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I let my hands fall to my sides, sigh deeply and let him do his thing. It doesn’t feel too bad now that he’s being a little more considerate, but I’m not used to people being so handsy and up and personal with me. It’s… exhilarating. “I’m not hurt,” I say softly.

Cor grunts dismissively and pokes one finger against my shoulder, the one the lady guard twisted, not bothering to stop with what he’s doing with his other hand.

Ow. “That’s not getting hurt, and you know it. I wasn’t attacked or anything; it was, eh, manhandling?” I rub the throbbing arm and make a face when Cor goes for my pants again, barely keeping myself from kneeing him in the gonads. God knows what he’s thinking to be looking for damage there.

And then he stops, huffing and sweaty, and sinks to the ground in front of me. His arms wrap around my thighs, warm and strong, and he leans his cheek against my leg as he closes his eyes. A last shudder runs through him, then he sits still, clinging to me like a limpet. “Danger,” he rumbles after a long moment of quiet and rubs his cheek against my pants.

What am I supposed to do with that? I sigh again and give in to the urge to bury my fingers into his unkempt hair. “Yeah, I met your self-proclaimed owner. That was fun, or not,” I explain and frown down at his cowering form.

Burn blisters run from his shoulders down his arms and along the nape of his neck, neat and sharp-edged, everywhere his skin is exposed. He basically danced through the midday sun just to grab me, without hesitation. Such a powerful, fearsome creature, and he’s kneeling at my feet. I wonder what it cost him not to follow me inside the Norseman’s lair. No wonder he’s out of his mind.

‟My partner, Asha. You remember her? She’s on the way back to Babylon City,” I say after a while, just to fill the heavy silence. Just thinking of her makes my gut tighten, especially with Cor being out in the open like this. My fault. Everything seems to be my fault lately. “You should hide until we’re gone. You could stay in the safehouse while—”

Cor lets me go and steps backward until he leans against the wall across from me. He is wearing a fresh, dark shirt and gray sweatpants, thankfully blood spatter free. He should feel threatening to me, imposing and mercurial as he is right now, but I can see his abs through the tight jersey, and the way his cheeks flow into his chin in a graceful line seems to mesmerize me unduly. And his new eyes are damned distracting. The black is completely gone, leaving him with a very clear, sharp glare instead of looking like a hellhound in training. I would love to ask what happened, but he wouldn’t be able to tell me. And I have a feeling that his eyes changed the moment that Looke destroyed the amulet.

‟She here,” he says.

‟Who?” I ask distractedly.

Cor looks at me like he is worried about my sanity. He carefully repeats, slower than before, ‟Asha. She here.”

‟Oh.” Wait, what? I shake my head to get rid of the dizziness, but it only makes it worse. My fingers delicately feel over the bump on the back of my head, but it doesn’t seem to grow or bleed. No additional concussion either, I hope. ‟What do you mean, she is here? Asha shouldn’t arrive before nightfall; it’s not like she can teleport.” He must have mistaken someone else for her; there is no other explanation.

‟Last night, yes,” Cor says carefully, as if he worries about my health as well.

‟I didn’t miss a day, blood loss or no,” I bite out and carefully rub the back of my head again. But Cor has no reason to lie. I’m not even sure he would get the idea to lie to me, and for what reason? As confident as he sounds, there is very little chance he mistook her for someone else either. Which means, Asha has been here at least a day. And nobody knew it.

I take a deep breath and reach out for Cor. My fingers land against his abs by accident instead of his arm, but now that they are there, I can’t take them away. Don’t want to. His skin is still so warm, he feels like a human. ‟Where is she?”

He looks down at my fingers, grunts, and lifts his arm to point towards the east. ‟Over the river,” he grumbles, as if he’s not as interested in the topic as I am. ‟In big place. With cultists.”

‟She stayed with cultists?” That can’t be right. God, I hope it’s not right.

Cor nods calmly and steps closer until it’s the palm of my hands and not just my fingertips touching his ripped belly over the jersey. His gaze turns darker, more sure of himself. More sure of me.

My mouth goes dry under his scrutiny. I know what Cor is doing. It’s called flirting. It makes me want to snort and shout at the same time, because I’m not supposed to be doing this. This isn’t how it works. I don’t flirt with a vampire or sleep with them—hell, I don’t do any of that shit with anyone anymore since I finished my training as a Hunter. The only other gay guy in the Clan left after basic training and died a few weeks later. Makes the dating pool very shallow and my hand a viable sexual partner. But Cor doesn’t know that, and in all honesty, I don’t really care either right now.

He gets closer still, until his body is pressed against mine and his arm wraps around my waist from behind, burrowing between the wall and my broken clothing. My heart beats way too fast, and my skin tingles painfully where it touches his. The air between us is hot and thick, making it hard for me to concentrate on anything else but the man standing so close. Blood loss. That’s it. It’s all just because of the blood loss.

I can feel him staring down at me, and when I look up under my lashes, blushing like a giggling teenager, he looks amused. I didn’t know he could look anything but angry, satisfied, grumpy, or horny. ‟What?”

‟Not hurt,” he says huskily, like a prayer of thanks. And then he kisses me. Not just kiss—he devours me.

His lips are firm and demanding against mine. His hand tightens around my waist just enough for my brain to think about how perfectly we fit together. It’s ridiculous; even though I’m tall enough myself, he’s still bigger than I am. But we fit together somehow. Against all odds.

Even though kissing him feels like setting myself on fire in order to stay warm during winter, I don’t pull back nor push him away. Instead, I wrap both arms around his neck and kiss him back enthusiastically. I feel like I’ve been possessed by someone who doesn’t care that Cor is an enemy, a potential target, a threat to my clan, to me. All this new me feels is hunger for his touch, his taste. Him.

We stand there for what feels like hours until finally we break apart for air. My lips feel raw, swollen, hot, and only the dizziness keeps me from surging right back in to get more.

‟What was that?” I ask hoarsely, although the answer is quite obvious.

‟Kiss,” Cor says with a surprised grin that lights up the room.

‟You kissed me,” I state, dumbfounded.

‟You kissed back,” he says, and again I am awestruck by how his language skills have improved by leaps and bounds. It’s full sentences now, short and chopped as they may be. And they have syntax.

It’s like whatever magic held him in this state of beastly fugue dissipated completely with Looke’s act of destruction. I will have to buy her a new car or something. Maybe a mansion. There’s no way I could ever repay her. If only we could stay like this. If only there wasn’t a real life outside the… dead end road we are in. How utterly prophetic.