“I will be glad to, ma chèrie, though your first request will be harder to fulfil.” JJ didn’t seem a smallest bit regretful about this. His eyes shone with bloodlust and anticipation. “I imagine you had guessed that he is a magical creature already…”

I frowned, touching the place where Andrey’s fingers scalded my arm with their touch earlier. “He was like a lightning on touch.”

JJ nodded. “I couldn’t agree more with your assessment, ma chèrie. Andrey’s aura is delightfully full of vigour. This is a telling feature of his kind.”

“What kind?” I grew impatient with JJ’s beating around the bush. “Tell me!”

“He is a shapeshifter, or wereanimal, as they are also called. Werewolf, if I may guess.” He gave Andrey’s wolf T-shirt a pointed glance.

I looked at it too. Now that I thought about it, Andrey liked wolf paraphernalia as long as I knew him, but I thought little of it. Wolves are magnificent animals, even without all the romanticising so popular in novellas. Though, in my opinion, dragons were waaay better.

But considering Andrey’s true nature, his love of wolves grew a new meaning. The question was, for how long did he hide it from me? A part of me hoped it was just a coincidence. Maybe he was once a normal guy who loved wolves, and then one just bit him. Or maybe he was even bigger jerk than I thought.

“Is it true that lycanthropy is contagious, JJ?” I asked, hating the hopeful edge in my voice.

He stared at me for a second, a hunger in his eyes giving way to a gaze that held centuries of experience in it. “No. All shapeshifters have at least one of their kind amongst their ancestors. They don’t gain an ability to turn before puberty, but it’s extremely rare to meet a shifter who grew without a family to teach him what he is.”

I sucked in a breath as my fists clenched in an influx of anger. How could Andrey just keep silent about a secret like this? If I didn’t break up with him before, I’d do it now. How could he keep telling me about his devotion and keep silent about such a huge thing? Didn’t he trust me with that secret?

“Now, now, ma chèrie,” JJ murmured in a calming rumble. He stepped up to me and lifted his arms, only to drop them a moment later with a sigh and a wry grin. “Ah, sometimes your reaction to my touch is truly inconvenient.”

I chuckled, my anger abating a little at the sight of JJ’s discomfort. It was good that he kept his distance with his fingers, though. If it were me… I would’ve poked him so much, just to watch him squirm. It was funny even now.

“Alright, then, what else is true? I assume the myth that werewolves—”

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“Shapeshifters. There are many more breeds of them than just wolves, and they all are part of the same kin,” JJ corrected.

“—that shapeshifters and vampires are mortal enemies?”

“We are, indeed. My kind had hunted his for centuries, I’m afraid. As I mentioned, their kind is delightfully… deliciously full of vigour. Of life.” JJ walked up to Andrey again and began to circle him with slow, soundless gait, never looking away from his neck. Like a shark that smelled a weakness. “A single sip of his blood as revitalising as drinking a human dry. To have my fill would go a long way towards helping me return to full health…”

From my point of view, JJ looked kinda healthy for a vampire. Maybe sallow cheeks were a part of his genetics. Apparently not. I looked at the helpless Andrey and bit my lip, torn between anger and aversion I had for the idea of letting JJ feed on someone I actually knew.

If I ever knew Andrey, that is. I didn’t know he was a shapeshifter. What else did he hide?

Suddenly, I felt unsure about anything. JJ liked to act all mysterious and tight-lipped, but I always thought that he at least answered honestly when I thought to ask him. Now, what if he lied, too? Tricked me for some nefarious purposes, or whatever?

I grit my teeth, forcing the thought far, far away from my mind. It was pointless to think this way. Call me too trustful, but I couldn’t live constantly questioning people’s motives. I just had no mental capacity for it.

“Well, that’s lucky for you then, JJ,” I finally said, picking pragmatism and small vengeance against my discomfort. “I mean, dinner just came right into your hands. Next time you meet Andrey, don’t even ask me.”

JJ stopped in his movements. Now he stood behind Andrey’s slouched shoulders. He leaned over the man and slowly slid his hands on his shoulders, giving me a wicked smirk over his head. “How generous of you, ma chèrie. I’m most grateful.”

The sight of them, light and dark, predator and prey, the winner and the defeated, made dirty things with my insides. It was beautiful and sinful, but the forbidden fruit is an even more alluring one. I wanted to take my camera and make a picture of them. It would fit right next to the Renaissance paintings I was selling.

“And it will help me accomplish your request,” JJ continued. “Since I can’t use my normal means for it.”

I frowned. It took me a moment for enough blood to come from my lower stomach into my brain that I realised what JJ was talking about. “You can’t? But you just hypnotised him.”

“Sadly, while I can charm Andrey with enough ease, shapeshifters shrug off any hypnosis as soon as they change their form. Even without it, it doesn’t stick to them as well as it does to humans. I can drive him away from you for a week, but a week is barely a long enough, is it?”

I scowled. “Eternity would be too short for that damn stalker.”

“A stalker?” JJ inclined his head in confusion. “He doesn’t seem like the one to stalk. Is it another modern expression?”

“Yeah, it means someone who follows people, peeps on them and stuff like that.” I stuck my hands in the pockets of my pants, now uncomfortable, but, well. If I wanted JJ’s protection, I had to tell him about what happened. “He’s been pestering me with SMSs for a while, actually, and came for me to Teremok yesterday…”

JJ’s eyes sparkled with an emotion I couldn’t name. His fingers flexed and tightened on Andrey’s shoulders, but he didn’t even flinch in his daze.

“I see,” JJ said, his voice empty and cold, the tone that I’ve never heard from him before. The tone that chilled me like his touch did. He looked at Andrey. “Worry not about it, Diana. There are other means of making sure he won’t pester you any longer.”