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We’ll do further tests to see if you can avoid actual bullets in private. For now, tell them you had no idea this was an exceptional skill, and we’ll change the subject to something else.
As it turned out, I’d get a real live test sooner than expected.
Chapter 25
Ryan
I watched the paintball match from a dark spot at the edge of the forested area. I was tempted to show myself after the winners were declared, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be seen with Etta around the bikers. Someone would pick up on how familiar we were with each other — or how tense we were, if we tried not to be familiar with each other. It was probably best we not be seen together until we were prepared to go public with our relationship.
If we reached that point.
Throughout the evening, I made mental notes of who seemed standoffish against particular people, who was especially chummy, and who might need a little more checking into.
The bikers frequently throw huge bashes with a hundred or more people invited, but they’d only invited the top supernaturals in the city, on this night. Aaron and Sophia had been here earlier with their kids, but they always left when it got dark. Patrick and Briana had been invited, but they’d politely opted not to come — likely because they wanted to wait a little longer before anyone knew of Briana’s pregnancy.
Bethany and her men were here, of course, and that rounded out the top of Cora’s pack.
I found a good opportunity to leave, and managed to successfully exit the property without being spotted. I wanted to talk to Etta, so I made my way to the neighborhood near the coterie house, parked on the street, and made my way through the woods behind the houses, up the steep hill to the fancy neighborhood above and beyond. I leapt into a tree at the edge of the coterie property, and sat and waited for Etta and Venom to return.
And I was pleased to see Etta behind the wheel when they turned into the driveway. Venom exited the car and talked Etta through pulling headfirst into the garage, and I maneuvered so she’d have to practically bump into me when she rounded the car and headed towards the door inside.
I didn’t expect her to pick me up and slam me into a wall before she realized it was me, however, so the next thing I knew, I was regaining consciousness while Etta berated me for scaring her, and told me if I made her kill me she’d never forgive me.
I figured I’d been knocked out less than three seconds, and I did a quick inventory to make sure everything was okay. Slayers are hard to hurt, but it is possible.
“I’m fine,” I told her. “Totally my fault for sneaking up on you.”
“You have to stop doing that.” She stepped back, stood, and crossed her arms. “You’re going to get me killed by making me start to hesitate before I defend myself. If this continues, I’ll have to ask you to back off and forget we ever tried to make this work.”
Venom wisely decided his presence was no longer needed, and he made his way inside while Etta and I stared at each other.
And dammit, she was right. I was showing off, and I could see how it would get old. “Okay. I get it. You’re right. I was hoping for a little of your time, even if we just sit outside and talk. I know you’re busy though, so tell me to get lost and I will.”
She glared at me a few more seconds, but then shrugged. “You’ve been inside. No reason we can’t sit in the parlor and talk.”
“You’ve been with the bikers?” I asked as we stepped inside.
“Yes, a party, and not many people go out of their way to provide refreshments vampires will appreciate, but they served mulled wine with ingredients we can easily digest. It was warm, sweet, and appreciated. The daywalkers had a vast selection of food, and it’s really too bad—”
She cut herself off, and I grinned because I knew where she’d been heading. “Too bad it would’ve created a political nightmare if you’d gotten caught sneaking a drink from one of the shifters?”
“That too, but it’s too bad it wasn’t politically correct to take my slave to such an occasion. I could’ve allowed him to eat and then supped from him.”
“Both statements might be true, but you were originally thinking the first.”
Rather than deny it, she changed the subject. “I found I liked most of the ol’ladies, and I rarely enjoy talking with the short-lived.”
“I can see that, because they most likely didn’t sit around talking about fashion and the latest television show.”
“No. They spoke of a trip they’ll be taking after the first of the year, and there was strategy about how to handle their men, and how to arrange for a side trip to a place they want to go, but their men aren’t interested in. Also, one of them, the one from Atlanta, is an author, and she pulled out her phone and talked to them about the plot of a novel she’s working on, and they gave her ideas for subplots to weave through it. I found it fascinating, looking at entertainment fiction from the other side.”
I smiled, happy she’d found women she enjoyed being around. Happy she was making Chattanooga a home in every sense of the word. I wondered how long it’d been since she’d been allowed to do so — if ever. What had her human life been like? I knew it had ended badly, but how was it before she was married off to an asshole prince. Did I dare ask?
“Did you get along with other women while you were still human?”
“I was being trained to be a healer in my human life. I knew about herbs and nutrition. I could lower a fever, stop a stomachache, and cauterize a wound to stop the bleeding. Grandmother and I grew some of the plants we used, and I gathered others in the forest. Items such as willow bark for fever, the precursor to the modern-day aspirin.”
“And you met a vampire during your treks through the woods?” The herbalist stuff wasn’t in the documentation I found in her file, but neither was how she’d met the vampire who turned her, so maybe this was how she’d managed time with a vampire, away from family and husband?
