“I know,” I said. Or I mostly had.
He smiled. “It depends on the locale. Since we’re in Minnesota”—he paused to consider—“herring and moose?”
“Yum,” I said with false cheer, uncertain about both choices.
He turned, and I caught a flash of something dark on his flank, just above his right hip. It was ink and what looked like letters. “Since when do you have a tattoo? I saw you with your shirt off, like, two weeks ago.”
“It was dark that night, and we were fighting.”
It hadn’t been that dark, and it would take a particularly uninterested person not to notice his torso in great detail.
“Arms up,” I said. “I want to see it.”
“I don’t need to be inspected.”
“As the inspector, I disagree. Come on,” I said with a grin, and twirled a finger in the air.
“I object to being objectified,” he said, but his cocky smile said exactly the opposite. He raised his hands and turned.
Across the side of his hip, in a thick font that looked medieval,were Latin words drawn with a very skillful hand in a deep crimson.
“‘Non ducor, duco,’”I read. “What does it mean?”
“Roughly: ‘I’m not led; I lead.’”
“Once again, surprisingly politic for a shifter. You sure you aren’t part vampire?”
“Watch it.”
I grinned. “Based on the timing, and because you don’t exactly look happy about it, I’d say you got drunk with a bunch of shifters while you were traveling.”
“I wasn’t drunk, Holmes. But I was outplayed in a game of darts,” he admitted. “Barely. And this was the cost of my loss.”
“It’s a very pretty cost,” I said. The letters were sharp and crisp, the ink dark and immaculately applied. I liked the look and the phrase. “It doesn’t disappear—heal itself—when you shift?”
“The wound heals, closes. But it doesn’t affect the ink.” He sipped coffee, cocked his head. “Can vampires get tattoos?”
“Same issue. Healing closes the wound, but doesn’t affect the ink.”
“It occurs to me that I haven’t seen you naked. Do you have any?”
“No.”
He smiled. “You wanna play darts?”
“I do not,” I said with a laugh. “But I could eat. Human food,” I added. “Do you cook?”
“I make a very good grilled cheese sandwich. You?”
“Only coffee,” I said. “But it’s very good coffee.” And that was something.
“I can probably manage to scramble eggs.”
“Then I can probably manage to eat them.”
He lifted his brows. “Are you asking me to make you breakfast, brat?”
“Room and board,” I reminded him, and sipped the blood. “That was your offer.”