“It doesn’t matter, Cale. You’ve fed from others. You have no choice; I understand that. But I can’t live with it.”
“Youdon’tunderstand, Lex,” he said. I tried to turn away, but he stepped in front of me, his brilliant blue eyes pleading with me to listen. “I don’t have to feed. Not like that. I’m only half-incubus, and I don’t need sexual energy to live.”
I hesitated, my eyes narrowed as I tried to squelch the bloom of hope unfolding in my chest. Hope was dangerous, and pointless, especially where parasites were concerned. “You don’t feed on sex?”
“No.” He shook his head, giving me a small smile. “I swear on my soul that I don’t. In fact, I fedyouinstead.” His hand stroked my arm, and I let it, against my better judgment.
“How is that possible?”
Cale’s smile broadened, deepening the cleft in his chin. “Parasites deal in energy. Sexual energy specifically, for incubi and succubae,” he said, and I nodded. That was the whole problem. “But it can go either way. We can give, as well as take, and that’s what I did with you.”
“Why?” I couldn’t stop suspicion from leaking into my voice.
He shrugged, and the gesture looked much more genuine on him than on the djinni. “I felt guilty about Lori shooting you, and I was trying to help you heal. I didn’t know you could do it on your own, so I fed you, instead of feedingfromyou.”
Holy shit. No wonder I’d healed so quickly.
“That’s still a deception. And you should have told me.”
“You didn’t show me your family tree either, you know.” His smile was starting to fade, without any reassurance from me.
“My roots are all human.”
His shrug looked…awkward. “I can’t help what I am, Lex. I didn’t choose my gene pool.”
“I know. And I know that parasites—most of them, anyway—have no choice but to feed from others to survive.” Which made me uncomfortable in ways I couldn’t begin to describe. “But I amno one’sfood, Cale. Where one person’s wellbeing requires me to sacrifice my own, I’m going to choose mine every day of the week. That’s my right.”
He nodded, almost too eagerly. “I get it. I really do. It’s not on you to feed parasites.”
“Nor is it on anyone else who doesn’tchooseto make that sacrifice for themselves.”
“Agreed. And I would never ask that of you. Or of anyone else.”
“Have you ever done…that?” It was a very personal question, and the truth was that I had no right to ask it. But that had never stopped me before…
Cale sighed. He looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Once. When I was a teenager. Before I realized what was happening.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I never met my dad, and it’s not like my mom could show me how to deal with my incubus…issues. But I figured it out. And I haven’t fed on anyone since.” He shrugged off an obviously painful memory with a small grin. “These days, I go for pizza when I’m hungry.”
“As well you should.” Pizza was hands down one of the best things to come out of the twentieth century.
“So…think you can forgive me?”
I pretended to think about it as his charm worked its magic. “You promise to keep your paws off my energy reserve? No takingorgiving?”
“Absolutely.” Cale reached for my waist, and I let him pull me close, against my better judgment. “I’d much rather exhaust you…manually,” he whispered into my ear, his breath a warm counterpart to the cold air.
“Oh, you thinkyou’regoing to wearmeout?”
He chuckled. “That sounds like a challenge. Let’s go get rid of this djinni so we can…explore that.” Cale tugged me back toward the Corolla, and I went reluctantly, dreading another day in the car with Xaphan. “By the way, you look pretty good for nearly two hundred fifty.”
“Fuck off,” I said, smiling in spite of myself.
Cale was leaning in for a kiss when my phone rang. “Who the hell is that?” he mumbled, his lips brushing mine as he spoke.
I pulled the phone from my pocket, frowning at the display. It was Lacey, probably wanting to know where the hell I was and why I hadn’t checked in. “This’ll just take a second,” I said as I answered the call. “What’s up, Lace?”
“Hello Alexandra,” Devich said into my ear, his voice smooth and deep with fury. Chills skittered up my spine in an icy torrent. “At the moment, what’s up is your employee’s temperature. One hundred and four, to be exact. And if you don’t do exactly what I tell you, I am going to let him die.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
