Amanda Hocking - Fate (My Blood Approves, Book 2)

Fate

By Amanda Hocking

The warm summer air slid in through the windows, filling the car with the soft, green scent of the park, and the foreboding sound of traffic rushing by on the highway. Fighting the rather childish urge to cover my face with my fingers, I settled for biting my lip and keeping my eyes focused out the window, where children were playing in the grass. That wouldve been mildly comforting if I hadnt been imagining them getting completely flattened by the Lexus. Admittedly, the car was just idling in the parking lot, but Im a notoriously paranoid person.

My younger brother Milo had just turned fifteen, and naturally, all he could talk about was getting his license. This is the same boy had spent the better part of the last year playing video games, or cooking elaborate meals, or studying for an exam he would surely ace anyway. This new obsession with cars I blamed entirely on

Jack, who insisted on driving at excessive speeds in his familys luxury cars. I sensed the change in Milo the instant he laid eyes on their Lamborghini. Things that beautiful tended to captivate people, even gay teenage boys, apparently.

Even though I was two and a half years older than Milo, I still didnt have my license. In fact, Id never driven a car of any kind before, despite Jacks recent suggestion that I should. My mother didnt own a car, so there was nothing for me to learn on and nothing to drive. This fact remained was just as true for Milo, so I had assumed that he would spend his teenage years riding the bus or hitching a ride with friends, like I had, but then he and Jack had got to talking, and here we were. I sat in the backseat, properly seat belted in, staring at Milo in the drive seat with intense apprehension.

Wearing gigantic sunglasses, Jack sat in the passenger seat next to him, explaining things to Milo. There were several major issues I had with this scenario, and I had become certain that nothing good could come of this driving lesson.

First of all, Jack doesnt really explain things. He points to a pedal and says, That one makes it go. So push on it and lets go. Thats it. Fortunately, Milo is a look-before-you-leap kind of guy, so he pressed Jack for more information, but that doesnt make his answers any less vague. And Milo was starting to get that gleam in his big brown eyes, the one that says hes feeling the need for the speed. On top of that, only six short months ago, I was riding with Jack in his Jeep, and he happened to roll it.

We managed to escape unharmed, but the Jeep burst into flames. This is the guy thats teaching Milo how to drive. Plus, were only a few feet away from a park filled with children and a highway filled with speeding drivers. We live near Loring Park, and the parking lot next to it makes it a prime place to practice driving, but once he takes the car on the road, well be bombarded by hurried cars and three-lane one-ways. One of the downsides to living in downtown Minneapolis (or probably downtown anywhere) is the chaos involved with learning to drive in area filled with so many cars.

Not to mention its mid-afternoon in August and the sun is shining brightly above us. Ordinarily, that would sound like the best time to drive, but sunlight makes Jack groggy. Hes already started to yawn, and his reaction time will be significantly diminished, should he need to grab the wheel or intervene in someway.

I cant even really tell how much Milo is paying attention to the lesson Jack is giving, as in the actual words and meanings of things, or if hes just mesmerized by Jack himself. Theyve been around each other a lot more since summer vacation started, so Ive been hoping that Milo would start to get desensitized to Jack, but I dont know how well its working.

The thing about Jack is that hes not exactly like everyone else. He is attractive in his own right, with dancing blue eyes, perpetually disheveled sandy hair, and flawless tanned skin, but hes not what I would call drop-dead gorgeous. The only thing about him that really gets to me is his laugh, which is clear and happy and perfect. It sounds like a weird thing to be hung up on, but perfection tends to get me.

Everyone else swoons over Jack like hes the most enchanting thing theyve ever seen, but then again, he probably is. Im the only one thats immune to his charms, or at least his unnatural ones. I still enjoy him immensely, probably more than I should, especially considering the way I feel about his brother Peter. Thats putting it a little simply, but everything about Jack and his family is rather complicated, thanks to one major fact: they just happen to be vampires.

Milo doesnt know this, that its Jacks vampire pheromones that make him so entrancing, so Milo doesnt really get why hes so attracted to Jack. Ironically, it has helped him come to terms with his homosexuality, but he feels guilty about it all the time because he thinks that Jack and I are dating. Which we arent. I dont know for sure if we would be, even if things werent so insanely impossible thanks to Peter. But with things as they are, we might never find out.

Obviously, Jack and his family arent really threats to people, or I wouldnt let any of them around my younger brother. I suppose they technically are, since they could pretty easily kill us if they wanted to, but I dont think they want to. There was that one time with Peter last spring, but that was because I asked him to, but Jack and his brother Ezra intervened to save the day. While they do live off of human blood (animal blood doesnt work for them anymore than it would work giving humans a blood transfusion from a cow), they either use blood banks or human donors, i.e.

people who willingly let them eat. Vampires dont have to eat until a person is dead, although they can and sometimes do. Jack, for example, has never killed anyone, but hes still a relatively young vampire. He was twenty-four when he turned, but that was only sixteen years ago, in comparison with his brother Ezra who has been around for over three-hundred years and Peters nearly two hundred.

Theyre not really brothers but rather brothers in the way vampires are. When Ezra turned Peter, Peter drank his blood, and they became bonded together. In order to turn, the humans blood fuses with the vampires blood, and they became even more closely connected than actual brothers. Peter turned Jack, so his blood is fused with both Ezra and Peters. This makes them close in unusual ways. Peter is attracted to me, or rather his blood is, much to his chagrin. But because of his attraction, both Jack and Ezra are very fond of me, and Jack probably much more than he should be.

With this in mind, I know that realistically Jack wont do anything put me in danger, at least not intentionally. Admittedly, he always saves me in the end, but his carelessness makes me a little uneasy about trusting his judgment. Or his ability to safely monitor danger in relation to humans fragile little bodies, like my brothers. Odds are that if we got in a crash, Jack would protect me before Milo, and that makes me nervous.

Are you sure you really wanna do this today? I asked, probably for the hundredth time that day.

In the rearview mirror, I could see Milo roll eyes, and I knew that I was getting on their nerves. But I couldnt help it.

We can just take you home if youre gonna be this way, Milo warned.

Jack chuckled a little at his threat, but I was too sour to see the humor in it. Despite his age, Milo had one of those distinctly baby faces still. His cheeks were puffy and his brown eyes were innocently large. His voice had changed, but when he threatened me, he looked more like an angry child then the teenager he was.

Im just saying, I grumbled.

Leaning back in the seat, I crossed my arms over my chest and went back to staring at the little kids playing in the park. One of them was flying a kite, and I remembered in that not-too-distant past when Milo would have much preferred flying a kite than driving a car. But he was growing up, and while that was theoretically what I wanted, I didnt exactly approve.