I pulled the afghan closer and tried to sleep, but my eyes kept popping open with every little ping or pop of the house settling. To relax myself, I put a nine-millimeter and a short-bladed vamp-killer on a small table, close to hand. It didn’t help.
• • •
A little after two a.m. I heard keys at the front door, and it opened again. Bruiser’s clean citrusy aftershave and heated Onorio scent blew in as the cold blew out. He closed the door after him. I didn’t look up. We didn’t speak. Instead I heard him enter the kitchen and the sound of water scudding into the teakettle. The sound of the stove lighting with a soft whoosh. The softer sounds of him preparing tea. The warm scent of chai on the air. The sound of a paper bread bag opening and the fresh smell of a bakery loaf filling the house as he toasted slices. The delectable scent of salmon, both smoked and raw. The sound and smell of cucumber being sliced as cucumber sandwiches and salmon tartare on toast points were prepared. At two a.m. Something soft and heated opened inside me. With the exception of the Youngers, no man had ever cooked for me. And Bruiser was fixing me an elegant meal of cucumber sandwiches and salmon tartare.
Cucumber sandwiches. Not thin-sliced beef. Not cinnamon and sugar. Cucumber. And watercress. And soft cream cheese. Raw fish. My honeybunch was making me a soothing treat.
He came to the couch bearing a tea tray and two humongous mugs. One of them said, WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, THROW THEM AWAY AND GET SOME BACON! It was a new mug, and I felt my mouth pull into a smile at the sight. Bruiser’s mug said, I LOVE YOU MORE THAN BACON. Both mugs were full of steaming chai and a big spoonful of melting Cool Whip. My new primo would think we were heathens. My smile fell away. My new primo. For reals. I had bound another sentient creature. Slavery of the worst sort. And Edmund knew a thing or two about slavery.
Bruiser set the tray beside me and placed a cloth napkin in my lap. In the middle of the table he placed a plate of cucumber sandwiches; a second plate of salmon on toast points; a huge, heated, white chocolate macadamia nut sugar cookie on a glass dessert plate; and a single white rose with a long stem and no scent. He took my hand and wrapped it around the mug. The ceramic was warm. My smile came back. I held the mug with both hands and sipped, the taste speaking of good memories and the house mother I had loved best, Belinda. I should have the Kid track her down so I could tell her how much she meant to me. Maybe someday.
Bruiser pushed my legs over, kicked off his leather loafers, and curled up beside me. His Onorio warmth was better than any fireplace, and I tucked my toes under his leg. He pulled the afghan over us both. We sipped. Silent. Content. I even ate one of the veggie cheese sandwiches in between the salmon. The snack soothed me almost as much as the company.
When I was warm inside and the mug was mostly empty, Bruiser said, “Ed will survive. He’ll need to be fed the blood of the Son of Darkness tonight, and by as many masters as will offer, but he should be well in”—Bruiser waggled his hand, his elegant fingers looking longer in the shadows—“two days? Three at the outside.”
A heavy load I hadn’t acknowledged fell off me and my shoulders relaxed for a moment. I licked the vanilla-flavored whipped topping off my upper lip and said, “That’s good. Thank you for telling me. But. I bound Ed to me tonight.”
Bruiser nodded, as if I had said something innocuous, like It rained, or Good tea. “You saved his life,” he said. “Eat your cookie.”
I picked up the cookie and took a bite. It was made with butter, lots and lots of butter. It tasted like heaven. I nibbled as the flavors washed through me, in a color like yellow flowers and sunlight. With the last bite of cookie, I gestured at his mug. “Do I love you more than bacon or do you love me more than bacon?”
“I love you more than bacon,” he said, a smile in his voice.
“I love you more than bacon too,” I said. “Unless I’m hungry. Or Beast.”
“In either of which cases I will bring you bacon.”
My lips pulled up again. “I like my bacon cooked. Beast likes hers raw.”
“Duly noted.”
I finished the cookie, licked my fingers, and picked up the flower. Sniffed it. “I like that you give me flowers that don’t stink.”
“I like that you give me interesting bottles of wine.”
I nearly choked on my tea, making a noise suspiciously like a giggle. Days ago, I had stopped at a wine shop and ordered a mixed case of wine to be shipped to him in a fancy wood crate. He had received the twelve bottles of Boone’s Farm. The flavors had ranged from Orange Hurricane to Strawberry Margarita to Blue Hawaiian to Fuzzy Navel, and the gift was in honor of what Bruiser thought was a dreadful confession. He had admitted to me that in the seventies he and a female vamp-to-remain-unnamed had gotten violently drunk on Strawberry Hill–flavored wine (and Strawberry Hill–flavored Bruiser) and had raced around the city on his motorbike, dancing at every bar they could find, before motoring up to the fountain in Jackson Square and vomiting in it. He had barely gotten the vamp housed before sunrise. I hadn’t known he had a motorbike, or that he had ever been less than suave and sophisticated. I had been delighted with the tale, hence the prezzie.
I’d been even more delighted that we’d shared a bottle of sweet Fuzzy Navel wine with po’boys from Coop’s Place, curled up together on his gallery. It had been a magical night, so much so that I’d shared a few tidbits from my own youth.
I’d talked about Bobby, the sweet little boy I’d befriended and taken under my wing in the children’s home when the other kids picked on him. Had admitted that the phrase taken under my wing was synonymous for beating up several kids who abused him physically or verbally. Admitted that I had practically broken the record for time spent in detention. Bruiser said he found my stories and me “delightful.” And then he had proceeded to kiss along my throat and up to my ear. I’d never been called delightful. I was pretty sure it gave me the quakes.
The next morning I had woken to find a pair of boxing gloves on the pillow beside me, ancient gloves that smelled of sweat and blood and time. They had been his from the same year he drank wine. Now I had them hanging off one of the short posts at the head of my bed, and I fell asleep at night smelling Bruiser even when he wasn’t there.
And now he loved me more than bacon.
That was more lovey-dovey talk than we had said to each other ever. Preceded by BACON complementary mugs, that was, like, practically the magical three words. Almost, I love you. Or maybe even better, because the magical phrase was just a statement of fact without qualifiers. This was more than bacon.
I sipped my tea. He sipped his. He loved me more than bacon. I loved him more than bacon. He wasn’t disappointed with me for binding Edmund. He didn’t worry about me out in Beast form hunting killer vamps; he knew I had the skills to take care of myself. He made me tea and cookies and cute little sandwiches just because.
Life couldn’t get much better than this.
• • •
Around 3:30 a.m. Bruiser took a call and kissed me on the cheek before he left my house. I checked on Eli, who was sleeping with a happy smile on his face. He didn’t wake when I walked up the stairs. He didn’t wake and shoot me when I leaned over him to check his breathing. The former Ranger was out cold, sleeping deeply, with good dreams, for the first time since we met. This seemed like a good thing. I should make him drink vamp blood more often.
Because I was the only protection tonight, which felt odd after so many months with the Youngers living here, I checked the house doors, made sure there was a round in the chamber of the weapon by my bed, and crawled between the sheets. The warm scent of Bruiser on his boxing gloves lulled me into dreams.
• • •
What felt like only minutes later, I woke to the echo of a deep, reverberating growl. I took a slow, still breath, parsing the scents. Someone was in the house. In my room. Two someones. I smelled werewolf and Anzu: Brute, the white were stuck in wolf form, and Girrard DiMercy, who looked human but was not. And magic. I pulled on Beast-speed. In a single move I rolled from the mattress, throwing off the sheets, picked up the nine-mil, and bent my knees into a shooting stance. The sheets were still in the air when I off-safetied and pointed the weapon at the location of the scents. The entire move took maybe half a second.