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“You lied to my uncle.”
“Did I?”
Before she could answer him, Adam picked her up easily, shifting her in his hold until he was using a bridal carry to march her back toward the front of her apartment building. It only seemed fitting, since the second he carried her over her threshold, he was making her his for as long as they both lived.
Tabby hadn’t been expecting him to lift her up like that. Instead of shrieking, though, she swallowed her gasp of surprise before throwing her arms around his neck and demanding to know, “Where are you taking me?”
“You heard your uncle. I’m going to take you to bed and bond you to me before you come to your senses and change your mind, then we can go get the bonding license squared away. Besides,” he added, “it’s not a lie if I already planned on blood-bonding you to me the second I thought you’d say yes.”
Her laughter was a beautiful thing. Adam was sure he had never heard anything better. Well, except for the sound of her pants and moans and soft cries when she came around him.
His cock agreed with him. Urging him to go faster, he listened to his dick and leaped up the four porch stairs before flying inside and racing toward the elevator.
Once they were inside the small room, heading for her floor, he realized that she was still giggling under her breath.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” Another giggle, followed by a snort that shouldn’t have been adorable but, because she was Tabby, it was. “It’s just—”
Ding.
The elevator doors slid open. Adam stuck his boot against the side so that they couldn’t close again right away. Glancing down at his slayer, he cocked his head, a quizzical look on his face.
“Sorry. It’s just… this might be the first time I’m looking forward to listening to my uncle.”
Adam grinned, showing off the fangs that he would soon be using to bond her to him forever.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Epilogue
Two months later
Adam stood at the bottom of the basement stairs, leaning with his back against the cinderblock wall, arms crossed over his chest, legs crossed at the ankle. He lost track of how long he stayed like that, smiling contentedly as he watched Tabby snore into the pillow on his side of their bed.
Like clockwork, he was up as soon as the sun went down. He had been careful to scoot out of the bed, unwilling to disturb his mate. She needed her sleep.
They’d caught a case last night that took them out of Grayson for the first time in weeks. It was early August, the night shorter than he liked since the sun seemed to rule during these dog days of summer.
He couldn’t fucking wait until winter.
Since there were still months to go until the sun was on his side, the pair of them hadn’t had as much time as they could’ve to finish the job. They’d had to hunt down their target quickly before deciding to hand him over to the local cops when the silver glow on Adam’s falchion revealed that the male wasn’t completely rogue, but a blood thief all the same. He deserved some Cage time, not to lose his head. So Adam frog-marched him to the nearest PD and Tabby confirmed with their client that the case was closed.
There wasn’t enough time to pick up their fee before the dark of night ran out. Figuring they could get paid later, Adam drove Tabby back to his house—which, close to two months later, he still couldn’t believe was now their house—and proceeded to keep her up in the safety in their basement until it was well past noon.
So, yeah. After the way Adam wore her out earlier that morning, Tabby earned her sleep. If it wasn’t for the fact that Adam had been looking forward to tonight for a while now, he probably would still be laying in bed with her.
Not tonight, though. He’d spent weeks planning this behind her back, even getting in touch with her uncle so that the slayers didn’t interfere with her gift. Whether she realized what he was doing or not—and, based on the way his mate seemed to live in the present, he hoped he’d been able to hold onto the surprise—the two of them had been working toward this since the morning after their blood-bonding when Tabby stretched and, wearing his claiming bite proudly on her throat, turned to him and said, “Well, that was fun. So what’s next?”
What’s next?
Good question, he realized. And while Adam had enough money in the bank to support his new mate, he wasn’t a fucking moron. That would only insult his slayer. And, even if it didn’t, he knew that Tabby would never sit back and stay at home. She needed something to do.
So did he.
With Rafe gone, he had his revenge. Alexis was an afterthought. Unless she proved to be any kind of threat to Grayson, he wasn’t worried about her interest in him, even if he got a kick out of Tabby boldly claiming him as her betrothed—her mate—any time he mentioned her.
But, just because the female Nightwalker up and disappeared like Priscilla Winters, that didn’t mean that crime stopped. And, sure. He wasn’t a cop anymore. Tabby had to give up being a slayer. They could still go out at night to protect their adopted city.
