“I’m sure Dee would love to do a replay for you.”
Kat grinned at that.
“Oh, you think this is funny.” Dee burst into the living room, car keys in hand. “I should be making you go to the store and get me rocky road, but because I like Katy and value her well-being, I’m going to get it myself.”
Kat’s eyes widened. “Can’t Daemon go?”
I smiled at her.
“No. If the Arum comes around, he’s only going to see your trace.” Dee grabbed her purse. “You need to be with Daemon. He’s stronger than me.”
Kat sighed heavily, and if I had feelings, I’d be offended. “Can’t I go next door?”
“You do realize your trace can be seen from the outside?” I pushed out of the doorway. “It’s your funeral, though.”
“Daemon,” Dee snapped. “This is all your fault. My ice cream is not your ice cream.”
“Ice cream must be very important,” Kat murmured.
“It is my life.” Dee swung her purse at me but missed. “And you took it from me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just get going and come right back.”
“Yes, sir!” She saluted me. “You guys want anything?”
Kat shook her head, and when Dee walked to the door, I shot over and gave her a quick one-armed hug. “Be careful.”
“As always.” She waved good-bye and darted out the door.
“Wow,” Kat said. “Remind me never to eat her ice cream.”
“If you do, even I wouldn’t be able to save you.” I flashed a grin at her. “So, Kitten, if I’m going to be your babysitter for the evening, what’s in it for me?”
Her eyes narrowed. “First off, I didn’t ask you to babysit me. And you made me come over here. And don’t call me Kitten.”
I laughed. “Aren’t you feisty tonight?”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Grinning, I walked into the kitchen. “I can believe that. Never a dull moment when you’re around.” I paused when I realized she was still standing in the middle of the living room. “Are you coming or not?”
“Going where?”
“I’m hungry.”
“Didn’t you just eat all of the ice cream?”
“Yeah, still hungry.”
“Good Lord, aliens can eat.”
I glanced over my shoulder, finding that she still hadn’t moved. “I have this strong inclination that I need to keep an eye on you. Where I go, you go.” I waited for her to move and when she didn’t, I winked at her. “Or I can forcibly move you.”
“All right,” she huffed and then stomped past me, plopping down at the kitchen table.
I grabbed a plate of leftover chicken from the fridge. “Want some?”
Kat shook her head and then rested her cheek on her hand as she watched me move around the kitchen. Whenever I glanced over at her, she had a thoughtful look on her face.
I brought my plate to the table and sat across from her. Yesterday, during the little impromptu cookout, we really hadn’t talked. Strangely, it hadn’t been an awkward silence between us. It had been…nice. “So how are you holding up?”
She dropped her gaze. “I’m doing okay.”
“You are.” I took a bite of the cold chicken. “You’ve accepted all of this. I’m surprised.”
“What did you think I’d do?”
I shrugged. “With humans, the possibilities are endless.”
She chewed on her lower lip. “Do you think that we are somehow weaker than you because we’re human?”
“It’s not that I think you’re weaker, I know you are.” I eyed her over my glass of milk. “I’m not trying to be obnoxious by saying that. You are weaker than us.”
“Maybe physically but not mentally or…morally,” she argued.
“Morally?”
“Yeah, like, I’m not going to tell the world about you guys to get money. And if I was captured by an Arum, I wouldn’t bring them back to you all.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
An emotion I couldn’t read flashed across her face as she leaned back in the chair. “No. I wouldn’t.”
“Even if your life was threatened?” Disbelief colored my tone.
Kat shook her head as she laughed. “Just because I’m human doesn’t mean I’m a coward or unethical. I’d never do anything that would put Dee in danger. Why would my life be more valuable than hers? Now yours…debatable. But not Dee.”
I didn’t want to believe her, but I realized I did as I went back to eating.
“So how long will it take for this trace to fade?”
Looking up, our eyes met. I picked up my glass of milk and took a long drink. The hollows of her cheeks flushed. “Probably a week or two, maybe less.” I squinted, checking out the glow. “It’s already starting to fade.”
“What do I look like? A giant lightbulb or something?”
I laughed, because she kind of did. “It’s a soft white glow that’s around your body, kind of like a halo.”
“Oh, well that’s not too bad. Are you done?” When I nodded, she grabbed my plate and stood, surprising me. She walked over to the sink, placing the plate there. “At least I don’t look like a Christmas tree.”
I followed her, bending my head down next to hers when I spoke. “You look like the star atop the tree.”
Kat gasped and spun around, her eyes wide. Of course, she hadn’t heard me move. She leaned back, gripping the edge of the counter behind her. “I hate it when you do that alien superspeed thing.”
As I stared down at her, I smiled. Her cheeks were flushed prettily again. Didn’t take a genius to know our proximity affected her, and not in a bad way. “Kitten, what are we going to get into?”
Her eyes darted over my face and then she blurted out, “Why not hand me over to the DOD?”
Caught off guard, I took a step back. “What?”
“Wouldn’t everything have been easier for you if you handed me over to the DOD? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about Dee or anything.”
Damn, that was a good question. One I had asked myself over and over again. A question I knew everyone would ask if they ever found out that Kat knew about us. “I don’t know, Kitten.”
“You don’t know?” she asked. “You risk everything and you don’t know why?”
Irritation pricked at my skin. “That’s what I said.”
The widening of her eyes clearly spelled out the disbelief she was feeling. I didn’t have a good enough reason for not turning over her. The DOD would love all over me if I had, and as much as I hated them, it worked to all of our benefits to keep them happy. There had to be a reason and I—
I cut off that thought. This conversation was leading to something far too serious. I didn’t have time for that.
Leaning in, I dropped my hands on either side of her hips and lowered my chin. “Okay. I do know why.”
Her breath caught. “You do?”
I nodded. “You wouldn’t survive a day without us.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, I know.” I tilted my head to the side, and while I was teasing her, I was also telling her the truth about what would happen if she ended up with the DOD. “Do you know how many Arum I have faced? Hundreds. And there have been times I barely escaped. A human doesn’t stand a chance against them or the DOD.”
“Fine. Whatever. Can you move?”
I grinned.
And Kat quickly lost her patience. She planted her hands in my chest and pushed—pushed hard. I didn’t budge. My grin turned into a smile. “Asshole,” she muttered.
She made me laugh. I really should have moved out of the way, but she was just so much fun to tease and I hadn’t laughed this much in a very long time. I think deep down, neither had she. “You have such a mouth on you,” I told her. “Do you kiss boys with that thing?”
Her cheeks turned bloodred. “Do you kiss Ash with yours?”
“Ash?” My smile disappeared. “You would like to know that, wouldn’
t you?”
Kat smirked. “No, thank you.”
I didn’t believe her for one second. I leaned in until only a few inches separated us. The scent of peaches and vanilla surrounded me. “You aren’t a very good liar, Kitten. Your cheeks get red whenever you lie.”
My brain clicked off when her cheeks turned an even brighter color. Before I knew it, my hand was wrapped around her arm. I wasn’t gripping her. No. I was holding her, and her skin was warm under mine. I dragged my gaze to hers, and I couldn’t look away.
Energy coursed through my body, causing my skin to hum. Tension practically crackled between us, and damn, it was hard to ignore that.
Part of me didn’t want to. “I have a strange idea that I should test this out.”
Her gaze slipped to my mouth. “Test what?”
“I think you would like to know.” I grazed my hand up her arm, swallowing a groan when I felt her shiver. I stopped at the nape of her neck, under the heavy veil of hair. In the kitchen light, her hair was a deep brown, but I knew out in the sun, it was streaked with red. “You have beautiful hair.”
“What?”
Yeah, that kind of came out of nowhere. Weird.
“Nothing.” I slowly worked my fingers through the strands, and hell, they were as soft as I imagined. And yep, I’d imagined how it felt before. An ache filled me.
When my eyes made their way back down, I saw that her rosy lips had parted. She looked like she was waiting for a…for a kiss, and God, she was…
Damn. Kat was…she was beautiful.
A beautiful pain in my ass.
It took every ounce of energy I had to not lean down and kiss her. But that would be a bad idea on so many levels, I couldn’t count them all.
Slipping my hand out from her hair, I reached behind her and picked up a bottle of water I’d left there earlier. Her eyes widened as she slumped against the counter.
I turned back to the kitchen table before she could see me smiling. “What was it that you were asking, Kitten?”
“Stop calling me that.”
I took a drink as I faced her. “Did Dee pick up a movie or something?”
“Yeah,” she said, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “She mentioned it earlier in class.”
“Well, come on. Let’s go watch a movie.”
Kat actually listened and followed me into the living room; she lingered in the doorway while I found a DVD near Dee’s schoolbag. Picking it up, I saw what it was and flipped it over. “Whose idea was this?”
Kat shrugged.
I read the description and then muttered, “Whatever.”
She cleared her throat as she inched into the room. “Look, Daemon, you don’t have to sit and watch a movie with me. If you have other things you want to do, I’m sure I will be fine.”
Glancing up from the movie, I shrugged. “I have nothing to do.”
“Okay.” She hesitated for a moment and then walked over to the couch.
I popped the movie in and then sat on the other end of the couch. The TV came on, and Kat’s sharp glance brought a smile to my face. My smile spread when I looked over at her a few seconds later and found her staring at me. “If you fall asleep during this movie, you’ll owe me.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Just watch the movie.”
Kat’s gaze flipped to the TV, and after a few moments, I shifted to get comfortable. It was hard, because I was so damn aware of her sitting right there. I’d already forgotten what the movie was about by the time the first scene appeared on the screen.
And that was about how long I lasted without finding myself staring at Kat.
Chapter 17
I didn’t sleep well Tuesday night, so after snagging the obsidian blade off my dresser, I’d ended up doing patrols at three in the morning. There had been no sign of Arum nearby, but I knew it was only a matter of time before another one was seen. I wanted to catch it before it caught us.
Or Kat.
Wednesday morning was a blur, and for the most part, I was too distracted to put much effort into annoying Kat. She got one pen poke from me and that was all. My mind was in a dozen or so different places. Last night I had thought a lot about Dawson. I had thought a lot about Dee and how I knew she wanted to leave this area. I had thought a lot about what the Thompsons or Matthew would do if they found out about Kat. I thought a lot about her.
As I went through the morning, I felt a hell of a lot older than I should, than I was.
Things didn’t improve for me when I strolled into the cafeteria and spotted Kat in the lunch line. She wasn’t alone. That asshole was with her—Simon Cutters. I didn’t like the dude—never had. He was a touchy punk, and I didn’t think he was all talk and no action when it came to the girls. And of course, he was sniffing around Kat.
A god-awful, unfamiliar emotion swirled inside me. I didn’t want to put a name to it, didn’t want to even acknowledge it, but all of a sudden I wanted to beat the ever-living crap out of Simon. I wanted to show him that he wasn’t even worthy of speaking to Kat.
Simon waited for her at the end of the line.
Oh hell no, I was not okay with this.
I stalked past the line, to where Simon was standing in front of Kat.
She was staring at her plate. “We have a test next week, right?”
Simon nodded. “Right before the game, too. I think Monroe does that—”
Coming right up on Simon, I crowded him as I reached for a drink, forcing him to take a step back from her. Kat’s chin jerked up as surprise flickered across her face.
I grabbed a carton of milk off the cart, flipping it in my hand as I turned toward Simon. We were the same height, but he was bulkier than me, and because of that, the idiot probably thought he could take me. I really hoped he wanted to find out.
“How you doing, Simon?” I asked, flipping the milk.
Simon took a step back, blinking as he cleared his throat. “Good—doing good. Heading over to my—uh, my table.” Apparently he didn’t want to see if he could take me. Shame. “See you in class, Katy.”
Kat frowned as she watched Simon scuttle off, then she looked up me. “Okay?”
“Are you planning on sitting with Simon?” The question came out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“What? No.” She laughed. “I was planning on sitting with Lesa and Carissa.”
“So am I.” Dee bounded in from nowhere, balancing a plate in one hand and two drinks in the other. “That is if you think I’d be welcome?”
That ugly, weird feeling settled heavy on my chest. Not waiting to hear Kat’s response, because of course Dee would be welcome, I pivoted and headed back to where I saw the triplets sitting with a couple of others.
“Hey,” Adam said as I dropped into the seat next to him. I lifted my chin in response, which earned me a low, “O—kay.”
I sat my history text on the table and cracked it open.
“Someone is in a mood,” Andrew said under his breath.
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