“The potatoes?”
“Think of all the lives you’d save with your rotting corpse nourishing the crops.”
“You always say the things that make my heart go pit-a-pat.” While I put my arms in the sleeves of my coat, Christian gripped the back of my sweatpants with one hand as if I might fly over the edge.
“Then perhaps I can make you swoon by pointing out that you still reek of urine.”
“I’d bathe in the pond, but I might get a parasite.”
“Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling,” he sang.
“You’re a terrible singer.”
“I have to practice. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
“Potatoes to potatoes.”
“Nothing beats a warm bowl of Irish coddle.”
I scanned the property. “At least I haven’t seen any mosquitoes. Say, what happens when a mosquito bites a Vampire?”
“They meet the palm of my hand.”
“Seriously. Do they get super strength? Immortality?”
He brushed his hand over his beard, which had grown wild down his neck. “Hard to say. Those little feckers have been around for over two hundred million years.”
“How old are Vampires?”
Christian bit back his smile and studied me for a moment. “You’re inquisitive tonight. Perhaps I’ll dig up a Breed history book so you can read all about how nobody knows how it all began. Some believe that Breed are the originals and humans were the defects born of Chitahs, Relics, and Shifters. Some think it’s the other way around. It might explain why our DNA is relatively close. Nobody knows, Raven. If you ever meet an immortal old enough to tell the tale, you’ll probably meet the most insane man who ever walked the face of the earth.”
I shuddered at the thought of living that long. “Where’s Matteo? I haven’t seen him in hours.”
“Down below.”
I studied Christian closely, but he wasn’t joking. “They’re not going to hurt him, are they? Scrub his memories?”
“Why don’t you come down from the ledge and we’ll talk? I feel like a wee lad looking up at you.”
I turned toward him but straddled the railing instead. “You shoved me off a bridge and out of an airplane. I’m not sure why my sitting on the ledge of a watchtower makes you so damn nervous.” My eyes skated down to the long rips in his brown shirt, his wounds long since healed but the fabric still stained with blood.
“If you fall to your demise, I’d rather it not be accidental,” he said with a crooked grin.
“Fine.” My boots stomped on the wood floor when I scooted off the railing. “So what are they doing with Matteo?”
“I overheard Viktor showering him with praise, and the leader down below was impressed with his silence.”
“Silence?”
“The Chitah noticed the caravans, the children, and the compound and yet never interfered. Never said a word to outsiders. Apparently they’ve run into trouble with a few nosy locals.”
My heart lightened at the thought that Matteo might be rewarded for his selflessness. He could have released me and chosen to walk away. Even though he had only asked for a kiss, maybe all he really wanted was to feel like a human being again.
I fidgeted with the zipper on my coat. “I hope it’s a long time before we ever have a job like this again. I miss home.”
Christian winked. “I always thought traveling was a perk of the job.”
“Maybe for you, but I like Cognito. I like the graffiti on the walls, the rude taxi drivers, the street performers, the food trucks, the mystery, the diversity—it’s less stressful. It’s familiar.”
