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“I enjoyed most of our time together. Thank you for the lift, and for accompanying me to Homewood.”
I walked towards Venom without looking back, but I could feel Ryan’s gaze on me. The boots made my ass swish and there was nothing I could do about that without walking awkwardly, so I did my best to walk normally — without adding to or taking away from the normal movements one made when walking. Fourteen damned steps felt like a quarter mile, but I wasn’t going to run vampire-fast to get away from him. I took my fucking time, and sent a telepathic thank you to Venom when he opened the door and motioned me into the kitchen.
Once we were inside, he looked me up and down, and wasn’t shy about taking a deep breath. I’d showered before we left the cabin, but that wouldn’t be enough to fool a vampire.
“You didn’t feed from him?”
I shook my head.
“Probably wise,” he said with a smirk, “but part of me was hoping we’d get an answer to the question.”
No judgment, just conversation. The fist in my gut relaxed. “He tells me it’s supposedly safe, but he didn’t offer, and I didn’t ask.”
“I smell deer and something Fae?”
“Party favors at Homewood. Elfin, not Aos Sí.” This time of night, no one was in the kitchen. Even humans who spend time with vampires are usually asleep in the hours just before dawn, and vampires have no need of a kitchen. Still, I wanted to be downstairs where it was safer, so I turned and walked into the pantry.
Venom followed. “If you have need of sustenance, I can offer the bounty of my lion.”
“I don’t have need of it, but I wouldn’t mind taking in his energy. A palate cleanser, if you will.” Some of Marco’s gift transferred to me when we made promises to each other during the blood-bonding Master ceremony, so I’d taken in more of Ryan’s energy during sex than I was comfortable with. I’d never be able to feed from sex as Marco does, but I had enough slayer energy in me, it wasn’t comfortable.
It’d been perfect during sex — his energy had made me feel alive and warm. What had changed?
“And do you wish to give him pain or pleasure?” Venom asked.
I worked the security features, opened the bottom door, and stepped into the opulent underground before turning to tell him, “If it were anyone else, I’d want to give pain, but for Andreas, I find I want to give him pleasure, if it pleases you for me to do so.”
“He’s mine, and you’re over me in the coterie’s hierarchy. You can do whatever you wish, whether it pleases me or not.” His face was a wall. No emotions, no anger, no polite veneer of society. Nothing. He was speaking facts, telling me he’d offered, and how I chose to accept the offer was entirely up to me.
But I didn’t want the wall. In Italy, at the Concilio’s citadel, I absolutely would’ve — but not here.
“I wish us to be friends, Venom. Andreas is yours, and it’s true my position may force me to pull him into service against your wishes, but tonight, I’m thankful the occasion doesn’t take my choices away.”
He closed the door behind us and made certain the locks held. “I was told Marco wanted you to befriend me.”
“Marco suggested you might make a good friend, and I’ve found his suggestion to be spot on.”
He nodded and walked down the hallway toward our rooms. He’d needed to know I was his friend because I chose to be, and not because I’d been ordered. I should’ve probably phrased a question so I could be certain he was my friend because he chose to be, and not because he’d been ordered, but I wasn’t positive I could handle the answer in that moment, so I put it off.
* * * *
Ryan
I had no idea what to think about my evening with Etta, so I figured it was a good time to take an out-of-town job.
The problem was that I had no idea where to start on this contract. Half a million dollars to identify at least three people involved in what Apollonius was calling the skinner ring — a group of powerful individuals involved in an organized effort to create skins that worked like the selkie skins in reverse, so one could put a human skin on an animal, and it would take human form.
This group had taken people from Chattanooga, homeless people they didn’t think anyone would miss, and they’d skinned them alive, expertly, so the skin came off all in one piece, slit down the fronts of the torso, the arms, and the legs. But not just any homeless. No, every person they’d killed in one of the most agonizing ways possible had been, by all accounts, a good person who’d fallen on hard times. They’d had zero drugs in their system, and no signs of a former drug addiction, either. Their remaining organs had been healthy, with no disease.
The lead detective on the case had been a tiger shifter, mated to Josef, the coterie’s head of security. She’d found the person doing the actual skinning and closed her case as far as she could take it, but he was just a hired assassin, capable of keeping someone alive while he skinned them. We needed the people who’d contracted his services.
I wasn’t sure who’d come up with the working hypothesis — that the end product of these murders would work like selkie skins in reverse, but personally, I wondered if the possibilities weren’t darker. What if an old god, or a demigod, put on a human skin? Especially one who isn’t supposed to exist. An unknown power, in a human skin, walking around with the aura and scent of a human? Scary stuff. Or what if a vampire put one on? Could they walk in the sun? Eat human food?
If the Concilio was involved, my first step was probably a conversation with the Slayer team assigned to the top dogs.
My parents.
I’d officially left their sect of Slayers and joined another around twenty years ago — one that judges the monsters on their recent activities and future probabilities, rather than their heritage. To say we hadn’t parted on good terms would be an understatement, and the last thing I needed to do was show up smelling like I’d just fucked a vampire, so I drank half a fifth of whiskey, soaked in a way-too-hot tub of Epsom salts, and then fixed spaghetti with a dozen cloves of garlic in it, ate as much as I could handle in one sitting, and froze the rest so I’d have it handy the next time I needed to hide the fact I just fucked a Strigorii. I can alter my scent so vampires and shapeshifters won’t pick up the fact I’ve recently fucked someone, but for my parents, it felt best to come at it from a physical direction as well as a metaphysical one.
