it?”
He said nothing, but his expression did change; Nigel was intrigued. He did not want to have these human feelings, didn’t want to desire me as he did… but, really, what was the harm in fanning the flames a bit? As long as we were all on the same page here, eternity might not be so bad.
“But,” I said, pausing, letting the word sink into his ears, “I like Trey, too.”
Nigel’s jaw ground, no longer the broody ringleader but the murderous man he’d been before, right after Trey and I had gotten to know each other’s bodies a bit better. He remained silent, not saying anything. I had the feeling anything he would say wouldn’t be too particularly nice.
“We have forever ahead of us,” I said, “and right now, it feels like I’m being pulled toward you both, but I don’t want you to keep hurting him.”
His eyes narrowed. “You seemed to like it just fine when I was fucking you against his body.” A harsh, grating, vile thing to say, and even though I knew he could make the rest of my undead life a living hell, I wanted to slap the hell out of him.
I mean, it might’ve been true, but it wasn’t like I enjoyed admitting that fact to myself. I had a bit of darkness in me. Sue me.
“Unless you plan on forcing me to be your prisoner, on using your magic or whatever powers you have to make me stay by your side and your side alone,” I told him, frowning, “I will always have feelings for Trey. That’s not something you can control. You can make my body do whatever, but you don’t have control of my mind or my heart.” I chuckled to myself, adding, “You should’ve heard the things I was telling you in my head during that performance—not cool to spring that on me, by the way.”
His anger diminished somewhat as I rambled on, though his gaze was still narrowed, and I could tell Nigel was lost in his head for a bit. I didn’t know what I wanted him to say, but him agreeing to not go after Trey would be a start.
“I will always get jealous when I see you with another,” Nigel muttered, a frown tugging at his lips, lips I could easily imagine roaming every inch on my body. Not a thought that should enter my brain, at least not right now.
I’d gone from living virgin to dead vixen, I guess. What could I say? If I was still alive, if I still had my family hovering over my shoulders, I doubted I’d be as willing to be with these two men as I was right now. In a way, being dead was freeing.
“Jealousy is something we can work on,” I told him, meaning it. If Nigel would try, I would be there to help him. If he wanted to play tormentor… at least when it came to Trey, I would fight him on it. A part of me might like the wildness of it all, but to me, still, it was avoidable, senseless violence. “But you have to be willing to try.”
Nigel turned his head away, looking as if he wanted to dart off, leave me in the dust and end this conversation here and now. But he didn’t. What he did was say, “I don’t know if I can. I am… not used to feeling these things. I’m not used to feeling anything.”
I gave him a nod. “That’s okay. We have all the time in the world.” As I spoke, his face turned into a scowl, but he didn’t argue with me. I could tell he didn’t want to; the last thing he wanted to do was share me with Trey, but by God, I would have them both.
I would have them both, or mark my words, I wouldn’t have either of them.
Chapter Nine – Thana
Time. I never understood how much time you could have when you weren’t worried about impressing anyone, or trying to get your parents’ approval, when you weren’t spending every waking moment studying or attempting to get ahead on homework to impress your teachers. I didn’t have to worry about acting cool, didn’t have to worry about making flirty eyes at any cute guys. I had everything I needed in this circus.
I didn’t know how much time passed, honestly. I stopped keeping track of the days. Some people, Trey told me, did better that way. For some, keeping count of the