“Tell me something I don’t know,” she said.
He gave a small jerk of surprise. A long moment passed. His voice was tight enough to snap like an instrument string. “Vampire rage is worse for a bloodfiend.”
She forced a quiet laugh, and his rigid shoulders lowered by maybe a centimeter. “I said something Idon’tknow.”
Tai groaned, low and long. His right hand came up to her arms, latched around his neck, and he gave her forearm a gentle squeeze. He was trying to come back to her.
“I’ve got you,” she said.
He hissed, lost again to the arctic fury.
“Talk to me, Tai. Talk through it.”
“I know it’s not what you need from me. Or what you want. I know you’re powerful on your own, Claire.” Tai’s voice was smoothing out, one sentence at a time. His chest rose and fell with the first breath he’d taken since Claire stepped into his foyer. “ButIneed to do something.”
“There are a dozen things you can do. Killing the guy who zapped me isn’t one of them.”
Tai’s entire body tensed as the hiss resumed. Shoot. Wrong thing to say.
She hooked one thumb into the neck of his hoodie. “Are all your hoodies official band merch?”
The hiss stopped. Another breath filled his chest, emptied slowly. He was trying. His voice was smoother again as he said, “No. One’s a souvenir from when I sawIn the Heights.”
“Mm, I haven’t seen that one yet.”
“It’s getting threadbare. I only wear it at home.”
“I’m sure ‘old threadbare hoodie’ is an incredibly hot look on you.”
“I thought you liked the tux.”
“What did I say about the tux, Tai?”
“Oh right, it’s all about me.” That was a smile.
“How are you doing now?”
“Better,” he said, “but if you let go, I might still drive to the police station and kill him.”
“In that case, I’ll keep hanging onto your back like a little kid pleading for a piggyback ride.”
He chuckled, but it was shaky. She hitched herself up and wrapped her legs around his hips, and he gave a steadier laugh and reached back to support her thighs with his arms in the classic piggyback pose.
“Giddy-up, horsie,” she said.
He shifted her weight just as she moved to do the same, and then she was wrapped around him from the front instead, her lips crashing into his, her legs still hooked around his waist, and Tai kissed her back with all the protective anger left in his body. The kiss was cold and hard and needy. He needed to know, tofeelthat Claire was okay; he made his need clear in every move of his mouth over hers. So she showed him that she was.
Shewasokay. He was here. He knew her secret. And after she’d avoided telling him for so long…it was all okay.
Twenty-Six
He tried not to show it, because Claire had just been through an actual stun-gun assault, but he was a mess. A confused, raging, anguished mess. Every time Tai looked at her, his body was punched all over again with the reality: Claire was hurt, someone had hurt her, and he wasn’t making her attacker pay. Bloodfiend rage didn’t dissipate easily. It hung around, under the skin, a trapped current of electric craving for violence. But he wasn’t fighting only rage.
She hadn’t told him.
In his arms, her body was tense, resistant, but so slightly she might not realize he could feel it. Might not consciously feel it herself. She was hurting.
But he was too.
