Chapter 74: Late Night Blues

Amanda's POV

"C'mon baby, can't I see the photos just this one time?" Randy asks me with a small pout on his face as he stands behind me as I continue to feed Dani with her baby bottle.

"No, I am not showing you the photos of me in my wedding dress . . ." I say with a smirk as I look down at Dani's face, looking more focused on having her meal than anything else. Ever since I told the Viper that I finally found my dream dress in the third boutique me and the girls perused through earlier today, and that I actually took photos of myself in it, he's been pestering me about seeing them, wanting to check out those photos for himself. "You are just going to have to wait till our wedding day to see me in all my wedding dress glory."

"But that's months away 'Manda . . ." Randy whines into my ear as I feel his hands along my waist. "I want to see those photos now."

"No!" I tell him with a playful scowl on my face as he begins to pepper kisses along my neck and shoulder. "You just have to be patient for the next few months baby . . . trust me, it'll be worth the wait."

"But baby, you know how impatient I can get . . ." he grumbles into my ear as he pulls my body closer to his. "I don't know how long I'll be able to last without knowing."

"Okay stop . . ." I say as I quickly break out of his grip and walk closer to the stroller. "I need to focus on feeding Dani right now. We can continue this conversation after I get her to sleep okay?"

"Fine, but this conversation isn't over." Randy tells me with a playful scowl of his own before backtracking to our room. Once he finally leaves me in peace, I finish up feeding Dani her meal before burping her and finally placing her next to her sleeping sister. I then walk into the kitchen and quickly wash the bottle before placing it on the dishrack to dry for the night. I then walk back into my bedroom to see Randy with a dark look on his face, his tattooed arms crossed across his bare chest as he kept his stare focused on the TV.

"Randy?" I ask with a curious look on my face. "Are you really that upset that I'm not letting you see the photos?"

He doesn't answer me. He doesn't even move or acknowledge that I'm even in the room with him right now. I let out a deep breath, now slightly exasperated with the way Randy's suddenly acting.

"Something is definitely irritating you right now . . ." I say with a small pout on my face as I walk over to his side of the bed. "Randy, what's bothering you?"

He still doesn't answer me, so I start to rack my brain to figure out what happened in the past few days that could get him to act like this. . . .

. . . It doesn't take me long to figure it out . . .

"Randy . . ." I whisper as I crawl onto the bed and slowly straddle his lap. I pick his chin up and turn his head so that he faced me, his eyes now locked on mine as shoot him a concerned look. "Are you thinking about what happened earlier today with your mother?"

"I just don't get it . . ." he finally says, his voice sounding tired as he closes his eyes. "I'm glad that my mom's okay, but we both know that needle wasn't meant for her. It was meant for my dad and we both know it. I just want to know why."

"Do you have any idea who it could be?" I ask as I manage to unwind his arms from his chest. "Do you remember talking to your dad about any enemies that may have come out of the woodwork recently? Or maybe it could have been someone from his wrestling days . . ."

"Possibly . . ." he tells me with a shrug. "This whole thing is really getting on my nerves."

"Don't let it. We both know nothing good happens when you let something get to you . . ." I say as I rest my forehead on his shoulder. "The guy responsible for this will be caught, eventually. We just have to be patient, but when it comes to you, I guess patience isn't your strong suit now is it?"

"Not at all . . ." he tells me in agreement as I feel his arms start to wrap around me. "I would so love to go search for the guy though."

"You don't even know where to start Randy . . ." I say with a disapproving shake of my head. "How will you search for the guy when you have no idea where to look hmm?"

"I would think of something . . ." Randy tells me with a confident smirk.

"Yeah, you would, wouldn't you?" I say with sarcasm laced in my voice as I cross my arms across his chest. "You do know I would try to stop you before you would try anything reckless right?"

"I had a feeling you were going to say that," he tells me as his eyes start to turn playful. "How exactly would you stop me anyway?"

"I could easily think of a few ideas . . ." I say with a smirk as I let my fangs extend to their full length, my throat now starting to burn as the prospect on feeding on Randy's blood starts to take over my mind. ". . . And one of them is starting to make me very hungry right now."

"I could see it in your eyes baby . . ." he tells me as he starts to turn his head, stretching out his prone neck for me in the process. "So, does my neck look enticing to you now baby?"

"You really want to tempt me right now don't you . . ." I say with a small groan as I lean my head closer to his neck, the sight of the blood pumping through his veins just luring me in.

"You have no idea how hot you look to me right now baby . . ." he whispers to me as he picks my chin up in his hands. "You do know your eyes have gone red right?"

"I should have figured . . ." I say with a pout as I shake my head, Randy's grip gentle, yet firm as he continues to hold my head relatively in place. "I have noticed that my eyes start to unconsciously go red whenever I'm hungry for blood."

"Well, why don't we just quell that hunger of yours then hmm?" he asks me as he lets my chin go. "I'm right here where you want me . . ."

"That you are . . . that you are," I say with a chuckle as I lean forward to his neck. Randy's body relaxes as I start to kiss along the skin of his neck, my hands resting on his sexy chest as I start to nibble on his skin, just to tease him. "It's been a while since I had a taste of your blood . . . A pretty long while. . ."

"Then don't deny yourself any longer 'Manda," Randy tells me in a whisper as I bring a hand to the other side of his neck to keep him steady, just as I find a nice spot to bite into. I give the spot one last kiss before sinking my fangs into it. ". . . Oh yeah. There you go . . ."

"Stop with your commentary, will ya?" I tell him telepathically as I pinch the other side of his neck for emphasis. "If you keep distracting me like this, I may slip and take too much from you or something."

"Duly noted . . . I'll shut up now," he tells me in a careful tone of voice. At first, he remains quiet, keeping his thoughts to himself as I focused on his blood, but it didn't take long for him to stay quiet. He eventually started to let out little mumbling noises and groans toward the end, and he didn't stop till I finally unlatched myself from his neck, two small holes that showed where my fangs were at before I stopped. "Are you done now?"

"Yeah . . . I'm finished. I just have to do one last thing first," I say as I leaned back down to the two holes. I lick the spots before moving my head back, both of them now sealed up as I let a small smirk show across my face. "Okay, now I'm done."

"Good . . ." he tells me with a sleepy smirk on his face, his voice sounding slightly slurred as I crawled off him and sat next to him against the headboard. "Your feeding really made me sleepy."

"And apparently, it made your voice slurry too . . ." I say with a chuckle as I rest my head on his shoulder. "You sound like you just drank seven beers Ran."

"I could actually go for one right about now . . ." he muses absentmindedly as his hand slowly reaches my own.

"Yeah . . . no, no beers for you tonight," I say as I shake my head. "Just sleep it off and you should be fine in the morning."

"Yes Dr. Evans . . ." he tells me with a roll of his eyes as he starts to lie down. Once he finally got his head on his pillow, he looks up at me with an expectant look on his face. "You know I'm not going to fully go to sleep unless I have you in my arms right?"

"Well that's cute . . ." I say in my usual sarcastic tone of voice. Randy lets out a loud chuckle as I quickly slide down onto the mattress next to him. "Are you going to go to sleep now?"

"Not just yet . . ." he tells me as he pulls me into his chest and wraps me in his arms like I'm his old stuffed toy Charlie. "Now I can go to sleep in peace."

"Of course you can . . ." I say with another roll of my eyes as I shake my head. Randy gives me a kiss to my forehead before closing his eyes, a small smirk dotting his face as I too, drifted off to sleep.

Normal POV; A few hours later

"Hmm . . . I need a drink," grumbled the disgruntled Viper as he slowly cracked his eyes open to see that everything was still in the room. He looked down to see that Amanda was still well asleep in his arms, her head resting on his chest as if he was a living pillow. He slowly slid her off his body and back onto her side of the bed before quietly crawling off the mattress and walking out the room. He walked into the kitchen and went over to the fridge. He opened it to see that the only drinks that were in the fridge were bottles of water, a carton of fruit punch, and a few beers. Randy instantly went for the beer. "This should hit the spot."

He took the cap off with his fingers and brought the bottle to his lips, chugging half of its contents down in one gulp before stopping. When he heard footsteps approaching the room, he turned his head to see a sleepy-eyed Amanda walk into the room, her gaze going straight to the beer bottle before going to her beau.

"I see someone wanted something to drink before going back to sleep . . ." said the Anaconda as she walked up to him, a yawn escaping past her lips as she stood in front of him. "Did you have a bad dream?"

"No . . ." said the Viper as he shook his head. "I just wanted a drink, that's all."

"A drink huh?" said the Anaconda as she took the bottle from his grasp. "Well, it looks like you really needed one. You've already chugged half this bottle's worth down your throat."

"Don't you dare think about drinking alcohol right now babe . . ." said the Viper as he quickly snatched the bottle back from her grasp. "You're still breastfeeding the twins."

"I thought alcohol was ineffective on vampires . . ." said Amanda as she pouted. Randy rolled his eyes before chugging down the rest of the bottle's contents. "Am I wrong?"

"No, you're right. Alcohol doesn't affect vampires," said the Viper as he placed the empty bottle on the nearby counter. "But you can't be too careful right?"

"I guess so . . . Looks like I'm still not allowed beer for some time huh?" mumbled Amanda as she shook her head.

"Well, until you stop breastfeeding the twins, but yeah, you're not allowed any alcohol, especially not on my watch," said Randy as he took her left hand in his right. "Mind telling me why you are up in the middle of the night anyway?"

"I didn't feel you right next to me and I woke up to see that you weren't in bed," Amanda explained as Randy led her out of the kitchen. "So, I followed your scent till I found you in the kitchen."

"Ah, so basically, you were feeling lonely," Randy said with a childish smirk on his face. Amanda responded to that by punching him in his hypermobile shoulder. "Yeah, you were lonely . . . And OW! Babe, you know I suffer from sensitive shoulders! They're a lot more prone to injury than others!"

"Ah, you sound like such a wimp right now," said Amanda with a chuckle as they walked into their bedroom. Randy shot her an intense glare in response to her comment, but she didn't even bat an eye to it. "C'mon, you have to admit it. You did sound like a wimp by complaining about your one physical ailment Mr."

"You're going to use something that just can't be helped against me?" Randy asked her with a blank expression on his face. "Babe, you are just too cruel."

"I'll admit, when you think of vampires, one of the things that doesn't come to mind is the idea of vampires actually suffering from physical ailments," said Amanda as the Viper sat down on his side of the bed. "You may not like the fact that you go through something that practically no other vampire goes through, but it helps to make you who you are. It makes you unique, compared to others."

"I guess you make a good point there . . ." said the Viper as he did a small shrug. "Have I ever told you how I found out that I have this condition?"

"Nope . . ." said Amanda as she sat down next to him. "All you told me about it was that you were born with it, and that's it."

"Well, I didn't find out I had hypermobile shoulders until I was ten. My family and I were visiting my maternal grandparents and I decided to climb the big oak tree in their backyard," Randy explained as he wrapped an arm around her waist. "I ended up falling shoulder-first onto the ground after climbing halfway up the tree. It felt like my shoulder absolutely obliterated in on itself on impact. It just hurt that much. Luckily for me, a doctor, who's a friend of my grandparents and a fellow vampire, was visiting at the same time my family was. He examined my shoulder and quickly concluded that my shoulder was indeed broken and that it would heal in a few hours. However, he noticed that my shoulder, well, sustained more damage than it actually should have, which the doctor considered weird. My parents were curious about this as well, so they allowed the good doctor to take a sample of my blood to see what he could find out. He called back the next morning with the results, and that was the day I learned that I had the condition that is hypermobile shoulders."

"That is so enlightening . . ." said Amanda as a curious look appeared on her face. "How did you react when you found out?"

"I reacted like any ten year old vampire would," said the Viper as a bashful look came across his face. "I threw a major fit, which made me reinjure my shoulder in the process. Yeah, that wasn't my finest moment."

"Huh . . . have you ever met any other vampires that suffer from physical conditions such as yourself?" Amanda asked as she rested her head on his shoulder.

"I've never met another vampire that has a physical condition like mine," Randy answered her honestly. "It's actually very rare for a vampire to be born with a physical condition. A human with a physical condition can be turned into a vampire, but the condition usually heals up thanks to the vampire venom. It's actually more common to find vampires with a mental condition than a physical condition, but that's still a rarity in of itself."

"Huh, you got to love the complexities of being a vampire," said Amanda as a thoughtful look came across her face. "Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you didn't have hypermobile shoulders?"

"I think my life would relatively be the same, but with a lot less shoulder injuries," said Randy as Amanda let out a small chuckle. "It wouldn't have made that much of a difference."

"I don't think it would have made that much of a difference either," said Amanda as she pecked the Viper's bare shoulder. "I love you, regardless if you have hypermobile shoulders or not."

"And I love you too baby, your weird red eyes and all," said Randy as he pecked her on her lips. "It's nice to know that you are a very accepting person 'Manda."

"I guess it's one of my best qualities," said Amanda as she let out a small yawn. "Well, it's time to go back to sleep."

"Alright, but can we do one more thing before we go back to sleep?"

"What?" asked Amanda as she looked up at his face. Randy let a small smirk grace his own before leaning his face down to hers. Their lips were about to connect for a kiss when suddenly, Randy's phone began to blare out into the room, the sounds of a Metallica song ringing throughout the place. "Well that's convenient . . . Are you going to answer that?"

"Might as well before it wakes up the girls . . . Too late." grumbled the Viper as Dani and Gabi's yells echoed out from the nursery.

"I'll go calm them down while you answer your phone." said Amanda as she quickly pecked him on the cheek. She quickly broke free from his grasp before jogging out the room to get to the twins, leaving the Viper to deal with his ringing cellphone.

"Hello?" Randy asked into the receiver as he accepted the call. "Who is this calling me in the middle of the night?"

"It's me bro . . ." said Nate in response. "I know it's the middle of the night, but I figured I'd call you now than wait till morning."

"Why did you call me in the middle of the night anyway little bro," asked Randy as he raised an eyebrow. "What's going on?"

"Well . . . Dad got a call from the head of security at the Country Club a while ago," Nate started to explain as Amanda walked into the room carrying the twins, one in each arm. "They did it. They caught the guy responsible for shooting that needle that hit Mom."

"Really? Are you serious?" asked Randy as he jumped out of his seat. "They caught the guy?"

"Well . . . The head of security said that they caught a suspect sneaking around the southern section of the Club's property that could possibly be the guy responsible for it," Nate quickly explained as Randy began to pace around the room. "The suspect was seen on video filmed yesterday at around the time of the attack, so it could possibly be him."

"What are they going to do now?" asked Randy as Amanda gently sat down on the mattress and placed their daughters on either side of her.

"Right now, they're interrogating him, but he's not speaking . . ." said Nate. ". . . And this leads us into exactly why I am calling you in the middle of the night. . . The guy will only speak to you, and you alone."

"Me?" Randy asked in absolute disbelief as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why does he only want to talk to me?"

"I don't know . . . He's not explaining why. All he said is that he's only willing to speak with you and you alone," said Nate as he let out a small whistle. "Dad and I are on our way to the Club right now. How long will it take you to get here?"

"I could be there within another hour, hour and a half . . ." said Randy as he let out a deep breath. "I'll see you guys soon."

"See ya later!" said Nate as he ended the call from his end. Randy threw his phone onto the bed before turning to Amanda, who was gently rocking Gabi back and forth to get her to sleep. Dani had already fallen back asleep right beside her mother.

"I got to go baby . . ." said Randy as he grabbed his pants from off a nearby chair and pulled it over his legs and boxers. "Club security caught a guy they believe is the one responsible for shooting my Mom. However, he only wants to talk to me."

"Why only you?" asked Amanda as she looked up at her fiancé. Randy only shook his head, signaling that he had no answer for her question as he put on a simple gray shirt. "Well this seems suspicious . . ."

"You're telling me . . ." said Randy as he walked over to the closet and grabbed his old motorcycle boots. "I don't like this either, but I got to do it if we're going to get some answers."

"Okay then . . . At least help me put the girls' back into their crib before you go," said Amanda as she took Gabi back into the nursery. Randy shook his head, quickly slipped on his boots, and took Dani in his arms before walking into the nursery. He placed her right next to her sister, both of them now fully sound asleep as they slept in their crib. "When do you think you'll get back?"

"Hopefully soon . . ." said Randy as he followed his mate out of the room. "The quicker I can get this done, the sooner I can get back to you and the girls."

"Judging by your choice in footwear, I'm going to guess you're going to take your good ol' Harley for a spin huh?" asked Amanda as she sat back down on the edge of the bed. Randy smirked at her before leaning down to give her a quick kiss. "Huh. . . I guess my guess was right."

"And you would be right baby . . . Now, if only I knew where my motorcycle jacket was at . . ." mumbled the Viper as he scratched the back of his head.

"The last time I saw it, it was at your parents' place . . ." said Amanda as she shook her head. "I never saw you take it with you when we left the place, so maybe it's still there."

"Maybe . . ." said Randy as he slipped his phone into his pocket. "Anyway, I guess I'll be on my way . . ."

"See you soon, and don't get into any accidents while you're gone alright. . ." Amanda warned as Randy walked out into the hallway. "I don't want to hear something like you broke your collarbone while you were riding down the highway or something alright?"

"I'll try not to . . ." said Randy as he rolled his eyes at her warning. "Don't worry 'Manda. I'll be fine on my bike. If I wasn't, then how would I be able to take you on that bike ride around the city I promised you hmm?"

"I'm still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled Mr." said Amanda as she shook her head.

"And it will . . . Eventually," said Randy as he pointed at her. He then shot her a small wave. "I'll see you later baby."

"Bye Ran . . ." said Amanda as she waved him off. Randy shot her a fang bearing grin before making his way downstairs, leaving his mate to look after things at home as he made his way to the St. Louis Country Club to get some long-needed answers.

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