My head was spinning again. “You keep saying ‘they.’ Who are ‘they’?”
“Your mate Caspian and his lot.” Rans’ voice dripped with disdain. “Since the war ended, they’re the ones in charge.”
I almost didn’t want to ask, but... “The war?”
Rans must have seen how overwhelmed I was, because he shook his head. “Too much, too soon. Practical upshot—Golden Boy and his cronies aren’t just going to let this go. They know who you are and, more importantly, they know what you are. They also know where you are—in a general sense, at least—though with any luck I can remedy that last part before it comes back to bite us in the arse.”
I still wasn’t ready to tackle the ‘what you are’ part of things.
“Why do you care about any of this?” I asked instead. “Why are you going out of your way for me?”
He tilted his head, his expression thoughtful. “I have my reasons.”
“Altruistic ones?” I asked tartly.
A brief smile twitched at his full lips. “Not originally. Though for what it’s worth, you’re growing on me. If nothing else, luv, you give phenomenal head.”
He was trying to distract me from the real issues, I was pretty sure. And right now, I decided to let him do it. Too much had happened in too short a time. I needed a chance to sort everything out. If that was what he was offering me right now, I’d take it.
“Yeah? Well, you’re no slouch in the foreplay department, either,” I told him, my voice wry. “Or the ego-stroking department. Men mostly run for the hills after sleeping with me. I’d always sort of assumed that meant I was lousy at it.”
Okay, I hadn’t really intended for that last part to slip out. Possibly I was still more out of things than I realized.
Rans hitched a hip against the corner of the heavy wooden dresser across from the bed. “No. It means they sensed you drawing animus from them. Their instincts sensed danger, even though their rational minds couldn’t understand it. So they ran.”
I didn’t want to think any more about this right now. I wanted to set it aside and... what? Come back to it later? What made me think it would be any easier to wrap my mind around this stuff a day from now... or a week, or a decade?
“I’ve always felt better when I was in a relationship,” I said slowly. “Physically better, I mean.”
He shrugged. “I don’t doubt it. Starvation is a real bastard, no matter what species you are.”
My stomach did a little flip of protest. “So you’re saying I was... feeding on my boyfriends? What would have happened if they’d stayed? Would I have hurt them? Killed them?”
Part of my mind was still protesting this whole insane conversation. Another part was connecting the dots, thinking about how, the worse my body felt, the more insistent my sexual desire became. Chronic pain and fatigue should have had the opposite effect on my libido, but instead I turned into a walking nympho.
“It’s hard to say,” Rans said, and I had to cast my mind back to regain the thread of the conversation—my question about hurting my boyfriends. “They might have succumbed to you eventually. It’s uncharted territory, really, since as far as I’m aware, a cambion has never successfully reproduced with a human before.”
... and we were back to speaking separate languages again.
“Cambion?” I asked.
“The offspring of a human and a demon succubus,” Rans explained. “In this case, almost certainly your mother.”
Damn it, now my head was starting to hurt again. “Wait... but... if I could possibly kill a guy by sleeping with him for an extended period, then what about my dad? He and Mom were married for years, and he’s okay.” I paused, and walked that last part back a bit. “Well... okay-ish, anyway.”
“I’ve no idea,” Rans said. “Maybe they were largely celibate, and she got her meals elsewhere.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What the hell are you trying to imply?”
He blinked, and pushed upright from his casual leaning stance against the dresser. “You asked. I’m just theorizing aloud. That’s enough speculation for right now, though. You still need sleep, and I still need to figure out what the hell we’re doing next.” He sighed. “I was always rubbish at chess.”
“That’s reassuring,” I told him, and was rewarded with that borderline scary flash of a smile I’d seen a couple of times before. It was a smile that said, I might be a badass, sword-wielding supernatural creature, but that doesn’t mean I still have all my marbles.
“It keeps life interesting,” he said. “Well... it keeps undeath interesting. You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I only understand about one word in three that comes out of your mouth. And I’m not talking about the accent.”
But at least you’re pretty to look at, I didn’t add.
“Oooh. Touché.” He mimed a strike to the heart, and I was uncomfortably reminded of the gaping hole that had been blown through his chest the first time I’d seen him. Maybe something of it showed on my face, because he said, “Rest. No one’s going to bother us here tonight, and you’ll need your strength over the next few days. I’ll bring you some food in a few hours.”
“Food?” I asked sourly. “You’re not just going to throw a rent-boy in here for me, so I can screw the life force out of him?”
His glacier eyes bored into me for a moment, though his voice when he answered was mild. “If I’m right about things, you’re still three-quarters human—so you need to eat,” he said, “and no, I’m not.”
With that, he strode out of the bedroom with his leather coat slung over his arm and his scabbard clasped loosely in one hand. I noticed that he had not, in fact, closed the door after us when
