He shook his head, pushing my hair back over my ear, before tracing his thumb down my jaw. “No. Someone is trying to distract us. Throw us off balance.”
“I’ll rip their jugular out,” I snarled. An animalistic need to protect what was mine tore through me at whoever this faceless enemy was. I couldn’t tell if it came from the vampire part or the human part of me. But the fury was primal.
“I know you will,” he said. His confidence in me was profound. A god needed me. Leaned on me. “I trust you.”
I knew what a big deal that was. Especially after what his ex-wife, Qwynn, had done. She’d resented his commitment to the duty of reaping and sorting souls. To become the center of his world, she’d dragged him down into opium-den orgies to keep him from surfacing to do his job.
After reading up on ancient Egyptian mythology, I learned her original name was Qadesh, and she was the goddess of sexual ecstasy. So while I understood she wanted to keep her in his slut cave forever—we may share the same feelings on that point—I wasn’t driven to jealousy the way she had been. Can we say co-dependent much? And then she’d betrayed him. In the Victorian age, people acquired the bodies of mummies and threw unwrapping parties. Then they would eat the mummy flesh, thinking it would grant them long life and health.
Apart from the fact that’s absolutely disgusting, and this comes from a gal who sucks on blood clots, to Grim it’s an abomination. Qwynn eventually revealed her hand when she served him the desiccated flesh of a mummy, revealing she was behind the unwrapping parties. She had done something sacrilegious to Grim on purpose, to see if he would love her more than his own values. She destroyed their union the moment she did it. The jealous biatch still tried to reel him in, but she could try all she wanted.
Grim nuzzled my neck breaking into my thoughts about his past. “It seems only right to move to this to the bedroom and have a dozen cupcakes delivered.”
I nodded against him, feeling a spark of interest at the prospect of sugar. “Not to mention there is another Cupcake in need of head scratches for facing that evil cat with me.”
Instead of letting me walk, Grim cradled me in his arms. The soft blanket was still wrapped around me. I leaned against his large, muscular shoulder. They carried the weight of the world, literally. He deserved the joy of the world, not the weight of it.
As soon as this sick feeling in my gut passed, I’d give him what he wanted.
I’d find a way to tell him those three little words.
But first, I’d have a couple cupcakes.
8
Grim
Vivien refused to fall asleep even as daylight came. She paced through the apartment like a caged-up lion. I decided to put off a day of judgment to stay with her, since she seemed unbalanced. I’d done my best to tire her out by sexual means, but even after countless orgasm involving creative positions, and more than a few accessories, she still jumped out of bed.
When I eventually emerged from the shower, I found a lineup of abandoned baking ingredients strewn across the kitchen. After some searching, I discovered her in the library on one of the ladders, a stack of books on the floor. She donned Cookie Monster, as Timothy had retrieved it from the restaurant.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She didn’t turn to answer, running her fingers along the spines. “Compiling books for more research.”
I tilted my head to examine the titles. More volumes on Egyptian mythology and ancient history. At the moment, I didn’t have the heart to inform her the books she’d pulled weren’t written in English.
“We’re going out,” I said, making a decision on the spot. Night still had yet to fall, but we could stay in the hotel until it did.
Vivien froze, then twisted her head toward me with an incredulous expression. The way she stood on the ladder, in those ridiculously short shorts that gave me a glimpse of her cheeks, exposing those long legs…
“If we do, someone might try to kill you again,” she said, interrupting my train of thought.
I walked over to her, wrapped my hands around her waist and picked her off the ladder to set her on the floor in front of me.
“I’m not going anywhere, Vivien. Bullets and car bombs are an inconvenient annoyance.”
“Annoyance?” By the pitch of her voice, I knew fear stained her.
“Yes,” I said, tilting her chin up to meet my measured gaze. “Annoyance. This isn’t the first time someone has tried to do away with me.”
“And what if someone comes up and tries to run the Blade of Bane through you?”
“I believe you won’t let that happen,” I said.
“Damn right I won’t,” she grumbled, though her fingers clutched my bare back.
“Whoever is doing this has gone to great lengths to distract us, and keep us off kilter. So the best thing we can do is not give in. So put on the most ostentatious dress you can, and we’re going to Wolf Town.” I laid a gentle but firm kiss on her full, pouting mouth.
