He shoved the card in his back pocket. “Nothing that makes sense.”
Having followed his movements, she looked from his hip to his eyes and he knew she didn’t believe him. There was only a hint of hurt in her face, but it was a definite indication she didn’t like shit kept from her.
He ignored this and looked to Jian-Li. “I gotta finish downstairs and then I gotta run.”
“Of course,” she said with soft understanding.
“Take care of Delilah,” he continued.
“You don’t have to ask,” Jian-Li replied.
He knew he didn’t.
“Sorry about lunch,” he muttered, moved to her and leaned in, sliding his temple across hers before he headed to the door.
“Abel?” Delilah called.
“Later,” Abel replied without looking back.
Then he shut the door.
* * * * *
Abel sat as wolf on the highest cliff at the south end of town, staring down at the lights spread narrow along the bay, his focus on one of the tallest, most attractive buildings in the city.
The Biltmore Hotel.
When he’d moved to the Bay a month ago, as a celebration of them all being together again, the entire family had gone to dinner at the restaurant there. Excellent steaks but filled with snobs.
Vampires stayed at swish hotels.
He snarled.
He snarled again, turned, and ran swiftly back toward where he’d leaped out of his clothes, thinking he in no way trusted those vampires did not mean harm to him or his mate. He’d met nine supernatural beings and every one of them had meant him or Delilah harm.
And he’d left her to put up a fucking door and go run.
He needed to, that couldn’t be denied. He always needed to run, but when something was troubling him, he needed it more.
But even though he’d trained his brothers, their skill levels exceptionally high, their sparring partner him so they would in no way be intimidated by the kind of speed, strength, and agility his kind had—in fact, they’d all built defensive tactics that were highly successful, as demonstrated last night—it was his responsibility to look after Delilah.
And he’d left her hours ago to put up a door and then run as wolf.
It was late. Running had calmed the urge to claim his mate, so at least that was a positive.
But now it was time to get home to her.
He got to his clothes, leaped to man, put them on, forged through the woods to his bike, and jumped on.
He rode into the city and he did it with his senses open, taking in mostly human and animal, food, trash, and excrement, but no vampires or wolves.
He saw nor sensed eyes on him as he closed in on the restaurant. Not from cars. Not from buildings. Not from roofs.
They had to know he had the ability to do this, so he wondered if them retreating so completely was their way of making him trust them.
Trust them straight into an ambush.
He knew Chen was in the alley as he parked his bike. His brother moved out of the shadows as he swung off.
“All clear,” Chen said softly.
“Yeah,” Abel replied.
“You okay?” Chen asked.
“Yeah,” Abel lied.
Chen stared at him through the dim lights of the alley before he nodded and asked, “You want vigilance?”
He was asking if Abel wanted Chen to keep his eye on the alley.
Abel shook his head. “We don’t fight alone, brother. Go inside. Get some sleep.”
Chen looked to the ground and headed to the back door of the restaurant.
Abel followed him.
Chen called, “’Night, Ma,” as he headed up the stairs to her apartment.
“Goodnight, son,” she called back from her office.
Abel headed directly there to see her exactly as she was the night before.
“It’s late,” she stated, not softly, her tone was sharp and annoyed.
“I have things on my mind,” he explained.
“And Delilah is downstairs, watching a movie with Xun, having spent a confused and somewhat frightened afternoon and evening with your family.”
Abel’s jaw got hard.
“Is there a reason you’ve spent thirty years yearning for her and then you get her and leave her?” she pushed.
“There is, and these are reasons I’m not gonna share,” Abel answered. “You’re just gonna have to go with it and take my back.”
She gave him a flinty look.
He accepted it and said nothing.
She then emitted a soft huff before she asked, “Are you going to The Biltmore?”
“No, I’m not.”
Her head tipped to the side. “This is not wise, my Abel.”
“You think I should walk into an ambush?”
“No. I think that I would like to feel the overwhelming gratification of understanding that my family’s nurture is what created a good, kind, strong, wonderful werewolf vampire, suffocating his nature. However, rationally, I feel that cannot be so and there is a good possibility there are beings out there just like you, and by that, I mean the good, kind, strong parts.”
“How about we know that before I waltz my ass into The Biltmore?” he suggested.
“How about you consider the possibility that centuries of questions will have answers if you waltz into The Biltmore?” she fired back.
This was not lost on him.
He knew one thing for certain about his kind: vampires called their partners mates.
That was all he knew.
And he had questions—questions about his behaviors, feelings, instincts, everything. All his life, he’d had questions.
In fact, it was a miracle he’d stumbled on how to numb his meal before he drew from them. It had taken him ages. He’d done it at what Mei had figured was when he was eight years old in human development, but he’d been alive for forty years. (Because, apparently, wolves, vampires, or both aged very slowly and then quit aging in their thirties in terms of human development— something else he knew, but only because he’d experienced it.)