He’d still break her of it though. “This is why we need to work on your jealousy issues. . . .” He trailed off when she removed the shirt she’d borrowed from him, leaving her naked in front of the cracked mirror.
He rubbed his now-aching cock. When he could drag his gaze off her ass, he met her eyes in the mirror. Black forked out over his. “If we’re going to be partners on this mission, we’ll partner in other ways.”
“How’s that?” As she wriggled into a tiny thong, light glinted off the metal of her nipple piercings.
He needed to suck those nipples so hard she’d feel him the next day. “Prepare for blood and bed play.” Once his task was complete, they wouldn’t leave his room for weeks.
“You’re bringing up sex again? I’m not looking for a meaningless hookup. Be warned: I’m going all-in with the next guy I sleep with. Relationship, trust, commitment, love. The works.”
So young. So immature. “What do you know about any of these things?”
She fastened a lacy bra over tits that should never be covered. “I’ve seen love, and I want it for myself.” The combat-boot-wearing blood-drinker wanted romance?
Fascinating woman. Still, he made a scoffing sound.
Her eyes flickered as she explained, “When two people form an unbreakable bond, it’s like a reactor, feeding them power and heat and a sense of belonging. It makes them strong. They’re the true superheroes.”
She was so passionate about this, he could almost find himself believing. Then he remembered reality. “Dark fey don’t love. We aren’t capable of it.”
She glared at him as she reached for her jeans. “Don’t pull that Spock shit with me. Everyone’s capable of it.”
“Spock?”
“Star Trek? TV show? He’s all logic and pointed ears.”
“So Spock is a fey? They are known for both.” Rune was somewhat versed in this world’s popular culture since his sources—mainly the nymphs—were. But he wasn’t a hundred percent certain about Spock.
Josephine rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I’d never sleep with you unless we were exclusive.”
“In your strange imaginings, how long am I not to take another?” That he was considering even a day of monogamy . . .
“If you have sex with me, you’ll be telling me you want a commitment, a bond between only us. That you will never want another female as long as you live.”
He tilted his head as she tugged jeans over her ravishing ass. Then her words sank in. “Given your parameters, sex is decidedly off the table,” he said, even knowing he’d bed her soon. He’d seduce her into thinking his way.
Seduction was what he did. “Your views on this are naïve. Not surprisingly.”
She pulled on her T-shirt. “Your loss.”
He was fine with his life right now. Or, at least, not utterly miserable, as Dalli had said. Any other male would kill to have Rune’s existence, traveling worlds, warring, and swiving new females each night.
Now this vampire wanted to change Rune once more? “You’ve known me for four days—and you were passed out for two of them. Yet you think you know me well enough to have a relationship?”
She shrugged. Yes, Rune. “I know I won’t sleep with a guy without a commitment first.”
“Naïve,” he repeated. “I’ll talk you out of this. Like I said, we’re going to work on your jealousy issues.”
“I vow to the Lore I will never have sex with you unless we’re—”
He traced in an instant, putting his palm over her mouth. Exclusive? “Don’t say that word. You do not mean it.”
She squirmed from his grip. “You sound terrified!”
“Have you not learned your lesson? These vows are not to be played with.”
“Okay, okay. You know how I feel on the matter.” She fetched her combat boots and socks. “And you know how stubborn I can be.”
“Demons need sex multiple times a day,” he informed her, stating a fact well known by Loreans. Did he believe she was a Forbearer? Not particularly. But he believed she knew as little as they did. “I’m going on days without.” Not since the four nymphs.
When he recalled that rendezvous, he felt not even a twitch below the belt. But imagining Josephine up against that courtyard wall as he pistoned between her thighs got his shaft so stiff, it pained him. “Don’t you even want to try to land me through sex?”
She stomped into her boots. “Pass.”
No matter. Her resistance now would make her eventual surrender all the more rewarding. He turned to the set of drawers, opening one. Inside was a backpack and a scrapbook with the edges of pictures sticking out. She’d drawn abstract designs on the cover.
She sidled in front of him, closing the drawer with her hip. “I’m ready.”
“Now I know where to look when I return.” So many secrets for a master to uncover.
“Better make sure your return doesn’t have anything to do with the mission to kill Nïx, or I’ll never get to drink again.”
What if he went to a nymph covey and Nïx showed up? If he killed the Valkyrie there, that assassination would trigger Josephine’s vow! How could he leave the vampire at all? Again, the pressure to kill Nïx weighed on him. “Come, then. We need to start hunting. Besides, I’m keen to leave this pitiful place.”
“Go to hell, Ruin.”
His shoulders tensed. “I told you not to call me that.” The vampire did not want to challenge him, not when he was still hard from watching her change and his demon half suffered from lack of sex. Not when their futures were becoming more entangled with every hour. Pressure increased from all sides. “So shut the fuck up.”