by Mara Leigh
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Colton touches my shoulder, and I jump.
“Sorry.” He lifts his hands up, palms forward.
“No.” I touch his leg lightly. “I didn’t mean to be jumpy. It’s just that…” I consider how much to tell him. “This is my friend. My friend from when I was living on the streets. This is Lark.”
His eyes open wide. “Your friend was killed by a vampire?”
I nod.
“I knew it.” His eyes fill with tears and he takes my hand.
“Knew what?” My breath stalls in my chest.
“I knew you and I had something important in common. We both had loved ones murdered by vampires. It’s so hard, isn’t it?”
I look down. My throat is choked closed like I’m about to cry but I know tears will never come. I wish they would.
“I finally get why you’re so interested in my work.” Colton slowly closes the file and slides it away. “If it’s any comfort, your friend wasn’t tortured by the serial killer. The timing of her murder falls into the right time period, but she didn’t have the mark, and her autopsy was thorough enough to be sure of that.”
I want to look through more of these files. I want to ask more questions. I want to see if I recognize any of the serial killer’s victims or notice something about the murder locations. Did she drain any others in the same alley where she attacked me?
And even more than that, I want to stay here with Colton. I want to drink tea and eat cookies and get back the warm tingly feelings I felt earlier. But I can’t think straight right now and all those great feelings have been contaminated by pain and grief and the guilt I’ve fought to keep buried.
When I opened Lark’s file, everything bad burst out of the cage where I store it and devoured my happy feelings of connection and safety.
But even if I could get back to how I felt before opening that file, it would be a mistake. It’s dangerous that I’m so comfortable—verging on confessional—around Colton.
I’ve told him things no one else knows. A chilling thought races through me. Maybe this is all an interrogation technique to get me to confess what I am.
I set the mug down and bend forward, gripping my head in my hands as sobs build inside me, threatening to erupt. I want to cry, I want to let it all escape, but don’t want to let Colton see that I don’t shed tears.
I don’t need to lay out any clues for this cop. At some point he’s going to figure out the truth, and when he does, he’ll try to kill me—and my survival instincts won’t let him. I’m terrified at the knowledge that I might kill Colton before he can kill me.
I don’t want anything bad to happen to Colton, and around me bad things are pretty much guaranteed.
Colton softly rests his hand on my back. “You okay? Can I—”
I leap up from the sofa and stagger toward the door. “What time is it? I’ve got to go. Thanks for the tea, but I lost track of the time.”
He stands and follows, keeping a respectful distance. “I’ll walk you home.”
I shake my head.
“Then I’ll call you a ride.”
“It’s not necessary.” I hold the doorknob to his apartment, trying to keep it together, trying to hide all the things that I’m feeling.
“I’m sorry I upset you.” He rakes his hand through his hair. “I knew I shouldn’t have shown you those files.”
“That’s not it. It was seeing my friend…” I shake my head. “Her photo. The memories…”
“I get it.” He reaches toward me. “As someone who’s lost a loved one to those monsters, I totally understand.”
I look down to the ridged black doormat, avoiding his face, certain he’d see the truth in my eyes.
“I’d like to look at the files again,” I tell him, “but not tonight. I can’t… I’ve got to go.” I open the door.
He steps up behind me. “Selina. It’s the middle of the night. I am not letting you go on your own.”
“I can take care of myself.” Plus, Astrid is nearby. I can almost guarantee it. But I certainly can’t tell Colton that.
“Even if you can handle yourself.” He pulls out his phone. “I’m calling for a ride. What’s your friend’s address?”
I take a deep breath. Revealing Gray’s address to a cop is something I cannot do. I give him the address of the warehouse where we trained before Pike took me, the only other address I can think of right now.
“Is that place residential?” He frowns as he enters the information in his app.
“It’s a loft.”
“Okay…” He nods. “The driver’s close. Just a block away. He’ll be out front in two minutes.”
“Great. Thanks.” I wrap my arms around Colton and hug him tightly, loving the sound of his heart, the heat of his chest, the promise of power in the muscled strength of him.
I want to hold on to him forever, to live here in his arms and forget all the horrible secrets I can’t tell him. But with every ounce of willpower inside me, I let go, open his door and run out into the night.
Chapter 21
Gray
The front door opens, and I vault from the foyer up to the second floor landing, hoping to hide the fact that I’ve been waiting at the door for Selina’s arrival. I’m starting to need her like darkness.
But instead of Selina, Rock comes through the door and closes it behind him.
“Where is she?” I ask him.
“Are you telling me she’s not home yet?” Looking up toward me, he slams both fists against his thick chest. “Feck!”
I jump back down to the main floor, landing directly in front of him. “Why isn’t she with you?”
He shakes his head. “Astrid is with her.”
“Where did they go?” I walk into the living room and drop to the overstuffed sofa. I can hear the front door from here, ready for when Selina walks through.
“She wanted to talk to that cop.”
“What?” I get right in the giant’s face. As close as I can get to in his face with my feet on the floor. I’m six two, but Rock…I’d guess he’s got more than a foot on me.
“Why the fuck did you let her go off with a cop?” I want to smash his face, rip out his throat, drain the life from his body.
“She was pretty determined.” The giant man paces across my living room, making everything shake. “What would you want me to do? Hold her captive? Make a scene in public?” He stomps forward, then lifts his hands to his head. “I should have stopped her.”
I steady a porcelain vase sitting on a pedestal next to the fireplace. “Fuck, Rock. This is a Ming vase.”
He sits on the chintz sofa that I hate, and the legs strain from his weight. I hate the Ming vase too, but right now I hate Rock even more.
“Astrid promised she’d keep her safe,” he says, his voice strained, “but Astrid’s not answering her phone.” He puts his head in his hands.
“That’s not like Astrid.” I’m pissed at Rock, sure, but now I’m genuinely scared. Selina could be in real danger. If the cop figured out what she is, she could already be dead. Maybe Astrid too?
Dread floods my body, starting in my stomach and quickly drowning my wits. My head feels like it’s about to explode with fear and dark thoughts. I can barely hear or see anything around me.
I want to smash everything in the room and then impale myself on a stake.
The huge weight of failing in my sacred duty to find her feels minor compared to the thought of never seeing her again, never holding her, never telling her how I feel.
“Shit, Rock,” I yell. “Why the hell did you let her go off on her own like that? With a human? A cop no less? What the fuck were you thinking?”
Rock shakes his head where it’s cradled in his hands. He’s scared too. Hurting. I don’t give a shit.
“I can’t believe you let her out of your sight, you incompetent fuck! She should never, ever be left alone.”
“Excuse me?”
I spin toward the entr
ance. “Selina!”
In a microsecond she’s enveloped in my arms, my nose buried in the silky hair next to her throat, but through my intense relief, I realize that she’s not hugging me back. Her body is rigid, almost like she finds my embrace repulsive.
Releasing my tight hold, I step back, hands on her shoulders so I can look into her eyes. “I was so scared,” I tell her.
“We both were.” Rock takes a house-shaking step forward. “I never should have let you go with him.”
My anger toward Rock returns, and I point at him. “That is the last time I leave her alone with you.”
She backs away from me and my arms fall to my sides.
“I can’t believe you two.” The anger in her eyes is so clear I feel it. “What I do, and where I go, and who I speak to…” Her voice is shaking. “It’s not up to you—either of you.”
Fists have formed at her sides and for perhaps the first time I see the powerful vampire she’s become and hints of her still-untapped potential.
“I can make my own choices,” she says forcefully. “I need to make my own choices.”
Rock approaches. “Yes, but—”
“But nothing!” She holds up her hands, and he stops.
“We just want to protect you. If anything happened…” My voice catches, and I look down to the patterned Persian rug at my feet.
“Look.” Her voice is gentler now. “I get it. I’d be devastated if anything happened to either of you. But you can’t be with me 24/7. If I don’t have any freedom…” She takes one of my hands, then takes one of Rock’s too.
With the three of us joined like this, Selina the glue between us, I feel happier than I ever thought possible. It’s such huge ricochet from my earlier fear that I feel dizzy.
“I get that you want to keep me safe,” she says, “but there’s a limit. I didn’t escape from Xavier and Pike to be prisoner to either of you.”
“My prisoner…” I growl in her ear. “That sounds kind of fun. Or maybe you’d like to hold me prisoner one night.” The thought of that turns me instantly hard. But I could never take Selina into my bedroom, not after what she went through. I don’t even want her to see it, which is why it remains locked.
“Gray.” Fighting a grin, Selina shakes her head. “I’m serious about this.”
“I know, princess. I know.”
“And I’m tired.”
Rock drops her hand and slides his arm over her shoulders. “Let’s go to bed.”
I put my arm around her waist. “Maybe she wants to come with me.” I’ll take her to one of the empty guest rooms.
She steps forward, out of both of our holds, then turns to face us. “I meant it when I said I was tired. I’m sleeping on my own tonight.”
Chapter 22
Selina
I’m in a strange place, confused, as hatred and hunger pulse in my veins. Earthy scents of decaying leaves and flowers meld with the damp night air, and I’m desperate for a landmark, something to give me a clue where I am, but for some reason I can’t control where my vision lands. It moves from a paved path, to a stone wall, to grass, to gravestones.
A cemetery. I’m in a cemetery. Why?
My fingers flash before my eyes, as if beckoning for someone to follow, but although the gesture was in my vision, they weren’t my fingers. They were someone else’s.
A young woman passes under a Victorian-style lamppost, and her blond hair catches the amber-tinted light.
“A cemetery?” she asks. “At night? This seems sketchy,”
“It’s a shortcut,” I tell her.
I’m sure that I’m speaking, and while the voice is familiar, it’s not my normal voice.
“Just through here,” I say. “Totally worth it. It’s the best underground club in the city. It’s where all the movie and TV stars go when they’re in town filming. But if you’re too scared…”
“No, I’m good.” Putting on a brave face the young woman follows me and I lead her deeper into the cemetery.
We pass a mausoleum. Grabbing her shoulders, I slam her up against the damp granite wall, then sink my fangs into her throat.
She cries out, in pain then in pleasure, as her hot, sweet liquid flows from her body into mine.
I’ve never felt so powerful, so in control as I drain the life from this woman.
No! I fight against myself, wanting to stop. I’m determined—desperate—to release my fangs from this woman, but I can’t. I don’t want to kill. Not ever again.
I fight against myself, but at the same time I feel like it’s not me I’m fighting. Is this some monstrous version of myself? Something I keep deep inside that got released when reminded of Lark?
Feeling more conscious, I suspect that I’m caught in a dream, but it’s so much more vivid than a dream.
I’m not asleep, but I can’t wake. And I can’t stop drinking this girl’s blood, even as the flow slows and becomes harder to draw.
Stop! I tell myself. Please stop. You’ll kill her!
A warm hand lands on my shoulder and shakes me. But it’s not the woman’s hand; she’s dead, and the hand is too big, too heavy.
“Selina. Wake up. Wake up.” A familiar male voice slides into my dream.
There’s a witness to my crime! Someone will know my deep shame. Who is it? The only person I can see is the limp girl in my arms, dying beneath my fangs.
“Princess,” another male voice says, and a hand cups my face. “You’re having a nightmare.”
My eyes snap open. My own eyes.
My chest heaves as I try to catch my breath and get back to reality. I’m back in my own body. In a bed. In a guest room in Gray’s house.
Gray slides into the bed on my left and strokes my face as my body trembles. “You’re okay,” he says gently. “It’s over.”
The bed dips on the other side, and Rock’s in bed with me too.
“Acushla.” He slides his arm under my neck and shoulders, and I turn to snuggle into Rock’s chest, resting my fingers on soft hair covering hard muscles.
“You’re safe.” His deep voice seeps into me. “You’re okay.”
Gray’s body presses against my back, and I’m sandwiched between the two men on the bed, their bodies surrounding mine. I’ve never felt so safe and it’s such a sharp contrast to my nightmare.
Gray’s hand rests on my body and gently caresses, stroking up and down over my hip and thigh and up to my ribs, his touch tender and innocent, like he’s soothing a child.
My mouth is dry and my heart beats wildly from the nightmare. But I’m safe, and I can’t imagine feeling more protected, more nurtured, more loved.
Still, I hate that I had a second nightmare involving a murder. The graphic details in the files at Colton’s—Lark’s lifeless body as stark photographic evidence of my crime—dredged my guilt up to the surface and conjured the dream.
I hope that’s what it was. I shiver.
Rock pulls me closer and Gray’s hand strokes down my side, over my back and hip.
“Shhh, princess,” Gray says. “You’re safe. Just sleep now.”
But I’m not sure I can sleep. The dream was so vivid it felt like I was really there. Like I was killing that young woman, a woman just like the ones the serial killer targets.
“Do vampires ever have psychic connections?” I ask Gray. “Let’s say, with their Maker?”
“Nah. That’s just in books and movies. Most vampires can’t affect anyone’s mind beyond our venom taking a human’s memory of a feeding.”
“Most vampires.”
His fingers caress my arm. “All vampires. Okay, almost all. Some of the Ancients possess unique powers, and there are rumors of others, but powers like that are extremely rare and developed over millennia.”
“What about a vampire invading someone’s dreams?”
“Princess.” He pushes up onto one arm and strokes my hair. “You were dreaming. Just dreaming.”
“Acushla,” Rock adds. “You’re safe here with us.”
I nod. Seeing Lark’s file, discovering a connection between my Maker and the serial killer, all the stress I’ve been under… All those factors piled on to mess with my mind and give me the vivid nightmares.
Gray is right: the nightmare meant nothing. And Rock is right too: I am safe.
Engulfed in their arms, sandwiched between the two men I care for so deeply, I drift back to sleep.
Selina
I wake, warm and comfortable, and buried under what I assume is heavy bedding, but I soon realize it’s the heat and weight coming from Rock and Gray’s bodies around me.
“You’re awake.” Rock smiles at me, my cheek resting on his fuzzy warm chest.
From behind, Gray kisses my shoulder.
I stretch, and my ass brushes against an unmistakable pulsing hardness. I shift my ass and his hand slides onto my belly for leverage as he presses his erection against me.
“Oh, princess.” He groans. “I could get used to waking up next to you. My cock could, anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever woken up so hard.” He growls the words low against my ear, but he must know Rock can hear him.
I look up into Rock’s eyes, but he doesn’t look jealous, or angry. Instead, he looks at me lovingly, heat filling his eyes too.
Rock’s hand slides under the thin T-shirt I wore to bed and cups my breast. His thick calloused thumb brushes over my nipple, and instantly it’s hard and so sensitive my sex squeezes as if Rock’s hand is there instead of on my chest.
Breaking eye contact with me, Rock nods, clearly looking at Gray who’s still grinding his erection against my ass.
“Acushla,” Rock murmurs. “If you desire…” His hand drifts from my breast and slides between my legs.
I groan as his thick finger parts my wetness, and I shift one leg over Rock’s body to give his hand better access. Gray shifts too, keeping his erection against me.
“If I desire what?” My voice is breathy and catches.
