As much as I had wanted to go all-out glam for my date, I had learned a few lessons in my tenure as a vampire-slaying bounty hunter. My heels, pretty as they were, were easy to slip off, and inside the ridiculously huge purse I was carrying I had a pair of flats and a handgun.
I had places to be after my date with Lucas, and I didn’t think my plans for the night were going to wait for me to go home and get a gun.
I hiked the purse straps higher on my shoulder and stuffed my hands in the front pockets of the dress. From this point forward I was only ever going to own dresses with pockets. I was way too fidgety when I was nervous, and having pockets at least allowed me a place to steady my idle hands. A breeze drifted past me, and with it came the wolf king.
I tasted Lucas before I saw him. The sudden sweetness of cinnamon was almost overwhelming, and my whole mouth filled with the spicy and aromatic swell of it. After the taste came his arms, strong and a little warmer than the air. Werewolves are always hot, any time of year, and I found it comforting. My own skin maintained a happy medium between hot werewolf blood and cold vampire blood, so I just felt normal. It was one of the only parts of my life that was—at least on the surface—human.
He rubbed his cheek against the side of my head, his beard snagging against my hair. I heard a rumble in his chest, a contented sigh as he pulled me closer into the familiarity and safety of his embrace. Though my anger was now a distant memory, I felt like I was supposed to still be mad at him. But it was difficult to be mad at a handsome, strong man who just one night earlier confessed his love to me.
Nevertheless, I insisted, “Hey, I’m still mad at you. ”
“Mmm,” he murmured, snuggling me tighter. Over the sweetness of cinnamon, there was a scent that was entirely Lucas. All werewolves smelled like peat and evergreen, but with Lucas the musk was uniquely his and so intoxicating it was in another universe from all other wolves. The fragrance was dangerous and promising, and it made me want to bury my nose in the crook of his neck, nip at the sensitive skin, and…
My eyes were suddenly wide open. I worried that if my train of thought followed the path it had started, I would be back into a shared mind-space with Holden. With Desmond, the task at hand had been consuming enough he hadn’t noticed what was going on. I didn’t know if Lucas would be able to overlook my sudden catatonia as I went into a shared d
ream with the vampire.
Lucas had once shared a dream with me, and I had never asked how he’d been able to do it. I had been too grateful for the part it played in saving my life. Now I was beginning to wonder if I was easy to violate on the subconscious plane, or if I just opened myself up to people I was close to without realizing it.
One more question to answer, one more mystery to solve.
But nothing could be more important than finding a way to save Holden from condemnation and death at my hand. I was a tool of the Tribunal, and I could only keep them from forcing me to do their bidding for so long. I didn’t think anyone, even Sig, could convince Juan Carlos not to kill me if I refused to finish this job.
Juan Carlos was looking for any excuse, and I wasn’t about to deliver one to him on a silver platter.
Tonight, when the vampires came out to play, I would try to find some answers. But for right now I was here with my wolf king, and I wanted to hear what he had to say for himself. I extricated myself from his arms, sad to be out of them, and turned to face him at last.
The beard was still so foreign to his face, it felt like I was looking at his evil twin.
I reached up and ran my hand over his cheek, letting the short hairs tickle the palm of my hand. As an experiment, I scratched the beard on his cheek as if it were fur, and he grinned at me.
“It makes you look old,” I said.
His grin faded and his hand caught mine at the wrist, then lowered it from his face. I flinched, realizing too late I’d insulted him, which hadn’t been my intention. I was just unsettled by the maturity it lent to a face I remembered being full of candid, youthful sweetness.
A lot had changed since I’d left.
He held my wrist a little longer, then twined his big fingers with mine so our hands were palm to palm. “Let’s go eat. ”
Two Moon Grill, according to The New York Times, was the premiere restaurant in the city for a good steak. A year ago it had been STK. The year before it had been a place called Red. Considering a blue-rare steak was about the only thing I could eat aside from blood that was of any nutritional benefit to me, I was in a unique position to think of myself as a bit of a steak snob.
I ignored the array of steak sauces brought to our table and eschewed the offer of any kind of side dish. The waiter gave Lucas an imploring look when I asked for it bloody rare, like he hoped the man at the table might persuade me to let them cook the steak until it was at least warm.
Lucas offered him no help, but smiled politely and ordered a bottle of Chilean Pinot Noir to go with our cold twenty-two-ounce porterhouses.
Once the waiter was gone, we stared at each other awkwardly across the huge butcher-block table. This restaurant wasn’t the most romantic atmosphere for a date, but it was dark and it was quiet without being silent, so I couldn’t complain too much.
While the restaurant might not have been silent, the space between Lucas and I filled with anxiousness and avoidance. After the silence moved from comfortable to smothering, I felt the need to break it before it broke us.
“Did you ever stop to think maybe I was planning to come back on my own?” I hadn’t meant for the first thing out of my mouth to sound so accusatory, but when it came to good date conversation, I was out of practice.
Lucas wove his fingers together and pressed both palms flat on the table. He breathed deeply through his nose, like an athlete preparing to execute a difficult maneuver.
“I thought about it, yes,” he began, his focus fixed on his thumbnails, where they dragged across the rough wood of the table. “I thought about it for one month. And then another. ” The lines his nails drew out got longer and longer, the two hands now separated from each other by a wide berth. Subtle. “Then, after the third month, I started to see things a little differently. ”
The waiter returned, keeping him from saying more and giving me time to feel ashamed of myself. Our wine was presented, and Lucas did the big show of smelling and sampling it, then giving our waiter approval to serve it.
The wine smelled heavenly—rich and dark, with the hidden promise of blackberry tartness. I took a small sip, but not much more. I wanted to have a level head for this conversation, and I was one heck of a cheap drunk.