love three times since she woke from her transition slumber, and while her cheeks had flushed a delicious shade of pink, her skin was paler than it’d been before. Emelia needed to eat a good, solid meal to rejuvenate her system. He would be damned to serve her cold pizza.
“I told you it’s no problem.” Drake stirred the tomato sauce and turned down the boiling water on the back burner. “I like to cook.”
“You’re sure you didn’t come from a Good Husbands catalog or something?”
He gazed at her over his shoulder and watched wonder spark deep in her eyes. “They have such a thing?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She smiled, adjusting his T-shirt over her shoulders. “But if they did, I’m sure you’d grace the cover.”
Drake couldn’t ignore the pride whipping through him—instead of dressing in the clothes Raul had picked up from Emelia’s apartment, she’d chosen to slip back into his shirt. He dropped the spaghetti into the pot and focused on shoving them into the bubbling water so she wouldn’t see the glow emanating from within him.
“Why don’t you have a chef?” she asked.
“I tried that once,” he said, precisely measuring out garlic, pepper, and Italian seasoning, then dumping them into the sauce. “But the one I hired cooked new-age health food that had no flavor. He insisted I eat healthier to elongate my life. He was an idiot.”
The sauce began to bubble, so he clamped the lid down, poured a glass of wine, and handed it to Emelia. Would it always be this way if she became his Luminary and stayed by his side? They could make love all evening, steal down to the kitchen to cook up a midnight snack, then go back to bed and fuck until morning. Drake had given up the thought of bonding with someone—he’d grown accustomed to living on his own. But if Emelia stayed with him he wouldn’t have to turn on the television over dinner to create noise so the house wouldn’t feel as vacant. He wouldn’t have to read in bed until he fell asleep so the night wouldn’t seem so cavernous. Emelia would be there every step of the way with her spunky wit, effortless beauty, and challenging mind. It could be good, Drake realized. It could be great.
“That brings up a good point,” she said. “How old are you?”
“How old do you think I am?” Drake sipped on his own wine as he stirred the noodles.
“Thirty?”
“Not far off.” He shrugged. “I’m three hundred.”
Emelia choked. “Three hundred years old?”
“Give or take a few decades.”
“But wait, at the Vanguard Gala the host said Serephina was born in the late eighteen hundreds. I’m no Einstein when it comes to math, but I think there’s a missing century in there somewhere.”
Drake leaned over the counter, amazed at Emelia’s memory. “When we moved to San Francisco, my mother falsified her birth certificate so she could become more involved in the city council. If anybody dug around, they would find the truth.”
“I see.” Emelia sipped on her wine. “So at the ripe age of three hundred, are you an old or young wolf?”
“The average werewolf lives a thousand years. If they can find their life mate.”
“Oh.” Emelia’s breathing slowed—Drake could sense it, hear it. “And if they don’t find their mate?”
Drake went back to manning dinner. “A mateless werewolf will live maybe three-quarters of that, between six and eight hundred years. It’s not an exact science. Some werewolves are stronger and heartier, so they’ll naturally live longer than their weaker packmates. But my father believed that werewolves, like men, need women to balance and support them. He believed that men are weaker and incomplete without a woman at their side.”
Emelia’s arms suddenly slipped around Drake’s waist. “I think your father is brilliant.”
“He was brilliant,” Drake corrected, leaning into her. “My father passed away some time ago.”
Drake hadn’t heard Emelia approach, but he breathed deep as she laid her head against his back and wrapped her arms tightly around his middle. He’d left his shirt upstairs and had dressed in nothing but plaid pajama pants that hung low on his waist. As Emelia’s fingers slowly danced over his abs, teasing him with the promise of traipsing lower, Drake was glad he’d left his shirt upstairs.
Emelia went up on tiptoe and smudged a kiss on Drake’s shoulder, sending starbursts of shivers exploding down his spine. Fantasies of taking Emelia on the counter, the floor, the table, shot through his mind like comets.
“You’re going to