I look between the two of them and wipe at the sweat dripping down my face. They definitely bicker like siblings. There’s a bond at the center of their rapport that’s as indisputable as it is ancient. But there’s definitely tension between them that feels unresolved. At one point in their lives, they must have been close. I’m curious when, or even if, things began to turn sour.
“So, after you turned Tannis, what happened?” I ask.
“Far too much for my liking.” Tannis hauls themselves back to their feet and offers a hand to me. “Long story short, we traveled across Europe and then ran away from home to make a new place in America.”
I take their hand and hoist myself to stand. “That’s vague.”
“Don’t worry about it. What you need to do is focus on what I’m teaching you,” Tannis says.
Gray takes the towel from me and steps off to the side. “Good luck.”
The next hour goes by quicker as we run through everything Tannis already showed me. They’re a great teacher, patient, if not a little demanding. By the end of the lesson, I’m so exhausted I could collapse to the floor and fall asleep there. Thankfully, my white-haired knight swoops in the minute he sees my knees are shaking. I’m a little embarrassed by the amount of sweat sticking to my body, but I don’t argue as Gray scoops me into his arms.
“Let’s call it a night,” Tannis says, then smirks as they look between the both of us. “Make sure you stretch her out, cousin.”
My face flames from the implication.
“Planned to,” Gray remarks as he walks us away. He’s quick to get us back to the second floor. The bathroom is across the hall from his room, and he carries me inside. Gray sets me down onthe toilet, which looks brand-new still, and obviously unused. In fact, the entire bathroom looks new. The tile underfoot is clean, with a shimmer to its face that makes me think no one has been in here except to clean it.
“How do you feel?” Gray asks as he starts the water in a large claw-foot tub. I admit, I’m a little over the moon to see it. I’ve always wanted to use one.
“If I can’t stake a vampire by the end of this, I’m going to make you take a heels class with me as payback,” I say, feeling the ache in my muscles already.
“A heels class?” Gray inquires, kneeling down in front of me.
“It’s dancing,” I say as he reaches for the hem of my sweaty shirt. “In heels.Veryhigh heels.”
“It’s torture then?” he asks, his voice full of humor.
“Yes, and excruciating.”
My shirt comes away, along with my bra and the borrowed pants I’m wearing. The woman—rather, vampire—I’m borrowing from doesn’t have a single piece of clothing that isn’t a name brand. Everything I wore was from Lululemon, which is expensive as hell. I can only hope that Tannis plans to wash and dry these carefully for her, otherwise, I’ll feel guilty for ruining her stuff.
“I promise that after a few days with Tannis, you’ll be able to defend yourself better than before,” Gray says as I step into the tub and sink into the water.
For a minute, I let myself relax and unwind. This is the second time he’s started a bath for me, which makes me feel a little spoiled. It feels…strangeto let someone take care of me for a change. That nagging little voice in the back of my mind is trying to break through, and I know what it’ll say, what it’ll try to convince me of. That I don’t deserve this, that I should cut ties and go my own way. But I don’t want to. I’ve already workedpast the ‘he’s a vampire, and I’m a human’ already, and that argument was short-lived.
“What if Dante comes for me? What if I’m not strong enough?” I ask, pushing my hands up through the surface of the bathwater.
Gray, seated at the other end of the tub, watches me. “You won’t ever have to face him alone.”
“You can’t make promises like that.” I frown.
“I can,” he says confidently. He forgets, though, that he wasn’t there when Dante found me the first time. Not that I can really blame him for not being there. How were either of us supposed to know that his psycho ex was stalking me?
“No, youcan’t,” I groan, thinking back to the conversation we had at the diner. He’s being stubborn about this all over again. “That’s why we’re doing all of this, right? The whole reason I’m here is for Tannis to teach me in case I’m ever cornered like that again.”
“With a single vampire,” Gray says, quick to correct. “Not an entourage.”
“There’s always the possibility that Dante corners me again. Alone, though.”
Gray frowns. The defeat on his face is hard to ignore. He knows I’m right. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Tannis can’t always be a precautionary detail,” I start, hesitant to make my next point. “If it ever happens again, being your thrall would give me a much better fighting chance.”
“Millie, stop.” His voice is deep, thick with warning.
I’ll give him credit where it’s due, because the look he gives me is scary enough to make anyone back down. But I’m not going to, not when it’s my life that’s at stake here. Sitting up, I shift to the other end of the tub where he’s perched and level with him. “What if we did what Tannis suggested?”
