Page 26 of Blood Moon Bound

She shook her head. “There’s something else.”

“Did he say what we have to do?”

“No, but I don’t think I’m going to like it. The other night I got angry with Rainer. I do all the talking and he says nothing, just clenches his jaw all the time. So I did the same and stopped talking, refusing when he demanded I speak again.”

Ana’s eyes widened. “What did he say?”

“He said he should just throw me over his desk and take me, just mate and get it over with before he loses his damned mind,” she said, dropping her voice an octave lower, in an imitation of Rainer, I assumed.

“What does that even mean? Take you?”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I don’t know, but he spent hours in the pool swimming lengths after that. So I put on my bathing suit and went to say sorry, and he growled…” She leaned in. “Then kissed me.”

My belly flipped. “He kissed you?”

“Yes.”

“Have you kissed Stefan?” I asked Ana.

Ana nodded, a shy smile curling her lips. “Has Constantine kissed you yet?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. What’s it like? Did you…like it?”

“Oh yes,” Ana said. “It was lovely.”

“I’m happy to just stick with kissing. I’m not interested in whatever taking me entails,” Lucinda said.

“Lucinda,” a male voice growled out.

Her eyes went wide. Rainer stood behind us. None of us had heard him approach. Males as old as they were could move impossibly quick and utterly silent. He held out his hand.

“Are we going somewhere?” Lucinda asked.

“Yes,” he said, and his voice sounded like Constantine’s often did, all deep and rough.

She stood and took his hand, and he led her from the room.

I stayed with Ana and talked. Constantine and Stefan seemed deep in conversation.

When Lucinda finally returned, she was flushed, and she didn’t come back to us right away. Rainer kept her by his side.

“Do you think she’s okay?” Ana asked.

“I don’t know. She doesn’t look upset.” Her lips were all puffy, her dress was rumpled, and her hair was disheveled. “She’s smiling.”

We stayed at Rainer’s house for several more hours, and when Lucinda finally came back to us, she told us Rainer had taken her upstairs and thoroughly kissed her. I think there was more, but she didn’t say, and I wondered if he touched her like Constantine had touched me while I fed last night.

When we were heading home, Constantine shifted in his seat, his focus coming to me. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

“I did.”

“Did you like talking to the other females?”

“Yes, is that why you took me with you?”

“One of the reasons.”

He didn’t say what the other reasons were, and I didn’t ask. All I cared about was that I had friends, for the first time in my life. “Will we get to meet the others?”