Page 17 of Loched in Love

“Oh good,” she replies. Her gaze flicks to the door and her grin brightens to a megawatt level. I turn to see why, and watch as Vlad enters the room making a bee line to her as if she’s the only person in the room.

They settle into their chairs, or at least Aubrey tries to while Vlad yanks her closer to his end of the table. She doesn’t seem to mind though, as intent as she’s looking at her phone while chattering to him.

My lips curl into a small smirk at how the couple seems oblivious to anyone around them. I’ve never been one to be jealous of anyone, always content doing my own thing usually in the lab or outdoors, but right now I find I like their closeness and how at ease they are with one another.

Vlad meets my gaze, his eyes like dark obsidian, and a trill of embarrassment goes up the back of my neck at being caught staring.

I quickly turn back to Lachlan and find his plate is piled with sandwiches.

“Are there more of you?” I ask, trying to keep my voice down.

He settles back into his chair, tiny sandwich in hand and shakes his head no.

“What are you exactly?” I whisper, leaning toward his seat as he takes a bite.

A shiver rolls through me at how his neck muscles convulse as he swallows, and my gaze falls to where his shirt tightens around his chest. My goodness, he’s big.

“My mum was a selkie and my dad, a sea god. I’m something in the middle. Are you hungry, lass? Do you want me to make your plate?” he asks, offering me his food.

“A glass of water would be great,” I squeak out, shell-shocked. A freaking sea god. Selkies are real?!

I’ve read plenty of books with selkie characters, mythological creatures that can shapeshift between a human shape and a seal, known for having a skin they shed to come on land, but never in a million years could I guess that they’re real.

I mutter my thanks when he shoves a small glass in my hand, and gulp it down in one go.

My gaze lands on Vlad when I return it to the table, and I realize there’s something otherworldly about him. “What is he?” I ask, my voice hardly a whisper.

Lachlan’s chair squeaks as he moves to bend his head toward mine to whisper back, “A vampire.”

The hair on my scalp raises and my gaze flies wide as I fight to keep my reaction neutral while he wrecks everything I thought I knew about the world.

“So Elena, how long are you staying in Europe?” Aubrey asks.

My brain is still short-circuiting over her boyfriend being a vampire as I scramble for an answer. “Almost two weeks,” I manage to stammer out.

Lachlan lets out a choked sound, and I gasp as the sound of fabric ripping fills the air. He stands up from the table, and the chair behind him scoots across the hardwood floor, pushed away by the massive tail erupting from the back of his pants.

“Holy shit,” I squeak.

Red blooms across his cheeks and out pop the greenish blue ear fins from before.

“Oh my god,” Aubrey says, sounding just as shocked as I am.

Lachlan’s ears flatten against his head, and my heart plummets to my stomach like a stone when he turns away to shield his face, obviously vexed by his inability to remain in his humanoid form.

He begins visibly shaking, and my heart breaks for him. “Hey, it’s okay,” I say.

I move to reach out and comfort him, noticing now that I’m this close how the scales on his body resemble that of a reptile and are oval in shape, but larger, and they shimmer with a turquoise sheen.

The moment our skin touches, his tail recedes instantly, and the fins on his ears and what scales I can see on his exposed arm disappear. “You okay now?” I ask, slowly removing my hand from his arm.

He nods, flexing his hands at his sides before moving to grab the chair and set it upright.

The spreading silence is deafening, so much so I can practically hear my heart trying to beat out of my chest with adrenaline.

“What the bloody fuck was that? And since when do you go about announcing to humans I’m a vampire,” Vlad snarls.

Vlad meets my gaze from the head of the table coldly, and my stomach takes a dive when his eye color turns to a deep glowing red.