by Lexi Blake
I pushed myself off the fine leather and managed to straighten my now ruined dress before Daniel hopped in the front seat and decided to see if the car really could go zero to sixty in ten seconds flat. It seemed the commercials didn’t lie about that feature. I heard cars honking as Daniel blew through a red light.
“Hey!” I yelled as I hit the leather upholstery a second time. “You don’t have to drive like a bat out of hell.”
“I have to get you out of here. They just tried to kill you, Zoey.” His words were tight. I could see through the rearview mirror that his whole face was locked in an angry expression.
“Does it really surprise you? You’ve been saying you want to kill me for years.” For some reason it all seemed funny at that moment. It was completely ridiculous. I laughed at the silliness of the situation. I was a second tier thief at best, but it looked like I had just hit the big time. People don’t hire assassins unless you’re doing something right. I suppose it was the adrenaline rush hitting me, but I couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up.
“Don’t you joke about this.” Daniel’s order cracked through the car. I stopped laughing because Danny hadn’t yelled at me like that in years. Since his return, he was exquisitely controlled. He never raised his voice, preferring to use a quiet, condescending tone to show his anger. “Those three tried to kill you, and if Neil and I hadn’t been there, they probably would have succeeded.”
I noticed the conspicuous absence of credit for Dev’s help but chose not to argue. He was right. This was serious, and we needed to talk about it. “We don’t know they wanted to kill me. They just wanted you to hand me over.”
“They weren’t inviting you to a tea party, Z,” Daniel spat back as he roughly turned the car toward downtown. My apartment was the other way. I was surprised we were going to his place. He had to be really worried to take me to his apartment. “You’re bleeding. You’re injured. This is out of control, and tomorrow night we’re going to fix it.”
“It’s just a little scratch, and it’s stopped bleeding. I’m fine. Shouldn’t we figure out why they wanted me in the first place?” I decided not to point out that we might have been able to answer that question had Daniel not been so quick to kill the lion.
“I know why they wanted you. The only difference between tonight and yesterday when no one was trying to hurt you is that contract with Halfer. It all goes back to that box the demon wants us to steal. Halfer didn’t bother to mention there were other interested parties. There’s something wrong here. He’s keeping something from us, and it will only get worse. You can bet that those assholes were just the first wave. Whoever is behind it will use something worse next time. You’re leaving town in the morning.”
“No, I’m not!” Now I was yelling. “Unless you intend to drug me and force me onto a plane, I really don’t see what you can do about it.”
Daniel didn’t answer, and I knew that he wasn’t above doing just that. I was going to have to do some serious work during the day to get him off my back because I was done letting Daniel force his will on me. I hadn’t let him push me around when we were together, and I was done letting him do it now.
We drove the rest of the way to Daniel’s apartment in perfect silence. There was no point in telling him I wanted to go home. He was right, and I wasn’t stubborn enough to argue. His complex had actual security since it housed three vampires and had room for visitors. The Council supplied a security team, and the place was warded against unwanted supernatural creatures. Daniel pulled the car into the parking garage and slid it into his space.
I got out and followed him silently into the elevator. He was just trying to protect me, but his interference in my life was starting to chafe. Meeting Dev was a turning point. Dev was someone I could really like.
In a perfect world, there would be no need for a Dev. Daniel and I would be happy, and Dev would just be another hot guy. But Daniel had changed, and he didn’t want that life anymore, at least not with me. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. And I wasn’t sure who I was really angry at—Daniel or myself.
The elevator doors closed, and Daniel punched the number of the floor he wanted. The vampires all lived in below ground apartments for obvious reasons. It was too easy to accidentally open a window and let a stray beam of light burn the hell out of a sleeping vampire. I knew all of this in theory only as I’d never been invited past the lobby of the building before. I didn’t know this private garage existed, and it made me feel the weight of the distance between us more than ever. His life was a secret to me, and he wanted to keep it that way. I could feel his anger at having to bring me here. I resented it with all my heart.
“Look, I don’t want to taint your precious bat cave with my presence,” I bit out. “I’ll go up to the lobby and call my father. He’ll be thrilled that I was almost killed by assassins. It plays into his every paranoid fantasy. His house is secure.”
“Shut up, Zoey.” Daniel’s back was to me, and I snapped. The least he owed me was to look my way when he insulted me. Maybe I was stubborn enough to argue.
“I don’t have to take this crap from you anymore, Daniel. I’m not your girlfriend. I’m not your daughter. Hell, as far as I can tell, I’m not even your friend. I’m not your responsibility and I don’t take orders from you, so I’m going to Dad’s. You can go to hell.”
“I’d like to see you try, sweetheart,” Daniel said.
“Try what?”
Daniel turned around, and I took a step back. His fangs were fully out, and his eyes had turned from ordinary blue to a deep, rich sapphire color. The irises bled out, coating his whole eye in that unnatural color. He looked like a gorgeous predator, and he was completely alien to me. “I’d like to see you try to get away from me.”
The door opened, breaking our tension. A man stood in the hallway, waiting on the elevator. He wore a stylish blazer over a silk dress shirt and tailored slacks. His wardrobe was almost identical to Daniel’s, though he didn’t have bloodstains on his white dress shirt. It even looked like he shopped at the same shoe store. I knew instinctively this was a vampire and they followed a dress code. The man started to greet Daniel, but he took one look at me and suddenly Daniel wasn’t the only one with fangs.
I felt like the last cupcake in a room full of hungry kids.
Daniel didn’t hesitate. He walked straight out of the elevator, took the man by the throat, and shoved him high against the wall. He held the man a good three feet off the floor. His feet twitched as Daniel squeezed.
“Don’t you even look at her, Michael.” His hand tightened around Michael’s throat. “If you so much as think about her, I will rip your head off with my bare hands. Do you understand?”
“Damn it, Dan,” the vampire named Michael managed to squeak out. “I was just going upstairs for a newspaper. I’m not trying to hit on anyone, but look at her. I can’t help it…she’s…she’s…”
“Mine,” Daniel said, squeezing so tight I thought for a minute I was going to get to see the aforementioned beheading. “She’s mine.” Daniel released his hold on Michael who clutched his throat, checking for damage. “Get out of here.”
Michael obliged, and Daniel practically tossed me through the door of his apartment. I stumbled across the threshold. He threw the door closed, and I heard a series of locks being bolted. He turned back to me, and I could see none of his rage had been spent on Michael. I complained that he was an emotionless robot, but he didn’t look like one now. I admit I wasn’t the foremost authority on vampires. They tend to be secretive. However, if I knew one thing about them, it is that you shouldn’t piss them off.
“You want to know why I don’t bring you here? That’s why, Zoey.” He motioned to the hall outside. “I don’t want you walking around here like an open-all-night diner. That was Michael. He was born in 1892 and died during World War I. He’s quite the player. Do you know how many women he’s gone through? Do you know how many ended up in the hospital because he ‘loved’ th
em? Don’t even get me started on Alexander. I’ve thought about staking him myself just so I can sleep all day. I think he might have been Jack the Ripper. Do you have any idea what he would do with you?”
“I think I can guess.” Given what I knew about Jack the Ripper, it probably wouldn’t be pleasant.
Daniel brought his fist down on his kitchen table. It cracked in two. “This isn’t a joke! This is your life. Goddamn it, what is it going to take for you to be serious? What has to happen to get you to take me seriously?”
It was easy to fall back into old habits. Daniel rarely lost his temper before, but when he did, he could be volcanic. I’d found that staying calm was my best bet. I didn’t want to add fuel to his fire, so I kept my voice even and patient. “I take you seriously, Daniel. I’ve spent years waiting for you because I love you. I haven’t wasted my youth because I thought you were a laugh.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it. When are you going to see the threat I pose, Zoey?” His voice was slightly calmer now.
This was the same excuse he gave me when he returned from France. He was too big a threat to be trusted. He was a killer by nature, and I should keep my distance, watch my back…blah, blah, blah. “Daniel, I don’t care what the stupid Council told you. I trust you. I will always trust you.”
“You wouldn’t if you knew what I want to do to you.” He groaned as he reached out and pulled me close. I slammed against him, and he was hard everywhere. It felt so good. I sighed and let my arms slide around his waist. I breathed in his scent, and though I knew it was a trick of my memory, he smelled like the old Daniel. Everything about him seemed like home. The tension of the day melted away as I just let myself feel him.
Daniel ran a hand through my hair and pulled my head back, forcing me to look into his eyes. It was a part of the new Daniel he couldn’t hide. He wanted me to understand that he wasn’t human anymore. “Do you have any idea what you look like to me now? You’re so fucking bright. I want your light. I want it so bad. I want to take you, and I want to feed, Zoey. I want to drink until I have my fill, and then I want to fuck you, sweetheart. I want to fuck you so long and so hard you’ll forget that there was a time I wasn’t inside you. I want to possess you. I want to bend you to my will until you’ll do anything I ask. Until you’ll die for me.”
I was sure in Daniel’s mind that this speech of his was supposed to send me screaming from the room and into the arms of someone less obsessive and fangy. I was supposed to see that he had changed. That he was a danger to my life. I was supposed to finally accept that there was a part of Daniel that could do all those things to me, and there was a part that even wanted to do those things to me. The problem was I’d accepted that a long time ago and loved him anyway.
The crux of our problem wasn’t me accepting Daniel. Daniel had never accepted himself.
I reached up and touched his face, not worried when I grazed those sharp fangs. “Baby, you always wanted that, even when you were human. Not the feeding part, but certainly the rest of it. You might have forgotten, but I remember who you were. Who you still are. You were a manipulative bastard with a secret desire for world domination and a little bit of a god complex. You controlled it then, you control it now, and I love you for it. This part of your personality has nothing to do with being a vampire and everything to do with being Daniel Donovan. Don’t think you can scare me with the big bad wolf routine. If you want me out of your life, you only have to ask, but don’t think you can get me to tell you I’m afraid of you.”
Daniel pushed me away and slammed his hands into the wall. The wall obligingly gave way with a thud. He was going to have to redecorate if he kept it up. “Go take a shower, Zoey. You’re covered in blood, and it’s making me crazy. Go get cleaned up and I’ll get some bandages.”
In a desire to save the rest of his furniture, I made a hasty retreat. The apartment wasn’t large, and I quickly found the bedroom.
I gasped when I looked at myself in the mirror. I really was covered in blood. It wasn’t so surprising given the way I’d spent the evening. I opened the bathroom door and turned on the shower.
It just didn’t make sense that Daniel couldn’t trust himself. He’d spent almost an hour with me covered in blood, and I was more than willing to give him a taste, but he sent me away. He possessed remarkable self-control. That couldn’t be the reason he rejected me. Something happened to him in France, and it looked like I would never be let in on that little secret.
I stepped into the shower, letting the hot water slide across my body. I closed my eyes and let myself remember that night.
* * * *
“Darlin’ is there anything I can do for you?” my father asked as I forced my legs to move across the room. If I could just make it to the couch, I could sit and not have to worry about things like walking.
I’d been numb all night, but since that moment when I’d looked at that dead body and been forced to confront the fact that Daniel was gone, I hadn’t really felt a thing. I was in motion, but there was no meaning to it.
“No.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded flat and foreign.
I didn’t need anything. I didn’t want anything. I wasn’t anything at all.
My father sat down beside me. He put his arms around me, but I couldn’t really feel them. “I know you won’t believe me, but you will get through this, Zoey. Daniel was a great boy, and you’ll miss him every day of your life, but the sun is going to come up tomorrow and the day after that. One day it’ll be beautiful again. Daniel wouldn’t want you wasting away.”
I forced myself to hug my father back. My mouth moved mechanically, speaking words I knew would get my dad out of my apartment. “I know, Dad. I’m so grateful you’re here for me. I just need a little time to myself.”
It took a few more gentle proddings, but finally, reluctantly, my father left, and I was alone at last.
The apartment was silent, and I knew it would always feel that way for me now. It wouldn’t be filled with music and Daniel yelling at me to come look at some stupid thing he’d found on the Internet. God, I’d resented having to get up and leave what I was doing to watch YouTube with him, but now I would give anything to hear him calling to me one more time.
I didn’t give a fuck if the sun came up tomorrow. He was gone, and I didn’t know where he was. I always knew where he was. He always told me or called me to let me know, but he hadn’t called me to let me know where he was now. He had left the apartment to pick up some food and…then he was gone.
It ate me alive that I didn’t know where he was.
I sat there with no thought to the time passing. I didn’t think about Daniel and all that he had lost. I didn’t think about his lost potential or all his dreams that wouldn’t come to fruition. I thought about myself. I thought about having to live fifty or more years without him holding me and telling me he loved me. I would miss loving him, but even more, I would miss the way he loved me. He was full throttle, unlike any other man I’d ever met. When he loved me, there hadn’t been anyone else in the world except the two of us. He hadn’t looked at other girls, though he’d had opportunities. He’d always said I was enough. He’d made me better, and I didn’t know how to continue without that. I would spend the rest of my life waiting to see him again, waiting to go wherever he’d gone.
But the rest of my life didn’t have to be so long. Did it? Just as the dark thought started to fill me, I heard a voice.
“God, you’re so fucking beautiful.”
I could hear him. He’d always told me I was beautiful.
“I need you not to freak on me, Z.” Daniel’s voice. It wasn’t a weak little whisper. For a moment, I wondered if I’d gone crazy. It wouldn’t really surprise me, and the truth was, if I could be with Daniel again, I wouldn’t really care if it was real or not.
“Why would I freak?” It was a dream. I had fallen asleep on the couch and naturally I dreamed that Daniel had come back to me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I
realized I would have to wake up and deal with his death all over again, so I was going to enjoy my dream while it lasted. “Come here and hold me.”
Daniel kept to the shadows. “I thought you would be more upset. Did they not tell you, baby? Wow. I thought for sure they would call you. This is going to be a little difficult to explain. First off, the car is totaled, and I know this sounds bad, but that’s actually the not so bad part.”
“Why would I be upset to see you?” I asked, though I was actually getting a little antsy. Shouldn’t Daniel obey me in my dreams? It was my fantasy, and I wanted everything to be perfect. I stood up to get closer to him, but I saw him retreat from me. “Damn it, Danny, I don’t know how much time we have. I could wake up any minute, so please get over here. Don’t make me chase you. I don’t think I could handle that right now.”
“Zoey, this isn’t a dream. I know you’ve had a shock, but I need you to come out of it now. I need you to help me figure this out. Everything is weird now. You glow, baby. I don’t know why you glow.”
“There’s nothing to figure out,” I said soothingly. “You’re back, and I’m happy. That’s all I want to feel now. This is my dream.”
Daniel stepped out of the darkness, and it was my turn to retreat. “If this were a dream, baby, would you bring me back like this?”
I was startled out of my fog. He was really standing in our living room. He was really alive. He really had fangs. Long and white, they emerged from his mouth, caressing his bottom lip.
“Holy shit, Danny, you’re a vampire.” I walked toward him. My initial shock fled, replaced with an amazing sense of wonder. I felt a smile spreading across my face as I reached up to feel his skin against my palm. His eyes were a little strange and there were those fangs, but it was my Daniel, and he was alive…well, he was here. I wouldn’t argue with it. I knew a bit about vampires. I knew how they could rise, and I had just won the fucking lottery. “I just saw you at the morgue. Were you pretending? You seemed really dead to me.”
