Page 40 of Inked & Bloodbound

He gasps dramatically, clutching his chest. “Me? I’m Italian. It would be a sin.”

Despite everything, I laugh. “Yeah, I guess it would be.”

“But we don’t eat food,” he adds, his tone growing more serious. “So if you forced me to eat garlic knots, I’d feel very sick.”

“An eternity without garlic knots sounds like torture.”

“You’re telling me.”

The moment of levity fades as reality crashes back. He’s not human. He doesn’t eat food. And I still don’t know what he does eat, though I have a pretty good idea.

“I should go,” he says, rising from the couch and reaching for his jacket. “You need sleep, and I need to get somewhere safe before dawn.”

I wrap the blanket tighter around my shoulders, suddenly feeling cold. “Will you…will I see you again?”

“Do you want to?”

The question hangs between us. I should say no. I should tell him to stay away from me and never come back.

But instead, I hear myself whisper, “I don’t know.”

He nods like he expected that answer. “I’ll be nearby if you need me. But no one will come tonight. I’m sure of it.”

Then he simply leaves.

No simmering tension.

No kisses goodbye.

No promises to come back tomorrow.

And even though I’m relieved to be getting out of here in a few hours to a place of safety and normality, there’s another part of me that yearns for something else. Something I dare not even think aloud.

13

CASSINI

There are bodies everywhere.

Old and young. Naked and dressed. Dead and alive. All of them crammed into this partially dilapidated house. Some are out of it, draped on mismatched furniture, while a parasitic entity feeds on them. Others mechanically gyrate their bony hips to the hideous drone of the music that pounds through the peeling walls.

As I push through the crowd at this so-called party, all I can think about is Lily and how horrified she’d be to see me in a place like this. At ease amongst the worst of my own kind and the dregs of society they feed on.

She doesn’t know if she wants to see me again, but it can’t end like this. I won’t let that happen.

Despite my resistance, the connection between us is undeniable; she can hear me inside her head—standard for a medium—but now I can hear her, too. It’s extraordinary to have something like that. Until a few hours ago, I’d never even considered the possibility of a two-way psychic connection between vampires and humans. In five centuries, I’ve never heard of anything like it.

I’m desperate to explore it—to explore her—but first, I have acolossal problem to take care of. Lazaro wasn’t just threatening when he told me Julian had a job for me. A test of my loyalty that I’m unable to refuse, despite the many lines it crosses.

A part of me wants to tell him to shove his request up his ass, but I’ll play nice for now. If Lily is really on their radar, enough to be followed, then I’m even more exposed than I expected. Sure, it could be paranoid, but the rock in my gut says otherwise.

As promised, at sundown, I was summoned to a warehouse on the edge of town. I found Julian propped against the hood of a black Audi sedan lit only by the red glow of the taillights, looking extremely pissed to be forced to deal with me.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he snarled, eyeing my soil-covered hair. “Let me guess…sleeping in the ground like a worm again?”

“At least worms serve a purpose,” I replied, brushing the dirt from my sleeve. “What’s your excuse?”

He spat a couple more petty insults in my direction and chewed me out for a while, telling me how useless, arrogant, and untrustworthy I was. Prattling on for ages about how he couldn’t wait for my demise and how, if it were up to him, I’d be staked before sunrise. Eventually, he tired himself out and told me why I’d been summoned.