“That’s it.”
“Gotcha.” A pause. “Uncle Boone.”
The man’s lips twitched. Adam supposed it was his version of a smile.
In the back of his mind, he was still trying to figure out how his sweet, sunny, funny Tabby was related to this walking skeleton with the gloom-and-doom attitude.
As if he heard that thought, Boone turned to Adam.
“You. Take care of my niece,” he ordered. When Adam nodded, he turned to Eddie next. “Let’s go. And when we get to headquarters, I want you to re-run your hand-to-hand training. Honestly, I’m embarrassed for you. You almost let her get away with slaying you with barely a fight, Daniels. You’re lucky the Nightwalker took pity on you and called her off.”
The younger slayer didn’t even dare to glance back at Adam or Tabby as he followed after Boone like a puppy with its tail between its legs. He mumbled something to Boone, his only attempt at defending himself as they climbed into the black vehicle at the end of the street.
Eddie probably thought he was quiet enough. Nope. Adam felt the jealous rage cool just enough when the other man’s softly mumbled, How was I supposed to know that she actually loved him enough to try to kill me for him, reached his ears.
Because she loved him. Tabby loved him. Said it in front of a crowd and everything.
He looked over at her.
She was still staring after the car, even after Boone started it up and the taillights winked out of sight.
Only once it was gone, did she speak up.
“Poor Eddie. I’ve been on the receiving end of my uncle’s lectures more times than I can count.” She shook her head. “Let me tell you, that’s one thing I’m not going to miss.”
She sounded so
non-plussed. Unconcerned. Like being kicked out of the Society she devoted her life to didn’t bother one way or another.
“You’re not upset?” he asked.
“Nah.”
“Tab… you’re not a slayer anymore.”
“Not a licensed one, sure,” she said. “Still got my skills, though. And my contacts. I’ll be fine.”
“And you’re… you’re okay with that?”
Tabby shrugged. “Honestly? I expected something like this from the beginning. The second I let you live during that first hunt. Slayer’s Code,” she explained. “Even if you weren’t a killer Nightwalker, you watched me at work, then I told you what I was. So there went secrecy. From there, it was only a downhill slide that landed me here today. Since I met you, I broke every rule I spent twenty-five years following blindly. I’m lucky that he just kicked me out. It could’ve been way worse.”
“Oh, Tab...” Adam felt some of his good mood deflate. His good mood, and the healthy erection that started to harden the second he realized that Tabby actually wanted him—that she loved and cared for him—as desperately as he did her. “Being a slayer is your life. And you’re losing it because of me.”
“Don’t get sappy on me, champ,” Tabby said, bumping him in the side with her hip. “You’re right. Being a slayer was my life. I didn’t choose it, just like you didn’t choose to be turned. You make the most of what you’re given, right? And, sometimes, we get to take what we want instead. And me?” She reached out her fingers, stroking his thigh before brushing his bulge with the back of her hand. “I want you, Adam.”
His hard-on came rearing back to life.
“I’m all yours,” he promised. “Forever.”
And, as a Nightwalker, when he said forever, he really meant it.
“Good.” She tilted her head back, inviting his kiss. Adam braced her cheeks with his hands, holding her in place as he took control of it.
By the time he finally broke the kiss, she was slightly out of breath. “You know. I just realized something.”
Adam was dead. Technically. As a Nightwalker, he didn’t have to breathe—he did it more out of habit instead of a necessity, just like the way his heart still beat—but, on the heels of that kiss, with all the passion and emotion and love he poured into it, he was more than a little out of breath himself.
Resisting the urge to steal her lips again, he swallowed roughly, croaking out, “What’s that?”