“It’s all right,” Rans said slowly. “My shoulder’s fine.” He frowned. “Though admittedly, my scabbard is digging into my back like a sonovabitch right now.” He shifted a bit, but made no move to do anything else about it. “Anyway, don’t worry about it. You’ve had a rough day—I daresay you needed that.”
I slapped a hand to my forehead, appalled at what I’d just done on so many levels I didn’t know where to start. “That’s no excuse,” I argued. “My god. I can’t believe I just did that!”
“Like I said. You needed it.” He put a strange emphasis on the word. “Feeling better now, I’m guessing?”
“I’m fine,” I said unthinkingly. “I... wait.” I paused, listening to my body. Noticing, for the first time, the absence of all the things that had been clamoring in distress for days now. “I’m... fine.” My eyes flew to his. “How can I be fine?”
His blue gaze was still a little foggy. “Had a bit of a top-off, didn’t you? The way I see it, it’s the least I could do after the other day at your house. And it’s not like it was completely one-sided, after all. I’ll probably owe you another free slap for this, but you’ve got a mouth like nirvana, luv.”
I gaped at him, still trying to process the last few minutes and failing miserably. Letting the nirvana comment pass, I focused on the part that seemed most important. “What do you mean, a top-off? Why do I suddenly not feel like two-week-old shit? And why do you look like you’ve been run over by a Mack truck, if it’s not your shoulder?”
“You fed from me,” Rans said, very slowly and distinctly, as though talking to a child.
“I sucked you off,” I retorted, “and you fingered me. Last time I checked, a couple of mouthfuls of jizz doesn’t quite meet the RDA for twenty-seven vitamins and minerals!”
“No, I expect not. That isn’t what I’m referring to, though. It was my animus—my life force—that you fed on, not my bodily fluids.” He huffed a breath of amusement. “Bodily fluids are my remit, not yours. Vampire, right?”
I shook my head back and forth, trying to make the world fit into these bizarre new parameters that seemed to have sprung up overnight. “Life force? What are you talking about? How can I feed from someone’s ‘life force’ by fooling around with them for half an hour?”
A smile quirked one corner of his lips, but it was grim. “It’s the demon in you, Zorah,” he said. “Feeding on sexual energy is what succubi do. Even, it appears, second-generation succubus-human hybrids.”
FOURTEEN
MY MOUTH OPENED, BUT since I had no idea what should come out of it, I closed it again. In fact, I did that twice more before finally settling on, “Don’t be stupid.”
Rans snorted. He dragged a hand over his face roughly, as though scrubbing away cobwebs, and rolled smoothly upright. He still looked wan, but his posture was straight and his eyes penetrating as he slid his black coat off and unstrapped the sword from his back.
“I told you the other day—you’re an enigma, Zorah Bright,” he said. “The blood I stole from you... it wasn’t human blood. Or rather, it wasn’t completely human.”
My eyes strayed downward of their own volition, taking in the hard lines of an athlete’s body visible under his black t-shirt. Tattoos wrapped around his right bicep and part of his forearm. The upper part of the black ink appeared abstract, but lower down, I could make out what looked like Chinese characters melded into the design.
I dragged my gaze back up to meet his.
“So,” he continued, “Tell me about your parents.”
“This is insane,” I said.
He gave me a little eyebrow shrug as if to say, ‘And your point is...?’
I frowned. “My dad’s an accountant. My mom was a state representative.”
“Was,” he echoed. “How did she die?”
I didn’t like the way old grief and fresh paranoia were scrabbling around the edges of my happy sex high. “A crazy guy shot her during a campaign rally while she was running for the US Senate. It’ll be twenty years ago this July Fourth.”
He nodded. “And the killer?”
“Hung himself in prison,” I muttered.
“Anything unusual about your father?”
God, where to even start with that question...
“Not unless you count being kind of a passive-aggressive asshole as unusual. Although he earned some serious brownie points today.” Damn. I needed to call him, too. Let him know what had happened. “He wired me money for a bus ticket. He was going to pick me up on the other end, too. Help me find some kind of legal help.”
Rans nodded thoughtfully. “Just as well you didn’t get that far.”
“Why?” I asked, confused.
“Family members make excellent leverage,” he said grimly, and a shiver of unease ran through me.
Had I put Dad in danger, too? How far did this thing reach? Whatever this thing was.
“I need to call him,” I said.
Rans was still watching me closely with those piercing eyes. “I would strongly advise against that.”
“But—” I began.
“Let’s say someone is watching him,” he interrupted. “If you fail to show up at the bus station and he doesn’t know why, he’s not immediately useful to them. But if he’s in contact with you... if they intercept calls between you, then suddenly he’s a rather attractive source of information.”
A weight landed on my chest. “But... I bought a burner phone. Two, in fact. I’ve still got them.” Fortunately, the phones had been in my pockets, not my lost backpack.
“And did he do the same?” Rans asked.
“No,” I acknowledged with a sinking feeling. “I’d have no way of getting his new number, if he did. And I didn’t contact him with either of the burner phones, so he won’t have my new numbers either.”
“Where is he?”
“Chicago,” I said, still not totally sure why I was trusting this man with so much of myself.
He looked thoughtful.
