Then
The first time Kevin successfully killed a Red Court vampire, Lara took him out to lunch for a victory celebration. In hindsight, Kevin should have been more skeptical that someone like Lara, who wasn't wearing a single article of clothing that wasn't priced in the quadruple digits, wouldn't protest over going to a place as casual as Pop's. But he was more naïve then, which showed in his choice of conversation topics.
It was still in the early days of his training with Lara, and he hadn't fully comprehended their relationship—he didn't quite understand his position in her life and what she considered him to be.
Which was part of the reason why, after giving their orders to the waitress, Kevin took a deep breath and blurted out, "Do you think I could ever meet my mother?"
Lara did not quite freeze, but she stiffened, her eyes narrowing, and her face becoming remote. The changes were quick and subtle, but for someone as typically composed as Lara, she might as well have been screaming with rage.
Her tone, however, was carefully disinterested. "What a question." She fixed her gaze on him, expression unreadable, and he thought he might become lost in the stormy grey depths. "Why the sudden curiosity?"
Kevin shrugged uncomfortably, thrown by her refusal to answer the question directly. "I've always wondered about her. My dad never mentioned her, but now that, um, all of this—" he made a quick gesture at himself and then Lara, "—has happened, and we've meet each other, I was just wondering if I could ever . . ." he trailed off under the weight of Lara's unblinking stare and finished quite lamely. "Meet her."
A long and uncomfortable silence settled between them, and just as Kevin was about to offer an olive branch by apologizing for the request, Lara let out a throaty chuckle.
"I'm going to assume, then," she said, a sensuous smirk playing at the curve of her full lips, "that you don't remember when you first met her?"
Kevin blinked, embarrassment and confusion swelling within him. He had the unpleasant suspicion that Lara knew something he didn't, and it made him ill at ease.
"I don't," he admitted. "If it was during my Hunger, well, I don't remember most of that." It wouldn't have been at any other time, but Lara's unyielding gaze made him doubt himself, and he found his mind racing for any alternate explanation.
"Consider it a blessing," Lara informed him dismissively. "Especially not knowing your mother. You'd do well to forget all about her."
"Why?" Kevin persisted. "Why shouldn't I know her? At least give me her name."
The moment the words left his mouth, the bell above the door to the diner jingled, and three of Kevin's former friends walked in: Betty, Jughead, and Archie. Along with them was one-time rich girl Veronica Lodge. Kevin didn't really know much about her beyond that, judging by the amount of time the two of them spent together, she was apparently his replacement as Betty's best friend.
Still, he forced down his bitterness and gave a smile and wave to all of them; Archie spotted him and gave him a smile and wave in return before following the others to their booth.
"Friends of yours?" Lara inquired. Her tone was deceptively conversational.
"Yeah. Betty—the blonde girl—she's my best friend," Kevin told her, despite the increasing evidence Betty no longer returned the sentiment.
Amusement glinted in Lara's eyes, as if she were laughing at her own private joke. "Perhaps I've been remiss in not emphasizing this particular lesson, but I thought your months-long isolation from mortals would teach you just how unnecessary it is to hold affection for them. They're food, Kevin. At most, they're tools, implements for you to use to your advantage, but mostly, they exist so we can live off of them."
"But my friends—" Kevin began, but Lara interrupted.
"How much time have you spent with them since discovering what you are?" She asked, arching one perfect dark eyebrow. "More importantly, how much time have they made for you?"
Kevin was silent.
Lara nodded. "I thought so. There's a reason why the White Court prides itself on the appearance of cohesiveness, why the Raith family presents itself as a unit in spite of any internal conflicts. We cannot rely on mortals or outsiders, only each other."
"Is that why you've never let me meet anyone else from our family? Why no one from our family ever bothered to meet me before my Hunger?" Kevin challenged.
"Oh, but your mother thought of you," Lara told him, a poisonous sweetness in her voice. "Madeline, a dear cousin of mine, conceived you for the explicit purpose of covering her debts. The reason you were born onto this earth is because she ran afoul of the Fae and then promised them her child to save herself. So she seduced your father, the first man she encountered, mistaking him for a mortal. Had it not been for his intervention, she would have sold you to the Sidhe without a second thought."
Disbelief coursed through Kevin as he sat wordlessly, trying to absorb what Lara was telling him. His father had never spoken of his mother, telling him the topic was too painful, and Kevin had never pushed the issue. Of course, if what Lara said was the truth, no wonder his father had never told him.
"And then there's your first Hunger," Lara said idly, drumming her immaculately manicured nails on the tabletop. "Madeline had a grudge against a particular figure of middling power in Chicago. In an exceptionally limited display of insight, when she realized your Hunger was taking place, she arranged for the two of you to be in bed together. The first Hunger is almost inevitably fatal to the mortal it's shared with, and it's a practiced method of the White Court to dispose of our enemies by having our uninitiated use them to complete their transformation. After all, death is all but guaranteed."
Lara's voice hardened. "But the individual Madeline wanted dead was protected by an agreement of various parties, including the White Court and his organization. His death would have resulted in an outright war between our factions, all because of Madeline's petty spats. Her attempt to use you to kill him was selfish, reckless, and worst of all, sloppy—it would have been all too easy to trace the incident back to the White Court. However, her carelessness and transparency at least allowed me to intervene before your potential victim's people found you with him. And, on both an extraordinary and fortunate note, your coupling somehow didn't kill him."
Kevin's mouth went dry as he recalled the pair of money-green eyes that had coolly evaluated him as he lay helplessly in bed, unable to move.
"Who was it?" he croaked.
"No one you need to concern yourself with," Lara told him smoothly. "And neither is your mother. Her time in the House of Raith is rapidly coming to a close."
She reached out as though to caress his face, but the instant her skin touched his, she drew back sharply as if she'd been burned. For the briefest of moments Kevin thought he glimpsed confusion and then understanding on her face, but then both vanished before he could fully process the implications of her behavior.
"Let it be your first lesson in White Court politics," she said quietly. "Without fail, someone will be trying to maneuver you. You can't let yourself be prey to their manipulations. Or, for that matter, anyone else's." She inclined her head toward the booth where Betty, Veronica, Archie, and Jughead were sitting. "You value having connections with the mortals in your life. But the White Court is not designed to be involved with humans other than sustaining ourselves." With a swish of cloth, she reached into her pocket and withdrew a silk handkerchief, opening it to let a wedding ring drop onto the table and roll across the table toward Kevin.
"It's against our very nature," she said, again fixing her intense stare onto Kevin.
While he was unsure of what Lara was doing specifically, he had enough awareness to know she was trying to make some sort of point. She was a creature of calculation and caution, thus the best defense to whatever plot she had cooked up would just be to confront her outright.
Kevin threw a palm over the wedding band as it neared him, halting it flat on the table. Then he picked it up, offering it back to Lara.
For a fraction of a second, surprise flitted over her features, though it wasn't especially noticeable—a quirk of a brow, the parting of her dark lips—but it was definitely there.
Later, Kevin would reflect on that instant as the first time something involving him didn't go according to Lara's plan.
Now
For their second date, Kevin decided to take Joaquin hiking.
"Hiking?" Joaquin questioned in disbelief when Kevin came by his apartment to pick him up. "This is your idea of romance? Just going out in the woods somewhere?"
Kevin rolled his eyes playfully. "You'll like it, you'll see. Eversgreen Forest is beautiful this time of year."
And it was, with a bright blue sky that was an exhilarating contrast to the rolling hills filled with red, orange, and gold trees, and the bright sun streaming through the gaps in the leaves to dapple the green grass with patches of warm light.
"Looks like a postcard or something," Joaquin remarked.
"See?" Kevin gave him a friendly jostle with his elbow. "Now will you admit that I've got good taste?"
"Shoot, I already knew that when you agreed to go out with me," Joaquin drawled, smirking.
At that Kevin let out a genuine laugh. Again, he couldn't help but muse how much he liked being with Joaquin, who was forthright and honest, holding nothing back. It was a welcome contrast to Lara, who always had something up her sleeve, and anyone from school, who, be it student or teacher, always fell all over themselves to impress him. Kevin appreciated that Joaquin expressed his thoughts and feelings openly; it made him feel comfortable, certain of himself.
"So, who are your people?" Joaquin asked him later on during their hike.
Kevin raised an eyebrow at him. "My 'people'?"
"Yeah. You know, your crowd." Joaquin pointed his thumb at his own chest. "I mean, I'm with the Serpents. That's not news. But who are you with?"
The question brought Betty, Archie, and Jughead to flash through his mind, and Kevin struggled to push down his bitterness.
"Well, you know about my father," he said, trying to keep his tone conversational. "My mom . . . isn't really around. Never has been."
"She a walkout?" Joaquin asked sympathetically.
"Something like that," Kevin answered without elaborating. It was easier than explaining both she and himself were vampires.
A comfortable silence settled between them as they continued up the trail, fallen leaves crunching underfoot, which was then broken by Joaquin.
"I used to see you hanging out at that one diner all the time with a few of your friends," Joaquin commented. "Those same three that were part of your student president campaign, or whatever that was. F.P.'s kid, that redheaded football player, and the blonde girl." He cast Kevin a sidelong glance. "Don't see you with them anymore, though."
"You might have noticed that they traded me in for a new model," Kevin snapped before he could think twice. Instantly, he was consumed by regret for letting his emotions show so readily.
But Joaquin took his retort in stride. "Oh, they ditched you for that Lodge chick? She does have a great pair of tits, I'll give you that." He slung an arm over Kevin's shoulders. "But I'd still choose you every time. Fuck fair-weather friends, man."
"No." Kevin drew in a deep breath. "It wasn't as simple as that." He decided to incorporate his cover about being sick into his explanation. After all, he had lied to everyone else, so why not Joaquin, too?
"I was away for the first part of the summer, and then out with mono for most of August and September," he said, the fabrication almost feeling natural on his tongue. "I wasn't there when school began. And my friends had their own lives, so they were off doing their own thing. By the time I came back a few weeks ago, everyone had already moved on. Welcoming me back didn't really rank on anyone's priority list."
"So you were left by your lonesome," Joaquin surmised. "Man, that sucks. I'm sorry that happened to you."
Kevin meet Joaquin's eyes and a part of himself he'd thought long gone was touched by the sincerity he saw there. He hadn't told anyone else of how he'd lost his friends, and it was a relief to receive sympathy now that he'd said the words out loud. But it also made him somewhat uncomfortable; he didn't enjoy being pitied, especially not for a situation so pathetic.
"Thanks, but it's a natural thing," he replied with a shrug. "People outgrow each other. Friends you make in elementary school aren't going to end up being your friends in high school. People change. It's simply the way of the world."
"Well, I still think they sound like a bunch of dicks," Joaquin declared. "You stick with your people. It's just something you do. I mean, fuck, you'd think F.P.'s kid would know about loyalty, at least."
"Like I said, it was a natural and expected thing for them to move on," Kevin replied, but he was inwardly pleased by Joaquin's outrage for him. "But you've noticed me for a while, then?"
"Yeah, my friend Toni likes the burgers at Pop's, so I used to go with her there every once in a while," Joaquin told him. "I noticed you last spring, but I wasn't sure if I'd get into trouble for dating a kid still in high school. But when I saw you at the Wyrm, I figured if you were old enough to be sneaking into bars, you were old enough for me."
"You wanted to ask me out back in the spring? " Kevin repeated, astounded. He cringed at the thought of the hideous bulky sweaters he used to wear, along with that awful gelled hairstyle. "Jesus God, why? "
"Uh, the normal reason?" Joaquin tossed him a quizzical glance. "Thought you were cute. Also, you have a great smile."
" 'Cute.' " Kevin scoffed. "I looked like an awkward dork. A walking male librarian fetish."
Joaquin waggled his eyebrows. "Hey, I'd be into it." But then he grew serious. "What can I say? I thought you looked good then. Not that you don't look amazing now," he hastened to add. "I mean, wow, you really grew up over the summer. But is it really that hard to believe I found you attractive then?"
"Yes," Kevin said bluntly. "No one was exactly rushing to ask me out then. Not that I can't see why, but it would have been nice to know that someone then wanted me in some way."
Joaquin halted on the trail, and Kevin followed suit.
"In that case," Joaquin said lowly, leaning in close, "I guess I'll just have to make up for lost time."
Despite it being far from his first kiss, Kevin's heart hammered in his chest as Joaquin closed the gap between them and pressed his lips against Kevin's own. The kiss was soft and gentle at first, but then quickly became more intense, more passionate, and before Kevin knew what was happening, he had his arms wrapped around Joaquin and was holding him close, with Joaquin embracing him tightly in turn.
Maybe it was because he knew Joaquin wanted to be with him, to spend time with him, but for whatever reason, the kiss was immensely more satisfying, more real, than when he was simply hooking up with some guy out of necessity. The juxtaposition of the two was like comparing the Grand Canyon to some roadside ditch. In that moment with Joaquin, he felt invigorated, adrenaline pumping through his veins and his pulse racing, as if he were awakening from a long sleep and now ready to face the day.
Kevin pulled back, breathing hard, his skin tingling. Being with Joaquin—it was phenomenal in a way he'd never experienced before.
Joaquin grinned at him. "Good for you, too, then?"
Again, Kevin couldn't keep that ridiculous smile off of his face. He seemed to have that problem a lot around Joaquin.
"Fantastic," he replied sincerely.