Brigan lifted his glass, taking a sip of his drink. She watched him sit it on his tongue for a beat before he swallowed, his throat moving seductively.
“I have a few,” he said, drawing her attention back to his face. “Nothing like mind reading or premonition. But, the voice, as you’ve noticed. Also strength, speed, stealth, I have those.” A furrow flickered across his brow. “For example, I vanished from the room, as you registered, though it was through the door, quite ordinary. I’m simply fast, and quiet, and most women are exhausted and a bit cloudy after sex, left only with the sense of being perfectly sated. Never has a lover chased me out onto the street.” He chuckled, swirling his drink, ice cube clinking against the heavy glass tumbler.
“The attraction is also a power,” she said, not a question, and Brigan grimaced as if, to him, this gift was tedious.
“Humans are drawn to me,” he said simply. “It’s quite embarrassing to say it aloud, but my simple existence is a seduction. That’s what I call the allure.”
“Do you use the voice on humans all the time?” She laughed at his quirked brow. “Come on, you got four free questions when we first sat down.”
Brigan scowled playfully at her, but he didn’t argue. He took another sip of his drink, frowning as he swallowed, and she had the sense that he rarely, if ever, spoke about this. “Well, yes. I can use it to make humans do what I want.” He leaned forward again, slowly spinning the glass on the coaster. “Except with you. I could compel you once you’d let me in, but not entirely.”
She stared at him, silently willing him to tell her more without making her burn a question to ask. Curiosity was a roaring fire in her chest. But this time, she relented before he did: “Okay, fine, question three: What have you tried to compel me to do?”
“I tried to make you relax in the bedroom back at the apartment, and you did, but not fully. Once we were clearly going to be intimate, I told you to take your shoes off.” Shesmiled at this, and then he added, “And I instructed your body to be wet for me so that I could take you easily.”
Cat felt herself go completely still as heat engulfed her skin.
“Ah,” he murmured, his heated gaze sweeping over her face, and a hum filled her head, her body felt warm and liquid. “That’s my sweet lamb.”
Sucking in a deep breath, Brigan tore his focus away as if it were a struggle.
Cat stared at him, fascinated. “Try it again now.”
Brigan returned his eyes to hers. “What? Try to compel you?”
She nodded, and then she saw his lips move, heard a noise that was more vibration than sound, and felt a tickling urge in her palm, her index finger, her arm, but she resisted the pull, and it slowly fizzled out.
She frowned at him. “What did you tell me to do?”
“Pick your nose.”
Cat barked a horrified laugh. “Shut up.”
“Very well.” He mimed zipping his mouth closed.
“No, no, don’t shut up. Just ... oh my God. If that had worked, I would have poured this drink over your head.” Brigan laughed as she picked up her beer and smiled at him over the top. She wanted to ask for this night to go on forever. “All right. Your turn to ask some now,” she said. “I’m saving my last two.”
The only question Brigan needed to ask Catalina was right there at the tip of his thoughts, but he already knew the words wouldn’t form on his tongue—no sound would emerge.
He’d tried to ask it before, of course he had. Over the span of nearly nine centuries.Do you notice anything different about me? Do you see anything?
But he’d learned long ago that the ability to ask a human whether they saw what he desperately wanted them to see was impossible. It was a curse for a reason.
So, he asked the next most important thing instead. “You are beautiful and funny and kind. Why on earth are you lonely?”
Catalina’s eyes widened in surprise, but she quickly tucked it away. “I moved here a few months ago for graduate school. It’s an amazing city,” she said, “and I love my program—I’m studying environmental ethics. But it’s hard to meet people. Jake is in my program, and turns out he’s the most inattentive and clueless guy I’ve ever dated, but he’s the only person I’ve gotten to know at all so far. I’m close to my parents and my brother. I have good friends back in Denver.” She shrugged. “If I’m lonely, it’s because I really miss home.”
He studied her as she lifted her beer and took a sip. For a beat, she stared down into her glass, and when she looked back up, her gaze was suddenly wary, as if something had just occurred to her. “You don’t tell people about yourself very often, do you?”
He shook his head. “Never in my existence.”
She swallowed, holding his gaze. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
Brigan wanted to laugh at this, to wave it off as absurd, but there was a growing kernel of awareness at the back of his mind that urged him to do exactly that. He’d told Catalina too much already, and even as infatuated as he was with this soft, rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed little lamb, he should probably kill her anyway.
“I haven’t decided,” he said, trying to joke, but feeling the way the words burned at the back of his throat.
She gave a trembling smile as she swallowed again, cupping her hands around her glass. “I knew immediately that you weren’t like other men. I guess that answer doesn’t surprise me.”
