Page 80 of A Shade Too Far
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Zev strodearound the perimeter of the property, casing it for something only he understood, when the gate squeaked open and someone else joined us.
My head shot up, but it wasn’t Laurent. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I muttered as Naveen strode toward us.
Zev looked at the newcomer with narrowed eyes. In the moonlight, the vamp was pale enough to seem carved from marble, untouchable, forbidding. “What are you doing here?”
I shivered at the icy tone, but if that got my family back on board with my opinion of him, then I’d never say an unkind thing about Naveen again.
“I’m the proxy,” Naveen said in his posh British accent. “Laurent sends his wishes.”
Eli rolled his eyes at Laurent’s name and Sadie scowled at me. Great.
Zev gave Naveen a snarky smile. “Shame he couldn’t join us.”
Whycouldn’t he? My gut tied itself into knots and I hurried over to Naveen to ask.
“I’m Detective Chu,” Eli said. “Who might you be?” He moved closer to the vampire, aligning himself more firmly with the bloodsucker.
“Eli,” I said, “you remember Dr. Kumar? Daya?”
“Sure.”
“This is her brother, Naveen.” I shot my ex a “quit being a dick” look. “Come say hello.”
“The doctor who delivered me?” Sadie said. “Cool. Hi.” She waved, but stayed next to Zev, watching as he crouched and ran a handful of dirt through his fingers.
I wrestled my soaring blood pressure under control with the sole uplifting thought that Laurent was safe or Naveen wouldn’t be here.
As Eli strode closer, clearly unhappy at leaving his new bestie, I tabled my questions in favor of making sure the warding proceeded smoothly.
“Talk some sense into him, please,” I said quietly to Naveen. “Zev has my family snowed.”
Naveen made a disparaging noise, his expression hard as he watched the vampire, which cheered me up. Finally, an ally. Vampirism made strange bedfellows.
The two men shook hands for a moment longer than necessary and I tensed, ready to shut down some alpha bullshit, but their body language was relaxed.
I let out a sigh of relief before seeing Eli rake a slow gaze over Naveen and I clued into what was really happening. They weren’t establishing dominance; they were eye-fucking each other.
Are you freaking kidding me, universe? One little proverb mentioning bedfellows, and this is what you come back with?
“Shame we never crossed paths before.” Eli rubbed a hand over his head, his biceps flexing.
Remember your hard-on for the Ferrari? Go back to those good times.
“Isn’t it just,” the younger man said, smoothing his shirt down over his rock-hard abs.
Shoot me now.I muscled between them. “Can we get on with this, please?”
The sooner we got the ward dealt with, the sooner I could question Naveen about Laurent.
“Yes.” Zev beckoned me over to the fig tree growing along the fence between Eli’s yard and mine that taunted us every year with a paltry couple of figs that we fought with the ants to eat first. It did have lovely broad leaves though. “This will be the anchor point. The ward requires blood, yours and mine.”
I clapped a hand over my neck. “Maybe my family shouldn’t be here for this.”
He gave me an exasperated look. “I don’t drink human blood, remember?”
“You don’t?” Sadie was listening to our conversation, but for all of Eli’s bitching about never letting the undead serial killer do his magic mumbo jumbo to protect our property, he was perfectly content to hang back and flirt with Naveen.
