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“Difference being?”
Bastian pauses in front of the third door on the right. “This is your room. Next to you is Enzo on right and me on the left. No one’s getting to you in here, but if, somehow, someone does, they aren’t getting to you before they go through all of us.”
“You know Vlad didn’t mean to. He couldn’t help himself.” Hadn’t mean to say that, and I keep myself from telling him why Vlad couldn’t help it by thinking of all those rippling muscles under Bastian’s uniform shirt. What those muscles might look like with a sheen of sweat after…
Bastian comes close until I’m backed against the closed door. Staring right into my eyes, he cages me in with a hand against the door, one on either side of my head.
Looking up at him, trapped like this, I should be scared. I should want to kick him right in the sack and run all the way back to Celestus.
But I don’t.
I’m fantastic at seeing aggression in men. Malachi gave me more than enough practice to catalog all his tells, the signs that he was close to yelling or throwing or hitting.
But Bastian doesn’t read as threatening.
He means me no harm.
“He might not have meant to… Fuck, Dove, where are you from again? How do you not know that Vlad drinking your blood linked you to him? He’ll be after you like a lovesick puppy for the foreseeable future.”
My mouth falls open. “You’re kidding me, right?” That can’t be true. There’s no way that’s possible.
“I wish. His vampire coven is keeping him under control for now, but I won’t risk letting them handle it.”
“Well, but… He didn’t bother me all weekend.”
Bastian nods. “Because one of us stood outside your door from Friday to Monday. Every time he got close, we blinked his ass to the middle of the forest. It took all of Friday and Saturday for his coven to finally do something about it.”
“Balls. I-I don’t know what to say, except I truly didn’t know, and I didn’t think I had another option.”
“We know. Your friends were quick to defend you. Something about being raised in a religious cult and not knowing everything about demon culture?”
I nod, numb. Shocked that not only did the heirs go to Stevie and Jess and Austin, but that the trio defended me. I shouldn’t be. But I still am.
“We reasoned that extended to the details about vampire blood bonds.”
I just stare at him. The scar over through his eye, the tattoos up his neck…
I feel more safe with this demon in his underground lair than I ever did in Malachi’s presence.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Bastian nods, letting a hand fall away from the door to turn the knob.
I see it happening, but I don’t react in time. Bastian had me leaning against the door so hard that when it unlatches, I fall backward into the room.
I would have landed on my ass if Bastian hadn’t darted forward and caught me with a single hand at the small of my back.
We stay like that—him supporting me while I stare up, breathless and wide-eyed, into his eyes that never leave mine.
His pupils dilate and the end of his nose goes pink.
“Wow,” he murmurs.
I put the question in my gaze as his darts from one of my eyes to the other over and over, as though he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing.
“I heard you don’t like it when people compliment your eyes, so I’ll just say this. You are extremely beautiful, Dove.”
He rights me and looks as though he wants to say something more but doesn’t. He just nods stiffly and then leaves, closing the door behind him.
