Page 43 of Hot Blooded

“No, I do. I just… I suppose I didn’t expect you to want the same from me.”

She pushed up onto one elbow to gaze down at him again, frowning. “Why not?”

“Nobody has before,” he answered plainly.

“Oh.” Her expression softened. She leaned down and kissed him softly, sweetly. He tasted himself on her, hyper-aware of the increased blood flow in her swollen lips. The kiss made his fangs throb, and he swallowed away the sudden flood of saliva in his mouth. He’d already had more than his share of her tonight.

Speaking of which… Amos pushed himself up, breaking the kiss. He scooped Tessa into his arms and deposited her on the couch.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. He tucked himself into his jeans as he went to the kitchen to retrieve snacks for her. He was still rummaging in the pantry when he heard her footsteps in the hallway. A few seconds later, she appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking gorgeous and sex-rumpled.

“I told you I’d be right back,” Amos chided with feigned annoyance.

“I know,” she said, stepping into the kitchen and seating herself at the built-in breakfast nook. Amos liked the look of her there—like it was her home, and it was perfectly usual for her to have a snack in the kitchen.

He brought the array of snacks and drinks to the table, and seated himself across from her, watching as she sorted through the packets until she settled on some sort of elaborate pastry with bright-eyed interest. Amos would never have thought to pick something so lavish. He knew his pragmatism, while objectively a useful trait, was one of the things that made him a bit dull in company. He made a mental note to thank Fran again for her intervention.

“Can I ask you something?” Amos asked after Tessa had bitten into the pastry and made a humming sound of approval.

She chewed and swallowed. “Of course.”

“You said it was in both our interest to delay introducing me to your family.”

“Oh. Yeah. Um.” She rubbed at her temple, looking suddenly tired. “I’ve always been sort of the… I don’t know… the caretaker? In my family?”

Amos didn’t follow the relevance, and his expression must have said as much.

“It’s hard to explain. I’m the oldest sibling, and the oldest of all my cousins on both sides of my very large family. I grew up babysitting and taking care of all of them, and I had to start acting like an adult before most kids my age because I was basically a backup parent a lot of the time. The cousins are mostly all married now, except for the youngest ones, so even though they’re adults, they get to focus all their energy on their own families, because that’s just what’s expected. But I’m still single, and... there’s no, like, official title for the role I’ve fallen into, but I think a lot of families end up with this one eldest daughter who just… takes care of everything. You know?”

Amos nodded, slowly beginning to understand.

“Anyways, I know my family loves me. I know they do. But… I don’t think they’d be thrilled to find out that I’m, maybe, you know, getting my own life. Because if my loyalty goes to someone else, then who’s going to be the family slave anymore?” She immediately pressed her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “I didn’t mean that. They don’t think I’m their slave.”

“But it feels like you are,” Amos said gently.

She was quiet for a moment, staring at the pastry. “Yeah,” she finally sighed.

Amos didn’t know what to say. He knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to tell her that her ungrateful family could fuck right off if they didn’t want to treat her how she deserved. But that was maybe not the most productive approach. Instead, he said, gently, “Eat. You need to bring your blood sugar up.”

She took another bite, casting him a look he couldn’t quite interpret. It seemed both vulnerable and wolfish at the same time, and he couldn’t figure out why a pastry should inspire two such conflicting emotions.

“I have a question for you,” Tessa said after a few bites.

Amos raised his brows in question.

“You can obviously move way faster than mortal humans.”

He nodded.

“But it seemed like you could… disappear? Is that a thing?”

Amos settled back against his chair, feeling back on solid ground with the new topic. “Not quite. I can slip into shadows. I don’t become truly invisible. It’s more like I become a part of the darkness. If you knew where to look for me, you’d still see the edges of my form. As time goes on, I get better and better at it—total invisibility might come to me someday.”

“Can all vampires do that?”

“No. Some never develop other abilities. Some develop many. Certain skills are known to show up in certain lines of progeny. My dam doesn’t know who sired her—they may have died somehow before the bond compelled them to find her—but she can also slip into shadows, so her sire was probably from the Zenobian line.”

“How many lines are there?”

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