...Aurene seems far too happy about this.

......................this is the pretty picture she mentioned, isn't it. Just how...? Whatever, he jumps through the window and—

—and now an incontinent teleporter has teleported to a couple of inches in front of his face, staring.

—what the fuck.

There is a brief moment of panic, then he looks at Yvette and notices that—he is still mated to her, he is mated to both of them???? What?????

The incontinent teleporter takes a tenth of a second to notice he's teleported away from his mate and then teleports back to Yvette.

......and now he has teleported away from his mate again?????? He teleports back to James.

Wait. WHAT IS GOING ON.

"Yeah! Yeah me too!!" squeaks Yvette, seeing the problem Alexei is having and zipping over to be next to. Both. Of her mates. "So, so you two have also? It's?? It's all three of us???"

Wait what.

"I—I think so. Aurene this is all your fault," James calls without letting his eyes leave the new vampire's face. "Remind me to buy you a gift for it later," he adds.

Alexei looks between—both of his mates? He has two??????? That is too many except it is the perfect number—and he starts vibrating again, and each time he vibrates he's looking at one of them and now he is definitely doing it too fast for even vampire vision to track, at the speed of vampire thought rather than the speed of vampire motion.

From inside, Aurene is cackling.

"It's not her bedtime for another hour!" wails Yvette, heartbroken.

That seems to snap Alexei out of—whatever was going on this time. "Bedtime?"

"Oh he has an accent," breathes James.

"Isn't it great!" agrees Yvette, enthusiastically.

Wait no she is supposed to be the responsible one! Explain things!!! Use words!!! "Uh, Alexei, this is my husband, James. He mated to me when I was still human, and, um. It. Turns out that vampires can in fact sire children in human women so. That. That happened."

"You have an immortal child?"

"No," replies James immediately. "—I mean, she is immortal but she is not a vampire, she is half-human. Listen, she has a heartbeat. She was born from Yvette, she ages and grows, she'll eventually reach adulthood and stop aging there. ...which we know because she can see the future."

Alexei teleports up into the air, looks through the window, then into their house, and then back, all within fractions of a second, and blinks at both of them in bewilderment. He clearly believes them, he has seen it and he can hear her heartbeat but—okay this is clearly a day where everything he knew about being a vampire turns out to be wrong.

"Hi!!!" calls Aurene, brightly.

"Oh, no wonder she's been so smug," snorts Yvette.

"Oh yeah she looked super smug when I put her down, the little gremlin, she has been plotting this all along."

...he is so confused right now.

"When is Blair coming back," whines James.

"Her bedtime is in an hour, we. We can do this. We're both very stubborn people and demonstrably we've done the impossible multiple times already."

"Uh."

"Blair is her brother," James explains. "And it turns out—Aurene, or maybe half-vampires in general—sleep through the night, eight PM and she passes out like the dead. Which is... useful."