Page 10

“Mixed with alcohol,” Raph adds.

Oh! “Really? That’s why I feel so nice and…loose.” I giggle, enjoying how relaxed my muscles are feeling.

“Keep drinking then,” Hunter suggests. His dark eyes are looking at me teasingly while his hand is scratching the short stubble covering his cheeks.

I feel Uri stiffening near me, but I ignore him and smile at Rami as he fills my glass again. My phone beeping stops me fromenjoying my drink. I grab it out of my coat and see a text from Trent.

“Who is it?” Uri asks, always the curious one. Ready to protect me from everyone and everything.

“A colleague.” He’s actually Michael’s colleague, a professor at the same university. And technically we went out on a couple of dates. We also kissed and jerked each other off. It was going okay until Meg ended up at the hospital, and I got sucked up by…everything. We lost contact after a few weeks of not seeing each other. Then he moved to another city. The fact that I didn’t miss him much spoke volumes. Why is he texting me now?

“Which colleague?” Uri insists.

“None of your business,” I reply firmly, while reading the message. Trent heard about the lecture I’ll give at his university in a couple of weeks about medical treatment studies,new therapies and approaches, and wants to meet up.

I reply with a quick text and then pocket my phone again.

I glance at Uri, noticing how the corner of his mouth has dropped by half an inch, which tells me he’s upset.

“Everything about you is my business.” His gravelly tone confirms what I already know.

How many times have I wished those words were uttered in a romantic, possessive way and not in a brotherly protective one? How irritatingly disappointing.

“Well, since you keep things from me, I’ll do just the same.”

“No, you won’t.” His voice deepens. Some of the people at the table frown. He must notice too, but his tone doesn’t soften. “I won’t let you.”

His forceful statement annoys me even further. “You have a biological brother, Uri. You’ve been looking for him for years, and you never told me or anybody else here about it!” My voice rises the more I speak. Reminding myself I’m in a public place, I add in a lower tone, “I think it’s only fair that I keep a few things to myself.”

“Angel is right. Your bro is a probable maniac, and you didn’t warn us about him.” Lori’s acrimonious words and the look of agreement from the rest of the bros make me wince.I didn’t mean to start an argument.

“This is a private conversation,” Uri hisses.

“It bloody isn’t.” My pleading eyes meet Lori’s, and he adds reluctantly. “But okay. We are not here.” He crosses his fingers over his mouth for a moment in a silent gesture.

“Fuck off, Gremlin!”

Bez’s threatening snarl makes my hair stand. “Careful, Uriel.”

“Tell your fiancé to mind his own fucking business.” Uri doesn’t seem to care about Bez’s wrath. On the contrary, when we were young, he actually tried multiple times to anger Gabe so that his alter, Bez, would come out to defend him. He found Gabe’s multiplicity fascinating.

“You really think he’ll listen?” Gabe utters in his usual flat tone.

“Make him,” Uri responds.

“The fiancé is right bloody here and can hear everything you daft pricks are saying,” Lori barks.

“Go talk somewhere private if you don’t want people to interfere,” Raph states coldly before landing a kiss on Michael’s head. Uri almost bears his teeth at his brother before pulling me up by the arm and dragging me toward the exit.

I reluctantly let him have his way, only because I don’t want to cause another fight. Lately, Uri is more belligerent, easily irked by anything.

“I’ll use you as a swizzle stick if you talk to me like that again.” Lori’s threat makes Uri halt.

I quickly plaster my body against his back and place my hand over his mouth to prevent him from insulting Lori while pushing him forward. It’s not easy since he’s bigger than me, but he resumes walking as he covers my hand with his. I have to grab the front of his shirt as my feet hit the back of his, making me stumble. We finally get out. Uri stops under the awning of the closed shop next door and then spins around until we are facing each other. His hand is still on mine over his mouth. The other flattens on the wall near my head. His long dreads brush his wide shoulders, and his gorgeous hazel-gold eyes seem to sparkle as I almost drown into their depths.

The number of ways to describe him is overflowing my brain. My protector. My best friend. My safe place. My first crush. My earliest morning thought and last nightly dream.

I suddenly feel something wet gliding over my palm, right over the scar I got many years ago the day I solidified the unbreakable blood pact with my brothers. His breath is warm under my hand while his tongue comes out to lick the long pink line once again. Igasp, remembering a few weeks back, the night when he cleaned the blood off my lip, his mouth enveloped my plump flesh, his long, pierced tongue sliding painfully slow. It had been brief and in front of my brothers, but everything Uri does latches onto me, and I can never stop replaying it in my head. Lori called it a suck-a-lip kiss. I honestly don’t think it was a kiss. I didn’t register it properly, though. I was too shocked and too high on the pain from the slap the guy who’d tried to kidnap Lori had given me. Hence the bloody lip.