Page 40 of Cursed by Death (Ruby Jane #1)

T he cafe I was meeting Detective Rowans at actually wasn’t that far from the shifters garage. Still, it was in a better neighborhood, and on a street with a few other businesses.

I parked in a spot right across the street and headed towards the cafe. There were little two seater round tables with umbrellas covering them that were out on the sidewalk in front of the cafe.

Detective Rowans was sitting at one of those tables. There were already menus and glasses of water on the table.

I sat down in the seat across from him. “Have you been here long?” I asked as I took my sunglasses off and tossed them down onto the table.

I didn’t think I was late but it had taken some serious convincing on my part to get Rally and Fox to let me go on my own. I required some much needed time to myself. They had finally agreed to let me go on my own after threatening the both of them with severe bodily harm.

Now it didn’t seem worth it to not have a shadow if it meant I was late and had made Detective Rowans wait here for me. That would be incredibly rude considering he was probably in the middle of a work day and had taken a break to come here so he could have lunch with me.

“Nope,” he said and I instantly relaxed back into my chair. “I just got here a couple of minutes ago myself. Have you been here before?”

I shook my head as I picked up the laminated menu on the table in front of me. “What about you, have you eaten here before? It’s not far from your apartment building. I don’t go out to eat very often. I’ll order food from places and either pick it up or have it delivered but I don’t eat at places. Eating out alone isn’t something that I’ve ever seemed to be comfortable with, no matter how comfortable I am with doing things on my own. I always feel like people are staring at me and it makes me too uncomfortable to actually eat.”

I realized too late that I was rambling and he didn’t actually need to know any of that. It was absolutely not a habit I had or anything I thought I had ever done before. It wasn’t something I had picked up during my childhood, that’s for damn sure. I had been too afraid of my father to ramble, I barely spoke in front of him at all. And I had learned very quickly in foster care that it was best for me to keep my mouth shut.

And, here I was, an adult now and rambling on for the first time ever, like a damn fool.

All because Detective Rowans made me nervous. I wasn’t sure if I should be embarrassed by this knowledge or horrified.

My infatuation with the Detective had grown out of my control and, if I were smart, I would squash it to death like a bug under my shoe.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched him pick up the glass of water in front of him and take a drink of it. I watched the muscles in his throat work, entirely enthralled, as he swallowed. I had to force my eyes to look at the menu in my hands and not the man in front of me.

It disturbed me that I was so fascinated with him. And he had only inserted himself into my life because he didn’t want me to turn out like his sister. Dead.

I didn’t often feel pathetic or embarrassed with myself but here I was, feeling both of those things. Even after he’d rejected me I’d still felt these things. If anything, they have gotten worse since then.

What was the matter with me?

He was twice my age and he didn’t want me like that. Besides, I was sleeping with Rally now and kind of came with a lifelong commitment.

Why couldn’t Rally just be enough for me? What was wrong with me that I had this man, the gorgeous man, who is going to be devoted to me and just wanted to love me for the rest of his life and I still was planning on sleeping with other people. And he was so conditioned to love his mate that he was okay with me sleeping with other people, just so long as he was my first and always.

Were my daddy issues so severe that I’d never be able to commit to one man?

Nah, that couldn’t be it.

Fuck Johnathon Maredo. He wasn’t responsible for the fact that I could potentially love more than one man. Johnathon Maredo didn’t know what the fuck love was.

All he knew was obsession and how to covet the objects of his obsessions.

I didn’t want to be anything like that. I peeked over the top of my menu at Detective Rowans and knew I was failing miserably at it. I was just as obsessive and covetous as my father was.

I blamed the demon in me.

As much as I tried to choke them down, sometimes the demon and the vampire traits in me struggled to rise to the surface. I fought what I was every breath I took and I would not let those parts of me win.

Maybe it was for the best that the Detective ended whatever the hell this was turning into before it even started.

I didn’t want that thing inside of me to destroy all the good that he had in him. I’d rather destroy myself than ever do that.

“It’s never really bothered me,” Detective Rowans said and I blinked, refocusing on him and the conversation once again that I had actually started and then so rudely zoned out of.

What the fuck was he talking about? He must have seen the question on my face because he chuckled as he shook his head.

“I don’t know where you just went but I hope it was a good trip. I was talking about going out to eat by myself, and it’s never really bothered me before. I’ve always been a bit of a loner though. And my job isn’t exactly a nine to five. I learned a long time ago to eat when I have the time and I’m not picky. I’ve been in the homicide division a long time. I have murderers to catch, I don’t give a fuck what people think about me eating alone.”

It actually made perfect sense to me because we were both loners. Though, it seemed he was more comfortable with himself than I had thought I was.

Detective Rowans was a whole lot less unbothered than me. And wasn’t that just a rude awakening for a girl who thought she had it all figured out? Actually, I thought the whole last month of my life had been quite the rude awakening, if I were being honest with myself.

Thankfully, an older woman with gray hair and a no nonsense attitude showed up at the table with a little notepad in hand, ready to take our orders. She saved me from likely blurting out something very awkward that I would have immediately regretted afterwards.

Apparently, they served breakfast here all day and the Detective took full advantage, ordering an omelet and biscuits and gravy. I didn’t cook breakfast and I usually did not eat it. I ordered a burger and fries, figuring you couldn’t go wrong with that.

The woman went back inside and she took our menus with her.

This was it. I was left here with my Detective and nothing to distract me anymore, or to pretend to hold my attention so that I did not have to focus solely on him. I wasn’t ready for it, for him to say goodbye to me and for our friendship to end. Friendship, or whatever it was that we were calling this.

I had only known the man for about two weeks. I should not have felt this attached to him.

It absolutely had to be my demon side coming out to play and I hadn’t even realized it until now. It made me itch under my skin with the knowledge of that part of me coming out and I wanted to dig my nails in and claw it out of me.

I blew out a heavy breath and decided to put my big girl panties on and just get it over with. “So, what are we doing here, Detective?” I asked. Deflection at its finest.

He frowned at me as he studied me from across the table and I felt like I had done something that he didn’t approve of. “What is it that you think we’re doing here, Ruby Jane?”

I didn’t care to have my question thrown back at me like that. So, I didn’t answer it.

He blew out a heavy breath and his body relaxed back in the chair. I hadn’t realized he’d been so tense before.

“This is what normal people do, Ruby. They go out and get lunch together so they can talk about what’s going on in their lives and catch up.”

Normal people were definitely overrated and I’d never be anything like normal. “Why would we do that when you already know what’s going on in my life? If you’d like to share more about your life with me I’m certainly all ears.” I waved my hand at him in the space between us across the table. “We don’t exactly have a normal friendship here, if that’s what you’d even call this. Thomas’s death brought us together and that murder has been solved. Don’t you have another case to move onto now?”

“Has anyone ever told you before that you’re kind of an asshole?”

No, no one had called me an asshole to my face before but that didn’t make it any less true. Still, it wasn’t nice to call me an asshole.

“I’m always going to have a case that I’m working on, that’s part of my job. For every case that gets solved five more land on my desk. But I thought I’d made it pretty damn clear to you that you’re not just a job and you never will be. It’s hard to tell if you’re trying to insult me with this bullshit or what. But you can give it up because I’m not going anywhere, you’re stuck with me. What, did you think that Thomas’s murderer would be caught and you’d just go off on your merry way? Clearly you haven’t been paying enough attention to what’s been happening here because if you did you’d never be asking me any of that shit.”

Somehow, he’d managed to say all of that without raising his voice and yelling at me. Which was surprising because I had clearly pissed him off.

Pissing off people was a gift I had long ago perfected.

“I noticed you don’t seem to act like this with Rally,” he remarked in a bitter voice with an angry twist to his lips. “He literally kidnapped me because he thought I was his competition and you’re okay with him enough to take one of his guards everywhere with you. Why don’t you try to push him away? Is it because I’m human, is that your problem with me?”

My mouth dropped open as I stared at him in shock. He couldn’t be serious, could he? “You sound like you’re jealous of Rally.”

I had come on to him and he’d rebuffed me. So why would he be jealous of Rally?

His face darkened as he sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not going to lie to you, I absolutely am jealous of the relationship you have with him. Now I want you to be honest with me. Is it because I’m human and he’s not? I can understand that, and I’m not going to be mad about it, but you’ve got to know by now that I’m not prejudiced against you. I don’t care that you’re not human, that would never bother me, so why do you care that I am?”

My skin began to prickle for an entirely different reason. This was not where I saw this conversation with him today going at all. “I’m human,” I whispered hoarsely, practically choking on each word I pushed out.

His face softened, morphing into something incredibly soft and kind. It was almost my undoing.

“Baby,” he murmured quietly as he reached across the table and laid his hand over top of mine. “Your dad is the biggest, baddest demon around here and owns the underground. Your mother had been a vampire. Obviously, vampires can’t have babies so it’s a miracle for you to be alive. You might get away with pretending you’re human but you’re anything but. And I think you’re extraordinary.”