Chapter 5 #2
He’s lean and a bit shorter than most, sporting a snow-white coat and simple wire-framed glasses. His eyes are a bright grey, and there are hints of a thick, black tattoo peeking out from the collar of his shirt.
He’s not ugly, but not very handsome either. The kind of boy you can safely show your girlfriends without having to dig up a “better picture.”
I can’t taste his stamina from here, but he looks like he’d yield enough for a good snack. If he took his time.
“Shit,” he mutters.
He’s selected one of the unshaded tables, typically reserved for the merfolk and kelpies, and as he looks around to find that all the shaded tables have been claimed, I call up my glamour.
“You can sit here if you’d like,” I say. “The rain usually lasts about an hour.”
He glances up, peering at me over the top of his wireframe glasses, and blushing up to his eyes.
“Oh, uh…” he stammers. “I-I don’t…”
He looks around again, searching for a different option. When he finds none, he quickly gathers his things and darts over to me, dropping them unceremoniously on the table.
“Thanks,” he mutters.
“It’s no problem. I would hate for your books to get wet.”
He blinks.
“My what?”
“Your books,” I say, gesturing in their general direction.
Most of them made it out okay, but his copy of Manhurst is now dripping on the table, and I cringe.
“Sorry about Manhurst,” I add. “I hope it’s not too damaged to finish. It’s one of my favorites.”
“O-h,” he stammers, and I can tell just from the way he’s looking at me that he’s nervous.
He keeps glancing at my face, then my chest, then back at his books.
He wants to stare, but he’s doing his best not to.
It’s admirable, I guess, but I wish he’d just pick one.
The back-and-forth is giving me whiplash.
“It’ll be fine,” he says. “I can always get a new one. You-you’ve read Manhurst?”
There is an unmistakable tone of surprise in his voice, and I suddenly remember why I have put off hunting for so long.
It’s exhausting. And it’s moments like these that remind me why Isaac doesn’t encourage talking to your marks. They rarely have anything interesting to say. They’re just too blinded by the glamour to see past it.
“Yes,” I answer, short as I can manage.
“That’s amazing!” he exclaims, causing a few heads to turn. “It’s so nice to meet a girl who takes an interest in the finer things.”
I blink, wishing he’d stop talking before he ruins my appetite.
“Likewise,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my tongue.
But it goes unnoticed as the wolf merely smiles and nods.
“Most men are too concerned with their egos to pick up a book these days,” I add.
I grin and pick at my French fries as I watch my words land, and his face darken, a shadow creeping into his eyes.
“I agree,” he says.
No, he doesn’t. And he’s a piss poor liar. His irritation is splashed across his face like a blood stain. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about the space between his ears.
I rest my hand on his arm, dragging my nails across his skin, slow and deliberate, until a flavor creeps into the air. Like a rain cloud forming, his lust congregates, an odd mixture of metal and wood.
Gods, they’re so easy.
I lean forward in anticipation, prepared to make a meal out of him, only for a deep voice to cut in.
“Hey, baby.”
A heavy hand settles on the back of my neck, squeezing gently as the chair beside me scrapes across the floor, making room for the one person I’m almost never excited to see.
He presses a swift kiss to my cheek as he drops into the seat with a wide grin already on his face.
“Am I interrupting something?” he asks, eyeing the young wolf like a fresh kill.
The boy stands abruptly and drops his head, eyes trained on the floor.
“Cross, sir. I didn’t mean—”
“This is your last warning, Covington. I see you near her again, I will have you docked. Do you understand me?”
“Yes. Yes, sir.”
The boy, whom I now recognize as the red-faced, white wolf from last night, gathers his things in a hurry, not bothering to shove them in his bag before he races through the rain and out the door.
Elliot claims the empty seat across from me, shaking out his ears and tail before reaching for my fries.
“That was a bit excessive, don’t you think?”
“Not at all,” he says.
“He was just hiding out from the rain.”
Elliot shrugs.
“He knows better.”
I roll my eyes.
“What do you want, Cross?”
“Come home,” he says, popping a fry in his mouth and dusting the salt from his fingers. “The kids miss you.”
I snatch the basket back to set them out of his reach.
“I’m serious. You know I don’t like people messing with my food.”
The little hoop in his right brow jerks, and he fingers the choker around his neck as he frowns at me.
“What, you’re mad about Covington?” He waves in the direction he’d run off to. “Princess, I promise you, one kiss would have killed him.”
That stupid nickname makes my teeth grind. But he’s not wrong. Based on the speed with which Covington made his exit, I’d say Elliot’s right. But I’ll be damned before I tell him that.
“I had it handled,” I say.
“Clearly, not,” he counters. “If you did, you would have called me first. And you’d be full by now.”
“Why would I ever call you first?”
He laughs, and I fist my hands to keep from strangling him out in the open.
“Because, unfortunately…” He pauses. “You and I are committed at the moment.”
“Committed? Committed to what?”
He reaches across my body, smiling as his mouth hovers over mine, and drags the basket back to his side of the table.
“Each other,” he says.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
* * *
Elliot somehow manages to eat my entire basket of fries in three bites. But when the rain stops, he makes his way back to the counter and returns with two more.
One covered in a worrisome amount of salt, and another drowning in melted cheese.
He sets them on the table, nudging the cheese in my direction like a peace offering, which I accept. But only because I’m still hungry and these are my favorites.
He sits across from me, blissfully shoving fries in his mouth.
“Can you stop doing that?” he asks around a mouthful.
“Doing what?”
“That thing you do with your eyes.”
“My eyes?”
“Yeah.” He waves a salt-dusted finger in my face. “It’s like looking at an Ashbourne-sized doll. Freaks me out.”
He grimaces, and all I can do is blink.
While he may not have the words to describe what he’s looking at, I know what he’s referring to.
It’s my glamour, the veil that covers my face and weighs on their emotions, bidding them to let me in. In short, it’s the bait. And apparently, Elliot has never taken it.
His voice interrupts my realization.
“So listen, the inquiry will take a few weeks. Maybe a few months, depending on whether they manage to find any leads. So we only need to keep this up for a little while. Probably until the mid-term.”
“Mid-term?” I blurt, before lowering my voice. “That’s three months from now.”
“You’ll live.”
“Not if I die of starvation,” I snap back.
He smirks, shaking his head.
“Hells, Ashbourne, you’re so dramatic. I said I would feed you.”
My face must betray my skepticism, because he quickly adds, “Don’t tell me you’re sick of me all of a sudden.”
No, I’m not sick of him. If I had to pick one of my regulars for the rest of time, it would be Elliot. He’s delicious. But if sourcing a steady supply for someone with an appetite like mine were that easy, I would have done it ages ago.
“No,” I clarify. “I just don’t think you’ll be enough for me.”
He laughs. This time, loud and earnest, as if he finds my concerns truly outlandish. But I’m serious.
I learned the hard way not to feed from the same source two times in a row. It takes the average person about three days to regenerate their energy after I feed from them. So, for someone who can only go about forty-eight hours without feeding, a rotating supply is essential.
But Elliot seems undeterred.
“Trust me, princess,” he boasts. “I can handle it.”
I shake my head.
Men. Always with the unearned confidence.
“Okay, what about after?” I ask, hoping it will deter him from this ridiculous plan.
“After?”
“Yeah. What if I get stuck bonded to you or something?”
Elliot frowns, swapping the fry baskets around so he can have a turn with the cheese.
“Why would you end up bonded to me?” he asks.
“Oh, I don’t know. Why would I go upstairs and come back down as your girlfriend?”
I cock my head, driving home my point, but Elliot’s only answer is the sight of his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he chuckles silently.
“That’s just a pack rule,” he says, once he’s collected himself. “People claim partners without being mated all the time. I’ll release my claim when you’re in the clear. It’ll be fine.”
“That’s stupid,” I mutter.
He pauses to lick the leftover cheese from his fingers.
“What is, pack rules?”
“No,” I say, trying not to vomit as I pass him a few napkins. “Claiming a partner. What’s the point if you’re just going to be hit with a mate bond at some point?”
Elliot shrugs as if he’s never really thought about it.
He probably hasn’t.
Too busy sourcing his own rotating supply.
But before I can dismiss him as the brainless man-whore I know him to be, he states matter-of-factly, “People get lonely.” Then, with a bit more of his usual cheek, he adds, “Not you, or me. But other people. You know, the ones with hearts?”
He winks at me, and I abandon the fry in my hand to throw it at him.
It hits him smack dab in the middle of his forehead, leaving a little salt stamp between his brows, and I bite my lip to keep from laughing as he presses a hand to the wound.
He makes a show of checking for blood before selecting a weapon of his own and launching it across the table.
For a brief moment, I think he’s going to miss, then I watch as the french fry arches up and over, landing perfectly upright between my breasts.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” Elliot says, leaning forward, tongue hanging half out of his mouth. “Let me get that for you.”
My hand comes across his face. Hard enough he rears back, but not hard enough to wipe the stupid grin off.
He leans back in his chair, holding a hand to his cheek and smiling from ear to ear.
“Fine,” I say. “But I’m not kissing you.”
He chuckles softly.
“We’ll see about that.”