Page 19 of Our Haunted Omegas
“My brother would mind his own business,” I laughed and reached out for a box. “Are you afraid of needles?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Does it hurt?”
“It doesn’t really hurt me but it makes those tiny little scales come up on my finger. My dragon doesn’t like being jabbed.”
“Yep. You said jabbed because you already know I’d make a joke if you said poked,” Ambry teased me, tearing his box open and spilling the contents out onto his lap.
“Words have power,” I said, gathering the stuff up from his lap and showing him how to put the test together. “It works sort of like a blood sugar test. Well, the jabbing part anyway.”
Ambry eyed the little lancet gadget and raised his eyebrows at me.
“Hold onto the strip and give me your hand,” I sighed, reaching out for it and swabbing his finger with the little sterile pad included in the box.
Once his hand was inside mine, I didn’t want to let go of it. His skin was soft and warm, and one glance was enough to make me want to kiss him again but forever this time. Who needed to breathe? Not me. I needed to drown in his warm, plump lips.
“Are you going to do it or not?” Ambry asked, breaking whatever spell touching him had on me.
“Just making sure you’re ready,” I said, taking the lancet in hand. “Keep looking at me.”
“I will but you look at my finger. I don’t want you to miss and hit something else,” Ambry laughed
“Don’t laugh! Laughing makes it hard to aim!”
“I’ll remember that,” he said as we both tried to stop laughing.
Eventually, we did, only to burst out laughing again when I lined up the lancet gadget with his finger. He squeaked when the needle caught him off guard. I held his hand steady as I smeared his blood across the strip and set it on the table to curate.
“This is the only time I want to smell your blood floating around,” I said, echoing my dragon’s unspoken thoughts. “It belongs inside your body.”
“Do you want me to do yours?” he asked around the finger he was sucking on.
“Okay,” I nodded and set up the other box.
This time we didn’t break out into laughter. He studied my finger intently as if trying to memorize my fingerprint before swabbing it with the alcohol wipe.
“See, it’s cold! That’s why I couldn’t quit laughing,” he pointed out.
“Not that cold.”
“Okay smoke-breather,” he rolled his eyes and I laughed.
“Don’t you start it!” he laughed too.
A second later, he hesitated twice and then finally pricked my finger. I barely had time to smear the blood on the strip before the scales popped up over the tiny prick mark.
“Shit, that was fast,” he said. “Really fast. I think he wants to keep your blood inside. I’m not a vampire,” he said, leaning down to talk to my stomach as if that’s where my dragon lived.
A few moments later both strips lit up green, meaning that we were good to go.
Chapter Seven
Odell
“What do you think they’re laughing at?” I asked, nuzzling into the crook of Cobalt’s neck.
He smelled so good stretched out on his back while I rested half on top of him. Our glowing green test strips lay on the nightstand, and I made a mental note to toss them out before I dozed off for real. It was easy enough to snatch them from the basket in the kitchen while those two were caught up in talking about the altar. If Cobalt hadn’t been waiting on me in the bedroom, envy would’ve been my soul emotion. Instead, I felt less guilty about going off with Cobalt and leaving Ambry alone in the living room.
“Who knows?” Cobalt laughed and cocked his head to the side, listening in for a fraction of a second. “Their tests. The results are good but, apparently, they jabbed each other.”
