The Geek Job by Eve Langlais

Epilogue

The swish of the apartment door opening had Anthony bounding from bed, stark naked. Lexie didn’t immediately follow, opting first to dress herself before going out to rescue Frederick. Anthony held him pinned to the wall by the throat, and, while the vampire strived to pry the choking fingers off, he wasn’t making any headway.

“Anthony, put him down.”

Her lover and mate peered at her over his bare shoulder. “I will, once my former employer and I come to an agreement.”

“Former?” Frederick sputtered, his undead face turning red.

“Yes, former. From here on in, we’ll be partners.”

“Easy for you to say since I’m the one who’s expended the funds to set this place up. And if I’m not mistaken, you’ve taken advantage of the research you were doing for me to enhance yourself.”

Anthony dropped Frederick and moved to stand by the large window, unashamed of his body as he stood proudly and stirred her just-sated hunger. “With what I’ve discovered,” her lover said. “You’ll make your investment back plus some.”

Lexie blanched as his words sank in. “You can’t mean to sell the serum. The world couldn’t handle that kind of influx of shifters or vamps.”

Anthony whirled and shook his head at her with a smile. “Of course not. But what I’ve discovered will allow us to make money with the big pharmaceuticals healing humans. My nano technology, and what I’ve learned about the DNA helix, will revolutionize healthcare.”

Frederick’s eyes brightened and a predatory smile emerged. “We’ll make billions. A fantastic plan, but what about my ability to sun walk? I thought you told me that you almost had a solution.”

“I do. Lexie, fetch the cage from the solarium.”

Lexie, more worried for Frederick’s safety than Anthony’s at this point, hurried to fetch the cage. She returned with the cage and shook her head as she placed it on the floor in front of the two men. “I think your solution needs more work,” she said. “Only one of them survived.”

Anthony snorted. “Only one was supposed to. Both were vampire mutated, but only one held the solution to survive direct sunlight.”

Frederick’s face tightened with such longing Lexie actually hoped Anthony could help him. After all, the vampire was the reason she’d found her one true love. He deserved some kind of reward for that.

“How soon before you can run some more tests?”

Anthony shrugged. “I can start today. I’ll even videotape the results. When you’re satisfied, come to me and I’ll administer the serum.”

Anthony actually didn’t make it to the lab until much later on—first he required breakfast, followed by dessert. Once they did make it down to his lab, Lexie had a smile plastered from ear to ear and a deliciously sore pussy.

*

True to his word, Anthony worked hard the next few days. Becoming an alpha werewolf with some vampire tendencies hadn’t diminished his smarts, but rather amplified them.

Frederick took three days before he returned, arriving just before dawn broke. He hesitated before holding out his arm. “How can I be sure, you won’t kill me?”

Anthony smirked. “If I wanted to kill you, I’d do it with my bare hands. Lucky for you, I kind of like you. Now stop being a wuss.”

“Bossy geek,” Frederick muttered as Anthony pricked him, probably harder than necessary with the needle.

Lexie waited for him to go into convulsions, scream or something, but other than turning more pale than usual, Frederick did nothing untoward.

“Ready to get your first sunburn in a few hundred years?” Anthony asked with a grin.

“I swear, if I melt into a puddle of goo, I’m going to haunt your ass,” Frederick grumbled.

“It’ll work. Come on.”

Lexie held her breath as Anthony opened the door to outside and stepped into the crisp morning air. Dawn was cresting and its soft rays bathed him in a fiery light. She saw Frederick swallow hard, still hidden in the gloom of the hall. With a courage that had to take every ounce of his strength, Frederick straightened his shoulders and took brisk steps to join Anthony, his only hesitation came at the doorway, then he plunged outside.

Lexie followed, a smile breaking free as she saw Frederick, a rapturous expression on his face, twirling in the UV rays that were deadly to every other vampire alive—make that undead.

“It worked. It worked!” Frederick shouted.

“I told you it would,” Anthony replied, rolling his eyes. “But, there is one side effect that you should know about.”

Frederick stopped his spinning and narrowed his gaze. “What?”

“I couldn’t quite cure your vampiric state.”

“I should hope not. I like being a vampire. I just didn’t want to be stuck in the dark.”

“Good. Well, the serum I gave you will not affect your night time vampire abilities, but as for the day…”

Frederick grabbed Anthony and tried to lift him, to no avail. “What did you do to me?” he shouted instead.

“In order to allow you to walk by day, I needed to make you human again.” At Frederick’s inarticulate cry of rage, Anthony shrugged. “Just when you’re in direct sunlight. As soon as you get out of the UV rays you’ll go back to your regular vampire self.”

As if to test this theory, Frederick ran back into the darkness of the building. Lexie pivoted to watch him and saw his eyes flare red from the shadows.

Anthony laughed. “Hey, it’s not that bad. And just think, you’ll be able to enjoy regular food again so long as you eat it on a patio.”

Frederick stalked back outside and growled. “I liked you better when you were a geek.”

Anthony smirked. “You mean when I was a pushover. Tell you what, if you really hate it, then I’ll take it away. But take a few days to think about it first. Go, enjoy the sunshine, but try not to get a sunburn.”

Frederick leaned his face back and closed his eyes against the rising sun. He sighed. “I still hate you.” With those words, he stalked off in the direction of his house, the sunlight making his black hair glint with blue highlights.

Lexie shook her head. “That wasn’t nice, lover. You should have warned him about the side effects beforehand.”

“Bah,” Anthony scoffed. “He would have done it anyway. If you ask me, it’s the best of both worlds. Although, I probably should have mentioned the need to start carrying condoms around because another tiny issue is the fact his sperm becomes viable if he makes love by sunlight.”

Lexie tried to stifle her laughter, but it bubbled out, and seconds later Anthony joined her. Her cell phone chirped on her hip, and still giggling, Lexie answered it. “Hi, mom. I was going to call you. I’ll be coming by this weekend for dinner with my mate.”

Her mother’s voice squeaked. “What? How?”

“Well, remember that geek job I got injured on? Turns out, a nerdy scientist was just the man I needed to steal my heart.” She hung up her phone while her mother was mid squeal and took a step back, preparing to flee, because judging by the look in her mate’s eye, she was about to pay for using her nickname for him.Lucky me.

The End