Bite Marks

“I like it that you can survive shit like this,” I said. I taped some gauze over the second slash on his chest and sat back in my chair.

“It is one of my favorite, ah, as you say, perks of being Vampere.” He rested an arm on the table, tapping his fingers as he watched me through half-closed lids.

“What?”

Slow release of breath, like the hiss of steam from a volcanic vent. “I sit here, half dressed and triumphant from battle, waiting for you to share my usual enthusiasm. And you… do not respond.” Invitation in the silk of his voice. And behind that, pain. As if I’d rejected him outright.

If I hadn’t felt so exhausted I might’ve jumped and run. Because Brude’s wasn’t the only voice telling me, This will never last. You suck at relationships. The only man who understood you, who could put up with your crap, is dead. And you don’t have the energy to try again. It’s too hard to be half of a couple. Too scary. Get out before—

I lunged forward, wrapped my hands around Vayl’s back and kissed him so hard that I could still feel the tingle ten minutes later. When I finally came up for air I said, “I feel like hell. I’m still schlubbing around in blood-soaked clothes, itching like a kindergartner with chicken pox, and so worried about Bergman I’m considering sending him home. But no matter what happens, I will always want you.” His smile, slow and wicked, let me know I’d said at least one thing right. “A shower for you, then, and a new layer of lotion.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I crawled off his lap, where I seemed to have landed sometime during our mini-makeout session. “Uh, I was wondering.”

He reached for his shirt, held it up, shook his head regretfully, and tossed it into the corner trash can.

“Yes?”

“What did you think of Bergman’s offer?”

His eyes, when they rested on me, turned a warm amber as he said, “If you would be happier working with him, so be it.”

I backed up a step. He might as well have suggested we move in together. “Just like that?” Rising so deliberately that I could see the muscles bunch and relax in his shoulders and chest, he took my hand and lifted it to his lips. Every finger got a light caress. Then he kissed Cirilai solemnly before looking up into my eyes, his own telling me things only my heart could understand. “We are sverhamin and avhar now. That means we walk in our own Trust. Together.”

“For how long?”

His brow arched. “Who asks me this? The child of divorce? The bereft fiance? The world-weary assassin?”

“How long, Vayl?”

He pressed my hands against the hard expanse of his chest. “Do you feel my heart?”

“Yes.” It beat so slowly that only a power we humans acknowledged as other could move it at all.

“When it stops, I will still come for you. When I am reduced to my essence, it will not be complete until it has melded with yours. I will never leave you.”

I sighed. “Cool.”

“But now I have to prove myself,” Vayl replied.

I shrugged. “People exchange marriage vows all the time. Ten years later half of them end up divorced.” He nodded. “But then you must give me the chance. That means no more throwing Cirilai in my face, and no more running from us.”

“I wasn’t—” I stopped at his don’t-shit-me expression. “Okay, I might’ve been thinking about running.

But I didn’t actually throw on the shoes.”

“It is a start.”

“Thank you. And as a gesture of goodwill, let me offer you first crack at the shower now that Raoul and Cole are done.”

“I would, but I am afraid my old-fashioned sensibilities would be mortally wounded if I were to avail myself of the facilities before the lady.”

“What did you just say?”

“Go ahead. You are filthier.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Twenty minutes later I understood why dogs shook themselves after baths. Because it felt good to be clean! So good you wanted to just, bbbggghhh . I changed into a pair of hunter-green jeans and a velvety red scoop-neck top. Unfortunately my boots had given their all protecting my legular regions in my last battle. Which meant I had to resort to backup footwear—a pair of black cross-trainers, the laces of which Jack had chewed and partially digested before deciding he didn’t like them after all.

Cole and Raoul looked up from a somewhat heated discussion as I joined them in the living room. Since they’d commandeered the couch, I pulled a chair over to the side, where I could see out the sliding-glass doors to check on the dog every once in a while. I leaned back and crossed my legs in front of me.

Cole immediately began to laugh. “What happened to your shoes?” After observing my deformed, slightly shredded laces I decided to change the subject. “I’ll tell you if you explain that shirt.”

He looked down at his tee, which depicted a Neanderthal dragging his club across a rocky plain. In the distance a bunch of prehistoric emus were thumbing their wings at him. The caption read, i can’t wait for kfc.