Xavier didn't have very many injuries, just a few minor scrapes from rolling around on the ground that he said would be healed in no time, thanks to advanced vampire healing. "Blood would speed up the process," he added with a grin.

"Don't even think about it!" I warned him.

He laughed. "I was just teasing, Ceci. Sit down and let me help you clean those." He gestured to the bathtub and made me sit on the edge with my legs in the tub. He sat on the other side, facing me, and started picking little rocks out of my knees with gentle fingers. The scrapes weren't all that deep, but they were packed with the little rocks and dirt from the gross alley, so it took a while.

I winced every now and then, as a stone was sometimes lodged deeper than the surface ones. Xavier would smile apologetically and keep going. Once he was satisfied that he had all the stones out of all my scrapes, he grabbed the bottle of peroxide.

My nose wrinkled. I wasn't looking forward to the cleaning part of this process. "So if you had fed recently, would your scrapes already be gone?" I asked, trying to distract myself from the pain I knew was coming.

He smiled slightly. "Not completely, no, but they'd be farther along by now. I still can't believe how okay you are with all of this."

I laughed. "You can thank my werewolf boyfriend for that," I replied. I was finding that once I got past the first supernatural creature being real, the next is easier.

Xavier grimaced at the mention of Jackson. "Probably the only thing to thank him for," he muttered.

I ignored his animosity. Hopefully, I'd be able to get them to at least agree to pretend to like each other.

I sighed in relief when Xavier had finished cleaning my scrapes and put bandages over them to keep them that way. "Let's go hang out in your room until your mom calls us to dinner," Xavier suggested.

I agreed and followed him down the hallway and opened my bedroom door. We collapsed, side by side, on my bed and Xavier turned his head to look at me. "So, do you want to give me the full story now?" he asked. "You know we've got some time before your mom finishes dinner."

I agreed. We had enough time to tell him what had been going on. I started with what Jackson had told me about hunting down a rogue werewolf and ending up in the pound (Xavier got a real kick out of that one), told him about my parents adopting him for me for my birthday, and all the events leading up to today's scuffle in the alley with Bane.

Xavier was silent for a few minutes after I finished, staring up at the ceiling with his hands folded across his stomach. He seemed to be processing everything. "So not only are you mates with a werewolf," he said 'werewolf' like it was a dirty word, "but another werewolf is trying to kidnap you for his own pleasure and to screw with your mate?" he clarified, sounding even angrier than he had in the car. His hands were fisted at his side and his face was twisted in menace.

"Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it," I replied. "And don't say werewolf like it's some swear word or something. They're not evil!"

He snorted in contention. "They're dogs!" he exclaimed. "Mutts with no control!"

"No, they're wolves," I corrected him. "And that's only half of who they are. The other half is completely human."

"Fine, they're wolves," Xavier conceded, but insisted on one point. "But they're still disgusting!"

I rolled my eyes and groaned, lifting my head before dropping it back on the bed in aggravation. "Xavier! You do realize that you drink blood right? That you need it to survive? I think that's worse than turning into a wolf."

He copied my groan. "Geez, Ceci! It's not like I kill people!"

"No, but you do attack them and drink their blood!" I returned, refusing to back down.

He sighed, apparently having no argument against my latest response. "Well, werewolves are territorial, temperamental and just unnatural," he retorted like a five-year-old.

I rolled my eyes at him. "They're unnatural?" I questioned him. "Didn't we just cover the fact that you're immortal and survive on blood?"

Xavier threw his hands in the air in frustration. "You know what?" he replied, his frustration evident in his voice as well. "I'm not going to argue with you about this. You just need to understand that vampires and werewolves have never gotten along and they never will."

"You're just being stubborn!" I exclaimed as I sat up to look down at his face. "You can't hate all werewolves in general! You don't know any well enough to make that kind of decision."

He glared up at me. "I can and I have."

I sighed in defeat and collapsed back onto the bed. "I give up; you're completely unreasonable."

He grinned happily. "Finally! I win!"

I couldn't help but laugh at his childishness, even as worry gnawed at my gut. He had always known how to lighten the mood. I just hoped that he was wrong. Jackson and Xavier were both incredibly important to me and I would not ever choose between them. There was also the fact that my dormant genes definitely had to remain a secret from Jackson and the pack. If the animosity between the two races were really as strong as Xavier was saying, I didn't want to know how they would react to that news.

"Dinner!" my mom yelled up the stairs as the front door opened, my father's voice drifting up the stairs as he greeted my mom.

Xavier and I both sat up at the call and I glanced sideways at him as a thought occurred to me. "Do you even like food?" I asked him.

He nodded with a grin. "I don't need it, but I can eat it and I enjoy it. Especially your mom's food."

"Then let's get down there," I replied, completely mystified by the strange ways of vampires. "Might as well get the whole leaving the house while grounded thing out of the way."

Xavier laughed and ruffled my hair as he walked past me. "It won't be that bad and you know it. Your mom will get in trouble for letting you out and your dad will be a flurry of sympathy and worry over his baby girl getting 'mugged'."

I had to admit that he was probably right. My dad was the main instigator of me learning self-defense, but he honestly believed that his little girl had better never need it.

Xavier smirked knowingly, aware that I agreed with him, and offered me his elbow. "Would you care for some dinner, milady?"

I grinned back as I looped my arm through the crook of his elbow. "I would, kind sir," I replied, mimicking his posh accent. We laughed together and headed downstairs to face my father and have some of my mom's delicious food.

My dad looked surprised when we walked into the dining room arm in arm. "Xavier? Ceci, what happened to you?!" he exclaimed angrily, rushing over to get a better look.

"I'm fine, I promise," I assured him quickly. "Mom started dinner and didn't have biscuits, and you know she can't leave her dinner once she's started, so she sent me to the store for some."

He gave my mom a look. "We'll come back to that. What happened to you and why is Xavier here?"

"Well, I was walking back to the car with the biscuits when I was pulled into the alley across from the store by a really big man who tried to mug me. I was fighting him off when Xavier happened by and kicked the crap out of him," I explained.

My dad's jaw clenched in anger, his hands fisted and shaking. "Did you talk to the police?" he asked.

Xavier shook his head. "I left him knocked out in the alley. I was more worried about getting Ceci home."

My dad looked unhappy, but the fact that Xavier's number one priority was to get me back home sucked some of the anger out of him. "Are you both alright?" he asked us. We nodded to confirm that we were. "What brought you down this way, Xavier? Not that I'm not happy to see you," he added.

"I applied to college here and was coming down to find an apartment and spend the summer getting to know my way around again and catching up with you guys," Xavier replied as we moved towards the table and took our seats.

"Don't worry about finding an apartment," my dad told him. "You need to save your money. You'll stay here with us."

"Are you sure, Uncle John?" Xavier asked, undecided. "I have plenty of money for the apartment."

My dad waved his response away. "That's ridiculous. You're family and the college is only fifteen minutes away. We'd love to have you. You've been away for too long."

"Thanks, Uncle John. I'd love to stay with you guys."

My mom carried in the food and set it on the table before taking her seat beside my dad. As we filled our plates, my dad told us about his day at work and then they moved on to questioning Xavier about his parents and school and girls and everything else that they could think of.

Xavier was a good sport and answered all of their questions with a smile on his face, but I decided to rescue him after about ten minutes. No one wanted to be questioned for that long and his food was getting cold.

During a pause between questions, I said, "I hope you guys don't mind, but I have a date with Jackson in the morning."

My dad's face, previously happy and eager for information about his family, shut down. My mom smiled, all for romance of any kind. With me she preferred PG-13 romance, but still, the outcome was the same.

"You're still grounded," my dad told me, scowling.

"I'll be ungrounded at one in the morning. Jackson won't be here until seven," I replied, making sure that my tone remained conversational and polite. Any show of attitude would have him refusing.

"Why is he coming so early?" he grumped back.

"Maybe he missed the girl," my mom replied, like it was obvious and my dad was being an idiot for missing it. "They haven't seen each other in a week."

I wanted to grin at my mother's support, but I held it in. I needed to keep my father happy, not make him feel like I was amused by all this. I could tell Xavier was, though, as he wasn't even trying to hide the smile on his face.

"I do not like that boy!" my dad retorted. Xavier nodded in agreement and I rolled my eyes. Stupid, stubborn vampire.

"Knock it off, John," my mom scolded him. "They fell asleep. No, they shouldn't have let it happen, but it also doesn't give you any reason to hate him."

My dad hmphed, but wisely didn't openly disagree with my mother. She had that look on her face that told everyone that she was tired of the argument and he'd end up on the couch if he didn't back down. I loved how easily he capitulated to that look. It never failed to cheer me up.

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