Page 30 of Becoming D'Vaire
Grigori hauled himself up into a sitting position, then stood. He needed nourishment, but there was no way he was ending this phone call. Though he’d procured Delaney’s forgiveness and they had a new date scheduled, he was loving every minute of talking with him. “I can see the future perfectly. A thousand years from now we’ll be sitting in a vampire club, and you’ll be in nothing but the enormous collar I’m going to put around your throat and your dragonskin pants. I’ll lovingly stroke your skin with the petals of a rose, and you’ll turn to me and say, ‘For fuck’s sake, Grigori, how could you have forgotten our first fucking date?’ ”
“Collar?”
“Yeah, you guys call them necklaces. Vampires call them collars. Nonvampire mates get really elaborate ones. It’s our way of showing off how proud we are of Fate’s gift. Yours is going to be so black.”
“Why wouldn’t I be wearing a shirt?”
“You aren’t going to be wearing underwear either,” Grigori informed him as he flipped on the light in the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he found some leftover pasta and tossed it into the microwave to warm it up.
“And just what are you going to be wearing?”
“Whatever you want,” Grigori promised. “And I’ll be leaving off anything you’d prefer I left at home.”
“You can’t be naked.”
“I agree, my nuts are for you alone.”
“Such a sexy image.”
“You got a problem with my nuts?” Grigori asked as he grabbed a fork from the drawer while he waited for his very late dinner. Glancing at the clock, he realized it was getting closer to an inappropriate super-early breakfast but whatever, he was hungry.
“I haven’t seen them yet, so I can’t properly answer that question.”
“I assure you, they’re lovely.”
“I suspect all of you is gorgeous.”
“I’ve got knobby knees. You’ll have to learn to live with it,” Grigori informed him as he snagged his meal from the microwave and dug in.
“If I can deal with you thinking aloud, then I guess I can stomach your protruding kneecaps.”
“Don’t forget the absentmindedness,” Grigori warned after swallowing down a large bite.
“How could I?”
“Tell me one thing you wish you could do.”
“I want to shadow walk. I can’t right now. I don’t know who my relatives are or if any of them are still alive, and I’m not mated. The Arch Lich won’t let me cross to the other side of the veil without a safety net. He shadow walked with the Grand Summoner to enlist the help of Dre’Kariston’s parents to reunite the Reverent Knights with their dragons, making them the first fallen knight shifters.”
“That was a big deal in the Council when they did that. You helped with it, didn’t you?”
“I was responsible for working with Reverent Knight Drystan’s dragon—who fought me terribly—and Dre’Kariston took care of RK Conley’s. If we were mated, I guess I could finally shadow walk.”
The idea of Delaney crossing the veil that separated life from death gave Grigori a cold shiver, but he ignored it. There was no way he’d deny him anything if he could help it. “You said ‘if’ again.”
“Keep reminding me. Sometimes I’m a slow learner.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“It’s a hard concept for me. Mating. It’s…I’m working on it.”
“Okay. We just met. You’ve got time.”
“Thanks.”
“So you missed out on an opportunity to meet the former rulers of the warlocks though, since you couldn’t shadow walk? That sucks.”
“The Arch Lich has temporarily resurrected them—they’re here for three months. I adore T’Eirick and Saura.”
