Page 107 of Marked By the Pack
“Yes. But I think it’s more involved than that. He opened another drawer full of metal crosses. “I havetheories that the wooden stakes not only need to be beech wood, but they also have to be blessed by an Eastern Orthodox priest. In that sense it’s quite rare. And as far as a cure for vampirism…it would be from something holy from the same church. Nothing Egyptian related. Not that such a cure exists.”
He opened another drawer. “I also have some of the old journals of Giure Grando, the first man truly believed to be a vampire. But he doesn’t speak of a cure. He believed it was a gift. He didn’t want to change. Unless something’s been lost in my translations.”
I looked down at the leather bound journal and the loose sheets of paper beside it in Callum’s handwriting. But his notes weren’t in English. “How many languages do you speak?” I asked.
“Seven. English, Romanian, Spanish, French, German, Serbian, and Croatian.”
“Wow.” That was very impressive. I could barely speak any Spanish and I’d studied it for three years.
I turned back to the shelves. Callum didn’t believe Anubis was the answer. And he didn’t have anything depicting his head. I sighed.
“Am I boring you?” he asked.
I laughed. “No. Not at all. I just kind of knew what I was looking for, and you don’t have it.” Callum was probably right about something holy being the cure. And if vampires were Slavic and werecats were Egyptian…there was no way the cure would be the same for both anyway. Zoey’s source must be wrong. My eye gravitated back to the black opal earrings Callum had left out.
“Try them on,” he said.
“I think they’re for more of an old soul.” That’s how Callum had described Kebe. And he was right.
Callum chuckled. “Not this again.”
“You haven’t said a single thing about your time with Kebe today.”
“Because there was nothing eventful to report.”
“Did you find her a place?”
“No, nothing she was interested in yet,” he said.
I sighed. “Don’t you see? She’s not going to choose something because this way she can spend more and more time with you.”
“Professional time.”
I resisted rolling my eyes. “She doesn’t want anything between the two of you to be professional.” I turned back to the next display case. As if anything in there would help me stop being so paranoid.
“Emma.”
I ignored him and moved to the next shelf.
“Baby.” He wrapped his arms around me from behind. “We talked about this.” He kissed the side of my neck. “I’m not interested in Kebe.” His lips stayed at the side of my neck.
“I know I’m being stupid, but I don’t know how to stop.”
“Hmm. How can I prove it to you?” He kissed the side of my neck again.
I felt myself tilting my head. Exposing my flesh to him. He hadn’t bitten me in days. Because I hadn’t asked him to. But I liked when he did it. I wanted to ask him now. But we weren’t near his handcuffs. It would be reckless. Dangerous. My heart started racing faster.
One of his hands wandered over my hip and across my right ass cheek. “Maybe I should show you thatspanking is a much better alternative to booping.” He gripped my ass in his hand. “Because you’re being terrible, baby. Bend over.”
“I’m not…”
He pushed down on my back and I grabbed on to the glass of the island. He let go of my ass and then spanked me. Harder than I thought he would. And then he gently traced the sting with his palm.
“I told you that you had nothing to be jealous of. So why do you keep questioning what we have?”
I didn’t know why. That was the whole problem.
He spanked me again. “Answer me, Emma.”
