Chapter 37
LEAH
The following evening, after sleeping for what feels like a year, I wake in my bed to a warm weight on my chest. I open my lids and blink into two green eyes. They blink back.
I freeze. There’s a tiny predator on my chest. It delicately licks one paw, ignoring me now that I am interested in it.
“Whose cat are you?”
The creature gives me an inscrutable glare and leaps off the bed, tail high in the air. Perfect. It, like all cats, has zero respect for me. This is why I don’t take the cats from Karina’s litters.
I follow, shuffling along and rubbing at my face. I fell asleep in my bed in the late morning, with the vampire curled protectively around me. I was dead to the world when my head hit the pillow. He smoothed my hair while I dreamed. That, I remember.
That and Marcus’s massive, empty house. He showed me a few rooms but seemed to take no interest in most of it. I got the sense that it was more of a base of operations than a home.
He is oddly feral for a vampire. More warrior than urbane sophisticate, like most of the undead I’ve killed. Part of him will always be a warrior, I suspect, with a fondness for weapons like the ones he has hung on his walls and a head for strategy. He will never be domestic—
My thoughts scatter. The vampire is in my kitchen, paperback propped on his chest as he leans back in one of my chairs. The little cat twines around his ankles.
He turns another page.
I clear my throat.
He holds up a single finger before he shuts the book. His eyes silver as he looks at me, as his gaze traces the bare legs below my sleep shirt. It’s his—he grabbed it from his closet at home and pulled over my head. It smells spicy and male, and I never want to wash it.
I stroll toward the table. Marcus sits up straighter, book forgotten. I like how he watches me, how his gaze fastens on whatever bare skin he can find. I even like the proprietary gleam in his eyes.
Goddess, Leah. It’s a fling, not forever. I shake myself.
“Do we own a cat now?”
He blinks and looks down. The cat meows up at him. “You own a cat,” he says.
“I need coffee,” I mutter.
“Ah.” He clears his throat. “I made you some. It is…vile.”
I look at the mangled remains of my Brewlover 4000 and whimper. It cost me five hundred human dollars. I loved that machine.
“Leah.” His voice is alarmed.
“You bent it in half.” The handle sits at an unnatural angle, like someone jerked it upward.
He looks appropriately chagrined. “But I am prepared to buy you another. A better one.”
My eyes narrow. “What do you mean?” I glance at his outfit. More gray sweatpants. A t-shirt. A ball cap for a vampire baseball team I’m sure the box invented. “Did you go to the store?”
He grimaces. “Ah. No. Well, technically, yes, but there were so many options. The shelves were too tall, and I certainly wasn’t about to vault one in front of all the humans.
The employees were nowhere to be found. It was a warehouse the size of my baths.
I don’t know how you find anything—why is your face making that expression? ”
“I’m trying not to laugh.” The words come out strangled and helpless. “You went to Costco?”
He growls. “I do not regret my choices to avoid human things after that experience.”
I moan into my hands. He went to Costco, looking like that…I crack an eye. Edible. On a Thursday night. “Were you mobbed?”
“By whom?”
I shake my head and pour myself some coffee. It looks thick enough to chew, and I sigh. “Where did the cat come from?”
He picks up his paperback again, looking every inch the arrogant predator. A hint of fang shows. “Payment,” he says smugly.
The little black cat twines around my ankles. I want to pet her, but I’m certain she belongs to someone else, because she’s far too friendly for a stray. “Payment?”
His smile broadens, but there’s no humor. “The siren’s family wasn’t paying you. I took their car. The cat came too.” His eyes go dangerously silver. “I asked my brother the price of the car. He says it might not be sufficient.”
My thoughts are scattered and slow. “You stole a car.”
His lips purse. “That’s an unfair characterization, but—” He shrugs. “It was theirs. Now it’s yours.”
“That seems unnecessary,” I say faintly.
His face is implacable.
“I’m not one of your legions, Imperator.”
“Marcus,” he croons.
“Marcus.”
Silver flashes over his irises. “Say my name again.” He straightens, pushes out of the chair in one long stretch of muscle. “Actually, no. Don’t. I want to get it out of you.”
He stalks toward me with predatory grace. Every muscle under his t-shirt flexes in concert. He cages me against the counter. His unfairly handsome face is inches from mine, and I want to scowl, but my heart is fluttering madly.
“Keep looking at me like that, mate, and I’ll do far more than make you say my name.”
I poke him in the cheek. “You’re buying me the most expensive coffee maker they have, and then we’re returning the car.”