Page 44 of Watch Me Burn

And as I join in with Elise’s tinkling laughter, I can’t help but look forward to it.

CHAPTER 14

DEAD BUNNY

It’s been two weeks already. Maybe even a couple of days more than that. I don’t know. I’m not really keeping count, and I left my calendar back in Clarity.

In some ways, they’ve been pretty eventful. In others—like how our trips to the cave still have us coming up empty-handed—they haven’t.

I’m getting used to living in the sanctuary. It’s not that bad, really. We even had a movie night, organized by Mayor Lou and Beatrice, the sweet mink that runs the canteen, the other day.

In Dyea, there are very few children. In fact, I think there are only about three, all of them shifters, belonging to two of the mated couples. We let Kimmy, a three-year-old hedgehog, pick the movie.

To my absolute delight—and Elise’s fixation on watching anything that has to do with vampires—Kimmy pickedTwilight. Just knowing that audience-watching would be more entertaining than watching the film itself, I invited Conall to join us.

The movie was shown on a large screen via a projector that Gertie smuggled in with her when she came to Dyea ten yearsago. She also brought her DVD player and movie collection, and I found it hysterical that the ornery porcupine loved all things romance.

I didn’t think Conall would come. I arrived with Elise, and I saved the chair on the other side of me just in case. Right as Bella was going to Forks, I heard a slight disturbance in the canteen as Conall entered, dropping himself down into the seat next to me.

The audience was whispering when he showed up, but Gertie threatening to throw quills around if they didn’t knock it off got them to cool it pretty quickly.

I’d made a joking bet with him when I invited him that there wouldn’t be a single vampire left in the room by the time it was done—except for Elise, who I know for a fact loves to hate-watch the sparkling vampires inTwilight… only now I knowwhy—and it amused me even more when Conall begrudgingly passed me a twenty after the credits started to roll without saying a single word to me or anyone other than Mayor Lou.

After that, the villagers started to pay a little more attention to me. Instead of being just Elise’s pet human, I’m the newcomer who managed to pull Conall Hunt off of his perennial patrol. Even if for only two hours or so, he stopped being the gruff head of security, and that caught people’s attention all because he sat next to me.

Well, why not? I’ve lost track of how long we’ve spent exploring the caves together. At first, Conall seemed to prefer quiet while we’re down there. His wolf uses all of its senses to navigate the darkness with only the flame hovering over my palm to guide our way. He needs his nose to make sure it’s safe, and his ears to hear the nearly inaudible sounds of rocks shifting before I start falling again.

With Conall as my guide, there hasn’t been another close call as bad as that. But, hell, I’m not a quiet chick. I like to talk, and I like to have someone to talk to. Elise isn’t down here, but Mr.Grump is, and no matter how I try to follow his lead, I inevitably strike up a conversation.

To my surprise, as long as he isn’t clearing a cave, he’s willing to chat.

Elise is still my go-to when it comes to asking about supes. Like how I’ve pestered her with questions about mate bonds—including a vampire’s blood exchange—as well as how a shifter might recognize his fated mate. Conall, though, is a treasure trove of expertise involving the different kinds of shifters out there.

There are predators, like Conall’s wolf, large cats, and bears. Then there are weaker, less dominant prey shifter; basically all the other residents in Dyea. Lizard shifters. Water shifters, including dolphins and sharks. Basically, if it’s an animal, someone out there can shift into it.

But mating? For some reason, whenever I try to get more details about fated mates, he’s quick to change the subject. I don’t push it. He couldn’t make it any clearer that, as a wolf, he’ll wait as long as it takes for his Luna-given mate, the one female born to tame his lone wolf.

He’s not cruel about it. And if his super sniffer has picked up signs that I’m becoming a little more attracted to him after all the time we spent together, he doesn’t rub it in my face that I’m not his type. He just kind of awkwardly asks me a question about myself, and though I can’t see why he would actually give a shit about my favorite flower, when my birthday is, what my dream vacation would be like, and my favorite meal, I go along with it anyway.

He even asks me whether or not I like to cook. I admit that I do, and I often cooked at home when Elise wasn’t bringing some take-out home for me, but that it’s a lot easier to just eat at the canteen since it’s not like we have an actual grocery store in Dyea.

Why would we? All of the fresh food is either imported into the sanctuary for the commissary or—more likely—foraged from the wild. I stopped asking what the meat of the day is after Beatrice brightly told me it was moose once, and if there are a lot of berries served at breakfast, at least it’s affordable and sustainable.

Conall was thoughtfully quiet after my answer, and I didn’t think anything of it.

Until now.

Elise’s supernatural senses are as impressive as Conall’s, even if they’re different. Once I knew the truth about her being a vampire, I learned that she can smell a drop of blood from across the room. Whenever I was on my period, she could tell, and it’s the reason she would pick up extra chocolate to leave out in the kitchen for me. I just thought we were on the same cycle. Not quite. As a born vampire, she only gets her period once a year, and it’s the only fertile period she’ll have with her eventual beloved. Other than that, no bleeding, no cramps, and no pregnancy scares ever.

Lucky.

She also can sense things I can’t. Now that she doesn’t have to mask what she is around me anymore, we could just be sitting on the couch only for her head to snap toward the door as though she knows instinctively seconds before we have a guest.

Sometimes it’s Mayor Lou checking on us. Other times it’s one of the other vampires in Dyea using their human donors to pass along a message to Elise.

Tonight?

It’sConall.

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