I studied his back—his shoulders were relaxed, his easy good humor was back, and there was no sign of the brief exhaustion he’d shown a flash of.
I’ve been off about him. He’s old. A lot older than I thought.I had no idea how he could hide it so well, but it also didn’t matter.
Vampires didn’t choose to live alone like Connor. Whatever he’d gone through, he had scars. But he’s also made it clear he didn’t want to talk about it. I knew firsthand he wasn’t harming anyone—there’s no way he’d be able to hide it from me if he was illegally feeding on humans.
He’s probably fine. Unless…he couldn’t be Considine…could he?
Considine Maledictus was vampire royalty. There was no way he’d be squatting in a human apartment building with no vampires on hand to cater to his whims.
But I had to consider it—it would be dangerous not to.
Their voices are a little alike, and they do have similar builds…
“Ah-hah!” Connor emerged from his expedition in my fridge, triumphantly holding up a blood pouch. “Behold: lunch!”
There’s no way.I thought as I stared at Connor.Absolutely no way. A vampire who was turned thousands of years ago wouldn’t act like this. It’s impossible.
He didn’t notice my scrutiny, and instead crowded my space.
“Congratulations.” I made myself set down my spatula. “I’m glad it makes you this happy.”
Connor flipped the blood pack around a few times, inspecting it, then jabbed the plastic straw in it. “How did you get these? Usually, you must register to get them—they don’t carry them in the supermarket.”
“There’s a couple of vending machines at the Curia Cloisters.” I picked up my marker and began labeling the last few bags. “I bought them there. I didn’t want to sign up for thedelivery service because they only do bulk deliveries, and I’m pretty sure they’d expire before you could drink them all.”
Connor stopped sucking down his blood pack and set it down on the table. “You were thinking that much of me?
“You, and my wallet,” I said truthfully. “I had to take a cooler to work to transport them home. I figured they needed to be kept cold and it’s getting chilly outside, but it’s notthatcold.” When I glanced over at Connor, he was staring at his blood pack.
He was clenching his jaw, and there was a slight furrow to his eyebrows. He looked like—as Nan would say—someone in need of some hugs and kisses.
I certainly wasn’t going to do the kisses part—we had a platonic friendship. But I could be brave enough to hug him. Connor was open to invading my space so he wouldn’t mind. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t come off as touchy-feely as Considine/Ruin.
“Do you need a bear hug?” I asked.
Connor blinked and looked up at me. “Awhat?”
“A bear hug—a big squeezing hug.” I slowly stepped towards him, giving him lots of opportunities to back up, then flung my arms around his shoulders and gave him my best imitation of the bear hugs my dad gave—the ones that never failed to make me feel loved and safe.
Connor froze for a moment—which wasn’t the expected reaction, since he had no problem touching me.
His shoulders heaved in a sigh and then he slipped his arms around me, returning the hug.
I was surprised by how nice the hug felt—his arms wrapped tight around my shoulders while I wound my arms around his waist. There was something… secure about it. It was dangerously tempting in that I felt like I could relax, like Connor could take care of it, and I could justbe.
That was a very dangerous feeling for a slayer—one I needed to be careful with.
Oddly, the hug felt a little deja vu-ish, too. As if I had recently experienced a similar embrace.
“You’re a lot of trouble, do you know that?” Connor groused into my hair.
I rested my chin on his shoulder and fought off the instinct to unwind. “I didn’t burn anything this time, you didn’t even have to fan the fire alarm.”
“I wasn’t talking about your questionable cooking.”
Before I could ask what he meant, Connor slid away from me to approach the sink. “Shall we bag up your Party Mix so you can deliver it to your targets?”
“Yeah.” I glanced at the clock. “I still want to get a workout in before I leave for work, so I’ll need to hurry.”
