Warrior Fae Trapped (Warrior Fae #1)(39)

He also noticed her staring.

“What?” he asked through a full mouth.

“Precise, aren’t we?”

He took another bite.

She reached into the bag and extracted three fries from her carton. A body needed a little treat before she unwrapped the burger. As soon as she first saw bun, she went for it.

“Jesus. Savage.” He stared at her over his burger.

“You do things your way, and I do them my way. Just because you happen to think this is English tea time…”

He snorted, taking another bite. “I never got fast food as a kid. Or dinners out. My mom always cooked. Not very well, either. My dad was actually a reasonable cook, but he maintained that it was a woman’s job. My mom accepted that.”

“Only the unpaid cooking seems to be a woman’s job to some guys. They don’t want to do it themselves, so they push it on their wife and say it’s women’s work,” Charity said, rolling her eyes. “Given that the top chefs of the world are largely men, they are mistaken. But then, if you can get a good wage for something, men generally assume control.” She paused. “No offense to your dad.”

“None taken. He was a good example of what not to grow up to be.”

“I had one of those, too. And I didn’t get fast food, either. We didn’t have the money to spend on a meal that runs right through you.”

Devon grimaced, the expression melting into a smile. “Gross.”

Charity laughed. “I cooked, mostly. Walt didn’t eat much, and my mom worked a lot. If you wanna eat, you gotta cook.”

“I should’ve learned, but now I just…hate it. I suck at it.”

Charity took a bite. “Marry a pretty girl that loves to wait on her man and you’re all set.”

Devon snorted but didn’t comment.

Lost to their own thoughts, they finished the rest of their meal in silence. After they finished, Devon led Charity down a long hall.

“Yours is here.” He motioned to the last door on the left. He dropped her duffel outside the door, already defining the space as hers, with the privacy to go along with it. It was reassuring. “I’m right across the hall in case…whatever. Boogeymen, I don’t know. I’ll show you the laundry room and whatnot tomorrow.”

“Great.” She picked up her duffel and walked into the room.

He watched her check it out. “Sheets are fresh. Well, they haven’t been slept in, anyway. Bathroom is clean.”

A sliding glass door led out to a patio draped in the black night. She peered into the enormous closet, which would probably fit a desk, and then noticed the door at the back of the room. “No way.” She pushed through it, and found herself in a bathroom bigger than her room back in Sam’s house. “I have my own bathroom?”

Devon grinned, sharing her delight. “I assume that’s okay?”

Beaming like a fool, she bobbed her head. “Sorry, but this is a first. Not having to get dressed to pee in the middle of the night will be a rare treat.”

His gaze drifted over her body. A spark of male hunger flashed in his eyes and was gone again so fast that she almost thought she’d imagined it. The next second, he wore his familiar scowl. “All right, get some sleep. Tomorrow night we’ll meet with the pack and hash out a plan.” He hesitated in the doorway, as if belatedly remembering that she wasn’t in his pack. “Are you going to work tomorrow? At the college?”

She bit her lip. “I haven’t decided. I don’t know that I want to get involved in all the stuff you have going on.”

His gaze bored into her. “Roger seems to think we need you. For that reason, I hope you’ll think about it. If you’re on the fence, I’m sure he’ll approve a trial period.”

“You don’t think you need me?”

“So far you’ve done nothing but cause havoc and get in the way. Call me jaded, but I doubt that’ll change.”

“Oh yay. Devon the Dick is back. And here I thought I was seeing a whole new you…”

He smirked, something he seemed to immediately regret based on how quickly he wrestled it off his lips. “Get some sleep. See you tomorrow. If you need me, I’m right across the hall.”

He closed her door with a soft click. His rotating moods were worse than PMS.

Charity chucked off her borrowed flip-flops and stared at the bed. She wanted to dive in, headfirst, and then sink into oblivion. But those groceries weren’t going to put themselves away, and she didn’t have the money to replace the perishable items.

Devon’s door was already closed. Absolute silence greeted her in the hallway. Stagnant silence, like when it was so quiet that a person’s ears made their own white noise.

Stepping lightly, trying not to disturb the deadened sound, she tiptoed down the hall. The darkness pressed on her. Dim moonlight filtered in through the windows, speckling the ground through the leaves outside. Shadows clawed toward her feet. Pools of night lurked in the corners and under furniture. Make-believe eyes watched as she passed.

Knowing this was all her imagination but unable to chase away the flashes of memory from the nightmare house, she hurried into the vast kitchen. She grabbed her paper bag of food, wincing at what seemed like a veritable shotgun blast of noise.

Ward or not, Charity couldn’t help but wonder—did the vampires know where she was? If Roger was right, she’d destroyed their plans. Were they out to get her?