Keystone (Crossbreed #1)(44)
“Does he know where he’s going?” I asked.
Her tall shoes clomped on the pavement. “He’s okay until he reaches the street. Cars make him nervous, but he can dodge people pretty well. Not so much fire hydrants or steps.”
“I just want to take a hot bath,” I murmured.
“Not yet. We have to make a detour for french fries.”
“Explain?”
Gem skipped a few paces ahead of me and turned around, walking backward. “Wyatt has an addiction. You’ll see. Did you know you have tape in your hair?”
After we arrived at the mansion, Niko branched away from us and disappeared. Gem had tried interrogating him in the car, but he was evasive and said we simply ran into a little trouble. It wasn’t uncommon on the Breed side of town since juicers were rampant and someone was always looking for a fight. I’d been in my fair share of rumbles, and most of them weren’t even worth mentioning.
“Delivery girl!” Gem announced, dropping two sacks of fries onto Wyatt’s desk.
The dark room had a desk alongside the right wall, which held multiple computer screens, a laptop, keyboards, snacks, pens, toys, and gadgets. Straight ahead was a massive television and several beanbag chairs in front of it. To the left, an L-shaped black sofa with colorful pillows. The floor was a smooth stone, but the grey walls were like something you’d find in an ordinary house.
Wyatt spun around in his leather chair and unrolled the paper sack. He drew in a deep breath, his smile turning orgasmic.
Gem headed toward the television. “Want to play video games?” she asked me.
I was busy watching Wyatt empty the sacks onto his desk, creating a mountain of fries.
He flicked a gaze at me and grinned. “Don’t bother educating me about germs. Gravewalkers don’t get sick.”
“No, but now your desk is covered in grease, and you’re getting salt all over the floor. Isn’t this a shared room? Or do you just share it with the critters who live in the cracks of the walls?”
“This is Wyatt’s World,” he said with a mouthful of fries. “It’s supposed to be my domain, but I can’t seem to keep them out.”
I clapped my hand on his shoulder as I walked past him. “Are you sure two sacks are enough?”
“Hmm, probably not. Be right back.”
“Wyatt!” Gem shouted. “Great.”
I sat down on a roller stool with a round leather seat. “What’s the big deal? His fries will just get cold.”
She plopped down in a beanbag chair. “The last time that happened, he borrowed my hair dryer and left it on low to warm them up in the bag. My hair smelled like french fries for a week.”
I rested my elbows on the desk and put my head in my hands. I was still feeling sick from having consumed Mage light the night before, and the kung fu scene in the alley earlier had left my head spinning. I thought my life before was full of drama, but these people ate it for breakfast.
Claude swaggered in, looking like some kind of Adonis with those big beautiful curls, and grabbed a handful of Wyatt’s fries. After tilting his head back and shoving them into his mouth, he stared at me, chewing silently. Despite his handsome features, there was raw power in his eyes—an animalistic ferocity that flickered in their golden depths. You felt his presence in a room, especially being that he was six and a half feet tall.
He suddenly gripped my arm and rolled my stool out, spinning me around to face him. I jerked back when he touched the pieces of tape in my hair, making me turn my head left and right.
“I’m going to have to cut it out,” I said.
He held up a section of my hair and examined the ends. “That’s okay. You needed layering anyhow. I’ll take care of it.” When he reached the doorway, he pointed his finger at me. “Don’t move.”
Gem crossed her legs. “Looks like you’re his new favorite toy.”
“Is this where everyone hangs out?”
“Sometimes. It’s mostly Wyatt’s playroom, but since Viktor detests electricity and Wyatt needs it for his work, we just happened to notice this great big wall in dire need of a television to plug into that beautiful socket.” She gestured behind her like a female model on a game show.
I tugged at a piece of tape. “No one’s heard from Christian? Seems strange.”
Gem played with her hair. “Christian marches to the beat of his own drum, so nothing surprises me. Unless Viktor sends us on assignment, we can come and go as we like. Planned vacations are fine, but who needs a vacation with all this house? Everything you could want is right here.”
I spun around and rolled up to the desk. The touch screen blinked to life when my finger grazed over it.
“Wouldn’t do that,” Wyatt warned me, out of breath. “I have it rigged so if the password isn’t entered correctly, a small country blows up.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“You’re a dark soul.” He rolled me out of the way and sat in his chair, flourishing a can of cheese dip and setting it on the desk. He peeled back the metal lid and dipped his fry.
“Ugh.” Gem wrinkled her nose in disgust. “You’ve ruined them.”
“Speak for yourself,” he said around a mouthful of fries. “If I’d known back in the eighteen hundreds that one day there would be food you could prepare in less than thirty seconds or cheese in a can, I would have time-traveled my ass to the future.”