"Speaking of witches - you missed girls' night out." Mari set down her Slurpee to cross her arms over her chest. "I don't know if Nïx explained this to you, but GNO is not optional. You will receive demerits for missed attendance. And by demerits, I mean you have to buy drinks for thirsty Wiccae."
"I'm still in the honeymoon phase. Don't I get a pass? Besides, I'm not supposed to go out in the city, not with Cade and Rydstrom in New Orleans."
Mari's expression turned serious. "They'd never hurt you, Néomi. They actually saved my life, back before I'd grown into my immortality."
"Would they hurt Conrad?"
"In a heartbeat," she admitted. "Most of Lorekind hate red-eyed vampires."
Néomi sighed. "Do you?"
"Ah, snap, put Mari in the hot seat! Well, I used to be very certain that I did. But everybody at the gathering was talking about how Conrad Wroth stopped himself from drinking Cade. Even Bowen is in a wait-and-see mode."
"Oh, that's a relief!"
"Still, I'd thought about checking on you anyway, dropping by with a type-A-positive pie or something."
"I'm glad you didn't - I don't want Conrad to learn that we know each other. He'd do nothing but hound you for my secret." Even now, she listened attentively for his return.
He always went straight to the kitchen to get a mug of blood. She'd hear him open the refrigerator door and close it with the side of his boot. Then he would sit for a spell on the porch steps, drinking and seeming to decompress from the night's hunt. All they were missing was the Honey, I'm home. "Speaking of which - I don't suppose Nïx is ever wrong?"
"That would be never."
"Bien. We'll keep the secret forever, and then I won't get capped." Néomi could speak Gang as well as the next former ghost from the Jazz Age.
"Néomi... " Mari was plainly troubled about her outlook.
"No, I know." She didn't want Mari to be. She was utterly grateful. "Every day I last is just a bonus. And really, I was born a mortal. That means any time I had on earth would always be uncertain."
Mari looked unconvinced.
"We just worked with what we had. I have absolutely no regrets."
"What'd you tell him when he asked how you came back?" Mari asked.
"I told him I had a secret, and that I wouldn't talk about it or we'd quarrel."
"And he just let it go? That's weird. Vampires are notoriously single-minded."
Néomi nibbled her bottom lip. "Well, I distract him... ."
"You distract - ? Ah, I got it." She snapped her fingers again, and another teenager briefly appeared bearing a pastry box. "Beignet?" Mari opened the box and offered it through the glass.
Néomi was hungry. This would be her breakfast. Though Conrad escorted her to restaurants for most meals - he pushed food around on his plate and sipped "inferior" whiskey neat - she occasionally had to scrounge in the refrigerator. The shelves were divided in half, with his blood on one side and her juices, leftovers, and fruit on the other. "Café du Monde?"
"Where else?"
Néomi eagerly accepted, plucking one from the box. Still hot! She took a bite, sighing in delight as it melted in her mouth.
"Well, then... tell me, what's it like living with a vampire? Is it everything you'd hoped?"
"Better than. Besides shopping, he's been taking me to new places all over the world."
Tracing came in very handy when one had limited time and no passport. Though vampires could only trace to destinations they'd been to previously, Conrad had traveled all over the world in the last three centuries. "For our first foray, he made me close my eyes. When I opened them, we were on a moonlit beach on the Indian Ocean." The wave crests had been bright with luminescence, the breeze a balmy kiss.
It had struck Néomi then that she might just pack in a lifetime of experiences if she could last a year.
"I've never been. Bowen and I have got to travel more," Mari said. "So how's the vamp doing with the rages you told us about?"
"Anytime a male casts an appreciative glance my way, I fear Conrad will attack him." He was still struggling to temper his aggression, still treading that path by the folly when he needed to cool off.
The men who regarded her had no idea they courted the wrath of a seventeenth-century warlord, ready to lash out over every long look... .
"Oh, you get used to that," Mari assured her. "Lore males can be really territorial with their females. But hey, aren't the females right back?"
Though Néomi wasn't of the Lore, she was extremely possessive of her vampire. With his towering, muscle-packed build and that jet black hair, Conrad's presence was beyond arresting. Add the sunglasses, and everyone mistook him for a celebrity. Women, young and old, stopped in their tracks to gape at him. "When one woman continued to leer at his backside, I wanted to pull her hair. Even though she was easily an octogenarian."
Mari snorted at that.
"Are all Lore males ridiculously overprotective as well?" Néomi asked.
"Don't even get me started."
Conrad could be so violent with others, but he'd proved to be protective of her to a fault. "At first I had trouble remembering that I can't float through doors anymore, and I kept butting my forehead - "
Mari thought that was hilarious, coughing on her Slurpee.
Néomi quirked a brow and continued, "But Conrad winces over each slight mark. And a splinter in my finger was rated as calamitous in his eyes."