He swallowed.
Boo-yah. “Hadn’t thought about it that way, huh?”
“You truly believe you’re mine?”
“Yep.”
He stared her down. “I guarantee you’re not.”
She nodded with understanding. “Because I’m Desh’s? I guess I could have my dream date with him.”
Rune ground his teeth until a muscle ticked in his wide jaw.
The host returned with a tray of food then, serving two large bowls. Each had a big noodle folded into it with vegetables on top. It smelled appetizing, and poor Rune was going to need his strength tonight.
“Go on and eat. I’ll still be your mate in twenty minutes.”
FORTY-TWO
I’m gonna go out on a limb here,” Josephine began grandly as they strolled along a terrace, “and make a blanket statement. I like alcohol.” She swerved, so Rune put his arm around her.
He might’ve given her a jot too much. She’d had two more draws from his finger. “I think I’ve created a monster.” At least she was prepped for questioning.
“That blood mead you mentioned? Completely down with trying it. Hey, been thinking about phantoms . . .”
She’d asked him myriad things about her species, but he’d had little information to give her.
In all seriousness, she said, “If a phantom has an orgasm, is it a phantasm?”
He grinned. “I’m certain of it.”
She craned her head up, coming to a stop. “Look at the stars. I love stargazing.”
“Have you ever flown on a plane?” Over dinner, she’d admitted she’d never been out of the American South.
“Uh-uh.”
“Then at this altitude, you’re closer to the stars than you’ve ever been.”
Her red lips curled. But then her brows drew together. “Wasn’t there another time . . . ?”
“Another time?”
“Aren’t they tempting? Maybe I’ll float up to them.” She reached up as if she could touch them. “They’re mine. I saw them first.”
“What do you mean?”
“ ’S nothing.” Josephine faced him again. “Where are you taking me?” Arm draped over her shoulders, he led her down a stone path. “I told you. It’s a surprise.” He lifted his face to the wind but scented no Loreans on this mountain. He heard no Orea. Time for questions. “I’m curious about something. How could you not know what you are? Did you never know your parents?”
“I don’t know.”
Even drunk, she was going to stonewall him? “You either knew them or you didn’t.”
She kicked a pebble on the path, tripping, but he steadied her. “I don’t have any memories from before I was eight or so. It’s just a blank slate.”
He stopped, turning her to face him. “How could that be? What’s your first memory?”
Her gaze grew distant. “There was a shroud of crystal covering me, and a warm bundle in my cloak. I jerked upright, banging my head against the crystal, shattering it. Then the bundle moved! I was holding a baby.”
Dear gods. “Go on.”
“I assumed he was mine, because I didn’t know how old I was. In the end, Thaddie was my kid anyway.”
No wonder she was so protective of him.
“I didn’t know where I was. Who I was. What I was. But I knew the baby would need to eat. My God, he could scream. So I set off. Walked till my feet bled, till we were found.”
She and Thaddeus had been foundlings. Rune pinched the bridge of his nose. “Who discovered you, humans or Loreans?” he asked, though he knew the answer.
“Humans. They said I’d been speaking gibberish. They blamed my memory loss on a head injury.”
That explained why she knew so little about the Lore. “Then what happened?”
“They gave us names, posted bulletins to find our parents, then put us into social services. We were the ‘Doe children’. We crapped out on our first foster placement.”
“Why?”
“Guy stuck his hand down my pants.”
Rune’s fists clenched, claws digging into his palms with the need to kill. “You will tell me how to find him.”
She waved that away. “Got him back. Burned down his house with his own Zippo.”
In time, Rune would track down that male and do far, far worse. Somewhere in this world, a human had no idea he’d just been marked for torture and death by an immortal assassin. But even Rune’s dark plans didn’t appease the wrath in him. He inhaled for control.
“I took Thaddie, and we started living on the streets. I raised him from an infant. He was my number one.”
“You were a girl! What did you know about taking care of a baby?”
“I knew jack shit, had to figure out everything quickly. I learned to speak English in record time.”
She and Thaddeus would have been utterly vulnerable, yet she’d somehow kept them both alive. Adding to the difficulty, she’d been a hybrid in a world of humans. “How did you hide your powers? Your need for blood?”
“I got my powers and began to drink on the same day. Not until I was eleven.”
“Why then?”
“I kinda burned down this gang lord’s house—sensing a theme?—so he kinda shot me in the face. Six slugs to the head. Ow, you know?”
Rune’s gaze dropped to her necklace. He hoped she hadn’t already offed that fuck. Adding him to my kill list.
“I woke up in the morgue, in a body bag. I thought I was a ghost.”