Page 43 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood
He could see her exhaustion in every bone-deep breath, every tiny twitch of her leg muscles — so he didn’t push it.
Soon, though, she’d be used to him.
She’d feel lost if he didn’t come in and help her drift off to sleep.
Vampires are patient.
As are all successful predators.
Chapter 12
Aury slept late the next day, her muscles pleasantly sore and her skin still humming from the way Axel had touched her, the way he’dseenher.
Seenher. Not the trauma. Not the memory. Just her. The adult Aury rather than the child Aurélie.
Theveryadult Aury. Her body tingled a little at the memory of his fingers.
But there was work to do.
She pulled the patches off her lower back once in the shower. These were excellent at dulling the pain and relaxing the muscles, but they were a bitch to get off. Ruby was cooking eggs and bacon when she came out of the bathroom, and she sat and ate with her friend.
Ruby, as usual, ate four times more than her, and it was nice to understand why her lifelong friend ate so much.
“I’m still irritated you didn’t find a way to tell me you’re a damned eagle.”
“My eagle is blessed, thank-you-very-much, and I don’t blame you a bit, but I hope you understand that knowing might’ve put you in danger, so I couldn’t tell you, no matter how badly it killed me there was this hugethingyou didn’t know.”
“Am I in danger now? Because I know?”
“Under Axel’s protection? Not a chance in hell unless someone’s beyond stupid. If someone hurt you, he wouldn’t kill them — he’d torture them every day for the next hundred and forty-four years, andthenhe’d kill them.”
Aury wanted to argue with her, but she had a feeling her friend was right.
“You had good numbers on your live the other day,” Ruby said. “You should talk about yourself more.”
“It’s a chess channel, not a personality channel.”
“There are a million chess channels, but only one with a pretty girl who shows gorgeous cleavage. You’re going to have to face the fact it’sboth, and then lean into it. The chess is important, but so is the personal stuff. You’ve already figured out what you’re comfortable sharing and what stays private. You’ll be fine.”
She scrunched her face at Ruby, mostly because she knew her friend was right, but she didn’t want to say it out loud.
“Maybe I’ll ask my paid subscribers to submit questions again, and I can split up the chess questions and personal questions better, two-thirds chess and the rest personal, instead of less than ten percent hitting personal.”
“Smaller jump, maybe eighty-twenty this time, then seventy-thirty, and stay there a few times to see how it goes. Big chess news, talk about yourself less. Big personal news, it can take up more time — but you need more than ten percent personal, especially right now while everyone wants to know how you’re doing after surgery.”
“Axel picked up on the fact I have a mentor. I figure it’s safe for him to know who it is, but I promised I’d only tell you and my parents.” She drank her espresso, chased it with some milk. “His rule was that any boyfriend can’t know until we’ve been monogamous for nine months.”
“My guess is Axel already knows the five-time and current world champion is tutoring you,andthat he’s not supposed to know, so he just won’t bring it up, so he doesn’t fuck with your ethics and guilt.”
“You’re probably right.”
“You still a virgin?”
She shrugged and stared at her plate, decided she didn’t have to be embarrassed about it, and looked up with a grin. “Does two fingers count?”
“Please tell me you fucking orgasmed.”
She felt her brows pull together. “I mean, I think that’s what happened. It wasn’t as dramatic as the romance novels make it, no fireworks exploding or anything, but it was pretty damned good.”
