I waited for him to set the empty blood pouch down before passing his drink back to him. “You can taste biological factors like that in blood?” I asked.
I knew that, of course, but I wasn’t sure if a human who worked at the Cloisters would know that. Vampires weren’t as good at sensing biological changes like werewolves, but they were as good as the machines humans used when it came to blood. （At least, older vampires were. Younger vampires typically lacked the finesse and experience.）
“Yes,” Connor took a sip of his drink. “I’m starting to understand the human obsession with pumpkin. The spices combined with blood is delicious.”
I tipped my water bottle back for another swig and managed to spill a bunch, so it ran down my chin and soaked into the neckline of my long-sleeved shirt.
I turned away from Connor to cough and brush off my shirt and noticed a pickup truck pulling into the parking lot out of the corner of my eye.
The driver parked, but he stayed in the truck, cautiously looking around.
His yellow-ish eyes and muscled shoulders marked him as a werewolf, along with his scruffy haircut.
I wonder what a werewolf is doing here?
I kept watching the werewolf as I sidestepped so I stood closer to Connor’s bench. “I need another minute or two, and then I’ll head out for my sprints. I’ll be fifteen, maybe twenty minutes tops.”
Any longer and I’d have to reapply my facial sunscreen. It might be October, but I could still burn lobster red if I wasn’t careful with my vampire-pale complexion.
There was a mischievous glint in Connor’s eyes as he looked up at me. “I repeat, why do you train for so long?” He wriggled his eyebrows up and down with a playfulness I didn’t understand in this situation.
“I told you it was going to take a while.” The werewolf was still in the truck, so I risked glancing down at Connor. “You were the one who insisted on tagging along.”
Connor, looking comfortable despite the daylight hour, sipped from his coffee-blood drink. It still surprised me that he wasn’t bothered by the sun. He wore his sunglasses on bright days and generally kept to shade like he was now, but the added weakness bothered most vampires enough to scare them out of emerging before dusk. “I did insist,” he said. “Because I wanted to make sure you didn’t waste the entire afternoon dragging weights around this morbidly cheerful city.”
I checked, but the werewolf was still in his truck.
I twisted the cap back on my water—I didn’t want to drink too much; it would slosh around my stomach when I started my sprints—and set it back on the ground. “Fun, right. What are we doing after I finish exercising, then?”
“If we roam around downtown I’m sure we’ll find something that will catch your fancy—store or restaurant,” Connor said.
A flash of yellow and orange caught my eye and I peered down the street, watching a House Tellier wizard—wearing the now familiar House jacket—hurry up the sidewalk.
I adjusted one of the pins that I used to pin my bright red hair back, so it didn’t bounce in my eyes when I ran. “I’m up for wandering downtown. But I’ll need to shower after I finish sprinting.”
I watched as the House Tellier wizard left the sidewalk and hurried into the parking lot.
“No argument here.” Connor rose from the bench with the confidence of a king descending his throne. He took a final sip of his nearly empty coffee cup, then tossed it in a nearby trashcan. “Cuddling when you’re sweaty isn’t quite as appealing.”
Distracted by the werewolf hopping out of his truck and approaching the wizard, I asked without thinking, “Cuddling?”
“So glad you asked!”
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Jade
Ifelt Connor swoop in, so I sidestepped him and held my hands up. “Uh-uh! No.”
Connor tilted his head to the left, then the right, and batted his beautiful red eyes at me. “What, you’re not up for a hug?”
“No,” I said. “I smell sweaty.”
Connor stared at me, his expression smoothing into something unrecognizable. “That’s your only reason?”
“Yes.” I said. “Because you’d complain—a lot—about the smell.”
Connor stared at me for a second too long before he broke into a chuckle, which turned into a laugh that was way too deep and long—I’d meant to be funny, but it wasn’t that funny.
There’s something up with him. He’s been acting odd.