Bullet Page 0,104

closed the door softly behind him and walked toward us. I started to take my hand out from under the pillow and then didn’t. I liked the weight of the gun in my hand while the werelion walked toward me. Nicky was mine in a way that no one else was, mine to the point where there was almost not anything left of who he’d been, but I’d thought Haven had been tamed, too. Be a bitch to be wrong twice in the same day.

He held his hands out to his sides, showing that he was unarmed. Something about how I lay on the bed, or maybe even my hand under the pillow, had let him know I was spooked.

He whispered, “You cried out in your sleep. Are you all right?” He stayed where he was, hands still out.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, and nodded.

“Can I come closer?”

I nodded again and tried to force myself to let go of the gun under the pillow. I circled my hand around it a little more firmly as he moved toward the bed. He smiled down at me and started to reach out to touch my arm.

I whispered, “Don’t.”

He stopped moving, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

“Bad dreams.”

“About me?”

“No.”

“Then why can’t I touch you?” he whispered. It was a good question. I thought about it and finally realized I had to stop being this spooked. I couldn’t function like this. Either I trusted Nicky or I didn’t. We’d never trusted Haven enough to put him on guard duty here, even if he’d have done it. In fact, Nicky was the only werelion we trusted that much. That had to change. Anyone we couldn’t trust had to leave St. Louis. With that decision, a little tension eased.

Then there was the sound of church bells, melodious and sweet, but it would wake Nathaniel. Nicky got my cell phone off my piled clothes and handed it to me without being asked. I’d forgotten to turn off the ringer.

I took the phone from him, forcing myself to let go of the gun so I could prop myself up better. Was it a bad sign that I felt less secure without the gun actually in my hand? I felt Nathaniel shift behind me and knew the phone had woken him. I answered the phone without checking to see who it was, just wanting the noise to stop. “I’m here.” And I knew it was more a snarl than a greeting.

“Blake, is that you?”

I didn’t recognize the man’s voice at first. “It’s me. Who is this?”

“You fuck me and my people over that completely and you don’t remember me. Perfect.”

I had a moment to try and think. The clue was, he said me and my people. “Jacob?”

“Yeah.”

Nicky looked down at me with his one eye and his spill of bangs halfway down his face. He was watching more intently now, like a cat that sees movement.

I tried to picture Nicky’s tall ex-Rex. He had blond hair going gray around the edges, but the face and body that went with the hair were still muscular and firm. When you’re a werelion Rex, you have to stay in shape. Besides, all the shapeshifters age slower than normal humans, something about shapeshifting repairing their cell structure. “What do you want?”

“You always this friendly on the phone?” he asked.

“Yeah, when I’ve just been woken up.”

“It’s daylight where you are.” Which implied that where he was, it was night. Since he and his pride were international assassins and kidnappers, among other things, he could have been anywhere in the world.

“I work nights, Jacob. What do you want?”

“Maybe I don’t want anything. Maybe I’ll just hang up and let you take care of your own mess.”

“Jacob, it has been one of my harder days, after an even harder night. Tell me what you called to tell me.”

“I got offered a contract on you and your boyfriends, Blake.”

“What kind of contract?” I asked.

“They didn’t want us to kidnap anyone this time,” he said, voice quiet.

“Assassination,” I said. My voice sounded bored.

“You don’t sound surprised. Did you already know that it was happening?”

“No, I didn’t know.” Nathaniel put an arm around my waist, drawing me more firmly against his side.

“But you aren’t surprised,” he said.

“Let’s just say that my surprise is all used up for a while. I’ll assume that if you were taking the contract you wouldn’t have called.”

“I turned it down. I told the person calling that no one should take it,