Page 54 of Soul Sucker

Vadim cleared his throat. “Are you okay with all this, Ms. Walsh?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He held her gaze. “Because you’ve had a severe shock.”

“It’s okay, I won’t go nuts on you just yet.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah.” She rose to her feet. “Do you have any more of those painkillers?”

He extracted the bottle from his pocket and resisting the urge to pitch it at her head, tossed it over to her. If she didn’t want to talk about anything, that suited him fine. He wasn’t quite sure why he was even bothering in the first place. Shouldn’t she be grateful to him for turning her down last night? He’d behaved like the perfect gentleman and she was still being shitty. Maybe she understood him better than he understood himself. All he had to do was keep her alive, catch this killer and get back to Russia with his reputation intact.

Liz caught up with Ella and wrapped an arm around her as they walked. Alexei glanced over at Vadim.

“Did you really stay over with Ella?”

“Feehan asked me to. He was worried about her safety.”

“So how was it?”

He raised his eyebrows. “I cooked her some dinner and then she went to bed.”

Alexei just stared at him. “That’s it?”

“What else did you expect?”

“Details, my friend, details.”

“I cooked snapper with red peppers in a white wine sauce. Do you want the recipe or something?”

“Damn, you’re a close-mouthed bastard sometimes, Vadim.” Alexei stretched his arms over his head. “If I’d got to stay with Ella, I’d be telling you all the juicy details.”

“And that’s probably why Feehan sent me.”

Alexei opened his silver eyes wide. “You can pretend to be human all you like, Vadim, but at your core, you’re no different than me.”

“That’s where we’ll have to disagree. I’ve made a choice as to how I want to live my life and I’m happy with it.”

“So you say.”

Vadim fixed Alexei with a cool stare. “Shall we just leave it at that? As a fellow team member, Ms. Walsh needs our support and nothing else.”

“You’ve changed your mind. You were the one who wanted her out.”

Vadim stood and shoved his chair in. “I want to solve this case. Messing around with an empath who is already in a highly emotional state isn’t going to help me do that. I refuse to be responsible for another meltdown.”

He wanted to laugh at his own words. Hadn’t he already crossed that line last night by taking care of her rather than simply fucking her brains out? Wasn’t he already emotionally compromised?

“So you’re quite happy to leave Ella to me.”

He glared down at the Fae. “Have you listened to a single word I said?”

“I listened.” Alexei tilted his head back so Vadim could see his face more clearly. “Have you ever wondered if you are the problem and not the empath?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Are you sure about that? Repressing your true nature behind all those shields must give any empath who comes near you a hell of a headache.”

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