Page 66 of Wounded Soul
Ian studied him, eyes dark and intense, and Jesse wanted to look away under his scrutiny, but he held his gaze. “Are you asking if I’ve started seeing someone else in the five days since you did a runner and ditched me via text?”
Jesse winced. “I’m sorry, I know that was a shit thing to do, but I’d never have been able to end it if I had to look at you, and I was trying to avoid getting you involved in my world.”
“Didn’t work out too well in the end, did it?”
“No,” Jesse conceded. In hindsight, maybe he’d have been better off telling Ian what he was. But then again, just because Ian knew about vampires didn’t mean he’d want to fuck one. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “No, there’s no guy waiting for me, no one expecting my call.” He frowned. “Apart from Cate. I’m supposed to be away with work tomorrow—well maybe today, what time is it?”
Jesse reached for his phone, then remembered Peter took it. “Sometime around five, that’s when Lys usually gets home.”
“Well I should’ve been in St Austell today and tomorrow. Work are going to be pissed off when I don’t show, but I’m not entirely sure what the protocol is there. Cate’ll start to get concerned if I ignore her texts. I don’t normally answer when I’m at work, but at night I would.”
Bollocks.Jesse had forgotten all about Ian’s work. Of course they’d miss him as soon as he didn’t show up. But he doubted they’d call the police. At least not straight away anyway. “We need to get our phones back from Peter.”
“If he’s not destroyed them by now.”
He better bloody well not have done.
A soft knock on the door, followed by the key in the lock signalling Lys’s arrival, put pay to any further conversation. As soon as she entered the room, Ian’s entire focus shifted to the bags of blood she carried in her arms.
“Any trouble?” Jesse asked, finding his own gaze drawn to them.
She shook her head. “The house is quiet. I think most of them are in their rooms by now.” Dumping her cargo onto the bedside table, she then threw a bag to Jesse, one to Ian, and picked up one for herself. “If we’re going to be doing this a lot, you really need to get some cups and a microwave in here.” She glanced around, then pulled a face as she looked down at the blood in her hands. “Drinking it cold isn’t something I enjoy.”
They both turned to Ian as he ripped the corner off his and started to drink, obviously not put off by the temperature.
Lys chuckled. “Oh to be newly turned again.”
Jesse shuddered. “No thanks.” He had no wish to revisit those years.
“Yeah, me neither when I think about it.” Carefully she tore the corner off her own bag, frowning down at it, before raising it to her lips. “Bottoms up.”
Ian had finished his before Jesse had even started, so Lys threw him another bag. At this rate, Raph was going to notice the sudden increase in consumption sooner rather than later. Would he really feel the need to report Jesse to the VLCD? Jesse mulled it over as he drank, the cold blood not the most palatable, but it hit the spot.
As Ian polished off bag number three, Jesse settled back against the headboard. “Peter’s got mine and Ian’s phones, and we need to get them back off him.”
Lys hummed. “D’you think he still has them?”
As much as Jesse didn’t want to think about it, he knew Peter well enough to know what he’d be doing with them. And then the penny dropped as to why he’d chosen Michael and Simon to go with him. “Yeah, he does. He’ll be looking through them now, you know what he’s like.”
“Ugh.” Lys made a face. “He’s such a creepy wanker, I don’t know what you ever saw in him.”
Ian’s gaze snapped to Jesse, and he wanted to kick Lys. “You and Peter?”
“It was a long, long time ago,” Jesse said quickly, hoping to cut off whatever thoughts might be forming in Ian’s head. He shot a glare at Lys, slightly mollified when she mouthed “sorry” back at him. “When I was young, vulnerable, and clearly a shitty judge of character.”
Silence settled between them, as Ian went back to drinking.
When he’d finished, he set the empty bag down and met Jesse’s gaze again. “My phone’s fingerprint protected.”
“Mine too, but Peter chose Michael and Simon for a reason. Other than the fact they kind of share his views. They’re good with technology.”
Ian frowned. “As soon as someone reports me missing, the police will try and track my phone, won’t they? They’ll get my records and see who I called and texted.”
“Shit.” Jesse’s number would be in there. And for once it was registered in his actual name—well the one he was using this time around, anyway. He’d used the address of the flat in town, and his name was on the lease. But Jesse wasn’t the last person to message him. “They’re going to question Cate.”
“Bollocks.” Ian scrubbed both hands over his face. “And Peter said she probably wouldn’t remember their conversation; he said he deleted the texts from her phone. She’s going to look suspicious as fuck.” He looked frantically between Lys and Jesse. “We have to do something.”
