Page 134
“No.”
“Poison?”
“No.”
“Curse?”
“Vale.”
He looked down at me. I was on one knee outside the café I definitely had not purchased personally, hand braced against the sidewalk, blood warming the inside of my shirt where the wound at my shoulder had reopened. The enchanted round had torn through muscle and bone and done serious damage that I was finding difficult to heal from. My body healed fast, but apparently, it preferred that I stop letting a hungry, newly awakened succubus use me like an all-you-can-eat power buffet before breakfast.
Vale’s gaze dropped to the fresh red spreading under my coat. “Then what the hell is happening?”
I smiled. “My mate is a succubus,” I said. “A strong one.”
His face changed. Somehow flat, horrified, and tired all in one expression.
“No,” he said.
I smiled wider.
“You did not.” Vale closed his eyes like he was praying for patience. “You let her feed from you.”
“She needed to.”
“You were shot two nights ago.”
“I remember.”
“And your brilliant solution was to let her drain you in the back of a coffee shop?”
“Walk-in freezer,” I corrected.
He stared at me. I pushed myself upright before he could keep looking at me like that. The world swayed once, but I locked my arm and let the nightmares fold back under my body.
Vale caught my elbow, and I let him. That annoyed both of us.
“She is newly awakened,” he said through his teeth. “Untrained, hungry, and terrified. You should be conserving energy, not handing it to her like a romantic idiot with a death wish.”
“So you think I’m romantic? Also, I am conserving energy.”
“You collapsed.”
“For tonight.”
His eyes narrowed. I said nothing because the smile on my face did all the work. Understanding hit him, followed by disgust, concern, and the deep spiritual exhaustion of a man who had decided years ago to stand beside me and regretted it more and more every single day.
“Lux.” He dragged a hand down his face. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“You’re bleeding through a designer shirt because a barista with surprise sex magic looked too hard at you, and you’re standing here smiling about it.”
“Oh, she did more than look.”
He closed his eyes and held up a finger. “I don’t want details.”
“Then stop asking questions with obvious answers.”
