Angel Blood

36- Welcome Back

I've never been able to describe myself as mundane, but I guess there's a first for everything.

Besides the reoccurring night terrors, things are painfully ordinary. Sin disappears during the day for business and I sit at home and wait for him. Sometimes I go shopping, or take a walk around the block, or go to a café filled with humans and pretend I'm as normal as them. Besides having Theo or Oliver tag along, technically I can do whatever I want; spend as much of Sinclair's money as I need.

It was wonderful at first. Even with the angel bloods, I was never allowed far from Delia's side, and whatever extra wealth was there never found its way into our pockets. But after a while, even perpetually filling my days with extravagant materialism loses its charm. An incredibly prosaic problem I never thought I'd experience.

I sigh, leaning my head on the arm of the couch and slinging my legs over Oliver's lap. "I'm bored."

He moves to push my limbs away but I pull them away and smile cheekily at him before he has the chance. "If I'm being completely honest, I don't care."

"Well, you should." I say, then place my feet back on his thighs. "The more bored I am, the more I'm forced to annoy you for the sake of my own entertainment."

The glare he sends me would cause any right-minded person to freeze in their tracks but it only makes my smile widen. Having him constantly by my side over the past few weeks has taken the frightening edge off his scowl.

"Where should we go?" I say. The ugly expression on his face deepens but it only sends another trill of amusement through my chest. "Food? Are you hungry?"

"No," he says.

"Great." I sit up, making sure to drag my legs along his just to savor the extra spark of anger in his eyes as I rise. "How about Italian?"

...

"I think we're a tad underdressed."

Oliver shrugs, sitting back in his velvet cushioned chair and ignoring the suit-clad waiters that mill around the extravagant dining hall around us. "You wanted Italian. This is it."

"I was thinking more in terms of pizza so greasy it drips down your elbows," I say, glancing nervously at the well-dressed woman that sits at the table beside us as she rakes her eyes down my ripped jeans and oversized black sweater with a sneer. Even the paintings on the walls seem to mock me, the antique portraits of long-dead royalty seeming to look terribly unimpressed with the state of our presence. "How did they even let us in?"

Oliver's dark eyes graze the dark tail that peeks from out of my sleeve. "Take a wild guess."

"What kind of connections doesn't he have?" I murmur, tugging my sleeve down my hand. I wince as the fabric catches against the healing scab from where my stitches were taken out.

I try my best to pretend it's not there. Enjoy living something close to normal for the first time in my life.

But there are times like these, where it snags on my clothing or I'll accidentally brush my hand over the marred skin and I have no choice but to think about Sean's limp body and the overwhelming urge to attach myself to Sinclair each time he leaves in the morning. I swallow thickly, picking up the menu and forcing myself to study the array of strange sounding dishes.

"I have to be reading this wrong," I say disbelievingly as I flip through the pages. "There's no way a singular plate of pasta is a hundred dollars."

Oliver's eyes skim over my clothing as he raises an incredulous eyebrow. "There's no way you're complaining about prices while wearing that Versace-brand garbage."