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“Don’t worry, the tampons don’t bite.”
He growled under his breath and started rifling through the bag. I didn’t need to tell him what to look for. Once he found it, he would know. His hand went still when he touched what he was hunting for, and he withdrew it after a moment’s hesitation.
The skull sat in his palm, yellowing teeth grinning up at him, the hollow eye sockets especially dark in the low light inside the car.
I hadn’t had much of an opportunity to look at it myself, so I kept stealing glances at the thing while he turned it over in his hands to investigate every inch of it. The skull was old, bleached white but going gray with age. The entire surface was intricately carved with gorgeous, fine details. The dominant image was flowers. Marigolds.
The death flower.
It was incredibly beautiful, in a macabre way. Cade ran his thumbs over the carved lines, handling the skull like a sacred, holy item, though I had no memory of such things being used as talismans for any of the gods. Best I could tell was it had been an offering to Manea that she’d become very attached to.
“Why did Seth want it so badly?” he asked.
My shoulders raised in an automatic shrug. “If I had a dollar for everything Seth made me do without explaining himself, I’d be staying in much nicer hotels.”
Cade laughed in a halfhearted way, then held the skull up so he was staring it right in the eye holes. It beamed back at him unflinchingly.
“And you stole it?”
“Ugh, no. I’m sick of everyone saying I stole it.”
“She didn’t just give it to you.”
“No.”
“So you stole it.”
“I won it.”
Cade’s lip curled when he looked at me, clearly not buying this explanation for a second. “Sure you did. You and the goddess of death went head to head in a poker match, and she anted up a beloved item she was willing to kill for.”
“Rude.”
“Not rude. Right.”
“I didn’t say I won it from her personally.”
“Well, you didn’t win it from any of her guards. The undead ranks of Manea don’t seem like the type to play games. Or disappoint their mistress.”
My lips formed a thin line, and my cheeks warmed with a blush. “They’re not all undead.”
Cade was silent, but I could feel the weight of his gaze heavy on me, inescapable. This only made me blush more.
“No.”
I squirmed again. “Like you’ve never done anything you’re not proud of.”
“I’ve never done Prescott McMahon,” he countered.
I made a disgusted face and almost drove off the road in an attempt to punch him. “I did not have sex with him.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re actually temple pure, Sparky?”
“Are you?”
He went quiet and looked out the window. “No.”
“Well, not that it’s any of your damn business, but neither am I. It doesn’t mean I’m going to let someone who can actually kill me with his touch put his dick inside me.”
