Chapter 6
Idon’t get up to explore the estate or seek out a fancy breakfast or meet the stable’s horses because nothing short of a tornado could convince me to leave my place against Bowie in this bed. Even a tornado would warrant serious consideration, perhaps a list of merits and flaws, before I consent to budge a single inch.
We’re tangled together beneath the soft silken bedsheets. I can’t tell where I end and Bowie begins. The slightest shift brings blissful awareness of all the places we touch: foot to foot, thigh to thigh, cheek to chest. My head rises with each inhale he takes and falls with each exhale. Though his heart doesn’t beat, mine pounds loud enough for two.
Is this what it’s like for the other wolves? The ones who aren’t excluded? Wolves who find their mate? Because I’ve never slept so well in my life.
Bowie stirs, a subtle movement that begins in his hips and ends with a quiet yawn. I stay perfectly still because I’m not ready to unwind from this warm cocoon we’ve spun. My hand rests on the round curve of his shoulder. The muscles beneath my fingertips tense and release as he stretches.
Inklings of fear prickle in my chest. I squeeze my eyes tight. What if he’s changed his mind? Doesn’t want me in his bed anymore? Am I about to be rejected?
His hand firms and comes alive against my skin. He rubs my spine from nape to lower back, ruffling the fur there. I want to arch into the touch, to ask for more, but the anxiety isn’t gone, just paused, waiting for what he’ll do next.
He nuzzles into my hair. “G’morning, Andras.” His voice is rough. I feel his breath along my scalp as he clears his throat. “I trust you slept well?”
Like the dead,but I don’t say that because I know Bowie is sensitive about the dead thing; I remember from our walk to Varad. “Yes. You?”
“Very well.” He scratches his nails through the fur between my shoulder blades.
If I were a cat, I’d purr. Thank the moon I’m not a cat.
“You’re like my own personal furnace.”
My eyebrows knit together. “Is that bad?”
“Course not.” More scratching. “I love it.”
How is he real?
His hand trails to skin, causing chill bumps. “I never got used to being cold.”
I like the coolness of his body against mine, though I have no easy words to tell him so in the way he’s just reassured me. Words come readily for Bowie. I can, however, return the caress. I slide my fingers from his shoulder to his collar bone and notice a section of raised flesh, gnarled and thicker than the rest.
As I lift my head to see what I’m feeling, he explains, “Would you believe I was almost stakedbeforeI became a vampire?”
It’s an impressive scar, above his heart but too close for comfort, perhaps three inches long and one inch wide. The flesh is marbled pink and white next to the creamy pale healthy skin around it. “What do you mean, staked?”
Bowie arches his brows. “Don’t you know how to kill a vampire?”
“I know how to kill a lot of things. Are you special?”
His laughter brings a smile to my lips. He’s handsome like this, freshly woken, head haloed by his wavy brown hair on the pillow.
“Special? Probably not, no. However, I can survive a great many abuses mortal men cannot. But a stake through the heart? That would surely finish me.”
“That would finish anyone.” I press my fingertips to the scar. “What happened?”
“Nearly a stake through the heart. Luckily, I missed.” His mood seems awfully light for the topic at hand.
I’m confused. “Youmissed?”
“Indeed, my fault. I was in a hurry and dared to jump my favorite gelding over a fence to make it home before my father noticed I’d gone. I wasn’t supposed to leave, you see. Something spooked the horse at the last minute. He refused the jump but sent me sailing forward to crash into the fence.”
I wince. “Oh my. Impaled by a fence pole? That must have been agony.”
“I nearly died. And when I failed to die, my father nearly killed me himself.” Bowie’s expression darkens. He shakes it off. “Butter was unharmed, and that’s what mattered to me.”
I wonder at that fleeting expression but dismiss it. “Butter?”
