“He took from the blood drive,” Cole added, not helpfully.
Mari glanced back and forth between them for a long time while Brennan dared to hope with bated breath and Cole continued to study the floor like he was going to be tested on it. Brennan watched the expressions pass over Mari’s face, the tentative realization that they were being serious, that this was a possibility.
“And you saw,” Mari finished, to Cole. He nodded, damp and deflated, and she went quiet for a minute. “Oh my god. Cole, are you bleeding?”
At the curve of his neck was the tiniest smear of blood from where Brennan’s fang had pricked him before he could pull away. It was barely anything, but he was still bleeding, and Brennan had still been the cause of it.
“It was an accident,” Brennan started to defend himself, but it came out weak. What difference did that make? Cole was hurt, and it was his fault.
“Oh my god,” Mari said. “And now that girl is missing. Did you hurt her?”
“No,” Brennan said, barely a whisper. Because even if he hadn’t, another vampire had.
“He wouldn’t,” Cole said.
Wouldn’t he? He’d hurt Cole, after all. How was he any different from Dom?
“Do you even hear yourself?” Mari pressed her lips together for a long moment. She shook her head at Cole with what could only be described as pity. “You’re doing it again, Cole,” she said coldly. “Taking in strays because you feel guilty about Noah.”
Cole recoiled like she’d physically slapped him, and Mari marched up to Brennan to stick a finger at his nose with her free hand while the other still brandished the pepper spray.
“And you,” she said. “Stay away from me, stay away from Cole, stay away from Tony. Get a new lease, transfer universities, flee the country, I don’t give a shit. If I see you again, I’ll find the closest thing to Buffy the goddamn Vampire Slayer we have in this world and send them your way.”
She pushed past Brennan to get out the doorway and left Cole standing in the entryway with Brennan, head hanging low.
She stopped outside and held out a hand like an owner calling a dog. “Cole, come on.”
Worse, Cole went. Didn’t even look Brennan in the eyes.
The door slammed shut behind them, leaving Brennan with the mess.
Mari was right. He was a freak. A monster. He was stupid to get caught up in a fantasy of normalcy with Cole, when he couldn’t evenkissCole without drawing blood. He’d let himself get distracted, and now he was facing the consequences.
First, he would need to clean up the blood.
He wished, more than anything, that he could collapse in his bed and sleep, but in addition to being an immortal being who was incapable of sleep, he turned on the lights of his bedroom to find his bed occupied.
“Fucking shit, Dom!” Brennan shouted, nearly dropping the pouch of blood he was sipping through a straw like a Capri-Sun. It tasted better that way, okay?
“That sounded brutal,” said Dom, reclining on her elbows at the edge of Brennan’s bed, arching an eyebrow as if she was the offended party here. She was wearing all black again, her hair cropped short and dyed that inky black. Whatever Goth moment she’d been working upto in the past months was in full swing. “Keeping a secret’s not so fun when it bites you in the ass, huh?”
“What are you doing in here?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” Dom said, smiling coyly. Brennan recognized vodka on her breath.
“You could have texted,” Brennan said. He wasnotin the mood for this. His hair was still wet. He still reeked of chlorine. He still felt Cole’s kiss on his lips, his nose nudging Brennan’s.Fuck.
“I wanted to talk in person.”
“I’m not in the mood. Besides, we’re seeing each other in a few weeks with Sunny and Nellie—”
“I wanted to talkwithoutSunny and Nellie.”
“Well, you could have at least had the lights on and not given me a goddamn heart attack.”
“Noted for next time,” Dom said.
Brennan desperately wanted to discourage anext time.He didn’t need another reminder of all the ways he was a monster.
