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He’d stopped demanding I say it back, but sometimes he pressed the word into my skin with his lips or growled it in my ear. That, I couldn’t figure out. Gods, men were confusing.
At least Nathan and Jasper were talking to me again. Word had gotten out about how I’d spoken up for dhampirs at that meeting with Brien and Twilight, and they’d each made a point of thanking me. Jasper had even offered to babysit, “you know, when he’s out of diapers and stuff. So he has a dhampir he can talk to about those things.”
“Now the other side.” Rio pointed to his right ear, drawing my attention back to him.
I snipped off more hair. “Someone’s gonna get lucky,” I said in a sing-song voice.
Rio hunched his shoulders under the towel I’d placed around them to catch the hair. “Shut up.”
I hummed the wedding march. I’d always wanted a little brother to tease.
A flush touched his cheekbones. “See, that’s why I’m not telling you his name. We’re just having a fucking beer, all right?”
“Sorry.” I made an apologetic face in the mirror at him. “I’m just happy for you, is all. Let me know how it goes, okay?”
He gave a very-Talon-like grunt.
I lifted a brow. “How much time have you been spending with Talon, anyway?”
“An hour here and there—why?”
“I don’t know. I thought you didn’t like him.”
That earned me an eye-roll. “He’s my boss, Eden. He’s been showing me around, having me run errands for him. Stuff like that.”
“So you like him now?”
Rio lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “He’s okay when you get to know him. Dude can be a hard-ass, but he’s a vampire, right? And if you’re straight with him, he treats you right. Know what I mean?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I do.”
The now-familiar shame constricted my lungs. Talon had always been straight with me, too. I was the one who’d snuck around behind his back. God, I wished I could go back in time and do things differently. Tell Eugene to fuck off when he first came to me, or better yet, report him to Talon.
Rio shifted on the stool. “We done here?”
I swallowed the shame because what was done was done. I could only keep moving forward, doing my best to prove to Talon that I was trustworthy.
“Yep.” I stepped back, eyeing my handiwork. “You look beyoootiful.”
“Thanks.” Removing the towel around his shoulders, Rio shook the colorful strands into the wastebasket, then got a broom and swept up the rest of his hair before carrying the stool back to the kitchenette.
He’d brought a clean shirt to change into. He pulled it on and struck a pose for me. “What d’you think? Pretty sick, right? I bought it right before we left New York.”
“Cool.” I admired the vintage Wu-Tang Clan 1992 T-shirt and its yellow bat-shape. “Wish I would’ve seen it first.”
“Thanks.” He hesitated. “What about you? You gonna be all right?”
“Yes.” I made a shooing motion with my hands. “Get going already. Talon will be sending for me any minute now.”
“If you’re sure…” He grabbed his jacket and left.
I put on a little makeup, then changed into a cashmere sweater and the tight black maternity pants because Talon really loved my ass in them. He still hadn’t come, so I made myself a mug of hot chocolate and, pulling on my puffer jacket, took it outside, where I sat on a cast-iron bench next to a koi pond, sipping the thick, sweet liquid and taking in the night sky.
Gradually, the clouds blotted out the stars. A light snow began to fall, the flakes sparkling like bits of magic under the garden’s tiny lights.
Talon should’ve been here by now. I glanced toward the French door—again.
That’s when it hit me that maybe I wasn’t going to see him that night, that he was with another thrall. A jealous pang screwed its way beneath my ribcage. My stomach muscles clenched.
