Page 37 of Soulmates
The waiter comes over, a thick gold septum piercing sitting oddly over her wide, Disney smile. I respond to a text from Abby, bringing on Trajan’s glare. He doesn’t want her to have the number of today’s burner, and he refuses to take me at my word that ignoring her texts would stir up a whole lot more trouble.
Tucking my phone away, I order chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes. My mouth waters in anticipation of the crispy fried meat, and I gulp, suddenly guilty that Trajan’s only had a little stale blood since this latest round ofsmack the werewolfbegan.
To keep his mind off Sheena, I decide to talk blood. “So, if you feed from me, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
The ticking stops. He leans forward on his elbows, his flat predator’s glare getting my dick so hard, I’m lucky I don’t burst through my jeans.
“You. Could.” He clasps his hands, as if he needs to stop himself from grabbing me. “Die.”
“I figured.” I scratch my chin, going for casual but not too casual. Don’t want to piss him off any more than necessary. “But short of me dying, what’s the worst?”
He doesn’t answer, and for a moment, I’m distracted by a man in a hot pink suit. The fabric is light and shiny and he’s holding hands with a woman old enough to be his mother. The look they’re exchanging is absolutely not maternal.Oh my.I blink and turn away. “Seriously.”
“We should probably talk about your uncle.”
His glare sends tendrils of desire whipping over my skin. I’m kinda sick that way, and I’m tired of how he keeps dodging the blood question. “Look, if you feed from me, you know my metabolism will go off like a rocket. I’m not afraid of you hurting me.”
He clasps his hands together so hard, the knuckles crack. “No.”
The waitress interrupts us. She probably has trouble setting my dinner down through the layers of tension zinging around the table. I slice into my steak, trying like hell to remember some bit of vampire lore that could explain why he’s being such a stubborn ass.
“Do your father and your uncle get along?” He stretches back out in the booth, obviously deciding the food is enough to keep me occupied. He starts tapping again.Tick, tick, tick. The edge of his nail hits the glass.
For a moment, the savory meat overwhelms me, and all I can do is chew and swallow. He waits, tapping, until I catch his gaze. “Well enough, I guess.” I swirl another bite of steak through the mashed potatoes. “At least they did until Dad took over as the big, big dog.”
“I don’t know much about your politics. How did he become American Alpha?”Dark hair falls into his face, and the combination of red meat and hot vampire has me thinking of all kinds of inappropriate behaviors. I’m wondering what Miss Disney would think if she came back and found me under the table.
Instead of sucking, I chew and swallow. “It’s like a presidential campaign. In the olden days, they had to fight it out in the ring, but too many family packs ended up without their alpha, so now it’s just shaking hands and finding votes.”
Trajan ponders that for a minute, then scowls and flips open his phone. “Where’s Sheena?” He mumbles the words, so I don’t answer. With a grimace, he shoves the phone away. “We need to find Connor, and we need to force him to tell us what he knows.”
I wash down the steak with a sip of tasty red wine. “I’m sure there’s a reason your ex came back from the dead just in time to warn us that our secret hiding place wasn’t so secret.” There’s a bitter taste in my mouth that has nothing to do with the food.
Trajan’s jaw clenches, cheeks hollow and cheekbones jutting, and for a moment, I can see how hungry he is. “Look,” I say, “if Sheena doesn’t show, we’ll have to find her. You must know where she hangs out, right? And if we don’t, we’ll go back to the hotel andyou’ll feedbefore you lose your mind.”
I lay my forearm on the table, palm up, my wrist bare and vulnerable. “We don’t have to fuck if you don’t want to mix things up”—though I really, really want to—“but I need you hitting all cylinders, dude.”
“I am just fine.” His scowl is a thing of beauty, and there’s a tiny bit of acquiescence in his tone.
His hair flops forward again, and I’m glad he didn’t have any product to slick it back. He’s got that big Italian thing going on—the nose, the cheekbones, and underneath his jeans, the cock. I’m infatuated with that cock. I never had much appreciation for the hit man type, but Trajan Gall does it for me.
“Finish your dinner.” He waves brusquely at my plate. “There are a couple of clubs we should check out before we go back to the hotel.”
A skinny hipster in thick black glasses almost trips over our extra chair because he’s so busy staring at Trajan, he can’t walk straight. I lift my chin with as much“back off”as I can muster. I don’t care that all hell’s breaking loose around us.This one’s mine.
OXO
An hour or so later, we’re the only men in a cramped pub in a strip mall off La Brea. The air smells of equal parts old beer and teriyaki from the plate lunch place next door. The bartender’s wearing a bra and black stretch shorts, and I swear she sweats more testosterone than I’ve got in my whole body.
The place is empty except for a pixie at the bar who might be the bartender’s girlfriend and a pack of wolves in the corner. Yeah, a wolf pack. About seven of them. All chicks. All done up in black leather biker gear. All of them glaring so hard, it feels like we’re walking past a wall of pitchforks.
“Sorry, you guys are in the wrong place.” The bartender’s got an accent I can’t place, though from up close, her sheet-white skin can’t have seen the sun in a couple hundred years.
Trajan stops behind a barstool and crosses his arms. “We’re looking for Sheena.”
The bartender’s lips thin, allowing the needle-sharp point of one incisor to show. “You’re in the wrong place.”
They’re flinging vamp mojo at each other so hard, it’s making my skin crawl. The pixie on the barstool must feel it too, because her glamour starts to crack, her gossamer wings fluttering just on the edge of my vision.
