Page 30

“I know,” he breathed, still watching me. He smiled a little and his eyes went all glassy again, his voice growing rougher. “But you’re still Danny. And I didn’t lose you. I had to know.”

“Just because I didn’t immediately try to eat you, doesn’t mean I’m still the same person,” I said, much gentler than I meant to. In reality, I wanted to snap at him, but I couldn’t quite make myself do it. “Neither one of us knows the way through this, or what to expect.”

“When have we ever?” Michael shot back, raising his eyebrows at me, like he was daring me to contradict him. “It’s not like there’s ever been a rulebook, right?”

“What if I had bitten you?”

“You wouldn’t have drained me. If I had told you to stop, you would have.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually.” Michael laughed a little, shaking his head. “Look, I know it sounds completely insane, but it’s like there’s this part of me—the part of me that’s the mostme—and it’s telling me you would never, in a million years, ever hurt me. And I believe it.”

“And if I hadn’t stopped when you’d asked me to?”

“Then I would have put a fucking bullet in your heart,” Michael replied, without missing a beat. “A silver one—I swapped the wood out for the silver while you were out, just in case. It wouldn’t have killed you, obviously, but it would’ve stopped what you were doing long enough for me to get away. I’m not a total idiot.”

“Five-plus years of history begs to differ.”

Michael grinned at that. And I couldn’t help but smile back a little as well, my anger with him subsiding immediately. In more than half a decade, I’ve never managed to stay mad at Michael longer than an hour, two at most. Usually it’s only been a few minutes, at most.

He eyed my expression. “So, I’m no longer in the doghouse?”

I scowled at that, but it was clearly enough of an answer for him, because he visibly relaxed. He plopped down into a sitting position, putting his back to the wall of the barn, and patted the ground next to him.

“Sit next to me?” Then he hesitated and added. “It’s not causing you any pain, right? To be near me, I mean.”

“There’s no pain,” I replied honestly.

When he had stormed out of the barn earlier, the burning in my throat had returned full force. And the gnawing hunger had, in fact, been like ground glass cutting up my insides. The pain of it had been blinding, driving all rational thought from my mind, except for doing anything I could to stop it. But now that hewas here, present with me, there was none of that. I could think again. It was effortless tonotattack him.

So, trusting in that more than I knew I probably should have, I crossed the barn and settled down beside him. I could feel the heat radiating off his body. And his scent enveloped me again, driving all possibility of hurting him from my mind. It reminded me again, sharply, of being warm and cared for and safe. Even if all those memories from my childhood had ultimately ended up being a lie.

“So, I’m supposed to help you hang onto your humanity. That’s what Bryan told me to do. Granted, he also told me that you’d be so out of your mind with hunger that you’d be like a wild animal, so I dunno if that’s still the playbook. But let’s say it is—I’m supposed to remind you of times when you were still human.”

“You mean, what? Yesterday?”

“We could start there,” Michael agreed. He gave me a sideways sort of look. “Or… earlier tonight.”

I understood immediately.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Are you sure?”

“I was—I got jealous,” I admitted.

I hated doing it. Because it tipped us dangerously into the sort of touchy-feely waters I’d been avoiding for months. But somehow, having died tonight, I cared way less about that than I ever had before. And I couldn’t stand the idea of Michael blaming himself. Because it wasn’t his fault this had happened. It was mine. And him not hurting and not feeling guilty was more important than protecting my delicate—well, whatever I was now.

“I saw you dancing with the twink and I was an idiot. You’d think that years of watching you going off and hooking up with whatever rando hits you up on Grindr would’ve beenenough that I didn’t get even a little jealous anymore. But I got pissed. And then, when I saw the vamp leaving with her victim, I followed her.” I paused, feeling a fresh dose of shame wash through me. Because I was acutely aware that it was all my fault that we were sitting here right now, having this conversation in the first place. “You were doing exactly what we’d planned on. I was the one who fucked this whole thing up.”

“I can’t count the number of times I’ve fucked up a hunt for us. I’m at a dozen, easy. You still need to catch up. Then we’ll talk.”

“No offense, but it’s never been quite so spectacular, so I still win,” I shot back, turning to give him some side-eye in the process. “I mean, you’ve never gotten anyone killed.”

He caught my gaze and held it. “But you’re not dead.”

I held out my wrist. “Check if you don’t believe me. No pulse. Pretty sure that equals dead.”