He rubbed a hand along his jaw, roughened from days without shaving. “I don’t care who’s seen you naked before, but my team doesn’t get a show.”
Chapter8
Halfway up the stairs, Adair paused. She smoothed the cotton fabric of the simple t-shirt. The easy laughter, the clanking of dishes as someone set the table, the scent of scrambled eggs and bacon wafting through the air… Like nothing she’d been a part of, not in her short life as a human.
Expectations and rules, always being the proper lass, never quite understanding how to fill that role as her mother had passed away before Adair’s second birthday. Then her father died of infection. Eventually Logan disappeared. And Adair was left alone to bring security to her people by marrying Richerd. In all fairness, it had been her idea. Not that there had been another choice; her clan had needed the ally. And it was all she’d had left to give.
Her husband had been years older and uninterested in anything but an heir. From her or from whatever set of tits he found appealing. His clan hadn’t been much friendlier, only begrudgingly accepting the alliance with her inferior clan. Eventually she’d made a few friends, but she hadn’t been allowed to leave the grounds.
It didn’t take long to learn why. With their stronghold so close to Inverness, they were a popular target for the vampires that infested the area. Done with being treated like a feeble goat, she spent months planning her escape. She’d sent one of her few friends into town to find Logan, knowing in her heart that he was still alive.
When Logan found her, miles from the grounds, she was bruised, broken, and inches from death. She had a bleeding head wound from her husband, thanks to her husband’s feverish response to her insolence. He’d been convinced she had gotten knocked up by his fiercest warrior.
Logan had brought her back to life, but not in a way she could ever have imagined.
As she reached the top step, Bennett’s posture righted, and he gripped his coffee tighter. The corners of his mouth quirked up in a sardonic smile, the heat behind that furious kiss still burned under the dark expression. What had she been thinking, provoking him like that? Sometimes she feared she would always be a natural predator, enticing her prey before striking. No longer the naïve virgin, he delivered a surprise response… and she was the one left stunned.
They’d spent days cuddled close, her feeding him, then him trying to kiss the hurt away, his guilt heavy on the air. His restraint had been palpable, trying damn hard to only take what he needed to survive. But she’d driven an irrevocable divide between them years ago, and, apparently, her survival instincts weren’t as keen as she thought.
A bubbly brunette with wild wavy hair, dressed in a denim miniskirt and cowboy boots, topped off with a chunky sweater, came sweeping over with a piping cup of coffee laced with blood. “I think I remember you enjoyed your coffeeextrabitter?”
Accepting the mug, Adair grinned. “Thanks, Lana. How have you been? Staying out of trouble?”
“Never.” Lana hooked arms with her and dragged her to the kitchen table. “I should thank Bennett for shaking things up a bit; I’d been getting restless.”
Countering the sunshine-shunning curtains, the room was aglow with lamps in every corner, plus an iron and seeded-glass chandelier over the timber dining table. Bodie and Astrid were curled up on the plush couch in front of the roaring fire, each with their nose in an ancient text and comparing passages. Riling each other in the kitchen, Quinn added an extra scoop of cheese to the scrambled eggs, while Ryan snatched the bag out from behind her, claiming there was indeed such thing as too much cheese. A tall guy, must be Vann, flashed her a casual salute as he paced with Skye, the infant’s eyes slowly closing as she snuggled against his chest in her fuzzy pink blanket.
Lana seemed to feel her awkwardness and distracted her with easy conversation. “I like your necklace,” she remarked.
Adair looked down at the silver leaf on the leather string. “Thanks. I picked it up in a shop in the seventies and forgot all about it until I rediscovered it in my jewelry box a few months ago.”
“Crap, that must be so odd. I get excited when I rediscover things from a few months ago.”
“You get used to it. In another century, you’ll be doing the same.”
“They say everything comes back around, fashion and such.”
“Sort of. I’m never going back to heavy dresses that seem designed to cover the fact that I have legs and hindered my movements.”
“Ugh, the sexism you’ve had to live through.”
“Oh it’s still thick in society, but we’re on the right track. I buck some of the old traditions by wearing pants and fun shoes and short dresses that would have made my husband’s eyes roll back in his head with scorn.”
“Husband?”
Adair bit her tongue, realizing Richerd had intruded in her memories. Bennett didn’t move, but his chocolaty brown eyes melted. “Briefly. Trust me, I got my revenge in my murderous phase. I think that’s the one kill that I don’t feel guilty about.”
“You’re what, five-hundred something?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you never remarried?”
“Hell no. A human life is too fleeting and fragile, and I never met a vampire I wanted to commit to forever with. Plus, most humans don’t want to hear, ‘So, I will not age, I can’t go out in the daylight with you unless I want an epic sunburn, I can’t have children, and I will do my best to avoid eating you.’”
Baby in one arm and coffee pot in the other, Vann came around with refills before setting the carafe in the middle of the table. “And here we only have to worry about, ‘By marrying me, you’ll live a few hundred years and never get sick again, but I will have to leave you for weeks at a time and risk my life to save the world, as will our children one day.’”
Quinn came in with the scrambled eggs–extra cheesy–and set it on the table, while Ryan followed behind with bacon and sourdough toast on another platter. The troops quickly descended and annihilated the meal. Impeccably mannered, as usual, Bennett waited for the others to dish up.
