Page 67 of Veradel

I smile uncertainly. “I slept like the dead.”

“I’m glad,” he replies, though he looks anything but glad. “Do you feel all right?”

“Feel great,” I confirm, then ask cautiously, “Did you sleep well?”

“Oh, no, definitely not.” He gives a dead laugh. “Didn’t even close my eyes.”

“You stayed up all night…?” My voice trails off as hazy memories float to the surface—dancing that felt like sex with clothes on. I caress a hand across his cheek before I sit up. “You stay in bed and get some rest. I’ll make you breakfast.”

After I tuck Lucan in tight while he watches me with a gaze intense enough to slice the air, I’m up and out of the room in a flash, leaving him in a heap of sheets and fluffy pillows.

Beyond his kitchen window, the woods fan out, glimmering in the sun that is just starting to peek through the canopy in different shades of orange and yellow.

Moving closer to the stove, I light the gas with a set of matches Lucan keeps in the drawer, then turn to grab one of the pots that hangs on the hooks above the adjacent counter...

Only to gasp and almost drop the pan on my foot when I catch Lucan leaning against the doorway, his glare stronger than ever.

“You’re incredibly quiet for someone so large,” I say as the spurt of fear subsides.

“What are you doing?” he growls.

I look down at the pan in my left hand and the spatula in my right. “Making you breakfast?” Even if I don’t need anything besides blood from here on out, Lucan still needs to eat normal food. And I’m sure I can figure out how to cook.

But his eyebrows lift.

“What, exactly, are you planning to make?”

“Uhhh…” I gaze around his kitchen for any detail that might help, because I didn’t actually think this far ahead. A few browning peaches sit in a fruit bowl, and several strips of dried meat hang over his smoking fireplace. “You tell me.” I pop a hip against his cabinet. “What do you have that I can cook with?”

Lucan clicks his tongue, then surges forward and crowds into my space.

“Do you remember last night?” he asks, peering into my eyes.

I blink. “I think so, yes. I drank. We danced. We had sex.”

“We didnothave sex.”

I blink again. The memory of me splayed out on the bed with my fingers exploring between my legs… and then it goes blank.

“I had to force myself to turn around, and when you were finished, you begged me to sleep with you,” Lucan growls, “so I slept by your side. But I never touched you in that way.”

“Oh,” I breathe. “You’re mad.”

“No,” he seethes. “I’ve just been stuck withthisfor about ten hours now.” He gestures down at the noticeably large and hard bulge in his pants.

Confusion pulls through me. “Then why didn’t we have sex?”

Something flits across his face that looks a lot like anger. Not directed at me, but… “You can’t consent to sex when you’re drunk, Saskia.”

“What?”

Again, that anger flashes across his face, and now I know where I’ve seen it before: it’s the same look he always gives when he talks about the Guardians. Like he wants to murder them and puke on their shoes all at the same time. But he doesn’t raise his voice at me when he explains calmly, “Alcohol lowers your inhibitions and impacts your decision making. And I was sober, in a position of power over you. I was taking care of you, not taking advantage of you.”

“So the lines were blurred.” It’s a statement and a question. My mind pieces together his reasoning, the way I felt last night, completely uninhibited. And how easily consent was taken from me every Sanctuary Sunday. How Malcolm had to have sex with me when he wasn’t even interested.

Lucan nods slowly, his face so close to mine, I could stick out my tongue and lick his lips for him. He smells like pine and smoke from the bonfire, and my body starts to itch from the heat it’s creating on its own.

“That’s actually hot,” I murmur, biting my lip. “And I can consent now, can’t I?”