The guy smiled dazedly at them both. “Thanks for the water. Sure you don’t need it?”
“Nope!” Seth grinned at him with a mouth full of blunt human teeth. There wasn’t a trace of red anywhere on his mouth—he was always a very neat eater. “Have a good swim!”
The hiker continued down the trail while Seth waved at his back.
He was so easy with it, Riley’s mate—the hunt and the feed. He’d helped Riley achieve some semblance of the same, but Riley still didn’t like hunting without Seth. Riley preferred to drink human blood from the source with Seth right beside him, usually with a hand on Riley’s shoulder, ready to pull him back if he lost himself to the hunger.
Some wounds took a little longer to heal—that was what Seth said when Riley was feeling feelings about his dependency.
Case in point: Riley wouldn’t be feeding from any humans on this trip. He’d made the decision before they’d left, knowing he would be too wired. Too…nervous. Instead, he’d gorged on an elk before their departure, and he and Seth had an emergency cooler of blood bags stashed back in Tucson.
“We should get going,” Seth said, glancing at the position of the sun above them.
“We could stay the night here,” Riley suggested, almost succeeding in pulling off an air of innocence. “Camp under the stars. It’d be romantic.”
Seth gave him a knowing look. “We don’t have to go at all. We could head back to Tucson, spend some more time with Colin and Jamie and their respective devotees.”
They’d already spent three days in Tucson visiting the den members that lived there. Seth had declared that he needed face time with each vampire couple Riley knew. And in the fall, they’d be heading back to Seacliff for Riley to meet the demons and their mates.
Seth was convinced that solidarity was the key to their future—building a network of friendship and communication so that if any of them smelled something fishy brewing, everyone would be on alert and available to help.
Whether it paid off or not, Riley had delighted in showing Seth off to the den these past months. It was hilarious how everyone was so determined to be protective of Riley—apparently there’d been a kerfuffle about him bonding while still so young—but the second each of them met Seth, they were charmed out of any hesitation. His wholesomeness seemed to confound them into complacency, as well as the contrast of his deep, sometimes vicious protectiveness over Riley.
It turned Riley into a smug asshole every. Single. Time.
Maybe he should draw on some of that energy now. Confidence was key, right? Riley rose from the water. “No. I want to go.”
Seth came over and stood on his toes, grabbing Riley’s face in his hands. He pressed a firm kiss to Riley’s lips, then another, teasing at the seam with his tongue. Riley opened eagerly. Despite his neat appearance, Seth still tasted like the coppery tang of fresh blood, and Riley licked it out of his mouth with all his usual greed.
Seth smiled at him when they broke apart. “So brave, baby.”
But Riley wasn’t all that brave. He never had been. He was only…certain. Of himself. Of his mate. Of the fact that, even if the worst happened—even if he broke all over again—Seth would be there to pick up the pieces, to put them back together with his tender, patient care.
They arrivedin Bisbee at sunset.
Maybe they should have left the swimming hole earlier, after all—showing up for this visit just as night fell really wasn’t going to help Riley’s case. But, oh well. It was done. They were here.
Seth had typed the address into his phone’s GPS, and they followed the directions up the road where the houses stacked along the hills, dotting the desert landscape.
“It’s beautiful,” Seth said, peering out of the windshield at every house they passed by.
“Mm.” Riley tapped his finger on the passenger door. “My moms said a lot of artists end up here. There’s—there’s a community, I guess.”
“Isshean artist?” Seth asked. “Was she?”
Riley shook his head. Why his eyes were suddenly burning, he had no idea. He blinked them rapidly. “Not that I remember. Not professionally, at least. She was a phlebotomist.”
Seth didn’t remark on that particular irony. He continued driving slowly, then parked outside the house that matched the address they’d been given. Seth parked on the street—not in the actual driveway—and Riley was grateful for that bit of distance as he took everything in.
The house was charming; that was the word for it. It was a one-story wooden building painted brick red, with colorful wind chimes hanging over the porch and plenty of cacti in the front yard.
Seth shut the car off.
Riley was breathing too fast, which was stupid because he didn’t really need to breathe at all. It was muscle memory, or maybe another way their bodies camouflaged what they were. Another way to hide the monster inside from unsuspecting people who?—
Seth’s not a monster, Riley reminded himself, drawing in a much slower breath.And we’re the same now. So that means I’m not a monster either.
Riley’s voice was quiet, other than a vague, silent wariness. Maybe he was remembering how much he had fucked up the last time they’d tried to do this.
