Page 34 of Total Eclipse of the Moon
"Why not?"
She nibbled her lower lip again. "I have a low tolerance. A few sips and I’ll be buzzing. Half a glass and I’ll be giving you a lap dance. A whole bottle and neither of us will have clothes."
She was killing him.
"I’m not kidding." She glanced up. "This pull between us is strong. Me without inhibition is a bad idea."
He wanted her to drink the whole bottle just to see what happened.No you don’t.
"Oh, yes you do. Please, get it over with. Get her drunk, screw her, and move on,"Baku said.
Neither of them spoke until the pasta finished cooking and they sat across from each other.
Shane raised his glass. "To outwitting assassins."
She clinked her glass against his but didn’t drink. "That’s my life. I’m pretty good at it." As she wound spaghetti onto a fork she asked, "What’s your plan for me, Shane? I can’t stay with you. After dinner, I’m taking off. I have something to do tonight."
"Eat first."
She pushed the spaghetti around. "Not very hungry."
"That’s probably why you weigh less than a feather. Do you do this every time you have food in front of you?"
She took the forkful she’d been loading and chewed the bite as if it tasted like cardboard.
"How long has it been since you last ate?"
She stared at the spaghetti as if trying to remember. "I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter."
"It matters. Are you without money?"
"I don’t have much. What you see is everything I own." She waved toward where her small backpack sat near the door. "Eating is more about… I eat a lot of on-the-go food. I need to stay moving. When I stop, if I stay too long anywhere, someone appears ready to put a knife or bullet in my chest. They really stepped up the attempts recently. I’m not sure how they find me so easily but suspect it’s modern tech like facial recognition software. What sucks is that none of my protection spells, talismans, or potions seem to work to keep them away. I can't figure out why."
He sighed long and hard and tented his hands in front of him. "You’re in bigger danger now than you’ve ever been if they’re sending nonhumans after you. Best if you stay with me for now. I’ll take you to my brothers. We’ll protect you until we can resolve this curse and see if the boomerang spell can be eliminated so you stop feeling our pain. It’d be nice to get rid of the curse before we take down the FenCor facilities, but we may have to deal with them first."
She shook her head. "After dinner, I have to take off. I can’t stay. Not tonight. But I promise I'll return. Then we will deal with this curse because it's time."
What was her rush? It didn’t seem like this was about assassins. Her bracelet wasn’t glowing. She could have someone else. Perhaps a man in her life. Something powerful and possessive slithered through him. "How long, exactly, is the longest you’ve stayed in one place?"
"In the past two months? Two hours or so."
The admission made his ribs feel tight. No wonder she looked like she was about to fall over with fatigue. He thought it had just been the fight, but she wasn’t sleeping.
She said, "Last year? Puerto Rico. I stayed in that town for about a month before they found me."
"When do you sleep?"
"I don’t much anymore."
"Me neither," he muttered. "If you leave, I’ll be forced to chase after you. Depending on how good you are at disappearing, I might not be there next time when they send someone more powerful to eliminate you. This isn’t a game of chicken you can afford to play anymore. We need to resolve this. The fastest way to do it is to stick together. You’re the one who asked for my help."
"Technically, I didn’t send that message. Cora did. She thought she was being helpful to eliminate the…" Her eyes dropped from his. "To clear up whatever was going on between us. She thought the best way was to get you here and for us to confront it."
"Who’s Cora?"
"My aunt."
"I saved you at the gardens," he said. "Because she sent the message."
