Chapter Seven
Carmine perchedlike a bird in the passenger’s seat, a bottle of synthblood clutched in her hands, and dressed in another simple white gown she’d pulled out of a cardboard box in the trailer. Luckily they’d found a paper-thin pair of slippers in there, too, so she no longer hopped around on just her bandages.
They’d been driving for a couple hours. Every few minutes, she’d shoot him a look out of the corner of her eye, then take a sip of her drink. She didn’t look like she enjoyed it much.
He could empathize. There must have been something off with the batch, because he normally enjoyed the brand stocked in the RV. But the bottle he’d forced himself to polish off before they set out tasted like chemicals, all hard metal and salt. There wasn’t a bit of sweetness to it, and that bothered him for some reason.
When they made a pit stop, he’d get a different brand for them. In the meantime, he kept his displeasure to himself, since he didn’t want to say anything that would discourage her from finishing her meal.
“Where are we going?”
He wondered if the sound of her voice would always be a bit of a shock. Every time she spoke, his body responded in visceral and deeply inappropriate ways.
“We’re headed to California,” he answered, gruffer than she deserved.
“So youaretaking me to my groom.” Carmine didn’t sound hurt by that. If anything, she seemed to expect it.
The muscles bracketing his jaw tensed reflexively. “No,” he bit out. “And I told you to stop thinking about him.”
“Well, if it’s not the man who paid my bride price, then it’s someone else.”
At this rate, he was going to crack a damn molar. “No, it’s not.”
“Someone is going to try to be my groom,” she very reasonably pointed out.
“That someone is a dead man,” he replied, equally reasonable. “All the someones are dead men. Now, stop thinking about grooms and shit. Seriously, you’re not allowed to worry about that anymore. That’s a rule.”
“How come you’re allowed to tell me what to do? Areyougoing to be my groom?”
“Fuck no.” He didn’t mean to spit the words out, but he couldn’t contain them. The idea that he might take a blood bride when he’d spent most of his life protecting Adriana from that fate was repulsive.
There was a wide, wide gulf between taking ablood brideand taking an anchor, a mate. One was a disgusting institution based on antiquated ideals of bloodline purity and the other was sacred. A partnership. He’d never considered taking a vampiric anchor before, but he wasn’t put off by the idea itself, only the idea that he might want one for the same reason Junger did.
Carmine didn’t look at him. Before, she’d done it regularly, about every two minutes, but now she seemed intent onwatching the road. “If you’re not my groom, and you’re not delivering me to the one who paid my bride price,andyou’re not going to sell me to someone else, why are we going to California?”
A fair question.
“Because that’s where we’re expected to go. This RV is being tracked. Junger trusts me to do the job, but he’d be an idiot to trust mecompletely.If I deviate from the course too much, he’s gonna send someone after us.” Atticus rolled his shoulders back, trying to ease the sudden knot of tension between the blades. He could handle anyone Junger sent, but the risk it would pose to Carmine was intolerable.
“Junger?”
“The dead man,” he growled.
“I don’t understand. You’re delivering me to him but you’re not?”
Oh, she was starting to get annoyed with him. Atticus slid her a quick look and found her jaw firmly set. Those big eyes were narrowed at the road and her lips, soft and plush, were pursed.
He didn’t like upsetting her, but hedidfeel an odd sort of thrill at the tart note in her voice. Atticus had to resist the urge to flatten his tongue against the roof of his mouth, easing the ache in his venom gland, when he replied, “I live in California, dollface.”
“So?”
“So, I’m taking you home with me, where I know you’ll be safe.” He watched her out of the corner of his eye and held his breath. There was no reason for him to be so invested in her response, but there he was.
Of course she didn’t immediately sigh with relief and bat those long, curly lashes at him. Instead, her shoulders went stiff and the look she sent his way was one of the deepest suspicion.
She said nothing, but he swore he could hear her thoughts hollering at him. Carmine didn’t believe a single word out of his mouth.
Smart, but irritating.
