Chapter 26: Rada

Art posted on Ao3 for chapter 26 of the same story name.

Rada rubbed the space between his eyes after the Council meeting was over. His parents may have named him "merry" and "glad", but he wasn't feeling either at the moment.

"They are all idiots," Sanguini complained, appearing to have a migraine. "No one in their right mind would put vampire blood in a bloody mary and serve it to humans for a high."

"Are you sure they weren't Turned by one of those toad lickers?" Rada said, frowning.

"I'm not sure about anything, really," Sanguini huffed. "For all I know this Dave fell and hit his head while being Turned and started seeing aliens everywhere."

"Maybe he has some sort of virus," Rada speculated. "I feel like I have one."

"You've never been sick a day in your life or unlife," Sanguini said, lips puckered.

"First time for everything," Rada said with a sigh. "Did you hear he tripped over his own feet while kicking an owl shipping crate?"

Sanguini rubbed the bridge of his nose more frantically. "No, I cannot even imagine going through a lifetime of immortality as embarrassingly accident-prone as that one."

"If he keeps up such a record, he won't live to be a hundred," Rada predicted.

"I'll be amazed if he reaches eighty," Sanguini said, lips pursed.

Rada sighed.

"With Tobias off being a homemaker in the Muggle world," he said, "I would like to have at least one positive thing for him to come back to."

"His Line having not imploded in his absence isn't enough?" Sanguini asked.

"Having just one of our lines get a nice familiar would be nice," Rada said. "The last one was Muirgheas, who bonded with a cockroach, and it was murdered by a Muggle exterminator."

"I mean—if it had at least been a hellroach or something even remotely supernatural—" Sanguini said with a wince.

"Well, Roberts adopted that odd spider with a bucket on its head," Rada said.

"That navigationally challenged arachnid is a true menace," Sanguini said with a groan. "Even his webs are bizarrely challenged."

"He apparently likes writing words," Rada noted. "And Heidi, I think that's her name—she likes him."

"It would be quaint if he wrote actual words instead of onomatopoeia," Sanguini said.

Suddenly, one of the hellcats bolted past the door to the council chamber, and the hellhounds tripped over themselves as they attempted to chase after it, their tails and legs tangled together as they faceplanted onto the stone floor.

Rada shook his head. "It must be in the water," he said with a groan.

"Hell-nip?" Sanguini asked.

Rada rolled his eyes. "Something."

There was a great screeching cacophony as some of the hellcats were fighting one of the Lethifolds, and the poor Lethifold kept trying to escape to some dark place, only to have the tripped-out felines chase and scratch—practically crawling up the walls and bouncing off them in their heightened state of frenzy.

Suddenly, a dark shadowy shape appeared—literally dripping with shadow magic. It stood up on its hind legs, made a series of imperious squeaking noises, and cosmic tentacles sprouted from its body, lashed out at the attacking hellcats, and pried them off the victimised Lethifold. It made a gaping roar like Godzilla and shot out a powerful blast of dark plasma at the souped-up felines, sending them yowling down the hallway.

The Lethifold slinked down from its attempted hiding nook, shrank itself down, and promptly bonded to the smaller ottery body.

Sanguini and Rada exchanged glances.

The cheeky little creature then bounced over to the pile of tangled hellhounds and seemed to concentrate greatly. Shadow shards that sprouted from their backs like plates on a stegosaurus lit up with Dark energy, and it blasted the entangling hell-chains the hellcats had used to "prank" their canine counterparts.

The hellhounds shook themselves off as the chocolate-coloured bitch yoinked up the otter-shaped terror of hellcats, pinned it down, and gave it a thorough grooming.

The otter changed into a female hellhound pup with a fwoop and submitted to her mum's grooming attention.

The bitch then carried her wayward pup over to Rada and deposited her into his lap with a huff.

The otter-hound stared up at Rada with bright chocolate-amber eyes, her spadetail wagging as she looked into his eyes adoringly.

"Hellhounds can have other bestial forms?" Sanguini asked, his eyebrows arched.

"This young lady apparently can," Rada said as he scooped the pup up and cuddled her. He drew his claw down his neck and drew her to it.

The pup licked the blood without hesitation, her little tail wrapping around his wrist like an anchor as a pulse of Dark power cemented between them and the familiar bond thrummed between them.

Rada gave Sanguini "the look."

Sanguini sighed as if it pained him, drew a claw across his neck, and cuddled the pup against his chest as he guided her to the offering.

The cheeky little pup sprouted a second tail and wrapped that one around Sanguini's arm, anchoring her to both vampires as she lapped contentedly at Sanguini's neck.

"I'm not quite sure what this means for us," Sanguini confessed.

Rada smiled, his mood now much lighter. "Power," he said with a smug expression. His hand pressed against the hound's heated back. "And the very opposite of loneliness."

The two elder vampires leaned back on their carved stone thrones, eyes half-lidded in the pleasurable lull of the familiar bond.

"Tobias will be jealous," Sanguini said with a smile.

Rada rubbed the pup's ears gently. "Good."

Beta-ed under duress by Dragon and the Electrical Outage Recovery Support System

A/N: Tobias gets a son, Sanguini and Rada get a hellhound. Seems legit.