“I’d like to see you handling yourself.” Gilbert smiles, sky-blue eyes dancing in the firelight. Maybe I’m becoming delirious from sleep deprivation, but I swear his eyes are more vivid than before and his skin is more olive than gray.
“I’m a detective. That means I look for bad guys. So far, I’ve been good at my job. I catch the bad guys. I’ve spent the last few years taking on cases no one else would touch, cases some of the law’s most respected cops swore to be cursed, and solved them, proving a human was behind the crime.” I pull my shoulders in, suddenly cold again. “And now I can’t help but think this…you guys…the vampires…it’s all happening at the same time for a reason, and I’m not one to believe in fate or any of that shit.”
“I understand,” Jacques agrees quietly. “I too doubted fate until…” He trails off, looking away. I notice a long scar running down the back of his neck, disappearing behind his wings. “You should rest, my lady. The sun will be rising soon.”
“Yeah,” I agree, and roll my neck.
“Sore?” Thomas asks.
“You could say so.”
He flashes a cocky grin. “I can help you with that.”
I swallow hard, fanning the rising heat inside of me. “I’m sure you could.” The image of his hands on me flashes before my mind’s eye, and the smoldering heat threatens to turn into flames.
“I have to work in the morning,” I mumble. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep with…with…”With you here. “With knowing there are more vampires out there.”
“We’ll keep you safe.”
I look into his deep, dark eyes. “I know,” I say, and despite everything inside me telling me not to trust him, I do.
“The bedroom upstairs,” he starts, and a shiver goes down my spine at the thought of us going into the bedroom together. “Will that suffice? It has a fireplace.”
“The couch is fine.” I eyeball the small sofa. “And the fire is already going down here. I’d rather not use any more furniture for kindling. I’ll, uh, get some firewood in the morning. I brought a blanket for myself.” I have no idea how clean the bedsheets are upstairs. I’m by no means a neat freak, but the thought of sleeping in God-knows-whose bed skeeves me out. “Are you guys tired? I’d think a thousand-year nap would tide you over for a while, right?”
“We’ll rest in the morning,” Jacques says.
“Okay,” I tell him, and get up to use the bathroom and get my bags. By the time I’m back in the living room, only Jacques remains. The couch has been scooted closer to the fire, with the dust cover pulled off and messily folded on the floor beside it. I wrap my blanket around my shoulders and sit on the couch, adjusting my alarm for the morning. There’s no way I’m working out, but I’m farther from the station.
“It’s a phone,” I tell Jacques, who’s looking over my shoulder at the glowing screen.
“What does it do?”
“A lot of stuff. Want to see it?”
His dark eyes narrow ever so slightly. “Yes.” He strides over, folding his wings at his back, and sits on the couch. I turn my head, taking him all in and wondering if it’s uncomfortable to have his wings scrunched up like that.
“So this is a phone. Technically, a phone is something you can call someone on, but now phones do so much more than that. Your voice goes through and gets converted, then transmitted as radio waves to the nearest tower.”
Jacques’s blank stare lets me know I made the right career choice by becoming a cop instead of a teacher. He moves his head closer and my heart speeds up. He might be part monster, but he’s also a man. A very attractive, half-naked man who’s sitting very close to me. I blink and turn back to my phone, hoping he can’t see the blood rushing to my cheeks.
“We call it technology,” I start again.
“Like the lights in the house instead of lanterns.”
“Right. And just wait until you take a shower. Indoor plumbing will blow your mind.”
“Blowing is a good thing?”
I fight the urge to snicker. “In this sense, yes. It means shock you in a good way.”
His eyes go to the phone. “You can contact anyone with that?”
“As long as they have a phone and you have their number, yes. I’m guessing your form of communication was handwritten letters, right?”
Jacques nods.
“Now we call it texting, and you send it right away. It’s instant.”
