Slayer [vampire+vampire hunter]

Slayer 15

"They're coming for Alexis, of course," Zian said, eyeing me in speculation, and I tried to calm my internal turmoil, at least enough to subdue it and push it into the back of my mind to worry about later, when this was over.

Xavier snarled blackly, sitting up with a convulsive jerk. "Cailler?" I twitched at the name, and he glanced at me with something like worry in his eyes. "Alexis..." he whispered, almost pleadingly. "How do you feel about him? Would you suffer...if something happened to him?"

Zian sighed, but I didn't pay attention to it. "It'd be necessary," I said softly. "It'd suck, but I have you, don't I?"

"You don't love him?" Xavier asked tentatively.

"I do-" I broke off when his face clenched in pain. "What's wrong?"

His face wiped cleaner than a slate almost instantly, the agony having only had shown for a mere second. If I hadn't been looking at him, I would've missed it. "Nothing."

"Don't you 'nothing' me," I snapped. "What is wrong?"

"He's jealous," Zian said from the foot of the bed, where he'd moved to earlier, out of my awareness. "Cailler loves you, too."

I felt Xavier shudder against me, but I couldn't pay him any attention. "That's impossible," I said, laughing once. "We're just childhood friends, nothing more."

Zian shrugged. "That's what you think. You know how you're like Xeona? I'm her 'childhood friend.' She doesn't look at me. I'm in love with her. And you and Cailler are just like us. He's in love with you, but you can't see it. You know it's true. I've seen him, out on patrols, looking for you. He seems in control-until you see the eyes. Desperate like the man who has been searching forever for his long-lost love."

I flinched at the word 'man.' But that was what Cai was. He was older than me, and already eighteen. And Xavier was over a century old...

I was unable to deny it when Zian put it that way. "I guess... But I don't love him that way. I love you, Xavier," I said, directing my words toward him. "I love Cai like a brother, that's all. I promise."

"Engagement," he complained under his breath.

I groaned. "That was years ago!"

"I think he wants something to equal that," Zian teased, having had heard Xavier's objection. "And I also think he's already gotten it." He leveled a pointed stare at the side of my neck, and I blushed.

Xavier paused, his free hand reaching up to touch the puncture marks. "I'm sorry," he told me. "I just hate the idea of someone else."

"There is no someone else. I only love you," I told him firmly. If these holes were Xavier's lingering imprint on my body, I could accept them. As if he could sense my thoughts, he leaned over to kiss them, and I shivered.

"Whoa, hey, wait, I'm still here!" Zian protested.

Xavier shot him a look, one of both scorn and disbelief. "You think I'd drink from her while you were still here? She wouldn't let me, and even if she did, her sounds are mine and mine alone," he said, glaring. I blushed deeply at the memory of my whimpers and moans, and he flashed me a mischievous grin.

Zian gaped in surprise, then burst out into a fit of laughter. "She's so red, I'm glad I drank before coming here!" He waved off Xavier's hiss, still chortling. "Don't worry, Xavier, I wouldn't touch her. I know she's yours."

"And you'd better remember it," he said dryly, tightening his arms around my waist. I buried my face in the hollow of his shoulder to try to hide my scorching cheeks, griping, "Xavier!"