Page 38 of Simon Says

“I was doin’ the exact same thing.”

“You knew I was your mate?”

“Aye. Right away.” She cupped his face with her hand and kissed the tip of his nose affectionately. “My human.”

“You make me sound like a pet.”

She laughed as she crawled toward him with a gleam of insatiability in her eyes. “’Tis no meant as disrespectful. You’re my mate. That means you’re everythin’ to me. The bond is settlin’ between us and soon I’ll be needin’ you just to keep breathin’.” A shadow passed over her face. “But Simon, you can no’ be unfaithful. ’Tis you for me. Forever.”

“Sorcha. I’ve been faithful to you in my heart for twenty years. Now that I have you here, I’m faithful to you in every way.”

They ate dinner at Simon’s dining table naked, laughing and kissing in between bites of food Sorcha claimed was the best she’d ever had in her life. Then Simon told her everything there was to know about Black Swan.

“So you really were no’ kiddin’? About bein’ a vampire hunter.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s come to my attention recently that I may not be great at, ah, joking.”

“So you think I can get back into grad school?”

“Without question. If that’s what you want.”

“What do you mean, ‘if that’s what I want’?”

“I just mean that you have options. Right here, in this very building you could have access to the records of a very old organization that happens to have been focused on your very study of interest. That is, if you made a commitment to secrecy and took an oath of loyalty. We can always use somebody smart, who can be trusted. Somebody interested in what we do and why we do it.”

Her eyes began to sparkle. “Tell me more.”

Simon woke thenext morning to the foreign sensation of somebody sleeping in his bed. He turned his head and smiled to himself.Not a dream.

As he lay awake in the early hours, examining her long lashes fanned against her cheek and the lid movement of REM sleep, he thought about the fact that there were holes in the world. Holes that led to places where people shouldn’t be and stole lives away.

They were exactly the sort of menace that was the concern of Black Swan.

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