because he needed to stay away from her. Second, because he didn’t want to burst into flames right there in front of the singing messenger.
Ryan smiled at him, her entire heart in her eyes, and then she handed the boy a fistful of cash. “Thanks.”
“Sure. Good luck.” The kid glanced at Bane and then leaned over to whisper to Ryan, handing her the balloons. “He’s hot.”
“I know,” she said, smiling.
“It’s not my birthday,” Bane repeated, like a fool, after the kid left.
She ducked under his arm when he belatedly tried to block her from coming inside. “But you are wrong, and I did come for you, so the song was mostly right.”
Mrs. C hugged Ryan, glanced at Bane, and then took the balloons. “I’ll just go…bake a pie or something. Make some soup.”
“I don’t want to see you, Doctor,” he said, his voice harsh, hating himself for the necessary falsehood. His mind shouted out a plea that was entirely the opposite:
Please come back to me, before I die of loneliness.
Ryan poked him in the chest. “Liar. You love me. You said forever.”
“I was just trying to get in your pants, Nephilim,” he lied, his heart shattering. Vicious and cruel, both, should be enough to drive her away. It was for her own good. For her safety.
For her life. “Worked, didn’t it?”
She blushed but stood her ground. “I got in your pants, too, vampire. No. No. You don’t get to choose my life for me.”
She took a deep breath, and he had to physically step away to keep from touching her. To keep from falling to his knees and begging her to stay.
Instead, he said nothing at all.
“I don’t know how it happened so fast, but I’m in love with you, Bane,” she said, each word a knife in his heart. “But I want to be your equal, not the poor woman you have to protect. I’m not going anywhere until you admit you love me, too. And we already know you can’t use compulsion on me. You’ll have to bodily throw me out of the house to get rid of me, and even then, I’ll keep coming back and coming back and coming back. You love me. You all but admitted it. What are you going to do about it?”
He slowly blew out the breath he’d been holding during the speech that had shredded his soul. He knew her tenacity, knew she meant what she said. So he changed his tactics and went for honesty.
“Yes. I love you. But how I feel doesn’t matter. These are warlocks. Worse—necromancers. And they don’t hesitate to hire humans with guns and bombs. The Chamber wants my territory, and now that they know about you, they want you. They want your blood. You need to move. I’ve just been waiting for you to heal, so I could send people to help you pack up and leave town. Far away from me and far away from Savannah. Do you hear me?” He was shouting by the end of his damn speech, shaking her by the shoulders, but he didn’t see an ounce of fear on her beautiful face.
No, what he saw was defiance.
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” she shouted right back. “And I don’t care about the damn warlocks.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Before Bane could even think up a response, the door blew off its hinges so hard it smashed against the wall.
“That’s all right, Doctor,” drawled the necromancer standing on Bane’s porch. “We care about you.”
Bane yanked Ryan out of the way and slammed every bit of magic he could channel at Constantin in a punishing torrent—and every bit of magic he could channel was a lot of fucking magic.
The warlock flew backward, but he regained his equilibrium in mid-air and hurled a spell at Bane, who easily dodged it, just before he saw what was coming up from the river toward the house.
“Oh, fuck.”
It was an army of the dead. Walking up out of the river and trudging toward them, no doubt intent on killing every single one of them—except for Ryan. The necromancers would do far worse to her.
“Over my dead body,” he growled, realizing it was all too likely. There must be more than a hundred of them, trudging inexorably closer and closer, step by shambling step.
Ryan ducked beneath his arm to see, and then she started shouting. “Meara! Edge! Luke! Everybody! We need all hands on deck!”
“Not you,” he snarled at her. “You go upstairs and hide. Now!”
“Fuck that! I’m Nephilim.