions and suspicions from his mind. Gulping down the blood had been as enjoyable as forcing down overcooked vegetables.

He had stayed out, leaving his kill in a dumpster around the back of a diner and had gone to a club. He'd sat by the bar and ignored the attention a few girls had thrown his way. The thumping music had been a relief to cloud his mind. He knew that he could have killed another easily and yet he  was still staring at his beer when the lights came up and the music faded into the drunken chatter of home time.

He considered going back to Paige's place, but knowing August had expected her to be brought to the house, he realised there was little point. No doubt Thomas would have taken her back already. There was nothing in that apartment for him except a scent he could not get rid of and worries he could not forget. He trudged back to the house two hours before sunrise and headed straight to the back garden, taking a seat on the patio steps.

It still didn't make any sense. For years he had been told that they didn't allow new sirings. It was the one rule that you were not to break under any circumstances and August had been the most insistent on it. Yet he had asked him to help sire Paige. He'd said that by the time she was turned that it would be fine, that he would suffer no repercussions, but Spencer could not figure out how. Thomas had told him that Charles was dead but he'd never been told that the siring ban had just been Charles' law, not one they all lived by. Had August known that Charles was dying?

All that, however, was nothing compared to the thoughts he'd been having about his own siring. Despite the fact he knew siring Paige would be a reason for his death under their rules, for some reason it wasn't that occupying his thoughts.

After almost an entire day Spencer could still not figure out how August had made it work. August had been the one to train him, the one to help him, but he was not his sire. He had not turned him, he knew that much. He'd not felt this way for August in the beginning. Yet now he felt the same pull he felt to Paige, only different. Paige's draw was stronger, purer somehow. While he thought the purity might be because she was new, it didn't lessen the fact he felt something similar with August over time. He'd felt anger over August, a protective flare he couldn't deny when he was threatened, but he'd never been as mindlessly filled with rage as William had been when Cleo had been killed. Was it simply because August still lived that the bond had not shown itself so fiercely?

Spencer buried his face in his hands and took a deep breath of fresh air. Even outside he could pick up the scents of the others in the house. August's was stronger than all of them. So was William's, now he thought about it. Spencer froze, the warmth in the air settling against his skin.

"Regretting having a kid already?"

William's gruff voice was lighter than usual, filled with a humour he rarely heard. Spencer didn't move except to open his eyes and stare at the grass. William's steps vibrated in the wood and he thumped down next to him. He stretched out but kept a curious gaze on Spencer.

"And people call me sullen."

"Are you saying you're not?"

William let out a snort of laughter and shrugged.

"There are reasons to be sullen and reasons not to be," he said.

He leaned forward onto his knees and rested his head in his hand. He had large hands that still held some of the tan from when he'd spent a lot of his life outside. Spencer had once heard that William had been a farm hand before he went off to fight in the war. The sun seemed to have stayed with him, even though he'd not seen it in almost a century.