Page 16 of Cuddling Sucks in Coffins
“Well, yes, but...you’re the only three dead people I’ve had sex with.” I blinked, realization just now dawning about how that sounded. My coffee bucket seriously needed a refill. “Wow, that sounded way better in my head.”
“Three, including you,” Jacek said, chuckling.
“Two,” Sawyer answered.
I looked to Eddie, who stood facing the microwave even though it wasn’t running. A pang shot through my chest. For some reason, this had been a bad topic to bring up around him.
“Did you...?” I whispered so only Jacek and Sawyer could hear me. How to put this lightly?
Amusement crinkled the corners of Jacek’s eyes. “Fuck them?”
Was I that easy to read? Even if they had slept with other slayers, it shouldn’t have mattered. As vampires, as men, they were sexual creatures. I knew that, but that didn’t mean I liked to think about it. With me, it was different though. They never seemed bothered or jealous to share me.
“I didn’t,” Sawyer said. “The Necron Brotherhood prided itself on celibacy.”
Jacek shook his head, a blaze of heat sparking in his eyes. “I only fuck the ones who drive me wild.”
I grinned, brushing his knee with mine. “Did you help the previous slayers with anything, or...? I guess I’m wondering what they were like, what you talked to them about.” I gave Jacek a pointed look. “Not necessarily the ones named Ro—.” The rest of the name wouldn’t come out, likely because Roseff’s name sounded too much like Ronick’s and the cut on my hand prevented me from saying too much.
“Roseff?” Jacek supplied.
I nodded. “Are there books written about each slayer, and if so, where might those be located?”
No trouble saying that much at least. Which wasn’t a lot.
“If there are books, I would imagine Eddie would have them,” Sawyer said, rubbing his temples.
Jacek’s attention shifted for a fraction of a second to Eddie, and the slightest hesitation rolled into his next words. “We helped one of them for a while. She was just a kid, a slight little thing.”
Eddie posted one hand against the microwave and bowed his head as if in prayer. I wanted to go to him, to put my arms around him, but of course I didn’t. There was a story there, one that still haunted him about this young slayer, and it hurt my heart even though I hadn’t even heard it yet.
“It’s not always the supernatural that can kill a slayer,” Sawyer said in a low voice.
Eddie pushed himself away from the microwave, his messy hair and glasses unable to conceal the pain written all over his face. “I need to go see about a book,” he muttered to no one in particular.
“Wait...” I started, but he was already leaving the kitchen. My heart twisted to see him like this.
“Let him go.” Sawyer leaned back in his chair, his gaze on the doorway where Eddie had disappeared. “He’s gone through too much to live through it again.”
“What happened to him?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“The slayer in 1951 was young, around twelve, a real spitfire just like you,” Sawyer began. “She was Eddie’s youngest sister.”
“Hissisterwas a slayer?” Whoa, this was some news.
He nodded. “They came from an abusive family.”
“Not just abusive,” Jacek said. “It was hell on earth, and that was on the outside looking in.”
For him to say that after all he’d been through, I couldn’t even imagine what it had been like for Eddie. “That’s awful.”
Sawyer traced the crack down the middle of the table with one hand and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other. “Eddie knew what she was even though she couldn’t tell him since he was human. He walked her to the cemetery every night even though he’d moved out into a dorm so he could put himself through law school and find a way to get his siblings out of that house.”
A heaviness sank into my chest. That was beyond sweet of Eddie, easily ranking him on the top of the Best Big Brother list. I doubted very many would do that for their slayer sisters.
“She struggled with patrolling, mostly because of the bruises and broken bones she’d endured at home,” he continued. “Eddie wasn’t much better at helping since it had nothing to do with books.”
Jacek took a long draw from his mug. “We offered to help Crystal. That was her name. I helped her with her stake aim while Sawyer fielded all of Eddie’s questions. That went on for just a couple weeks.”
