Chapter Four
Raiel
Moonscale London
I’d once told Beal I’d take my true-mate straight back home with me if I ever met him.
Only now it wasn’t that simple. I didn’t care if he slapped Mori or punched his lights out.
Sometimes Mori was annoying. He went around acting like he knew secrets that the rest of us mere mortals would never fathom.
One of those secrets was probably the reason behind him dumping the beer on my mate.
“Shirt off,” I said, reaching across him to the glove box to pull out one of the black t-shirts I kept stashed in there just in case.
“Huh?” he blinked.
“Change. You’re slick enough without having your belly covered in beer,” I said, tossing the shirt on the dash just in time to look up and stop at a traffic light.
“Yeah. I smell like a pear tart soaked in beer,” he sighed. “At least, I think I can still smell my pheromone blocker spray.”
“I can only smell you. Whatever magic drives the true-mate response won’t let me focus on anything else. I could barely smell my own blood back there.”
“Thanks for that,” he said, grabbing the hem of his shirt.
I watched him wiggle out of his shirt out of the corner of my eye.
If I looked at him head on, we’d never make it anywhere and my car wasn’t big enough for a romp.
Plus, I hadn’t given him his courting gifts.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure what to gift a vampire for courting.
I also wasn’t sure where we were going but moving a vampire into our feline community would take planning.
I had enough blood for now, but everyone knew you couldn’t have just one donor for a healthy vampire.
Why hadn’t I paid more attention when Beal and Pierce talked about those blood replacement shakes.
I had enough money to buy a store filled with them.
Still, I couldn’t totally ignore my true-mate sitting in the car next to me.
He was within touching distance and that was surreal.
So F-ing surreal. He had long brown hair and inquisitive honey-colored eyes.
His hair had been soft wound around my fist. His mouth even softer as his tongue probed the holes his fangs carved into my wrist. I glanced down.
The bite wasn’t bleeding but the impressions of the holes were still there.
Alpha genetics healed a lot of things but when it came to vampire venom it could take its sweet time from what I heard.
After all, my mate was the first vampire to bite me.
Now he sat shirtless with his little pink nipples and lean muscular torso on display.
If not for the courting gifts I might’ve devoured him right there.
How had Beal waited so long with Nic? Was it the danger that distracted him?
Had knowing that we had to wait made me more impatient?
“Where are we going?” he asked, pulling my clean, black shirt over his head and folding the beer sodden tee up.
The car behind me lay on its horn. The light had changed but until his seatbelt was righted, I wasn’t budging up. He could blow it out of his ass all night long.
“I’m trying to figure that out. Look, my first thought was to steal you away to where I come from, but we have to plan your blood supply. I’m just playing this by ear. We could go back to where I’m staying but there’s a conked out dragoness and a newborn there.”
“Annila?” he asked.
“What? How did you know? Did my blood tell you that?” I blinked and the car honked behind me again.
My cat growled inside his inner sanctum. A little growl. A warning growl. It was small now, but a roar wasn’t far behind if that idiot didn’t give us two minutes to figure out what we were doing. If we made it anywhere without me chomping into someone it was going to be a good day.
“No, I don’t possess that gift,” he shook his head and leaned back in the passenger seat, making himself comfy. “I’m the sleep specialist her son hired to come take a look at her this week. I arrived in town early to visit the friend who recommended me to them.”
“Pierce?” I blinked.
“That would be the one,” he grinned.
“Small world, huh? Is that where you’re staying?” I pulled the car forward.
“Yes. Well, it’s where I was planning on staying.
I stopped in at the bar first to unwind a bit and not show up a whole night early on a young couple with a new baby.
They would’ve welcomed me, but I didn’t want to put them out.
We can go there now, though. They have a whole estate.
Well, Pierce’s parents have a whole estate but they’re somewhere in Europe.
I know this little place to get a good burger.
They can even cook the blood out of yours if you want. ”
“They’ll have blood for you there?” I asked, reaching out for his mind as if I’d done it a thousand times over but our link wasn’t open yet.
“They will. Though, I don’t need blood at every meal. Not at my advanced age.”
“Have we met before?” I asked him. “Like in one of my past lives?”
“Not in the seven hundred years I’ve been alive,” he said, letting out a little sad sigh. “I’ve had a couple husbands of course. All of them have moved on. I was over the whole dating thing.”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you before getting your courting gifts,” I said, feeling sheepish that I hadn’t stopped the kiss and hoped it wasn’t a test.
“Have courting gifts come back into fashion?” he asked.
“They’ve never gone out of fashion where I come from. We’re to present three to our mate to prove we are strong enough providers.”
“You’ve given me one. You gave me blood and stopped me from turning around and eating that wolf. Mori? I think that was his name anyway.”
“Mori can be a lot. He keeps visiting this dead guy from what I hear. He’s the son of this shaman guy and all that.”
“Yes, Xenos. I had wondered,” I nodded. “Hopefully, I don’t have to duel that bear. I’d rather not.”
“I’ll eat him too,” I said, and my lion roared inside his inner sanctum, gnashing his teeth to display just how large his curved canines were.
“I think we should go to Pierce’s. I don’t think it’s wise to stay where I’ll be working. Of course, all my stuff is back in the car.”
“Shit,” I swore under my breath. “I just—”
“Wanted to get me out of there before someone wanted to play vampire slayer?” he asked, quirking up his eyebrow.
“Something like that. I don’t know how much Nic told you, but he went through hell around the time he met my cousin and no one on any world is allowed to put you through hell. Should we go back to your car?”
His phone vibrated inside his pants pocket.
“That’s probably Pierce now wanting to know who I ate at his mate’s bar.”
He showed me the screen with Pierce’s name before answering on speaker phone.
“Did you respond to him or was the bartender just yummy?” Pierce asked in lieu of hello.
“I didn’t bite the bartender,” he shook his head.
“Alvis, I have it the security camera. Raiel opened the door to come into work, and you bit him,” Pierce said, sounding more confused than angry.
“Do you work at the bar?” Alvis asked, covering the phone with one hand.
“Yeah. I was on my way to work. Derk is just going to have to make it work without me. Tell him if he’s not nice I’ll just put in my notice since I’ve fulfilled the prophecy.”
“What prophecy?” Alvis asked, his eyebrows rising high on his head.
“A fortune teller told me I’d meet you while working at a bar on Earthside,” I said.
“Hello? Alvis?” Pierce’s voice rattled out of the phone reminding us he was still there.
“I bit the bartender,” Alvis said pressing the phone back to his ear. “The hot one. The lion. The sabertooth lion?” he sniffed again. “Something more than just lion. Never mind, that’s not your business. Yes, I bit your mate’s employee. He’s mine.”
I loved the possessive words rolling off his tasty tongue as they echoed my thoughts. Alvis was mine now and I’d shred and devour anyone who stood between us. How could I not? He’d been alive so long waiting for me. I wasn’t a spring duck, but he’d waited longer than I ever imagined anyone waiting.
I reached out and put my hand on his knee, testing the waters.
Back home, I’d seen more than one alpha cat nearly lose a finger from touching their mate before they were accepted but Alvis wasn’t a cat.
He was a vampire, and he’d already sampled my blood.
Instead of taking a swipe at me, he rested his hand over mine and squeezed it as Pierce rattled on.
I lost track of what he said because Alvis’s scent buried itself in the deepest pockets of my lungs and nothing else mattered.
He hung up the phone and said something I didn’t catch the first time because I was lost in watching his quick, graceful movements.
“Huh?” I said, sounding as smitten and addle brained as I felt.
“We’re going to Pierce’s. We can pick up my car later.
I think the best course of action is to go somewhere there aren’t many people for me to strike out at.
On a typical day, I’m not violent or blood driven.
Today isn’t typical but I can feel the blood lust in the back of my throat already.
Not for you in particular. Mates don’t drink to kill but in general.
In general, I think I should drink people who look at you. ”
“I’ll poke the holes for you,” I grinned as my cat rubbed against my ribs from the inside as he tried to reach our mate.