Page 6 of Imperfect Gifts

“I wasn’t hurt. I was scared, and yeah, I could’ve been hurt, but I wasn’t. I’m okay.”

“I promised you’d be safe when I handed you over to Dev. We’ve accepted her offer of monetary compensation, and she’s agreed to our requirements for punishment of those involved. You are entitled to a percentage of the compensation, so you’ll receive twenty thousand dollars.”

She wanted to protest that she didn’t need money, but she’d come to Birmingham to try to bank enough to buy her own house, so she told him, “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

“I’ve seen video of the two men being punished, and I’m satisfied with it. I’ve been assured Dev’s punishment will happen in the early morning hours before the sun rises, once he’s handled his assigned tasks for the night, and that I’ll be able to watch it in person if I choose, which I do. Mad Dog and Khan will accompany me, and you are welcome to do so as well.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I don’t need to see it.”

“We won’t be sending people to feed Brooke without a guard unit in the future. If you go again, you’ll have at least three bikers with you, and Brooke will pay for our time, above and beyond what’s been negotiated for us to provide food.”

“Frost, I get why ya’ll can’t let it go, but I’m not upset with you. Dev rescued me and then took great care of me. I’m not upset with him or you.”

“You were put in danger in the first place because Dev didn’t do his job of securing the new cats.” He sighed, and she could hear his frustration. “Did you offer sex to Dev?”

“I flirted with him, and…” She hadn’t thought of it as an official offer at the time, but looking back on it, she supposed she had.

“He asked about my nickname. He wondered what my magical talent might be, and I said something along the lines of maybe I’d show him someday, if he was interested. I was flirting, and I didn’t think of it as anything official at the time, but yeah, I’d be interested in spending time with him.”

“Little Genie, we have grounds to insist our guards accompany anyone who goes to feed Brooke, but if you go for a personal tryst, we can’t send someone to guard you.”

“He isn’t going to fuck up again, Frost. They had new people show up while you were walking me inside and while something else happened that needed his attention, all at the same time. He wasn’t aware the new guys had taught themselves how to defeat the kinds of locks on their door. They are no longer in a suite ofrooms, but in the dungeon, according to Dev. He isn’t going to let me get hurt.”

“Do you like him?” His voice was soft, serious. Genie got the sense this wasn’t a casual inquiry.

“He knew what I needed, when I panicked.” Her turn to sigh, because that wasn’t what had made her basically offer herself on a platter, but she couldn’t exactly say that his soul seemed to speak to her soul. She kept talking, trying to explain in more tangible ways. “He carried me, he held me in his lap when Brooke fed from me, he ate a meal with me when I’m certain he was needed elsewhere. Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but I think it’s possible we both feel an attraction to each other.”

“Well then, I suppose you need to spend some time with him and see what happens, but please keep me updated.” After a few seconds, he amended that to, “Me or Mad Dog.”

“Okay. As far as I know, once I let them know I’m awake, they bring me what I told them I want for my waking meal, and then they take me home after I’ve eaten and showered.”

“Crush is patrolling the apartment complex tonight. Have them take you to the business office. We’d like them to hand you off to one of us, for appearances’ sake.”

Rather than bitch about supernatural politics, she told him, “Thank you for making sure I’m safe. Do you need me to text you when we’re on our way?”

“Yes, please. I’ll let Crush know you’re headed out, so he’ll be waiting for you at the office and not patrolling the grounds. If anything else comes up, please let me know.Anything, Genie. Good or bad — I need to know.”

She was tempted to say, “Yes, Sir,” but for many of the bikers, that seemed to be a code word that turned them into an uber-Dom. She enjoyed kinky power-exchange scenes, but she preferred to play those games with someone she had an emotional connection with, and for the bikers, she was just afuck-girl. Scenes with Khan were the exception to that, but he somehow took care of her after an intense session without the risk of making her fall in love with him, which was a handy skill.

And okay, maybe she was more than just a fuck-girl to the bikers, because they claimed her enough they had to posture about keeping her safe, but none of them were emotionally connected to her. It was the whole reason she’d gone to the bikers in the first place — a way to have sex without all the damned strings.

But she wouldn’t mind a few strings with the snake shifter. She’d be leaving Birmingham in a few months, after all, so any relationship they formed had a guaranteed end date.

* * * *

Dev pushed the food service tray down the hallway to the sexy little owlet’s door and knocked. Usually, on this floor, he just walked into the rooms without warning. His palmprint would open any locked door in any building owned by the coterie — even Brooke’s private rooms. The only area he couldn’t open was her daytime resting sanctuary. She didn’t trust the mechanized systems designed to pop the vampire from bed to fireproof compartment in the event of fire or other emergency, so she had a tiny room, four by four and only four feet tall, accessed by a hidden door within her private suite. Nothing flammable except the vampire inside, it was entirely concrete, with a granite platform for her to lie on. Vampires don’t sleep, they die at dawn. Most rise at or near sunset, but the strongest rise earlier, and Brooke had amassed a lot of power.

Genie opened the door, and her polite smile turned into what he thought was a genuine smile when she saw it was him. Her eyes weren’t just golden-brown, they were whiskey colored, and even his inner snake found fascination with the way the hallway full-spectrum lights hit them.

“Dev! Something tells me you don’t ordinarily deliver breakfast. Are you going to eat with me again?”

“Only if you have no objections. Did you sleep well?”

“I did, but I’m starving.”

She motioned him in and then helped him move the platters of food over once he’d put a tablecloth on her little dining table. He placed the plates and silverware so they were perfectly lined up with each other and centered in front of the two chairs, and then they both sat.

“You’re a perfectionist,” she noted.

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