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I chewed on the inside of my cheek, debating whether to confront him and ask him what he expected of me if this mate thing took.
But apparently lingering in doorways in front of a vampire king wasn’t as sneaky as I thought because his gaze met mine the moment I set foot in the room.
A smile lit his face as our gazes locked. Almost as if he was happy to see me. “Eden, I see you’ve finally come up for air.”
I nodded, but instead of basking in the warm rush of being close to him, I grabbed at the wall, overcome with a spinny head once again. Worse, this one came with nausea.
Do not puke on the vampire king, Eden. Do not puke on him!!
In a blur, Julian was at my side, guiding me toward one of the high-backed dining chairs. “Are you all right?” He stood so close, his voice caressed my ear and I would have enjoyed the sensation if I weren’t so focused on not throwing up. “Here,” he said and handed me an iridescent pink cup, taking the empty purple one I held.
I plopped into the chair. “I don’t know what’s going on with me,” I murmured around the straw before taking the first sip of delicious, spicy blood. Its warmth spread through me like a shot of light or energy, chasing away the wooziness.
“Well, Sunny said you worked without stopping for days on end. You’re overtaxed.”
I shook my head. It wasn’t that.
I’d thought the same before I’d crashed for eight hours—that I was just overworked. But waking up with pillow creases on my forehead and dried slobber on my chin meant that didn’t work as an excuse anymore. “I’m a vampire, for Christ’s sake. I’ve got more stamina than Olympic athletes. I think there’s something else going on.” I stared up at him, not bothering to hide how scared I was. “Can vampires get sick? Is there like, I dunno, a blood disease or something?”
Julian did his best not to look condescending. “We heal too fast to contract diseases. Anything we can’t heal quickly, or that causes too much pain, we call in a healer for and they take care of it. Should I call you a healer?”
“No.”Yes? Maybe?
“You seem worried. Maybe just to clear your mind?”
“Yeah, okay.”
In seconds Julian had his phone out, texted someone, and slid his phone away. “The on-site healer will arrive shortly.”
Of course a healer lived in the compound. I don’t know why I expected anything less.
“You know, I tried to visit between rounds at the negotiating table, but when I saw you huddled around the Stanislovski 34-Z, hair up and concentrating, I thought it better not to break your focus.”
He’d seen me working? Ugh, I hoped my focus face wasn’t too stupid. I could just imagine him seeing me, tongue out, brow creased, flyaways flying…
But also…
He wanted to visit me?
My stomach fluttered at the thought, bottoming out somewhere near my ankles.
Jeez, get it together, Eden.
“How are the negotiations going?” I asked as he pulled out a chair next to me, abandoning his meal at the far end of the table.
The green in his hazel eyes caught the light of the chandelier above and twinkled with glee. “Complete. I did my best to position us well.”
“So who goes first?”
“He does. We’re hosting him here in one week.”
Fuck, next week?That was so soon. That left me zero time to fortify Julian’s safes.
A good safecracker wasn’t only good at busting open safes. I could add enough booby traps, trip wires, and decoys to Julian’s Lola model to keep someone busy at least until the heavy hitters—aka BDD—showed up.
Which reminded me… “Um, you know the Tzarina’s Diamond is still in my studio, right? We should get it back here and in your safe before someone discovers it.”
“Actually, I was planning on leaving it there.”
