Page 49 of Watch Me Burn

I havegotto stop doing that.

Is that why I don’t pretend that I didn’t see James’s wave? It’s possible, just like it’s possible I might’ve glanced around real quick, checking to see if I can pick out a scowling wolf shifter watching me from a distance… but when I don’t notice Conall anywhere in sight, I sigh, then work up a smile to offer to James.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Nothing really,” he says, and if I imagine it sounds like a squeak, I’m not being fair. “I just saw you walking by, though I’d say ‘hi’.”

Okay, then. “Well, hi.”

“Hi.”

Shoot me.

He grins down at me. It’s a lot more genuine than that one I gave him, and that makes me feel worse.

I rock back on my boots. “So, um, I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, yeah. Of course. It’s just… I was thinking…”

I wait.

He lifts his hand, ruffling the back of his hair. “Y’know, I was just thinking, if you’d like to maybe eat with me tonight, that would be nice. Everyone knows your vampire doesn’t go down to the canteen. I’ll feed you, Bridget. So, y’know, you can feed her.”

I guess that’s a nice gesture. Weird, but nice. “Maybe,” I say. It’s the best I can do. I might be annoyed with Conall right now, but it would be a fucked up thing to do, ditching him at mealtimes just because we butt heads earlier today.

“Maybe. Yeah, yeah. Maybe’s good.” James lowers his hand, but instead of letting it hang at his side, he hesitates for a moment before letting it settle on my shoulder.

It’s another nice gesture. Also weird, but he’s being friendly.

So why do I want to burn his hand so that he stops touching me?

“Get away from my mate!” snarls a very familiar, very angry voice.

Conall.

I don’t know where he came from, but there he is. He’s changed. Though he always wears flannel, this one has green and blue in the design while the one he had on earlier was blue and orange… and, holy shit, I am paying way too much attention to the wolf.

The new flannel tells me that he must’ve stripped down to shift, gone for his run as his wolf, and changed when he came back to… to…

Confront one of his fellow shifters with such a ferocious expression, I’m not surprised when the rat shifter hurriedly snatches his hand away from me.

Even if I’m not sure why. I mean, it’s not likeI’m Conall’s mate…

Even so, James’s beady eyes go impossibly wide. A pair of whiskers sprout out of his face, and I don’t mean whiskers like a mustache or a beard. They’re legitimatewhiskerslike you’d find on a cat or a mouse.

Or, you know, a rat.

Duh.

He holds up his hands, warding Conall off. “I didn’t know. She’s not marked, and I thought…”

“You thought you might proposition Bridget to chooseyou. But you can’t. Because she’smine.”

Hang on. Is that what James was doing? I thought he was just being friendly, that he saw Conall treating me like a valuable member of the community and decided not to ignore another one of the ‘humans’ anymore.

Of course not. Why would he when he was trying to get laid instead?

Men. Whether they’re human guys or shifter males, they’re all the same. And maybe that’s partly my fault since I’ve spent so much time searching for the fire opal instead of integrating into the supernatural sanctuary, I still don’t know all of the nuances of shifter and vampire cultures. Just like how I thought Conall helping me and trying to feed me was his way of making up for his earlier dickish attitude. Then Paola explained what it really meant—and Elise confirmed it for me—but it’s not like Conall’s made a move or anything like that on me since then.

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