“And yet, all you own is leather pants and black tops,” he pointed out. “And let’s not talk about those steel toed, hideous combat boots you wear.”
“You used to fuck me,” I reminded him. “So, something must be working.”
“Tequila.”
“Wow.” I slumped in my seat. Deciding the topic needed to change, I watched the dark windows of the boutique and thought of the man we had just sent inside. “What do you think of Raphael so far?”
“He hasn’t spoken much, but he seems like a good man. I could feel how real his apology was in my kitchen. He felt bad.”
“His eyes, did you catch those?”
“It was hard to miss when I was staring right at them,” he said with a touch of annoyance. “It wasn’t unexpected; you already warned me about some things, Kaliya.”
“Yeah…”
“You seem intrigued. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk so much about anyone unless you were planning to kill them,” he pointed out, leaning on his door. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Planning on killing him,” Cassius asked as if it was an everyday question that bore no more thought than asking if someone was enjoying the weather or if they had gone grocery shopping recently.
I sputtered before I was able to answer. “No! If anything, Raphael can’t die,” I said passionately. “You know, I don’t try to kill everyone, Cassius. If that were the case, you would have been dead years ago.”
“I’m just saying, I normally don’t see you so curious about someone.”
“He…he doesn’t talk much. We’ve trained a bit, but mostly, he asks questions and grieves over his own shit. He’s not secretive per se, but he’s not…he’s not chatty. He’s like a weird puzzle box of information he probably doesn’t even find important. I don’t know how to crack him. I just keep answering all his questions, trying to catch him up because he is supernatural, and he knows nothing.”
“Do you think he might be mythical?” Cassius asked softly.
“I…I don’t know.” Mythical was a special designation for certain supernatural species. Werecats and werewolves were cursed. Vampires were just supernatural. Fae were mythical, so were nagas. The difference was in the nuance. Fae were once regarded as gods, but only certain fae, so only certain fae were considered mythical. Nagas were born of the gods and, therefore, mythical. Werewolves and werecats were humans under a very old, very powerful curse, but apart from that, they were just human. Whatever cursed them was probably mythical. Vampires were once human but were now undead and needed to feed on the power of a human’s life force. Just supernatural by their official designation.
Raphael was still human, and that was the hang up I kept getting stuck on. He smelled human, he looked human, he was raised human. No one introduced him into the supernatural world, and no one really knew what he was.
“I checked everything,” he explained. “There’s nothing else like him out there, not by any knowledge the Tribunal has, and they have species in the database we don’t govern.”
“Yeah, I was stumped, trying to find something like him,” I said, crossing my arms. “See what I mean, though? He’s…like nothing I’ve ever come across. He’s in a situation we’ve never seen before.” And he’s got to stay alive because he might be the only person I’ll ever be able to breed with. I don’t want kids, but I’m not stupid enough to let him die either.
My fangs pulsed suddenly. It was like a bug bite. If I didn’t think about it, I could manage. The moment I considered what he really was or thought about how attractive he was, the ache began, unrelenting and aggravating.
“Okay. I was just making sure there was nothing else you were thinking. It would be a bad move to lead him to trust us only for you to kill him at the eleventh hour.”
“Yeah, I’m not that much of an asshole,” I snapped in exasperation. “When I want to kill someone, they damn well know it the moment they meet me.”
We sat in silence until finally, Raphael walked out of the boutique.
My throat and mouth went dry. My fangs dropped into my mouth. My heart rate accelerated. A bolt of want and need raced through me.
Since I met Raphael, he had been in very casual clothing—sweatpants, shorts, t-shirts, and tank tops. He looked good in all of them, but something about this new outfit fit him, not just physically but in other ways I couldn’t put into