Page 25 of Inked & Bloodbound
“Didn’t eat when you were out?” he asks, stepping closer. “It’s funny. I thought you didn’t feed on live humans.” He feigns innocent curiosity, tapping his mouth with his finger like he’s trying to puzzle it out. “But I guess you must have changed your mind. It’s been days since I’ve seen you.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Yeah, I heard.” He reaches out and touches my face. He holds up his finger to the light, and a bead of moisture glimmers on the tip. Heflicks out a serpentine tongue and licks it. “You taste like shit. I guess you’re starving after all. What’s been keeping you from us? Come on now, carnalito. Why didn’t you just come home to your nest? Are we so terrible?”
“Like I told you, I was busy.”
“Very busy, by the looks of things.” He inspects me, brushing the dirt layer from my lapel. “You’ve gone to ground recently. How old-school of you. Why not just come home and make things right?”
I ignore him and push past toward the exit, eager to be alone so I can rip into the pouch of blood and quench the thirst that burns and rages in my body. “I wanted to wait until things cooled down. They got too heated, sure, but Cyrus attacked first.”
“That’s not how Cyrus tells it.” Angel checks under his nails, then studies me slowly, like a predator sizing up prey. “He says you went crazy, threw him around for no reason. Says you were defending some little human piece like she meant something to you.”
I keep my expression neutral, though every instinct is telling me to fight, but I don’t like my chances. Not this weakened, not this hungry. “Cyrus drinks too much and talks a lot of shit.”
“He does. But this time, he’s out for blood. He ran straight to Papa. Lazaro’svery interestedin hearing your side of the story.”
My blood goes cold. Lazaro. The head of the Sixth Clan, and not someone I want asking questions about my activities right now.
“He’s in Dallas,” he snarls. “Back tomorrow. So you’d better get your ass here and be ready to explain why you attacked someone in this nest.”
“Oh? What’s he doing in Dallas?” I ask, weighing the blood bag in my hand, like this is a normal conversation.
Angel snarls. “None of your fucking business. You only get that info when you stop with this half-measures shit and take the oath.” He steps closer, close enough that I can smell the hot metallic blood on his breath. “And you’d better have a damn good explanation for the other night, because if you don’t… Well, we all know how Lazaro deals with disloyal vampires.”
Under other circumstances, I could kill Angel—weapons, stake-proof vest and all. But I’m deteriorating more by the day, and I’m hungry. I can’t afford to let my temper get the best of me, not when I’m so close to getting out.
“Fine,” I say through a jaw clenched so tight I’m afraid my teeth will shatter. “I’ll be here.”
8
LILY
Aside from El Gato, who wanders in whenever he wants to eat my food and break my heart, it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a man in my home. It’s been at least six months, maybe even longer. I rack my brain for details of the Tinder date I hooked up with after a few coffee meet-ups, but his face is so bland and forgettable I can’t even conjure it.
I have the opposite problem with my new friend, Cassini—a man so good-looking his features are burned into my brain, haunting my thoughts and tainting my fantasies.
He could also be the key to finding what happened to Mom. I’ve been shoving the thought of actually speaking to her again down for hours, but now it’s clawing its way up. Part of me wants nothing more than to find her somewhere in the void and ask her all the questions I couldn’t when she was alive. Then there’s the other part of me that never wants to speak to her again. The wound she left is still raw, and I’m not sure I could survive tearing it open again.
I bend down to fuss with a book stack on my coffee table and wince when a sharp pain shoots up the nape of my neck. The headaches are back, returning somewhere around lunchtime today, but I’m pleasantly surprised to find them much duller and moremanageable. If Paloma is right about this, I should be able to stay in control with daily practice. It’s kind of like a spiritual hygiene routine, as simple as washing your face or brushing your teeth.
I slept late, and for the remainder of the afternoon, I’ve been stressed, trying to make my place look good. Now I’ve adjusted every trinket a million times. I think I’m finally ready to let someone into it. But when I picture Cassini’s tall, broad body stuffed amongst the mismatched cushions on my little lavender couch, I get a pang of anxiety. What if he doesn’t like it?
My place is what my friend Kate once described as “unapologetically feminine and a girlishly macabre.” It’s the kind of home that has never known a man’s touch, and I’m extremely proud of that. There’s no Lego, no leather, no ugly gaming rigs. Instead, you’ll find soft fabrics, pastel colors, and a maximalist, dopamine design. It’s neat but lived-in, with shelves stuffed with thrift store trinkets and walls lined with framed postcards and prints from Etsy artists. In short, it’s my sanctuary.
As I dust the shelves, I adjust the gold octopus candelabra a few inches to the left so it nestles between two phallic mini cactus figurines and twist my Frida Kahlo plant pot so it faces outward. Good. I like being able to see her ceramic monobrow peeking out from behind my salt lamp. It’s like she’s looking out for me.
We moved a lot when I was a kid. Pat was a touring musician, and Mom was…well, Mom did what she did, so I never really felt like I had a solid foundation. I’d spend a few months at a school, only to have to leave as soon as I made a friend. We’d pack up the apartment, sometimes in the middle of the night, and go. No warning, no explanation. Someone would carry my sleeping body into the back seat of the car, and we’d hit the road. No matter where we ended up, we’d never settle. The temporary apartments all melted into each other—a blur of borrowed furniture and weird fridge smells. Eventually, I stopped unpacking.
When Mom died, things calmed down a lot. Pat got a job teaching music in his hometown and raised me as his own, but I never really had a place to call mine until I moved in here. I made itmine. Every little detail. It was something I finally had full control over.
At 8 p.m. precisely, the doorbell chimes, signaling Cassini’s annoyingly punctual arrival. I smooth down my cropped denim overalls and check my hair in the mirror. I’ve pinned it in a short, messy bun with a few layers framing my face. The vibe tonight is nonchalant with just enough leg to see if he reacts. The more time I spend with him, the more curious I get about the kind of man he is and whether this spark between us is real or imagined.
“Hey,” I say opening the door, “come on in!”
He pauses for a moment, then tentatively crosses the threshold into my tiny hallway, kissing me on both cheeks as he passes. I’m not expecting the contact, and he leaves a tingle behind in the spots his cold lips touched.
“You mind taking your boots off?” I say, clearing my throat with a little cough. “I kind of have a no-shoes policy.”