Page 18 of Bane of Hate and Silver (Primordial Inheritance #1)

Obviously not on board with that plan, Chad pulled away, tapping Nick on the chest with his palm. “Welcome home. I hope you’re hungry.” The human, dislodged himself from Nick’s grip and returned to the stove.

“I already ate, sorry,” Nick replied.

“You never eat my cooking,” Chad complained in a whine.

“I only eat when I’m hungry,” Nick lied. “And I got hungry before I got back.” He added, leaning on the counter with a grin, hoping to change the path this conversation was on.

Chad rolled his eyes as some of the pot’s contents plopped into one of the two bowls on the kitchen table.

He moved to add noodles to the second bowl until Nick snatched it, replacing it in the kitchen cabinet.

“Fine.” Chad moved from the small kitchen counter to the two-seater table nearby. “How was your night?”

Unable to think of a way out of a mundane conversation and into immediate sexual depravity, Nick sat in a chair next to Chad. “Not exceptional. How was yours?” Nick asked flatly, his lack of true interest not being properly concealed.

“Were you anywhere near the Rose Garden?” Chad asked instead of responding to the question.

“No.” Nick flinched. “Why?” Nick was glad that Chad was likely too dense to notice the action or slight pitch change to his voice.

“Two people were murdered there, I was worried.”

“How terrible,” Nick said, feeling Chad’s eyes studying him in a way that made him curious as to what he was thinking.

“Completely drained of blood. That’s five murders this week,” Chad added through a mouthful of noodles. “They’re calling him the Fort Miles Phantom now.”

“How do you know it’s a man?” Nick asked, purposefully relaxing into a position that conveyed complete nonchalance he didn’t feel.

“Statistics.” Chad chewed again, grating Nick’s nerves. “Besides, that cop he killed was massive. Had to be a man. Cut out his heart and everything. Very vampire melodrama TV show vibes if you ask me.”

“Yeah, good thing monsters like vampires don’t exist,” Nick added trying to sound calm while talking through his teeth.

Chad stopped and stared for a moment, fork half way to his mouth. “What if they do though?” Chad’s eyes narrowed on him.

This was not a conversation that could lead to anything good.

Chad had never shown interest in the news before.

He tended to blather on about nothing, people and places Nick didn’t actually care about.

That suited Nick just fine. “What did you and your buddies snort at work?” Nick stood and took the bowl out from under Chad’s fork.

Chad protested. Nick ignored him. The bowl clattered into the sink.

He was either getting this man into bed or killing him.

Whichever made this line of interrogation stop first would have to do.

Shoulders tense, Nick remained facing away from the human.

He waited until the sounds of Chad rising and walking over came from behind him.

Reaching around Nick, Chad put his fork in the sink next to the discarded bowl and slid his arms around Nick’s torso.

“Why so tense, Baby?” he kissed Nick’s back, through his shirt. “Bad night?”

Nick’s hand rested on one of Chad’s. “You could say that.” He turned in the man’s arms and then pulled his shirt over his head. To bed it was then.

Jules walked with Luca back toward her little house.

Dawn was minutes away. They were taking a risk, even now, walking down the secluded beach together.

But, when he’d asked if she wanted company on her walk back, Jules couldn’t bring herself to say no.

The entire night behind her felt out of time and place in Jules’s life.

Today she wasn’t just living, she was alive.

The sky lit with pinks and oranges over the water.

Jules was cutting it close but hadn’t been able to leave him until now.

She’d drawn a line in the sand just on the far side of kissing and Luca had respected every boundary.

Not once had he pushed her or coerced her into more.

It was a foreign feeling, being respected in one’s boundaries.

With every passing minute, she felt her walls crumbling.

In his large hands, she might just feel safe enough to let her guard down.

The left side of her body was pressed against Luca as they walked.

Her arm rested comfortably above his hips.

His hand stretched down to reach her waist, caressing her slightly over his flannel button down he’d insisted she wore.

The shirt dwarfed her, hanging almost to her knees.

The arms rolled up four times to stop at her wrists.

She hadn’t been cold, but he’d asked her to wear it anyway.

She suspected it had something to do with the fact that her nipples had been peaked by the cold water, and his physical closeness.

She wasn’t going to lie, even to herself, about that one.

“Luca, I know you said you don’t care, but if we do this, if we spend any time together, it’s going to be very dangerous for both of us.

” She felt him tense beneath her touch, but it needed to be said.

Seeing each other was the selfish choice.

“For your pack and my coven, we really should just part ways and move on with our lives.”

He stopped walking and spun to face her. When her face craned up to look at him, his hands found the sides of her neck, thumbs caressing her jawline gently. “Do you want that?” he asked after a few more silent seconds.

She bit her bottom lip, thinking through multiple scenarios. Finally, her head shook slowly. “No. I don’t. I don’t want to disrupt your life… or mine. But I don’t want to end this… us, without giving it a chance, either.”

“Please, blow mine up.” Luca laughed a little. “Let little pieces rain down around me.” He wrapped both arms around her, pulling her into him. “I feel more, right here with you, than I have in a long time.”

His words mirrored how she felt perfectly. She didn’t know how it happened, but in the matter of one night, she went from being completely closed off to the idea of letting someone in, to this. For the first time in centuries, she had hope for the future of her heart.

“I’ve lived too long to turn away something, or someone, who can make me feel like you do.”

“How’s that?” he asked

“Alive.”

“Yeah,” he said with a quiet sigh.

He leaned down to kiss her again, but one pale finger rose to rest against his lips, stopping him.

His lips pressed against her finger instead.

He smiled. She dropped her hand and smiled despite herself.

Tapping his torso her expression hardened into seriousness.

“If we are going to do this, Luca, no one can know. Not now. Not until the tension between your pack and my coven has settled.”

“Secrets are kinda sexy,” he said as his hands slid down her arms and onto her waist. With his large hands he lifted her, her legs bending at the knees to rest on either side of his torso.

“Oh, really.”

“One-hundred percent, really.”

Face to face, their mouths found each other.

Her hands tangled in his hair while his held her to him.

Tongues searching once again. Their kiss deepened, melting what was left of Jules’s frigid heart.

A warming sensation began to tingle across one side of Jules’s body.

Jules’s skin began to heat as she finally pulled back enough to feel the danger.

“Sunrise,” she said, breathlessly.

Noticing the impending danger they’d put her in, Luca set her on the sand and turned their bodies so his was blocking hers from the direct rays. “Run,” he commanded. Covered in his shadow she ran for her open back door. He stayed close behind her.

Once inside her bedroom she threw the blackout curtains across the open window, plunging them into darkness.

Luca froze in place. He was in Jules’s bedroom. Not good. “Um…” he stumbled for what to say once she flipped on the bedside lamp. “I’m going to go.” Luca started backing away, towards the door he’d entered through.

Jules studied him. That damned bottom lip being bitten again. That particular action alone was literally going to destroy him. “Or you could…” she hesitated, “stay.”

Luca walked toward her, his hands finding the sides of her neck again, fitting like they belonged there. “I would love nothing more than to stay. But I can sense that you’re not sure. So, I’m going to go.”

“I…” she let her voice go quiet, giving him confirmation that she wasn’t ready to open that door entirely.

He tipped her face up again. Her eyes were closed.

“When I get to have you. I want you to be without doubt that it’s what you want. I can wait.” Luca bent and brushed his lips to her forehead. “I’ll see you soon, Little Corpse.” Before she even opened her eyes, he slipped out the back curtain, careful to let in as little light as possible.

Jules missed him before she opened her eyes.

But she respected the fact that he’d walked away in that moment.

That choice cracked her heart open just a little more than it had been moments before.

She was falling for this werewolf and was starting to believe she no longer had a choice in the matter.

Jules showered and then crawled into bed to sleep the sunniest of Sundays away. Blankets pulled up over her shoulders, wet hair fanned out behind her, she hoped to dream of a tall, overtly sexy, werewolf rather than the demon who usually haunted her nights.

Luca had dealt with his sexual frustrations by running back to the cove to retrieve his Jeep.

He had taken the long way. He pulled the keys from his pocket and jumped inside, shot Tai a text, and then drove to the nearest gas station before his E-level gas tank left him stranded.

He jumped out and jammed his card into the reader when a feminine voice called his name.

Luca spun at Hayley’s call. She was seated on Kyle’s motorcycle while he pumped gas into its tank.

“Hey,” he called back, trotting over to join them at their gas pump.

“What are you doing out here?” Hayley asked.

Luca opened his mouth to answer and then closed it again, knowing he couldn’t be honest in his answer. He had always trusted the couple before, but he wouldn’t trust either of them with Jules’s life.

“Hiding from Carson. That’s what he’s always up to.” Kyle’s comment was the first indication that he even knew Luca was standing there talking to his wife.

“It’s necessary from time to time,” Luca replied, letting the assumption stand.

“Especially when you’re his most hated golden boy,” Kyle continued.

“Hated?” Hayley asked skeptically.

“Well not by anybody but Carson,” Luca responded for Kyle. “At least, I don’t think I am.”

“It’s a safe bet that you’re well-liked,” Hayley said. “You are a Cain, after all.”

“And no one will let me forget it either.” Kyle’s whiney impression was a little over-dramatized, but not that off from the way Luca had said this to him many times before.

Somehow, he felt different about living in that legacy now.

Maybe it was that Jules had said the famous ancestor whom he was known for was, in fact, deserving of his reputation.

Or the fact that being a Cain connected him to Jules in ways he’d never have imagined, he didn’t know.

“Where are you two headed?” Luca asked, noting that they were on a side of town that they didn’t usually frequent.

“Beach day with my babe,” Kyle said, winking at his wife.

“Little chilly for a day at the beach,” Luca commented. The sun was out, yes, but the spring air still had a bite to it.

“That’s what I told him,” Hayley said.

“Oh, pipe down both of you! It’ll be fun.”

“Do you want to join us?” Hayley asked.

“No, that’s okay. I think I have to stop hiding.”

“Suit yourself,” Kyle shrugged.

Luca waved to the couple while returning to the Jeep.

It was time to find out how much Carson knew about Jules and what he had to do to keep her safe.

In eighty years of life Luca had had girlfriends and flings, but what he felt with Jules was different.

He would do what it took to keep her safe and away from his Alpha’s brutality.

Kyle lay sprawled on the sand, music in his ears.

The chilled sun was beating down on his skin as he dozed.

Hayley tapped Kyle on the shoulder with her foot.

Kyle stirred, pulled one earbud out, and looked over to where she sat.

She looked so beautiful, looking down at him, the watery horizon framing her outline.

The perfect view. She’d stolen his jacket long ago and had her long dress tucked down around her feet, but she looked happy.

Or she had the last time he’d looked at her. Now, she looked confused.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Did Luca seem off to you?”

“Off how?”

“Like he was hiding something,” she explained.

“Not really,” Kyle said. “Same old Luca to me.” He hadn’t really thought about it, if he was being honest.

“I wonder how his date went last night,” she said conversationally while scrolling through something on her phone.

“What date?” Kyle asked. Wondering how or why Hayley would retain such information.

“You told me about it!” she almost scolded, her phone forgotten beside her.

“I mentioned it,” Kyle clarified, “in passing. Haven’t thought of it since.”

“You’re such a great friend,” she said sarcastically.

“I am actually. Luca doesn’t like when people pry.”

“I wouldn’t call this prying. I’d call it being interested.”

“Oh, you’re interested in Luca are you.”

“Inescapably,” she said, teasing him now. Her smile was irresistible. Without warning, Kyle pulled her toward him.

She laughed and let her body drop onto his carelessly. The wind was knocked out of him when her elbow struck him in the stomach. He groaned.

“Serves you right, now my feet are cold,” she said. She then tucked them between his legs and the sand.

“All better?” he asked, playing with a strand of her hair as she looked down at him, her face expressing the same amount of love he felt.

“Everything’s perfect now,” she said, then kissed him softly.