“Nearly two o’clock,” Matias answered, and then raised his eyebrows. “Since you are awake, can I take you to breakfast?”
“Breakfast?” she asked with interest.
“It will get you away from the house and . . . him,” he said apologetically. “And it will give you a chance to clear your head.”
Beth smiled crookedly and shrugged. “That’s not necessary, Matias. I’ll be fine. I mean, I’m not the one who’s been running around aware that we’re life mates all this time. I thought I just had the lusties for him, so didn’t become emotionally involved. I’ll just continue to think of him that way.”
“Lusties?” Matias asked with amusement.
“That’s what Mary and I used to call it when we were attracted to a man,” she said with a small smile that faded as she recalled her friend Mary’s fate. These last ten years since the arrival of Ruff in her life, Beth had made a practice of finding the bright side of every event. For Mary, she’d told herself that at least her friend enjoyed a couple of years of her retirement before Jamieson had killed her, that at least her death had been quick. It might not seem like much, but Beth knew it was. She’d seen many mortals die slowly over the last century, fading away, suffering terribly over a long period of time as they struggled to live a life that no longer offered them anything but the pain of cancer or some other ailment. She was glad Mary hadn’t had to go through that.
“I will take the dogs and go so that you can dress,” Matias said and started to get off the bed, only to pause and turn to hug her tightly. “You are a good woman, Beth. If he cannot see that and accept you the way you are, it is his loss.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, hugging him back. “And you’re the best cousin a girl could ask for, Matias. The day Dree and her brother welcomed me into your family was the luckiest of my life.”
Matias squeezed her a little tighter, and then released her and got up.
“Chico, Piper, come,” he ordered, patting his hip as he headed for the door. The dogs immediately leapt off the bed and followed him out into the hall.
Nine
The moment the door closed behind Matias and the dogs, Beth threw her covers aside and got up as well. But then she just stood there, momentarily overwhelmed by all she’d learned. She was a possible life mate for Scotty, but he didn’t want her. How deep must his loathing be that he would pass up the chance of a life mate just because she was that life mate?
Wow. She had lived fifty years as a mortal, and only one hundred and twenty-five more as an immortal. That wasn’t even a quarter of his life, but Beth would have jumped at the chance of a life mate. Yet he didn’t want her.
For a moment anger and pain tried to drag at her, but she pushed it away and took a deep breath. As Matias had said, it was Scotty’s loss. She was a good woman, and she would make a good life mate . . . to someone else.
“They should have dating sites for immortals,” she muttered under her breath as she dragged a fresh pair of jeans out of her bag and began to pull them on. Maybe she’d start one. She could hire Marguerite, or someone like her, to interview all the immortals who joined and match them up.
Or maybe young Stephanie, Beth thought as she tugged off her overlarge T-shirt and then grabbed a bra from the bag and donned it. Drina said the kid had some skills in that area. Hell, she could hire both of them and halve the work for each. And she could call it iHarmony for Immortal Harmony.
The thought made her grin as she pulled on a clean T-shirt, but Beth shook her head. That sounded too much like an Apple product.
Immortally Yours, maybe? That one wasn’t bad. She’d have to think about it. Actually, she didn’t know why someone else hadn’t thought of it already. There were so many lonely immortals out there, waiting for a life mate.
Shaking her head, Beth rooted through the bag she’d collected from the bathroom on her way to her room last night and gathered her weapons belt and the small arsenal of weapons she’d brought with her. She made short work of fastening the belt around her waist and quickly filling all the custom holders. Her sword, knives, and a dart gun were quickly tucked away, and then she headed for the door, mentally preparing herself to face Scotty now that she knew the man was aware of the dreams she had about him.
The thought made her grimace. It was one thing to have sexual fantasies and dreams about a man when he didn’t know, and quite another for him to know exactly what you wanted to do to him behind closed doors . . . and what a screamer you were.
“You can do this,” Beth muttered under her breath. “You can’t waste your time worrying about a man who thinks himself better than everyone else. Just deal with him until tomorrow and then you’ll fly home and not have to deal with him anymore.”
Shoulders straight, she dragged the door open and marched out of her room.
Much to Beth’s relief, there was no one in the hall, and she made it to the bathroom without encountering anyone. She continued the inner lecture as she relieved herself, washed her hands and face, and then brushed her teeth and hair. Once she didn’t have anything else to do, she forced herself to continue on to the kitchen.
Beth heard the murmur of male voices before she reached the kitchen door and braced herself for what was to come, but it wasn’t as hard as she’d expected it to be. She supposed, in a way, while everything had changed, nothing had changed at all. She’d always been attracted to Scotty, and she’d always known he hated her or at least looked down on her. The only added factor here was that he was aware of the wild sexual fantasies she had about him. Oh well. He appeared to enjoy them too, so he couldn’t point fingers, Beth told herself firmly and entered as Donny said, “You’re kidding me. You’re a lawyer?”
“For fifty years,” Matias said with a nod as Beth strode to the coffee machine.
“Why are you in university, then?” Donny asked with confusion.
Matias shrugged. “I got bored and thought I would try something else.”
“What are you taking?” Donny asked.
“Right now I am taking general courses so I can see what interests me most.”
“Man,” Donny muttered. “I thought you were like twenty or something.”
“Seventy-five,” Matias corrected him.
“Matias, where do you keep your cups?” Beth asked before Donny could speak again. The coffee machine was the good old-fashioned drip kind, where a whole pot was made and not a cup, and the carafe was nearly full. Matias was the only one with coffee, Donny had a glass of water in front of him and there was an empty blood bag in front of Scotty.
“In the cupboard above the coffeepot,” Matias said helpfully.
“Thanks.” She opened the cupboard door, picked one of the dozen or so cups and poured coffee into it with a little sigh.
“Thank God you’re up,” Donny said into the silence. “We have to go out for breakfast, and then we have to go grocery shopping if we want lunch and supper.”