An hour ago, I did tell Petey I was going to drop it. Yet when Cheekbones breaks down the door, I get distracted. This is because the first thing he does is stride over, grab the front of my shirt, and kiss the living life out of me.

"Wow," I say, lips stinging. That's one way to make an impression. My fingers curl around the loops at the front of his jeans. "Welcome back."

"You need to leave now." Cheekbones is breathing heavy. It's either from the adrenaline or our mutual thirst for the fine art of first base. "You're not safe here."

"It's a morgue," I say, trying to get another kiss. "I'm very safe." He keeps me away, to my disappointment.

"You need to leave now," Cheekbones repeats. "There's orders to hunt you down if you don't get out of town before your ultimatum." His voice grows grim. "Some of the Pack have already decided they're not going to wait until then."

I try to imagine how I'd feel about an entire pack of werewolves wanting to corner me in a dark alleyway. Sudden inappropriate thoughts of terrible stereotyping and tight-clothing fill my mind. "Is that right?"

The only sign he's heard my heartbeat is a dramatic deep and dark scowl. "I can't let you die." His hands tighten on my hoodie. He clears his throat. "I won't. If I have to, I'll die with you."

I stare at this werewolf who has defied our two warring households both alike in dignity to commit to a death pact I didn't ask for.

I blush.

"So that...dying together thing means you'll be here with me until the end if I don't?" His eyes widen at me, hands loosening. I backtrack. "I mean, hypothetically. If I leave town, would you come with me?"

Cheekbones's expression crumbles. "I can't." He grimaces. His eyes lower. "I shouldn't even be here. I shouldn't have even kissed you."

"I'm a big decision," I comfort, soothing on the outside. On the inside, my romantic aspirations of finding a date that isn't listed in an obituary shatter into a million pieces. "Don't worry about it."

I withdraw, only for an anxious Cheekbones to grab my war-torn hoodie again with greater force and yank me flush to him.

"I do want to be here." He takes a deep breath. "I--" His eyebrows furrow. "I--" He wrinkles his nose. "Oh...wow, I--" He makes a face and plonks said face down into my hoodie. "What's that smell?" he asks, voice muffled.

I glance behind me. The dead body on the table, as it appears, is not at all conductive to a touching moment when it matters. "The obvious answer. Surprised you held out for that long."

"I got distracted," Cheekbones protests. He's sulking. "And I'm serious. About being with you."

We're kind of moving fast for two people who made out in an alleyway and got caught by his mom. Then again, Romeo and Juliet took four days to meet, have sex, and die. Three days shouldn't be that hard.

"I believe you." I try to think if I have enough silver nails to incapacitate his entire family in self-defence before I die an untimely death. My fingers slide up his nape and scratch at the roots of his very nice hair. He huffs into my shirt and against my collarbone, appeased. Distracted, I carry on with the motion. "You said earlier you could help?"

"I was going to offer you Pack resources," Cheekbones mumbles. "But then, my mom held the meeting, so--"

"Your Anti-Hip Gyrations Werewolf Mom's the Pack Alpha?" Talk about future awkward family dinners during the major holidays. Cheekbones grunts. "That must suck."

"Didn't get easier after high school," he confesses. Cheekbones keeps standing there. Even being taller than me by half-a-head, he seems happy with his nose where it is. "I was in college in another town for a while but I had to come back because she threatened to kill my entire dorm."

"Huh," I say. "Can't say I wouldn't have found that hard to work with either." I also can't say I relate. Raising a bunch of dead people for work is about the sum of my ambitions.

Cheekbones sighs, tension slipping from his shoulders, a solid weight against my body. "You don't know the half of it," he says.

"Well. Unplug your nose and c'mere. I've got something to show you."

Reluctant, he straightens. The drawn back lips tell me he's unhappy but his obedience tells me he's curious. "What is it?"

For necromancers, an autopsy report is our version of a toy catalogue description. "This guy here is John Doe. Aged 17. Coroner notes that he was in the middle of some very, very important business. If you ask me, his body was very likely screaming for him to beat his pulse instead."

Cheekbones mouths out "beat his pulse" in confusion before he snorts. Then, sobering, he happens to glance down at the report in my hand. "Is...is that legal?"

"Euphemisms? A healthy libido?"

"No, I mean, you having the report of someone you're not related to."

"This isn't interesting to you?"

Cheekbones's eyebrows furrow. "The...cause of death being desperate masturbation?"

I lift the folder and tap the back on the side of my neck. "Give the deceased a whiff here and tell me what you think."

He wrinkles his nose. "Do I have to?" Cheekbones, though, is a good boy. With a pinched face, he leans in and sniffs. "Oh...that's bad." Then his expression changes. "Oh." He looks at me, uncertain. "Are you going to-?"

"Nah. We don't touch vampire dead." I study the puncture holes on the jugular. I pull the sheet back over the guy's head. "But I've just found a lead for my bloody unsanitary napkin."

"Y-your what?"

As I explain the situation to my bewildered guest, Cheekbones watches me push the body back into one of the drawers, and then return the autopsy report. Ears pink and sheepish, he also helps me lift the door back onto its hinges.

"Sorry," Cheekbones says, clearing his throat after a bit. "For uh. Running in here and ruining your investigation."

"Don't sweat it." Cheekbones stares back at me, expression hesitant, waiting for me to say more. "Uh... Sorry we kissed in front of a dead body?"

He looks confused. "Why would I have a problem with that?"

"Ethics? Morality? Our obvious fluctuating levels of them both?" Nothing. "Eau de dead people?"

Cheekbones frowns until it looks like a pout. That's illegal, Mister. "You smell better than dead bodies," he says finally. "You smell good. You smell like I've been waiting all my life to be with you."

"Me too." I really do mean it. "And I haven't even resurrected your cold, dead body yet."

Cheekbones huffs out a laugh. He grins lopsided at me and punts down the locked door to the office. "After you."