Caesar frowned. “You confuse me to no end, but I won’t be separated from you. I give in to it. I am a terrible vampire, but I will be yours until it’s over for me and they burn me for my distortion.”
I took his face in my hands. “Caesar, I am way more likely to die first. I’m a mess. If I do live to somehow survive long enough to be old, I’llstilldie long before you. I’ll look old, and you’ll be hardly aging.”
I meant him to smile, but instead he furrowed his brow. “I don’t like that.” He turned away from me and back to the stove. “Get off the counter before you hurt yourself. Go sit on a stool. I’m making you chicken.”
“Is this one of those times, where if I argue with you, then you’re going to tell me about how you don’t like to be disobeyed?”
That earned me absolute silence. I jumped off the counter. Caesar was dealing with a lot of internal strife, but at least I knew who I was.Sort of.Does anyone ever really actually know themselves?Boy, was that a road of pain I wasn’t going to wander off on at the moment. Instead, I did as he wanted—I got down to get on the stool.
“I could just as easily fall off the stool.” I didn’t know why I was jabbing at him verbally except that he seemed to need it. If I left him alone in that head of his too long, he would say something that would ruin my mood after the really good sex we’d just had.
“Keep it up and I’ll make you sit on the floor.”
I grinned and he walked over, placing grilled chicken on a plate in front of me. Caesar used to be a good cook, and he’d actually done a good job with the eggs. But the chicken didn’t look particularly well prepared. I was pretty sure it was raw in the middle. “How about if we grab another piece and I cook it? You can watch me to make sure that I don’t do anything to spoil the nutritional value?”
He stared at the chicken. “No good?”
“I’m worried about salmonella poisoning.” I rose. “No big deal. I’m feeling stronger. I can do the chicken. You can even stand back so you don’t have to smell it so acutely.”
I kept my back to him on purpose as I cooked the chicken. He hadn’t said anything about what we’d shared except that he felt broken.Does that mean he regrets it?I didn’t want to fight with him, not while I still buzzed from what we’d done together. I grinned at the memory. Yeah… that had really been something.
As I plated the chicken I cooked appropriately, I saw him watching me. “Does it screw anything up if I add some fruit?”
“Fruit would be fine. Vegetables, too, if you can stomach them. Nothing too much. Small bites. We need you to be stronger bit by bit so we can leave here.”
I sat at the counter and proceeded to cut the chicken into small pieces while I considered what he said. Caesar never misspoke. He’d proven himself to be a vampire willing to play around the truth problem. He avoided and didn’t answer things. He redirected. Not lying but not necessarily out there with things. Still, I could understand him. His mind was jumbled in spurts and stops. If he said we were leaving, that was what he intended to do.
“Where do you propose we go?” I wasn’t agreeing without a conversation. Since I lost my job, staying wasn’t necessarily ideal. Previously, I lived nearest the bloodsuckers who would feed on me, but he said he would stay with me—my own personal vampire. We could really go anywhere he liked, unless it was really, really cold. As it was, I was always freezing because of blood loss. Too much worse and I would freeze to death in a winter coat.
I chewed and swallowed a piece. It wasn’t bad. My stomach clenched, so I stopped.Slowly.I was going to get this food down, but I couldn’t do it all at once.
Caesar took the seat next to me. “One bite at a time. If chicken is too much, we’ll go back to eggs.”
“I’m determined to make this work.” I took a second bite, chewed like my life depended on it, and swallowed.
He stroked the back of my head. “After we go get you clothes and shower, you’ll rest while I get myself more clothes, okay?”
“I hate that I can do so little. I was working full days before you got here.”
Caesar put his nose against my neck and breathed in my scent. “You were dying, but now you’re getting better. I can feel it inside me. Smell it on your skin.”
I shifted slightly so he had to pull back. “Are you sure you’re not just smelling yourself on my skin?”
His smile was slow then it fell away quickly. He jumped to his feet. “Wrap your arms around my neck from behind, and stay there. If he attacks me, I want you to go, fast. I’ll keep him occupied at least long enough for that. Car keys are hanging in the garage. Yes, I should have told you that, only I didn’t want you leaving. Get out of here, fast.”
I obeyed, despite not understanding what he was talking about. “Who’s going to attack you? Who’s coming?”
Caesar backed us up until I was on the counter again, my arms around his back and neck, his body a huge blockade between me and whatever—whoever—was coming.
“Griffin.”
The door to the house flung open and Griffin strode inside. He wore all black, including a trench coat and boots I would’ve never imagined him wearing as a human. His hair hung slightly into his eyes before he flipped it away.
Shock hit me, but I couldn’t dwell for long, because the need for venom filled me like I didn’t just get bitten an hour or so earlier. My body threatened to seize, every muscle inside of me tightening. Pain struck me, my head pounding so hard it might actually explode.
“Easy.” Caesar squeezed my hand. “That is the last thing that we can handle right now. We will, but, not yet.”
Griffin tilted his head. “Handle? And what would you behandlingwith this woman we’re forbidden from seeing?”