Chapter 16: Bad to the Bone

"Who is he?"

Nikola had never pegged Dimitri as the type to piss around his lover, but at that moment, as Nikola had to stand between Jack and him, he knew that Dimitri was considering it.

"A ghoul who saved my life," Nikola pipped in, as he took hold of Dimitri's hand and tried to put some distance between him and Jack.

"Which I wouldn't have had to do, if you weren't so airheaded," Jack never minced his words. Nikola had figured that one out early on.

When the ghoul had decided that they were now training partners and nothing, not even Nikola's defect staff, would stop him from teaching him.

"By the way, I have a system!" Nikola was grasping at straws now. He knew that there had to be something to take Dimitri's mind off the fact that there was an unfamiliar man on his turf.

"System?" Dimitri asked him. Only for Nikola to show him his stats. "Oh. You are cursed."

Now, the brunette wouldn't have put it like that. He would have put it so, as if he had done some great and heroic deed.

But if Dimitri really thought he was cursed, then he might really be so.

Who knew?

"Yes, he is cursed," Jack said, as he took a step towards them. "But that doesn't mean that he can't make something of himself."

That calmed Nikola as well. Gave him hope.

"He is enough the way he is," Dimitri cut in.

Nikola didn't know whether he should hug him for the optimism or give him a reality check.

"I made a staff. It gives out fireworks, but doesn't help with killing the Selkie," Nikola even showed Dimitri the former branch.

The vampire touched it, only to take his hand off as if burned.

"Why even purify with fire?" He asked. After all, Nikola was a druid. Fire should be the last tool in his arsenal to get a staff through.

"I told you; I have an uncle! He is either a demon or a steppe god. In which case I might end up in hell for speaking with him," Nikola refused to view Tangra as anything but an uncle. The man even looked like a Bulgarian, even if his eyes had the bare traces of an Asian in them.

"Besides," Nikola took Dimitri's hand once more and then offered it to Jack. "Dimitri, I love you. I love you enough to let you wander off against a Wendigo, who backtracked, by the way. So, why can't you accept Jack?"

"He is a ghoul. Do you know what they eat?"

Nikola knew.

He simply didn't care.

"I eat raw meat as well," and it was better that than the fact that Jack could have caught a human.

"Just go and make your poison. I will deal with your man," Jack told him with a shrug.

Nikola wasn't an expert on jealous boyfriends. Dimitri was his first in many ways. After all, if one went about being openly gay in this day and age, one might end beaten up.

But Nikola figured out that he was just going to end beaten up anyway, so he took the meat and went back in the cabin.

As soon as he closed the door, he heard yelling in two languages he didn't understand.

One sounded something similar to Italian, the other was most certainly a Viking language.

Nikola began to cut up the meat. Jack and Dimitri were grown men. They didn't need him to chew his nails while they ducked it out.

Besides, he had full faith in Dimitri.

He cut up the squash, took a can with peas. Some corn. Then some beans. Everything ended up in a pot. The pot ended up in the oven.

He waited.

"New Quest! Eat your veggies!"

The system wasn't even trying to be serious anymore, Nikola realized, as the oven was filling the room with a lovely scent.

"If you become the first druid to be able to eat cooked food, and not just raw meat, you will get a boost to your stamina and a cookbook!"

Nikola snorted.

"Yes, a cookbook. Do you have a problem with that?"

"What's next?" Nikola asked, as he relaxed in his chair. Without really thinking much on it, he took one of the many apples from the bowl on the counter and began to eat. "I mean, you seem to think that my sole purpose is to do your shitty quests."

"That is because it is true," the System told him, as he finished the apple. "By the way, if you don't barf out your intestines in the next five minutes, you will evolve!"

Nikola blinked. There was an apple core in his hand.

He chuckled, stood up, and parked himself by the sink. There was a trickle of water coming out of the faucet.

Try as he might, he had not been able to stop the water from running. The house was old. Nikola had no idea since when Dimitri had started cooking as his main hobby, but that must be a long time ago.

He smiled, when he heard a crash from outside. Looking out of the window, he saw Jack against a tree and Dimitri marching towards him.

He sighed, took off his apron, and then rushed outside.

"Dimitri!" He yelled, just as the man was picking up the ghoul by the hair. "Come now! Don't be like that! He offered to train me! He saved my life!"

Dimitri's eyes were glowing in the dark, but he did let go of the ghoul.

"Niki," Dimitri began, as he marched towards him. "You do know that vampires are the jealous type, right?"

"You mean: the type who doesn't even trust their lovers?" Nikola snapped back. "Jack said that there is a banshee in the woods. He and I are going to hunt it. But before that, I would like for all of us to have a civil dinner!"

"I can't eat cooked food. Neither can you." Dimitri protested.

Nikola grinned when the timer went up. He got a skill:

Monster Chef.

"Oh, I don't know about that," he said, as he let some of his mana go into the food.