He shook his head. I wasn’t sure if that meant he wouldn’t tell me or didn’t know. Either way, I wasn’t getting an answer.
“Was I there when you crossed?” I asked.
He stood stoically, and I wanted to leap up and choke the words from him. This was starting to look like it had been a waste of time, but I hadn’t hit him with the big one yet.
“What about the creature that saved me? Who is it and why did it help me? Don’t tell me you don’t know.”
“Can’t.”
He might’ve regretted not being able to help, but that didn’t appease me. Not even a little. I was tired of not knowing anything, including what I’d done last month. I was sick of having no control.
“But you want my help? You better reevaluate, because unless I get answers, I’m not crossing one more crawler, and I don’t care what you blow up or what deals you strike.” I was completely full of it, but I was also full of rage. I’d lost my past, my throat had been nearly ripped out, and I’d almost been turned into a vampire. Nothing was off-limits to me right now.
His lips rose slightly, and I didn’t know if he was going to growl or sink his teeth into me, and I didn’t care. I’d turned my blood into poison before, and I’d figure it out again somehow.
After some huffing breaths, his lips relaxed. “I’ll ask.”
“You’ll speak to the other one? He’s in charge?” I asked, wanting clarification of the pecking order. I’d suspected as much, but that meant nothing.
Harg nodded then looked as if he had something else to say. He reached out a clawed hand, but stopped short of touching me when I jerked back.
“Have to work together,” he said, staring at me as if he’d graced me with the greatest wisdom.
They covered that bullshit back in little league, and they didn’t have anything like him on the team.
“Yeah, we’ll see,” I said.
He dropped his head, before turning around and walking away. Well, at least I’d made it through my first one-on-one with Harg.
I was still watching the corner Harg had disappeared from, enjoying the solitude, when the crawlers scattered. I wasn’t sure if Zee had gotten nervous and given me up or if it was another gargoyle. It didn’t matter. I’d done what I’d needed for now.
I waited, knowing he was walking toward me. He stopped beside me.
“What are you doing? These creatures are all over the place and you’re their ticket in. Do you realize how this looks, hanging around out here having private meetings?”
I knew exactly how it looked. Right now, I really hoped Kane was as true to his promises as he’d said.
I looked him dead in the eye. “You can’t have it both ways. You want me to trust you, tell you everything, so you can micromanage my life, while you tell me nothing, including how I didn’t even need your help. I’ve got a bank account full of cash that you didn’t mention but I’m sure you knew about.” Anger welled up like venom pumping through my veins. Of all the manipulative things he’d done, him and Dana at the bar was the thing I couldn’t drive from my mind.
“I’m not your banker.”
“No, and you’re not my keeper, either.” I walked around him.
He grabbed my wrist. “What were you speaking to him about?”
“I was trying to get the truth,” I shot back, not bending a hair.
“If I hadn’t taken control, you’d be dead.” He spoke as if I were too steeped in naiveté to possibly understand.
“And what about the secrets? How do they keep me alive?” I yanked my arm free and walked away, too fired up to hear anything else.
I’d walked ten feet or so when I heard him say, “Abandinus.”
I waited for some spell to freeze me in my spot. Nothing happened, and I kept walking.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I walked into the Underground, hair wild from the wind on the walk back. The place cleared around me as if I were as wild and dangerous as I looked.
The light in Kane’s office was off. I’d sensed him following me, not that I’d seen him. The booth was empty, Butch and Leon out and about somewhere, probably handling Kane’s secrets. Flip wasn’t around either, and I barely recognized the guy at the door.
I turned toward the bar, feeling better about throwing back a stiff one when I wasn’t sitting alone in my rooms. That was when I found one friendly face.
Vincent sat there, looking as if he’d been waiting for me. He wore a warm smile, which should’ve been an oxymoron for a vampire but wasn’t for him. I walked over and didn’t care that I’d killed their second in command, or about the rest of Kane’s warnings. Vincent might have answers, and even if he didn’t, he wasn’t calling me a liar every other day.
Vincent met me before I’d made my way over to him, his hand resting on my lower back as if it belonged there. “I’m glad to see you looking so well.”
“Thank you for the flowers.” I settled onto a seat beside him, where a bottle of red wine waited with two glasses. “Did you have company?” I asked.
“Just hoping I would,” he said, handing me the second glass. “I tried to reach out to you but was having trouble getting my call to go through.”
I took a sip before calmly saying, “I don’t get very good reception in my apartment.” Was that bastard blocking numbers on my phone? Was he completely out of control?
Vincent nodded, pretending he believed me. He topped off my glass. “The compromise with the crawlers seems to be working. No new explosions so congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Bringing monsters over wasn’t quite what I’d ever expected to be congratulated on, but I took another sip of wine. It ended up being a gulp.
His eyes shifted over my right shoulder and then returned to me, his shoulders tensing.
If that hadn’t told me Kane had just walked in, the crawlers that lurked in the corners, still half in this world and half out, scattered.
I wasn’t going to look. It didn’t matter if he was back and watching me right now with Vincent.
I looked. Oh yeah, my self-control was rocking.
I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t seem to ignore Kane. Dana, whom I hadn’t noticed when I walked in, beelined it over to him so fast that I was surprised her heels weren’t smoking.
Kane smiled in greeting.
That was when I stopped looking.
Kane was right about one thing: Vincent wanted something but it wasn’t my head on a stick. It was a lot more basic than that. I drained my glass and leaned in closer to him. It was a conscious choice with Vincent, instead of the visceral reaction I had to Kane. But Vincent was a salve to my ego, which was hanging in shreds, along with other more important parts.
Vincent refilled my glass and then moved closer. “Do you want to go somewhere else?”
Dana’s laugh rang across the Underground. I slid off my stool, resting my forearm on Vincent’s shoulder, then wobbled closer. The wine was surprisingly strong.
His hand moved to my waist, steadying me. His head dipped closer, his lips by my ear. “Are you all right? Maybe I should help you to your apartment?”
I wanted to want him. I really did. But I didn’t.
I meant to move back, put the brakes on what I’d begun, but landed a hand on his chest instead. Damn wine.
He wrapped his arm around my waist and escorted me toward the hall.
“Vincent, I’m not ready to go up yet.” And definitely not with you. I’d need another bottle of wine, and maybe not even then. As much as I hated it, there was only one man I wanted in my bed, and he wasn’t an option at the moment.
“Ollie, I’m only going to get you settled. You drank too much.”
I nodded. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.
As drunk as I was, I still knew the moment Kane joined us in the hallway. It was as if I could feel each step getting closer until he was there, his arm wrapping around my waist and shifting me from Vincent to him.
“What are you doing?” Vincent asked, a
s if shocked Kane would get involved. “I was going to—”
“Won’t be necessary. I’ve got her,” Kane said as he swept me up in his arms. We both dipped slightly as he hit the elevator button.
Vincent stared at both of us, leery of turning this into a fight. “Ollie, are you—”
“Go before you piss me off and I have to put her down.” Kane’s muscles tensed.
I’d seen Kane shrug off murder one too many times to not get a little worried.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Vincent. I’m very tired,” I said, waving as Kane carried me into the elevator. The doors couldn’t close quick enough. “He was only trying to help me upstairs.”
“Sure he was,” Kane said. “How much did you drink? You cannot get this sloppy around one of them. You might slip up, and I don’t have time to kill people this week.”
“We weren’t even talking about business.”
“Well, that’s fucking wonderful,” he said.
“Where’s Dana?”
“I have no idea.”
Because he’d abandoned her to protect me. I should still be mad, but it was hard to stay that way when he kept watching out for me.
I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t want to argue. All I wanted to do was snuggle against Kane while I had a plausible excuse to do so.
He opened the apartment door. “For future reference, you aren’t fucking somebody in my building.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my building and I say so. Apparently that’s the upper limit of my patience.”
“So you can fuck anyone you want here but I can’t?”
“Nobody is fucking anybody.”
Even in my fuzzy brain, it slammed home. Maybe he hadn’t slept with Dana?
“What if I left?” I asked.
“You won’t. Whether or not you’re ready to admit it, you like being around me.”
I was about to tell him he was crazy, but wasn’t sure if I could pull off the denial. Better to pretend I hadn’t heard anything. I couldn’t have spoken anyway. I was too shocked over where the conversation had turned.
He dropped the arm from under my knees, and my body was sliding down his, oh so slowly, as if he was as hungry as I was for the contact. I swayed into him, my hands grazing his chest and then his shoulders, and nothing about this was an act. If anything, I was holding back, but barely, my tongue darting out to wet my lips as I tilted my head back to look at him.
“How much did you drink?” he asked, his voice huskier than it had been.
“I’m not drunk.”
He poked my shoulder. I toppled back onto the bed.
I thought I heard him curse as I bounced.
“Yeah, you’re sober,” he said.
“That wasn’t fair. You’ve got freakishly strong fingers,” I said as I lay flat on the bed, not attempting to move. Movement seemed way too complicated at the moment.
He pulled off one of my shoes and then the other, before lifting the side of the comforter and folding it over and tucking it around me.
“Kane?”
“Yes?” He was still close beside me.
“Why do you protect me the way you do? It’s not like you love me or something.”
He brushed a strand of hair off my face. “Go to sleep, Ollie.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Movement on the bed told me that someone was in the room with me. That person didn’t smell like Kane, so it might be clear to open my eyes. Still, it was a gamble. I’d practically dry-humped him before he left me last night. Actually, maybe I had and forgotten. Things were a bit hazy.
“Ollie? You alive?”
I should’ve known it was Zee from the cotton-candy perfume, but my brain was currently like an engine trying to fire up on watery gas. Eyes open, I proceeded to turn over with supreme caution.
Zee held out a cup of coffee to me.
“Thanks.” I sipped slowly before putting the cup on the nightstand. “I feel like hell. I didn’t think I drank that much.”
I thought back to last night. How many glasses of wine did I have? I’d thought maybe three. Yes, wine always hit me pretty hard, but it shouldn’t have done that much damage. I’d barely been able to stand.
I took a couple more sips of coffee, trying to clear my head. “I think there was something in my wine.”
That was all Zee needed to be off and running with the topic. “You think Vincent drugged you? Maybe he wants to sleep with you. You should watch out for him. He’s cute, but I think he might be bad news.”
I sipped more coffee, staring at Zee over the rim. “No, I don’t think Vincent would’ve done that. And I know how most people feel about vampires, but he’s a nice guy. And even if he weren’t, would he do it in the middle of the Underground with so many people around? That doesn’t make any sense.” I got out of bed, realizing I was still in my clothes from last night.
“Maybe he wasn’t sure how much to give you?” Zee asked, watching me.
I didn’t like the crinkle that had formed on her forehead as she said it. Then I thought about the way she’d topped off my coffee without appearing. “Zee, did you slip me something?”
“What? Me?” The dust kicking off her forehead plumed.
“Zee!”
“I did it for your own good.” She jumped off the bed and was about to poof away.
I latched on to her arm before she had the chance, gripping her stone wrist for dear life. “Drugging is not the way to have good friendships. Why would you do that to me?”
“I had my reasons.” She tried to pick off my fingers, but there was no getting loose. As soon as she pulled one hand off, I gripped with the other.
“So Kane would step in and I’d end up sleeping with him?” I asked.
She finally stopped pulling at my hands. “Did you?” she asked, all the heat of her fake anger turning into hopefulness.
“No.” I let go of her arm, sensing her urge to run was over.
“Shit.”
She stomped off into the other room, and I followed her. “What if Kane hadn’t seen me?”
“As if! That man’s eyes barely leave you. Look, you don’t remember what you and Kane were like, but I do. I’m not letting you lose that.” She sat down on the couch, arms crossed, staring at nothing.
I stood directly in front of her. “What we were. Not what we are.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “That’s fucking bullshit and we both know it. You might not remember, but your heart beats the bongo every time he’s near.”
I perched myself on the arm of the couch as she stared at me, daring me to deny it.
I finally held up my hands. “Okay, maybe there’s some underlying feelings, but friends don’t drug friends.”
There was a long, painful pause as I stared her down.
“Sorry.” She gave me a halfhearted shrug as she looked everywhere else.
“Really? That’s all I get?”
“It’s not like you’re dead. I don’t know why people get so sensitive about shit.” She was shrugging and bobbing her head so much that she was leaving crumbs on the couch.
I planted my hands on my hips. “Don’t do that again.”
“Fine.” She jumped to her feet and started tugging me along again. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“To the basement. There’s a new batch of purses coming through, my treat.”
“That doesn’t make up for drugging me,” I said, although my feet were no longer dragging.
“It does a little,” she said.
“Maybe a little.”
Kane was walking through the hall when I was coming up from the gargoyles’ basement.
“You seem to like it down there.”
“What? I like them.” I shrugged.
“That’s all?”
“Yes, that’s all. Why, do you think I’m trying to stage a coup and steal all the gargoyles?”
He raised his eyebrows. “No. Not even close to what I was thinking. Y
ou couldn’t pull off a coup against me. The gargoyles love me.”
Worst part of that was it was true. Hell, Zee had just drugged me to try and get me in bed with him.
The crowd scattered as I walked into the Underground. I’d gotten used to it, but for some reason, at that moment, with Kane watching, I hated it. I headed toward the bar off to the side of the room, where I tended to go when I was alone.
“Do they always do that?” Kane asked from behind me.
I’d thought he’d gone up to his office. I hadn’t realized he’d been behind me watching the crowd part like the Red Sea. Great. Just what I wanted to do today. Explain my daily interaction with the monster bunch.
“No,” I said. Why was he not going up to his office? “I don’t know what that was about.”
“You sure?” he asked, stopping beside me.
“I know you feel like your intellect is untouchable, but I think I can answer this question sufficiently. It’s not the norm.”
I called for a gargoyle and asked for a tea, hoping Kane believed my lie and I could salvage some pride. He leaned against the bar, looking casual, but I’d caught on to when he was faking a while ago.
I stirred some honey into the tea as he stood silently beside me. “If you think I wouldn’t—”
“Shh,” he said. “I’m listening.”
The only thing playing was the news on the big screen. “Are you deaf?” They had the sound blasting. How could he not hear that?
I would’ve continued, but he laid two fingers gently over my lips. It wasn’t a harsh action, but gentle, especially as his fingers grazed my cheek next and he didn’t even seem to be paying attention to what he was doing. When his hand kept moving to settle on my neck, as if it were meant to be there, I was having a hard time keeping my breathing in check so he didn’t realize how his touch affected me. Luckily, he was too busy staring at the crowd to notice. But his thumb was nearly resting in the base of my throat, making my heart kick in like a jackrabbit’s.
I wasn’t a virgin. That I remembered clearly. I’d had a man’s hands on my body, my breasts, my ass, all the necessary. But the warmth from where his hand lay, right above my fluttering pulse, felt more intimate than the one-night stands I’d had.
Kissed by the Dark Page 17
