Page 34 of Soulmates
Footsteps. Trajan comes closer. His knees creak when he squats, and a single bubble of laughter leaves my throat as a croak.
“I brought you some clothes,” he says. The metal buttons on my jeans hit the floor with a click. “Can I help…?”
The phrase drifts off, as if the vampire really doesn’t know what to do. Hell, I don’t know what to do either. I’ve never actually shifted so many times in quick succession. I didn’t have a choice, though, and now I’ll just have to suck it up.
“Here.” He wraps an arm under my shoulder. “Let me…” He lifts, setting off a round of muscular screams that damn near escape from my mouth.
I plant my teeth in my lower lip. He lays me on the couch, and a hiss leaks out, but at least I’m not sobbing.
“You want me to help you get dressed?”
No. I want you to leave me the fuck alone.My breath hitches before I can speak. “Give
me a minute.”
He does, standing weirdly still, because vampire. A conversation starts up in the other room. The low, rumbly voice must be the troll. I don’t recognize the other. I close my eyes and just breathe. Crack a lid when I hear Trajan’s voice with the others. Let myself fade until his fingertips trace lines on my forehead. Cool. Comforting. Color me confused.
“Here.” He taps my ankle. “Lift.”
Eyes still shut, I lift one foot, and he slides fabric around it. My jeans. They stink of smoke. When he taps my other foot, he doesn’t even have to speak. I lift, and he drags denim up over my knees.
“Now your ass.”
I want to ask why he’s being so nice to me, but instead, I lift my hips. A new scent catches my attention. Meat. My mouth waters. The wiggling and shifting feels more like stretching unused muscles than the agony from before.
Trajan tugs and adjusts, and I can’t help but notice the location of his knuckles when he buttons my fly. I also can’t help but notice how damned loose the waistband is. I must have lost ten pounds in the last two days, and the smell of food becomes more pervasive.
“Help me up.” My lips are dry. Cracks pull open when they move, and my eyes water at the sting. “Gotta eat something.”
He reaches around, his forearm solid under my shoulders. My head spins, but he gets me sitting. He sits on the couch next to me, lifts a hunk of beef from a bowl in his lap, and places it against my lips. If he didn’t have a vampire’s reflexes, I’d have bitten his fingers.
I chew the raw meat. Beef and blood and salt.Best. Thing. Ever.As fast as I swallow one mouthful, he feeds me another, until I finally catch hold of his wrist, wordlessly asking for a break.
Trajan slides close enough for his knee to rest against my thigh. “Talked with Stone while you were out. He used to date a shifter, a cat or something, and she told him she couldn’t shift, go from one form to the other and back, more than once in a day.”
I’m listening, but I’m also wondering if he’ll let me lick the blood off his fingers.
“I figure you went to your wolf and back, what? Three times in a day and a half?”
I don’t want to have this conversation. “Hey Rocky, you must be hungry, too.”
“Nope.” His tone should have warned me some caution was in order.
I’m not that bright, I guess. “Come on. Just drink the blood from the bottom of the bowl.”
Trajanplops the bowl in my lap, stands, and crosses tothe doorway. “Sheena will be here in a little while. Finish eating and come out when you’re dressed.”
I keep my mouth shut, strangely unhappy that mypiss him off to change the subjectstrategy has worked.
“You could have died.” Trajan’s grimace is cold, hard. “If you could keep from taking stupid chances while my life is at stake too, I’d appreciate it.”
Hemanages to make the act of closing the door sound pissed off, and I flop over on the sofa. I really am kind of an asshole.
Chapter Eleven
“SO, WHAT ARE our priorities?” Sheena addresses the question to Trajan, but I’d like a chance at answering. My priorities are a shower and another couple of pounds of beef. A beer. A cig. Maybe an orgasm.
Yeah. None of that’s happening any time soon.
