by Ella M. Lee
“How do you know the difference between royal vampires and normal ones?” I asked.
“I just…know.” He paused. “Innately.”
“So, I should make a point not to get into any trouble tonight with royal vampires, or else you won’t be able to save me?” I asked. A branch of the royal family lived in New York City, so that wasn’t an impossible scenario.
Ren smiled, revealing his fangs, and a torrent of his amusement washed over me. “I’ll save you if I have to, but I shouldn’t need to. You can save yourself now.”
Chapter 26
I looked like a high-class vampire’s pet.
I’d never been a high-class vampire’s pet before—Franklin wasn’t like that—but I’d seen them around at bars and burrows and auctions.
When I’d asked what I should wear, Ren had unapologetically suggested a midnight blue scrap of fabric that dipped low into my cleavage and had sheer panels running down the sides. It wasn’t nearly long enough, coming only a third of the way down my thighs, the shimmery fabric tight against my skin.
He instructed me to leave my hair down, and I tousled it, giving it an approximation of sexiness. Makeup on humans was frowned on in the vampire world—it made skin taste strange—so I didn’t need to do anything more to alter my appearance.
Ren hadn’t quite gotten my shoe size correct, so I stuffed myself into some small silver heels and knew I would be paying for it later. Maybe I could get away with very little walking tonight.
I checked myself out in the mirror and felt a fleeting wave of shame at my appearance.
Slutty, the tiny voice in me said, and I had to agree with it. But slutty was exactly what vampires wanted. I knew that. Ren knew that. It didn’t make me feel any better that we were on some sort of mission with this outing; I just felt like a different person now, completely torn away from whatever I’d been a year ago.
Ren was going to let me go after this was all over, but I was afraid to stop and wonder what I’d do with myself then. Who was I now? I slid my hand up my inner thigh, over the scar half-hidden under my pantyhose and frowned.
No answer came.
The thread tugged within me. I sighed.
Ren waited in the great room, and he looked so much like a vampire that I almost turned and fled in the other direction. His handsome, angular features and long body were only enhanced by his white button-up shirt, dark pants, and a dark vest. He’d left his collar open, exposing a lot of his pale skin, and his sleeves were casually rolled up to his elbows, displaying sinewy muscles.
But I’d never seen that cold, stiff glare on him before, and I’d never seen him intentionally use his shadows to make his eyes practically black.
“I’m trying to blend in,” he said, by way of explanation. “Too demon-like, and they’ll think I’m there to cause problems and not just to, I don’t know, play with humans.”
I nodded, wide-eyed, and he frowned.
“Why are you frightened?” he asked curiously.
“I don’t like vampires,” I said. Understatement. “I don’t want to be around them.”
“That makes two of us.” He sighed. “You’ll be fine tonight.”
I looked away from his dark eyes. “You’ll intervene? If one tries to…” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“I won’t let you get hurt,” he said. “My eyes will be on you, but I’m also trying not to shout to the entire place that you’re mine. I need a vampire to approach you and at least touch you and interact with you.”
“Not bite me?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want you bitten.”
I trembled, wringing my hands. Ren came to stand in front of me, reaching out to stroke my hair gently. Our bond had washed away both of our inclinations to ask before touching.
“You’re skin and bones,” he said, still studying me, and his disapproval flickered down the thread.
“You’re supposed to say something nice before you take a girl on a date, you know,” I told him, embarrassed, turning away.
He put a light hand on my bare shoulder. “I picked the right human,” he said quietly, squeezing me reassuringly and guiding me to the front door.
Well, he was a demon. Maybe that seemed like a compliment to him.
Chapter 27
Ren’s frustration wound along the thread and there was impatience in his eyes the few times they met mine.
We’d been here for more than an hour, and no one—not a single vampire in the entire building—had spoken to me.
Unusual. This place was a sharing club, a type of burrow where vampire masters went when they wanted a change of diet. The idea was that a vampire would bring a human to “share” with the others in the building, and in return, all the other humans were open to them. Take a human, leave a human. Some sort of weird swingers’ club.
I should’ve been a perfect candidate for sharing. I wasn’t completely ravaged, I wasn’t drugged, and I was at least mildly pretty. Ren had used alchemy earlier to remove his own demon scent from me, so it wouldn’t be off-putting to the vampires.
I should’ve been swamped with “requests.”
A sharing club was not a free-for-all. Rules existed, or at least the semblance of them. Etiquette. The bare minimum when it came to asking permission.
A vampire—at least one—should’ve come up to me by now and flirted with me. Touched me. Offered me a drink. Offered to bring me to a more private place, one of the small side rooms covered by heavy velvet curtains.
I tried to come off like I was enjoying myself, like one of those rare humans who intentionally hung around vampires, wanting to be bitten and used. But something was wrong. Sitting at the bar with an untouched drink and squared shoulders wasn’t doing it for me. Ren sat bored and unconcerned at a small table by the entrance. Neither of those emotions actually made their way to me, indicating that he was pretending.
I surveyed the club. Upscale, full of tinkling crystal and plush chairs and soft jazz music. The air was a bit foggy and suffused with the smell of jasmine and honeysuckle. Most of the vampires here were rich, dressed like Ren, drinking expensive scotch or wine. Many had humans hanging off their arms, sitting in their laps, offering their wrists or necks.
Ren had had no problem getting us through the door; the staff practically fell over themselves to offer him whatever he desired. I immediately left his side, branching out, sick of hearing “my lord” over and over again. But my eyes wandered to him frequently, our thread guiding my gaze, my body recognizing him as something similar to comfort and safety.
I’m sorry, I tried to convey to the pulsing thread.
I got back a tiny push that seemed to urge, Try harder.
I plastered a dumb, empty smile on my face, trying to look glazed and impressed at the idea of so many powerful creatures here who could suck my blood. Trying to push down all the pain and rage I felt looking at every preternatural face in this room. To suppress my twitching, my urge to run away. Trying to banish the sickly knot that lived in my chest when I was this close to vampires.
I slid off the barstool, hoping the gesture seemed alluring and sexy. I tossed my hair over my shoulder and wandered the room, trying to get my scent to waft attractively to the various vampires.
I let my eyes pass over Ren without recognition, although I was surprised to see a woman had settled into the chair across from him. Human, red dress, long copper hair. She put her forearms on the table and leaned into him.
She had no idea what he was.
A rush of cloying jealousy flooded me, remembering Ren’s lips on mine and his arms around me.
He’s still not yours, the tiny voice sang, reminding me that a logical side of myself existed somewhere.
I took a deep breath and moved on, trying to focus.
I was just heading back toward the bar, discreetly trying to figure out if I’d caught anyone’s eye, when a hand closed around my arm. I looked at it.
Long, black vampire claws, narrower
and straighter than Ren’s.
I let my eyes travel over the pale skin up into the face of a female vampire with dark, eager eyes, already halfway shifted into her vampire form. I offered her a cool smile with lips that didn’t feel like my own.
Ren wanted me to get close enough to vampires to get their scent on me. So be it.
Off, the tiny voice said, protecting me as usual.
So I flicked off the switch, the part of me that cared, and laid a hand on this female’s wrist. Alarm pulsed through the thread, but it was dull, pounding uselessly against the wall of my apathetic defense.
The vampire pulled me closer. She spun me and pressed me into the wall, so fast that I got vertigo.
The thread distracted me, asking me a question. I shoved it back; I couldn’t deal with it invading my senses right now.
Normally, I could’ve handled this. I could’ve let go, but Ren was too present in my mind. His emotions were spiking into me, tearing apart my wall. I tried not to tense or freeze.
She won’t bite you, I told myself reassuringly, because I was panicking. Not here.
But I wasn’t really sure of that.
I couldn’t see past her to Ren, but the continued echoing of emotion down the thread told me he was paying attention to me. I swallowed hard, trying to push everything back yet again.
I let this female stroke my hair, tilting my head so that it fell over my face. Her clawed hands traveled over my arms and then my breasts, down to my waist.
I suppressed a gag.
It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, I silently chanted. I tried to flick my switch off again, but it wasn’t working.
Damn the soul bond.
The vampire put her face close to mine, brushing her cheek against mine, and then her lips were on me, cold and firm and pressing into my neck.
Calm, calm, calm, I repeated to myself.
But I couldn’t help it—
My body panicked as her lips brushed closer to that spot, the one where many of them liked to bite, where I’d seen so many other girls get bitten.
My hands closed around her wrists, and I squeezed.
Crunch. Bone shattered under my touch.
Her eyes went wide. She gasped then screeched. I flung her away, making for the back door by the bar as quickly as I could in high heels.
I stalked through it, panting, sweating, heart racing, trying to flick the switch that could turn off this anxiety attack. But using Ren’s power had keyed me up, and now I couldn’t shut off.
Ren tugged on our thread, but I was too panicked to understand what it meant. A command to return? A reprimand? A concerned inquiry?
I was outside now, in the cold New York City night, in a deserted alley behind the bar. I put my hands on my knees, breathing fast. A wave of nausea swept over me, and I retched.
Within thirty seconds, Ren appeared at my side, his gentle hand on my back. “Ari, we have to go—”
“Hey!” a hard, sharp voice said behind me.
Ren and I both spun, to be met by the hulking forms of two large, aggressive vampire bodyguards.
Ren tilted his head.
“What?” he asked, and his purr was now a deadly thing, spoken softly and as dark as the shadows that collected near his eyes, and hair, and hands.
The bodyguards each took a step back, only now realizing they were facing a demon and not some rogue human and her vampire master.
But the looks on their faces were still hard. They were in full vampire form, with those dark, hollow eyes and long claws and fangs.
“My lord,” the taller of the two said. “The rules…”
“Rules?” Ren repeated, still deadly soft. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, waiting.
“Of course—of course there are no problems with you,” the guard went on, “but the human…she needs to stay.”
Ren didn’t move. His brow twitched up.
“You’ll be compensated,” the guard continued. “But your human injured a vampire on our property. There are punishments for that.”
Ren cast his eyes on me, looking me up and down, assessing. I felt nothing through our connection.
After a moment, he turned back to the bodyguards and smiled lazily. With a languid step back, he threw his hands up.
Take her, the gesture said, and fear gripped me.
Ren, I said, tugging at the thread. Ren, please.
Was he really going to leave me here? There was no way, right? He needed me. He’d said so himself. This had to be some sort of plan, but Ren hadn’t moved.
I felt his slight push through the thread. Go, it said to me.
No fucking way. This was not happening.
Another slight push came from him, and it felt like permission of some kind.
He said he wouldn’t let me get hurt. He said he’d intervene.
The little voice inside me laughed and shot back, He’s a demon. What did you expect?
“Come on, girl,” the other guard said, the shorter one. He looked relieved that the demon wasn’t going to make trouble for him.
Another push from Ren. Go, it told me. Fight.
Fight?
I looked up at him. He gave me the ghost of a smile and a tiny shrug. Fight? I asked, confused.
The thread tingled gently, alive and thrumming with power, pressing into me. Use me, it seemed to say.
I looked at the short guard. He was still taller and bulkier than me. Did Ren want me to fight him?
But I’d crunched that female vampire’s bones with hardly any effort.
You are a stupid, stupid girl if you think you can fight that thing, the voice told me.
Ren said I could defend myself, I snapped back.
I took a step forward, letting that power ripple over me, the one that made my skin hard and durable, the one that heightened my speed and senses.
The guard gave me a cruel smile. He reached out to grab me, but I was faster. I struck my hand out, hitting him flat on the chest, flinging him into the stone wall behind him. I stepped back in shock, staring at my outstretched hand.
A snarl ripped from the other guard’s throat, and I spun, but Ren was already there.
“Not so fast,” he growled, throwing the guard to the ground and pressing a foot into his neck.
My guard stirred, standing quickly, hardly fazed even though he was covered in dust from the crumbled stone wall. He threw himself forward, groping for me with both hands, but I sidestepped the attack easily with my enhanced speed.
I grabbed his arm clumsily and flung him again, straight down this time, my chest heaving. The ground cracked from the impact. For the first time, fear registered in his dark eyes, and I liked it. I stared at him, letting his arrogant expression fill me with rage. He put a clawed hand around my wrist, but the sharp edges skittered off my skin. I pulled away, barely exerting effort to escape his grasp.
Power. Ren had true power.
A human being held by a vampire would never have been able to move, but Ren’s power made me stronger than this creature.
I drew back and punched him in the face. Bone crunched. I did it again. And again. His dark, viscous blood sprayed me, coating my hands and covering my bare shoulders.
I wrapped my hands around his throat and pressed. It collapsed like a tin can, and he made a strangled, gurgling sound, trying to throw me off him.
Every bit of anger I’d felt in the past year was pouring out of me as I squeezed him, as I clawed at him, as I held him pinned under me like he was nothing at all.
Finally, I felt a slight tug, an imploring ping of calm and control.
I blinked. The creature under me was half-dead. With movements that didn’t feel like mine because they were coated in darkness, and rage, and seething, dangerous power, I pressed my hand into his chest. Ribs crunched. His heart popped into a pulpy mass, flattened with hardly a thought.
Crush the heart to nothing—one of the few ways to kill a vampire.
The corpse shriveled under me, blood draining from it,
the skin going taut, the bones brittle like ash. A dried-up, dead husk.
I looked up at Ren, my chest still heaving, covered in vampire blood and guts.
His foot was still pressed into the other vampire, holding him immobile. With elegant, almost tender motions, he swiped his hand down the vampire’s chest. The vampire’s eyes bulged for a moment, and then he, too, shriveled and died.
Ren sighed and looked me over. “Well, that is one way to get a vampire’s scent on you.”
“Is that really what you brought me here for?” I asked, breathless.
He held his hand out to me. “Yes. And because I wanted you to understand that you don’t need to be afraid. This is what you can do to a vampire now.”
Chapter 28
We didn’t linger. Ren alchemized most of the blood and gore off me, and we caught a taxi back down to his apartment building, looking for all the world like a couple coming home from a pleasant date night. My coat covered up the remaining evidence of my stained dress.
I couldn’t stop staring at my hands, my pale skin, my thin fingers. I’d punched a vampire. I’d crushed its heart. With these hands. Somehow. Well, I knew how. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around the sheer shock and surprise, the image of that dark blood coating me.
Ren didn’t say anything, but he hadn’t let go of my hand since he raised me up off the battered and dead bodyguard. Occasionally, he sent a ping of concern down the thread. I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to convey.
I’d fantasized a lot in the last year about killing vampires. Fantasies about ripping Franklin’s heart out and crushing it had sprung to my mind almost more often than fantasizing about being home with my family, or eating real food, or getting real sleep, or going back in time and changing every decision I’d made on my eighteenth birthday.
But those had all seemed equally impossible to me.
Not anymore.
Not with Ren’s power.
I followed him numbly into his apartment and stood in the center of the great room with my arms wrapped around myself.
Shouldn’t you be celebrating? the voice in my mind asked. It sounded a little gleeful as I recalled how amazing it had felt to crunch vampire bones under my fingers.
