Page 38 of Cursed by Death (Ruby Jane #1)

I woke up with a start, opening my eyes and sitting up straight. The sheet covering me fell down my chest to pool in my lap and around my hips.

I looked down at my body and groaned. I was completely naked. I never slept naked. I needed to have some form of clothing on while I slept in case of an emergency.

I was naked because I’d had sex with Rally last night. Shit. I couldn’t even blame it on alcohol because I hadn’t been drinking. Not a single drop.

What the fuck had I been thinking?

There was knocking on the bedroom door and I figured that’s what had woken me up in the first place.

“Ruby,” Fox called through the door. “I need you to get up and come handle this. There are… people at the front door and I don’t want to let them in but they’re refusing to leave and demanding to speak with you.”

People? There shouldn’t be anyone here who wasn’t already here. Unless it was the Detective, and Fox would have most likely just let him in.

“What people?” I called back, dumbfounded. And why was I having a conversation with Fox of all people while I was naked?

This was just too much for me this morning. Really now.

Lips pressed against my bare shoulder in a kiss. Rally was awake now, too.

“I’ll go see who it is,” he murmured in a husky voice still laced with sleep that sent a delicious shiver down my spine. “You stay here.”

“Just hurry up,” Fox yelled through the door before I heard his footsteps walking down the hallway towards the stairs.

He still hadn’t answered my question and I had no idea who was at the front door.

Rally got out of bed and put his clothes on from the night before.

I didn’t argue with him. If he wanted to go deal with my crap then I wasn’t going to stop him. I was going to take a shower and leave him to it.

I felt bad as soon as I said it. Rally already had so much to deal with all the time. I didn’t want to be another burden that he had to deal with. I was supposed to make things better for him, not add to his already overflowing plate.

He was gone and out of the room before I had a chance to try and stop him.

I sighed as I got out of bed and walked naked to my bathroom.

I could hear people talking downstairs but I chose to ignore it. Rally and Fox were down there and I trusted them to be able to handle anything that was going on. And if I was needed I was sure someone would come and get me.

I turned the water in the shower on and stuck my hand in under the spray. When it was hot enough that my skin started to turn pink after a while I got in the shower and closed the glass door.

Normally, I would stay in there for a while, taking my time, and enjoying the intense heat on my skin. Not today. I didn’t ever want to be rude when there were people in my house. If it were just Fox I didn’t think I would care because he wasn’t exactly a guest or here for me to entertain. As much as I liked him, he was here to do a job. That didn’t mean I would treat him like he was some kind of employee or something like that because I hoped we could be friends and have a better relationship than that.

I was quick in the shower. I washed my body and my hair and then shut the water off. I wrapped a towel around myself and got out.

I brushed my hair and braided it while straining to hear anything in the house. All was quiet and I found that to be a bit worrisome. I didn’t live somewhere where people could just stop on by on a whim because I lived quite a bit out of the way, and I didn’t get visitors often.

Until recently, that is.

Rally was sitting on the foot of my bed when I walked out of the bathroom. His elbows were on his knees and his chin was resting in the palm of his hand.

He remained silent as he watched me get a pair of panties out of a dresser drawer and carry them into the closet with me. I got dressed in a pair of skin tight black jeans, a black tank top, and I threw a white hoodie over it. I put socks on my feet but no shoes. I didn’t like walking around completely barefoot, even in my own home.

I walked out of the closet fully dressed and Rally was still sitting there on the foot of my bed. Watching me but saying nothing. I put my wrist sheaths on and slid my knives into them.

I didn't usually walk around my house with my weapons strapped to me but I was feeling a little out of sorts today. And it really wasn’t helping that Rally was just sitting there, silently watching me like some kind of creeper. It was actually slightly unnerving and I was having a hard time pretending like it didn’t bother me.

And why wasn’t he talking?

Did he regret having slept with me last night? No, I didn’t think that was possible for him because of the whole mate thing. I hadn’t really thought about the morning after the fact, I had been too busy living in the moment to be worried about anything else.

I had no idea what to do with this because it was a first for me. I had never spent the night sleeping next to a man and waking up next to him in the morning.

Was I supposed to offer to make him breakfast? I usually had coffee for breakfast and I had no desire to cook Rally anything. I could order food for him like a champ though, but only if he asked for it.

“I can practically hear you thinking from all the way over here,” he said as I picked up my cell phone. “What’s on your mind, little menace?”

I snorted at the name calling. He wasn’t exactly wrong with that one.

I didn’t want to tell him he’d been a first for me. That would probably make this even more awkward for me and he’d like hearing it too much. If he was going to act like this was a normal morning for him then I could do that too.

I could totally do that. Probably.

Okay, so I wouldn’t bet money on it.

“What was Fox’s problem?” I asked in a bored voice that did not match what I was feeling on the inside as I scrolled through the notifications on my phone.

There was a text from the Detective asking me to meet him for lunch today at a little cafe in town.

I sent a quick text back, telling him that I would meet him there. I wasn’t excited about it though. What more did he have to talk to me about? I had a feeling that lunch was going to be his goodbye to me. I wasn’t prepared to say goodbye to him just yet. I didn’t think I would ever be ready to say goodbye.

I had a problem with letting go. Especially when it comes to the people I care about.

“There are demons here to see you and Fox didn’t want to let them inside. And they refused to leave. I’ve got them settled in your living room downstairs waiting for you. Fox refused to offer them refreshments and I’m not going to lower myself to do that. I might not act my station often but I am shifter royalty and I’m not about to wait on demons in my own mate’s home. Lucky for you Ginger is nosy so she showed up with the baby. She’s making them coffee right now.”

My mouth dropped open and I just stared at him in shock. There was no way he’d just said all that and meant it. “You’re joking.”

He shook his head. “Sadly, I’m not. One of them is holding the baby while she makes their coffee.”

I started laughing. I could absolutely see her doing that. She was just good through and through. She probably thought everyone else was too. That had the laughter dying a quick death and my smile morphed into a frown.

“Yeah, exactly,” he said as he stood up. He walked up to me and framed my face with his big hands. “They can’t just be showing up here like this, baby. I don’t care what they think you are to them now. You’re my mate first and foremost and that needs to be respected.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist and leaned into him. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re mine and they shouldn’t show up here without an invitation or we’re going to have problems. They should treat you the same way they’d treat me and I can tell you they’d damn sure never just show up at my house like this. They’d never come to my house at all.”

That was understandable. Totally. But I wasn’t about to tell a whole group of people that they weren’t allowed to come to my house simply because Rally said so. They’d likely laugh me out of my own home.

Rally slowly closed his eyes as he blew out a heavy breath. “You’re not going to listen to anything that I just said to you, are you?”

Hmm…

Should I be embarrassed that he could read me so well? “Is it that obvious?” I asked him curiously.

“No,” he murmured huskily as his eyes dropped down to my mouth and stayed fixed there. “I imagine you make an exceptional liar, when you choose to lie. I think you might just be a bit predictable though and I should probably expect you to, more often than not, do whatever you want instead of listening to what I’ve told you to do. Now, don’t argue with me, just kiss me so that we can go downstairs and find out what the hell it is that your new demon friends want.”

I wanted to argue with him but I didn’t really have a leg to stand on since he wasn’t exactly wrong about anything he’d said.

I stepped forward, pressing my chest against him, and tilted my face up to meet his descending mouth. He pressed his lips to mine in a kiss as he wrapped his fist around my braid and used it to tilt my head back.

I melted into his body as he controlled the kiss and slipped his tongue into my mouth.

He let go of my hair abruptly and stepped back, causing my arms to fall away from his waist. I pouted at the sudden loss of him and he smirked at me.

“Rude,” I murmured sullenly and licked the taste of him off of my bottom lip.

“As good as it feels to finally know that you want me I’m not going to fuck you while my wolves are downstairs entertaining the demons. I want them gone as quickly as possible. Come on,” he said as he took my hand and dragged me out of the room and down the stairs.

To meet with the demons who were having coffee in my living room.