As soon as they were back in their bedroom, Jason made a beeline for the en suite. He strode to the bath, turned on the taps, then grabbed a bottle of bubble bath that Roux had bought him and emptied half of it into the tub. Bubbles immediately foamed under the waterfall of hot water.

"What are you doing?" Gideon asked, sounding faintly amused.

"Getting ready to relax. If we're going to talk about a massive decision like this, then I need to calm down because I'm honestly freaking out a bit, Gid," Jason said.

Gideon caught Jason's hands and held them still. "What are you freaking out about?"

Jason tried to organise his thoughts. "I have no idea where to start thinking about this."

"You can start by remembering that we don't have to decide anything now," Gideon said.

Jason vigorously nodded. "Right, okay."

"Sit," Gideon said, guiding Jason to the edge of the tub.

Jason obediently sat.

"Let's think about this logically. The first thing to address is whether or not we're even considering this," Gideon said.

"Are we?" Jason asked.

Gideon paused.

"The one thing I don't want is for you to give up on your dreams. I know you haven't mentioned it in a while, but you always said you wanted to open your own hairdressing salon one day," he said.

Jason chewed his lip. "Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen."

Gideon sat on the closed toilet, facing Jason. "Why?"

"Because things have changed. My whole life is different."

"That doesn't mean you give up on your dreams."

"I'm not giving up. I'm just not sure it's my dream anymore," Jason said. "When I first came to Belle Morte, I was fresh out of college and I thought I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life. Then I met you and got tangled up in a vampire revolution, and nothing was the same again. I did really want to run my own salon one day, but I can't see myself doing it now. At least, not any time soon. But I'm okay with that. Not every dream survives, and that's not necessarily a bad thing."

"Do you have a dream now?" Gideon asked.

"It's just been about enjoying a life with you and helping vampires when I can," Jason said.

They both went quiet, mulling over Jason's words.

"Running a school for the kids would be helping vampires," Jason said, chewing his lip again.

Gideon got up and turned off the hot water, switching it to cold. The bath was a frothing sea of bubbles.

"That doesn't mean we have to do it," Gideon said. He tested the water with his hand. "Is this okay for you?"

Jason stuck a finger in. "Yeah, that's perfect."

He undressed and climbed in, spilling bubbles onto the floor. Gideon didn't move, and Jason tilted his head to one side.

"I don't know why you're still standing there. Get in," he said.

Gideon smiled and started undressing. Jason had introduced Gideon to bubble baths shortly after their engagement, and he wasn't sure that his husband was particularly enthralled by them, but there wasn't much that Gideon wouldn't do for Jason.

Gideon climbed into the bath, less messily than Jason, and settled opposite Jason.

"Ysanne thinks that experienced vampires will always need to be around the kids for safety reasons. What do you think she means by that? Those kids aren't a threat to anyone," Jason said.

"It's not as simple as that. When I started boxing, it helped me deal with the anger of what I'd become. There was so much that I didn't like about being a vampire, and there was nothing I could do to change it," Gideon said. "Anyone who lives forever will eventually discover all the negative aspects of it, and those children are experiencing it in a way that none of us have. It's very hard for us to predict how they will continue to react to it, but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't experience a lot of anger over the next few years. Their human friends, the boyfriends and girlfriends they once had, are all continuing to grow up, and they can't. Preston would be nearly eighteen by now, a legal adult. Now he can never be that."

"You think he might lash out?" Jason guessed.

"I think none of us know what any of the children will do. Unfortunately they will all have to learn how to live with this because there is nothing any of us can do to change it, but that journey could take years, and even if they do learn to accept it, that won't necessarily last. Many vampires go through various periods of anger and acceptance over their lives, and there's no reason why the children will be any different. We also have to take their human ages into account. They were all in a difficult time, physically and hormonally, and we have no idea what effect that might have on them being vampires. We have to be prepared for the possibility that their frustrations may become violent."

"I really hope they don't, for everyone's sakes," Jason said.

"So do I, but we have to be prepared for it. There's also the authority imbalance to consider. A human teacher can't make a vampire child do anything they don't want to, and they all know it. As humans, those children were working out where they fit into the world, and now they have to do that even more as vampires. They may test boundaries. They may push back and rebel against any authority figure, and they have the strength and speed to do so in a very physical manner."

"That hadn't occurred to me," Jason admitted.

"If we do agree to this, you know I'd never let anything happen to you, don't you?" Gideon said, nudging Jason with his knee.

Jason flicked bubbles at him. "You're my knight in sexy armour."

"The other big thing to consider is that we'd have to leave Belle Morte. How do you feel about that?" Gideon said.

"I'm more worried about how you'll feel about it. Belle Morte's been your home a lot longer than it's been mine."

Gideon stared down at the mounds of bubbles that surrounded them. "When you proposed to me, we never talked about where we would live. It was just assumed that you'd move into Belle Morte with me."

"I was already living here."

"That's not the point. Alexandra and Benjamin are planning to leave Belle Morte and the donor system behind so they can forge their own life, away from the vampire houses. They may not be the last to do so."

"I moved in with you because I wanted to, and I'm happy here."

"Happy enough that you'd never want to leave?"

Jason fell silent.

"I guess that hadn't occurred to me either," he said at last.

"Same," Gideon said. "But Ysanne has raised an interesting point. What if we didn't have to live in a vampire house?"

"We still would, though. The kids' school is still a vampire house and we'd be living there."

"Not necessarily. Ysanne said we'd be in charge of running the house; she never said we had to live in it."

Jason frowned. "Not quite following you here."

"Do you remember when we went to the Lake District and stayed in that little stone cottage?"

"When I went skinny-dipping and got so cold that you had to carry me to bed? Yeah, I remember."

"I really loved that."

"So did I, but – oh." Understanding crashed into Jason.

"Exactly," Gideon said. "If Ysanne had can build a mansion for the kids, then she can build us a cottage or a house or whatever we decide we want. There'll be enough room in the grounds for it."

He gazed at Jason, his grey eyes soft and warm.

"We could actually have our very own house."

2/3

A/N: Wattpad Books is currently running a Belle Morte giveaway over at Goodreads. Five hardback copies are available to win, and the giveaway runs until June 14th. You can enter the giveaway by clicking the link in my Wattpad profile :)