“Everyone’s?”
“Yup. What’s up? Need something?” He still hadn’t looked up at me.
“You’ve been avoiding me, and we haven’t said more than a few words to each other in a while.”
He put down the sword he was working on and raised his head to look at me.
“I am fine.”
“Liar,” I said with a shrug.
He scowled and took a step toward me.
“Do not call me a liar.”
I stood as straight as I could. “Don’t lie then.”
His lips twitched a bit, but the smile never came. “I am okay. I told you I needed to work through this alone.”
Tears welled in my eyes. “You can’t be friends with me now, can you?”
“Kadi, stop crying. Please stop.”
“I’m sorry. I just don’t…”
“It will be fine. We will be fine. I just need time. Trust me, you are the most important person in my life. That won’t change.”
“You swear?”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes.”
We looked at each other in awkward silence for a few moments.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to your work.”
The tears started again before I turned back to the door, and he saw them.
“Kadi, wait. I’m sorry I upset you, but you have to understand that you can’t help me with this.”
“I realize that. It’s just you’re acting like you’re angry with me,” I said as the tears blurred my vision.
“I don’t mean to be that way.” He wrapped me in his arms and rested his forehead on mine. “Don’t cry, Kadi-cakes.”
“I’ll try to stop. I guess I’ll see you when we head out.”
I stumbled upon Ian, Juliana, and Bryce as I passed by the dining room. Ian and Bryce were talking about something but stopped when I entered. Ian looked up at me and motioned for me to sit.
“I prepared you a bowl. Avocado, onion, and tomato. Extra cheese,” he said.
Even though Ian never ate, he seemed to know how I liked my food, and though I still wasn’t hungry, I had to eat something. He had prepared it for me after all.
“Thanks.” I gave him a quick kiss and sat beside him. I took a bite, but I realized after a minute or so I was playing with it, not eating it.
“Not hungry?” Ian asked in an accusing voice.
“Bryce! You told him?”
“No, I did,” Rufus said. He was leaning against the wall at the entry to the kitchen, ankles crossed, looking at his nails. He had an annoying habit of sneaking into a room.
“My eating habits are none of your business!”
“Ian is my business, and I felt he needed to know about your sudden lack of appetite,” he said, pushing off the wall and moving to stand at the opposite side of the table from me. “You are one of his top Hunters and if you were to, say, pass out from lack of nourishment, it may put Ian and the rest of the clan in danger.”
“I feel fine. I’m not hungry, so I can’t be starving.”
“Ah,” he muttered before shooting Ian a look.
I was still worried about why I had lost my appetite after imbibing banshee essence. I didn’t want to talk about it, especially in front of Juliana, who didn’t need to know I was becoming even more different than I had been. And Rufus, being Ian’s brother aside, didn’t need to know anything about me.
“Goldie, we should discuss this. We have a theory on what is causing this,” Ian.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I have the same theory. We have other things to worry about. So, while you’re all working on why I’m not hungry, I’ll just go get ready for tonight. Juliana, thanks for dinner, it was delicious I am sorry I didn’t eat more of it.”
I left before she could respond, but I heard her say “It’s okay” as I bounded up the stairs.
When I got to my room, I closed the door, and almost instantly, it opened again as Ian entered.
“This is too much, Ian. It’s too weird.”
“It is not weird. It makes you special.”
“It makes me different.”
“It makes you unique. Stop belittling yourself, you are the only one making yourself feel badly. Unique is not a bad thing, Goldie.” He lowered onto the loveseat beside me.
“We have to get ready to leave. We don’t have time for this.”
He glanced at the clock. “We have plenty of time. Talk to me.”
While I thought about how to explain why I was upset, I studied him. Starting with his grey eyes with little flecks of silver in them, surrounded by dark, thick lashes. How the bone structure of his face, especially his nose, brought to mind an ancient Roman warrior.
I lifted my hand and ran my fingers through his hair, down the contour of his face and neck before moving over his chest to his arm, while enjoying the contrast of softness of his bronzed skin covering the hardness of the muscles there.
“You are gorgeous.”
His lips pulled into a knowing smile. “You are too, Goldie, but flattery will not get you out of talking to me.”
I pulled my hand away and crossed my arms over my chest. “I do not want to talk. I’m not in the mood to be rational.”
He chuckled. “Are you ever?”
“I’m serious, Ian. I really don’t feel like thinking about it, so can we just put it aside?”
His face hardened. I thought he would argue, but he must have seen something in my expression because his face softened, and he nodded before pulling me closer to him. I snuggled in, tucking my head under his chin.
“We will talk when you are ready. In the meantime, stop thinking of yourself negatively. When you do, you will realize you are the only one thinking that way.”
I looked up at him and he lowered his lips to mine, but I pulled back before he could deepen the kiss and earned a groan from Ian.
“Come on, we should get ready for tonight,” I said as I rose from the sofa.
Chapter Fourteen
As we made the last turn according to the directions Leo had provided us, we ended up in a residential neighborhood and I looked at Ian in confusion. He shrugged in answer and we got out of the car to join the others.
“Why are we here?” I asked no one in particular.
Leo walked up, his long blond braid swaying just past his behind as he moved.
“This is where they’re holed up,” he replied as he reached back to wrap the braid into a bun making it harder for someone to grab and use against him.
“What? This is a neighborhood full of mortals. It’s risky,” I said. Mortals may be their food source but keeping a nest among them was just stupid.
“I don’t think they feel they’re being risky. I think they feel they are superior to the surrounding mortals. If anyone asks questions or causes trouble, they just become dinner,” he said. “That’s how we found them. We’d been scouting the neighborhood. The residents had been calling the cops about the noise, and suddenly the complaints stopped. The neighbors are either scared to death… or dead. Those who are alive won’t come out of their houses unless they have no other choice and when they do, they travel in small groups. They don’t answer the door. It was difficult to talk to them, but I was able to get a few on their way to work. Reading their minds gave me what I needed to know.”