Addict (Hunter #2)(3)

“I’m thirty-four.” Zack took his master’s blood on a weekly basis. The queen, who also took the king’s blood, had explained that Daniel Donovan’s blood was better than Botox. “Oh, I get carded when I try to buy beer, but I am most definitely thirty-four years old. I suppose if Lee had known about you, we would have been more like brother and sister than uncle and niece. He didn’t though, and I feel a definite paternal responsibility toward you. You should have caught me before I had a daughter of my own. I might have been the cool uncle then. Now I’m the uncle who really wants to know who you’re sleeping with so I can run a background check on him.” I stared at him and Zack’s eyes narrowed. “Kelsey, you have to have Council approval for a long-term relationship.”

“I thought that was just for humans.” I wondered if this was why Marcus had decided to sleep in. He’d said it was because I should meet with the king on my own the first time, but what if he’d wanted to avoid a scene? All my carefully constructed, calm inner walls started to shake a bit. I was good right now. I was stable. If Marcus left me, I had to deal with a whole lot of shit I wasn’t ready to deal with at this point.

The brown-haired man who looked so much like a male version of me sighed. “The king thinks you’re too valuable to risk. Anyone sleeping with you on a more than casual basis needs to be approved. I’ve tried very hard to respect your privacy, but I can’t now.”

A flare of righteous anger flamed inside me. I was still smarting from my last meeting with the king. “You mean Donovan thinks I’m too dangerous to risk hurting someone.”

“No, he thinks you’re in a delicate state,” Zack tried to explain patiently. “You’re very important, and he doesn’t want the wrong person to influence you. There are a lot of people who would love to see you out of the king’s influence. I’m afraid the king doesn’t particularly think you have good taste in men.”

My heart hitched at the thought of Grayson Sloane. I could still see him in my mind, his big, beautiful body ingrained in my memory. Gray haunted my dreams. The truth was I should be glad I was going to live in the Council’s complex. It would give me access to the library. I wanted to read up on contracts. My ex-honey was a “legacy” demon, meaning he’d been born under a contract. Gray’s mother had agreed to give birth to him and signed a contract that gave Gray thirty-five years on the Earth plane. When that time was done, he would reside with his father on the Hell plane.

I meant to get his hot ass out of that contract.

“So you can see how anyone with as much influence on you as a boyfriend is going to be carefully vetted for a while,” Zack concluded.

My cell phone trilled and I started at the sound. I slid my finger across the screen to answer it without thinking. “Hello?”

“What is wrong, cara mia?” Marcus’s deep voice was soothing even over the phone. “I was pulled from a nice dream about you. You’re agitated. Has the king already made you anxious?”

“No.” I hadn’t realized our connection worked over such a long distance. I hadn’t done anything to shield my emotions. We were twenty miles from each other, but Marcus felt my anxiety. “I haven’t even made it to the Council building yet. I was talking to Zack about our living arrangements. It occurred to me there could be trouble.”

“Ah.” I could see his face. He would be giving me that half smile I found devastatingly sexy. “You’re worried about the apartments? Bella, if they don’t suit you, I will simply have them redecorated. Devinshea is usually thorough. I doubt he refused us our list. I already received confirmation that our clothes and the furnishings from Venice arrived. Everything will be ready for you.”

“That wasn’t what I was afraid of.” It was useless to lie to Marcus and I didn’t even want to. “Zack wants me to fill out the paperwork to get our relationship approved by the Council.”

There was a long pause. “Is he serious?”

“He seems serious to me.” I glanced at my uncle. Yep, there was all kinds of seriousness there.

“But we are both known to the Council. Why should they have any say over our personal relationship?”

“They’re worried about outside influences.”

Marcus cursed. He did it often, but only in Italian. “I did not foresee this. It never once occurred to me that they would question our relationship. I should have known. None of the Council has ever met a Hunter, much less have a true understanding of how the training works. I’ll get dressed and I’ll join you as soon as I can. I’ll call the king and demand a meeting.”

“Hey. It’s fine, baby.” It was nice to be the calm one for once. Marcus sounded almost desperate. I was the one now getting the fine edge of his anxiety. Maybe it was reasonable that they didn’t know. Marcus had explained everything to me, that our closeness was almost inevitable. I suppose Donovan and the rest of the crew might think Marcus and I were an odd couple. “I wasn’t worried about them keeping us apart. I’ve been with you for months. I don’t think you could influence me more if you tried. I was worried…”

“You were worried I was leaving?” Marcus sounded a bit incredulous. “That’s ridiculous, cara mia. I have no desire to leave you. As I said before, only this morning I was dreaming of you. I adore you, bella. Ti penso sempre.”