I wasn’t too surprised when he ignored me.
He kissed another spot, and then another, none of them too close to the swelling, all of them desperately sensitive and long ignored, because there were a lot of things you could do for yourself, but you couldn’t nibble your own neck. None of it was designed to be arousing—soft lips, no tongue, sticking close to some comfort boundary he’d intuited—but it was anyway. It was also odd, for some reason I couldn’t quite name, until it suddenly hit me.
People didn’t just come up and touch a dhampir.
Sure, enemies grabbed me in combat, and Claire touched me in emergencies. But casual, friendly contact had always been in short supply. Even my former lovers had been cautious, and not just the vampire ones. Humans could feel it, too—that there was something strange about me, something different, something off. And they tended to keep their distance.
The only creature who had just never seemed to notice was Stinky. His long, stick-like fingers and toes allowed him to climb people as easily as trees, furniture and anything else that didn’t run off fast enough. And he liked human contact—even mine. Maybe especially mine, because he regularly crawled into my lap or invaded my bed, with the unconscious arrogance of children and puppies everywhere.
Louis-Cesare wasn’t a child. Or a puppy. But he kept doing it anyway. And not just on intimate occasions like this morning. He touched the small of my back when I preceded him through a door. He touched my hand or my shoulder when we were talking. He randomly smoothed a hand down my hair just anytime he felt like it and then acted like nothing had happened.
And it threw me off balance every damned time. It wasn’t aggressive; it wasn’t painful; it wasn’t a challenge. It was just there, subtle and unconscious and quietly devastating because it also wasn’t unwanted.
The worst of it was that I’d found myself slowing down when we came near a door. Not for any good reason, just to make sure I got that touch. Or standing a little closer to make a random brush that much more likely. Or—and this was when I really knew I was in trouble—actually considering growing my hair out, just because I knew he’d like it. Even though the reason for keeping it short—denying the bad guys an easy handle—was significantly more important to my fucking survival.
So, we had a problem. And I didn’t think that the method I used with Stinky, that is, letting him get away with it, was a great idea here. Louis-Cesare wasn’t a neglected child or a puppy I’d found in a Dumpster. He was a master vampire and master vampires didn’t follow you home and hang out on your back porch.
Okay, except for Ray. But he was clearly demented and anyway, he was fifth-level and had a good reason. Whereas Louis-Cesare was first-level with his own family and his own court, probably every bit as lavish as Mircea’s since he’d been a senator, too, until a few weeks ago. And that made our worlds about as far apart as they could possibly get.
I didn’t want him here.
I didn’t need him here.
I needed him gone. Out of my life before I got used to having him around. Before it hurt more than it was already going to when I finally womaned up and—
“You don’t relax easily,” he murmured.
“I’m a dhampir. This is relaxed,” I said. It was supposed to be harsh, a verbal hands-off, but instead it came out tired and kind of sleepy.
Louis-Cesare didn’t comment. He just cupped those big hands around my face, and slowed way, way down. Running parted lips over my cheek and jaw as if just being permitted to touch my skin was a privilege.
And okay, that wasn’t helping. And neither were the arms that wrapped around me, pulling me off the table and back against a warm body inside a fuzzy sweater. Or the mouth that found my ear and my cheek, which had deflated at some point I hadn’t noticed. Or the way his breath caught when he finally met my lips.
And then the back door banged open and a flood of yellow light hit us. And a familiar voice said, “Oh. Sorry.”
I looked up to see Claire, silhouetted in the light, not looking even a tiny bit sorry. Maybe because her hair was frazzled and her apron was drenched and she smelled like dish soap. And she had a big black plastic tub in her hand, the type we used for cleaning off the tables in the garden.
Which, I belatedly realized, hadn’t been done yet.
And she wasn’t going to get any help from the fey. Their warriors might lay down their lives for Claire, but they wouldn’t do dishes for her. Or peel potatoes, or carry out the trash, or help with any of the other household chores that had multiplied in number and difficulty with a dozen extra mouths to feed.
The twins were more easygoing, but trolls aren’t known for a light touch, and we preferred not to have to replace all the dishes. Again. So every night we traded off, and it was my turn to clear the tables, only with everything that had happened, I’d managed to forget.
“Give me that,” I said, reaching for the tub as she tried to edge around us. And had it snatched away.
“You’re not doing it tonight,” she told me, pushing sweaty hair off her face.
“Why not? You got stuck with the dishes.”
“I’m not half dead!”
“Neither am I.” I was actually feeling a lot better now that I had some food inside me. Hunger was always a bigger problem than some pulled muscles or a bruised jaw. My metabolism could take care of those pretty fast on its own, even without vampire assistance. But it couldn’t feed itself. And healing took a lot of energy.
“You need to get some sleep,” she said crossly.
“I slept most of the day. And I’m not leaving you with all the cleaning up to do.”
“You are if I say so,” she told me. Because Claire never met a person she didn’t try to boss around.