Eternal: More Love Stories With Bite (23 page)

I
couldn't
wait and
broke
into a jog up the walk,
the
steps, and across the porch, and unlocked the front door as fast as I
could.
Yes!
I slammed
the
door and threw my
stuff
on
the hall table; Michael's keys were already there, in
the
candy dish. My heartbeat sped up even faster. "Let's get
the
party started!" I
called, and walked down the narrow hallway toward the living room.

On the way there, I passed the formal parlor room,
which
was basically a furniture museum; we never sat in there. Except this time I registered people in there as I passed. I stopped, backed up, and found Michael sitting in the big red velvet wing chair.

Gloriana
was sitting on the settee, her to-go cup on the marble coffee table. She had her legs crossed, and seemed
very
comfortable.

In my house.

With my boyfriend.

"Michael?" I asked.
He
stood up, looking guilty and nervous,
which
was new for him. "What's going on?"

"Uh . . . this is Gloriana."

"I
know
who she is.
I
told
you
who she
was."

"Eve," Gloriana said, all warmth and sweetness and apology.
"I only
wanted to meet Michael, as
he's
Amelie's newest child. I
am a curious creature,
I
know. I
mean nothing by it."

"Eve, chill," Michael said. "She just came over to say hello."

"I
see." My voice sounded flat and pissed, even to my own ears. "That's great. Now she can just say good-bye, too."

"I meant no offense, most surely. Here, I'll be going." Gloriana stood up and extended her hand to Michael, knuckles turned up. "It was charming to meet you, Michael Glass."

He took her hand and looked briefly confused about what to do, then lifted it very formally to his lips and kissed her knuckles. Not
kissed
kissed, more of a brush of his lips, but it still made me feel lightheaded and sick inside. "Welcome to Morganville," he said. "Hope to see you around."

"Oh, I'm sure you will," Gloriana laughed. "After all, the sign says
you'll never want to leave
, isn't that true? I already find much to like about Morganville." She flicked those green eyes toward me. "Eve. Thank you for your hospitality."

"Yeah. Don't forget to take your blood with you."

Michael gave me a look. I gave him one right back. While we were doing the silent stare thing, Gloriana retrieved her cup and headed for the door. Michael moved past me to open it for her and handed her a big, floppy black coat and hat to throw on. "There's an entrance to the underground a block down," he said. "Look for the glyph. You can bring the coat and hat back later."

"Thank you," she said, and swaddled herself up in the sun-defying garb. She looked like a waif playing dress-up. "You are so kind, Michael." She pronounced it French, like M
eeshell.
"I will return the kindness soon."

He watched her go. I watched him watch her go, and then he shut the door, locked it, and without looking at me said, "So, just how mad are you?"

Without a word, I turned and walked down the hall, into the kitchen, and poured myself a glass of water. I wasn't thirsty, but there was a burning pain
in
my throat, and besides, it gave me something to do with my shaking hands.

I heard the door open as Michael followed me in. "Seriously," he said. "Eve, I was just being friendly. She's new in town."

"Oh, so the hand-kissing, that's just being friendly? I
never see you doing it to Oliver."

"A lot of these older vamp women, it's what they expect. They don't shake hands, Eve."

"Well, they need to bring their undead asses into the twenty-first century, then, because hand-kissing went out with the guillotine, didn't it? And since when
do
you do what's
expected,
anyway?"

Michael shook his head and leaned back against the counter. "It's not like that."

"Like
what?"

"Like I want to take her to bed, which
is
what you're thinking, Eve."

I couldn't believe he'd gone and said that right out loud, even if I
was thinking it. Not
in
such polite terms, though. "Then what's
it
like?"

"Like I'm—curious. Look, she's friendly, not like a lot of the others. I can ask her things, about being—" There was more color in his cheeks than normal; that was the closest a vampire can come to blushing. "About being what I
am."

"What kind of things?" I
demanded.

Michael met my eyes. "Like how likely
I
am to lose con
trol
and hurt somebody close to me.
That
kind
of
thing. Especially
when
I'm hungry and we're together."

Oh.
That hurt, in
all
kinds of unexpected ways; these were personal things, and it wasn't just personal for
him.
I was the one who'd drawn the
line
with
him,
who'd said I was never, ever
going
to let
him
bite me, especially
not that
way. And it wasn't something we talked about, not ever. Especially not with third parties who might be named Sexy Hell Kitten. "And you thought it was okay to discuss
all
this with a vamp you met, like,
thirty
seconds ago."

"We've been talking for an
hour,
Eve.
It
wasn't the first thing out
of
my mouth."

I
swallowed. "Did you kiss her?"

"Eve!"

"Did you?"

"Jesus, of course not."

"Did you want to?"

Michael just looked at me for a few fatal seconds, then said, "She's got that effect on guys, so yeah, I guess I thought about it.
But I
didn't
do
it."

That didn't
make me
feel
any better. Gloriana would be back. At the very least, she'd return the hat and coat, and if I wasn't here, he'd get
all
cozy with her again, and . . . things
could happen.
It wasn't that
I
didn't trust Michael, I
did,
I
really
did,
but . . . she wasn't just
any
random chick. She
hadn't
stopped in just to
pay
a social
call;
Gloriana was hunting.

She was stalking my boyfriend.

"Over my dead body," I murmured. Michael looked startled. "Sorry. Talking to myself."

He sighed, straightened up, and crossed to stand right in front of me. He took the water glass out of my hand and put it carefully on the counter, then leaned in and kissed me, sweet and hot and hard. He braced himself with his hands on either side of me on the counter, and
damn
, the white fire of that just about wiped out anything else I had on my mind, including Gloriana's sly, sweet smile, or the way Michael had looked after her when she'd gone.

He was mine.
Mine.

His hands left the counter and stroked through my hair, down the column of my neck, spread out on my shoulders. My top was stretchy enough to slide down my arms under the pressure of his palms, and I shivered as cool air hit my skin.

Michael picked me up in his arms like I was a bag of air, and for a long second he looked down at my face. His expression left me breathless. "You know I love you," he said. "You know that, don't you?"

"I know," I said. "But I also know that can change."

"Never," he said, and kissed me again. "Never."

And for a little while, as he carried me upstairs to his room, I believed that would actually be true.

Always.

Even when I felt the tangle of frustration in him when his teeth grazed my neck and he didn't bite.

* * * *

I didn't hear about Gloriana for three days, until Michael told me there was going to be a big to-do in Founder's Square on Friday night to welcome the newest arrival. He had an invitation, of course; all the vampires got them. Some humans did, too, including our bookworm housemate Claire . . . who, not surprisingly, decided that our
other
housemate Shane would be her plus one to the party. I was kind of shocked that Claire decided to go, though; she wasn't generally the dressed-up party type (or the dressed-down party type, come to that).