For a man who was relatively sure his brother had been hauled out of Vivian’s mansion and brutally murdered in some equally swanky mansion a few months prior, it was understandable that it took Callum a moment to realize that everything wasn’t quite right with Shannon. The skin beneath his fingers was cool to the touch, too cool… “Wait, what?!” his eyes flew to meet his brother’s, widening at the news, “That fucker turnedyou?!” It was a good thing Shannon chose then to move and take a seat on his former bed – Cal wasn’t sure how much longer he’d last before that little bombshell landed him on his ass. After a moment he moved as well, taking up residence opposite his brother in the arm chair Eden had had brought down from his previous quarters upstairs. It felt like his brain was whizzing 100 miles-an-hour inside his skull, just trying to keep up, trying to process everything he’d learned in the past ten minutes… For one, his brother was alive and not buried in some shallow grave in some fucking corner of Amsterdam. And two, he was a vampire… The two of them had always been different, but at least they’d had that common bond of being human to tether them together even if nothing else did. Now, well….now they didn’t even have that.
He’d learned from his first mistake, though, and this time Callum knew to cover better. And so only for the briefest of seconds were his eyes were a whirl of emotions: anger, sadness, loneliness….guilt, before he shuttered it all away. He lifted a hand to rake it through his dark hair, sliding one of those easy smiles of his into place. When all else failed, you had to just fake it and hope for the best. “That’s….that’s fucking brilliant, Shan. You won’t know what to do with yourself, able to walk about fucking free as a bird again.” The banter wasn’t as easy now, didn’t feel quite as natural. As much as he wanted it to be the same as it had been, as much as he was sure Shannon did as well, it just wasn’t. Shannon was one of them now, one of the supernaturals, part of their society…and he was still just Callum. He couldn’t help but feel the difference between the two of them. “Don’t worry about it,” he waved him off, “I’ve been a bit of a pain in their asses, lately. They deserve a bit of fucking revenge.” Cal couldn’t help but chuckle lightly. He didn’t want Shannon to start testing these new waters too early and get himself into something even more serious. “I don’t have any fucking place to go anyway.” And he didn’t – they never had before, either. It had made adjusting easier once they’d both finally accepted it. “They haven’t been doing anything I haven’t fucking earned,” he assured him. “Besides, I’m still in one piece and that’s more mercy than I would have shown to me if I were them.” He really was being the biggest pest he could – it was a miracle neither vamp had killed him just to put an end to Dom’s staff’s complaints.
“Yeah, yeah, she’s still here. Just works though, she got the fuck out like everyone else. Did all of this,” he motioned to his things filling the cell, “well, made Jaida fucking do it. You missed her by about an hour. She comes by a bit, give me someone to talk to. We talk a lot about you, your fucking ego ought to like to hear that,” Cal teased with a smirk. It was the truth, but he couldn’t tell him nicely – where was the fun in that?