by Liz Meldon
“What’s this?” He chuckled, his words cold and baiting. “Seems like someone beat me to it…” The marks on her neck were on fire under his scrutiny. Delia did her best to ignore him, fighting with everything she had even as his hand pressed down on her windpipe. “This won’t be bite number three, will it? I’m not sure I’m ready for that kind of commitment. We’ve only just met.”
Blood pounded between her temples, her racing heartbeat like thunder in her ears. This was a mistake. A huge mistake. One of many she’d made recently. Her mouth fell open, gaping like a fish, as she struggled for breath, until suddenly things started to fade. The vamp continued talking to her, even as her vision started to blur, but his voice was like the hum of white noise. Her eyes widened, trying to take in as much light as possible, tears collecting in the corners.
Her stake fell, but she never heard it hit the pavement.
Then, the pressure on her throat disappeared, the weight on her body going with it. The sound that followed was like nothing she’d ever heard before, but later Delia would compare it to two freight trains colliding.
If only she could have seen it.
Instead, her body crumpled to the ground, and the blurred alley was overtaken by a black, black night.
CHAPTER 5: I Like You, but You Suck at Your Job (Subtext)
Delia awoke to the smell of linens that had probably been laundered with a very potent floral dryer sheet—and a pounding headache behind her eyes. She groaned and threaded her fingers through her tangled hair, giving up about halfway through in favour of using a brush instead.
That is… if she could find a brush. Because this clearly wasn’t her room—definitely not her bed. Her sheets didn’t smell like this and her pillow wasn’t this thick and high, nor was her mattress so hard that it felt like she’d slept on the floor all night.
A wave of disoriented panic washed over her as she pushed herself up, arms wobbling under her body weight. Was it morning? The soft light suggested as much. Where had all the time gone?
Much to her surprise, Delia found herself in a modest twin-sized bed, with starchy grey sheets and a white blanket. She was still wearing her outfit from yesterday, but someone had removed her shoes and set them at the foot of the bed. Her skin bore the indents from the seams of her jean shorts, and everything felt tight and bunched together down there. She did a sweep of the room before picking out a pretty painful wedgie.
Whoever had picked her up hadn’t deposited her into the lap of luxury by any means. The room was small and neat, more like a guest bedroom than anything. There was a waist-high set of drawers between two doors. Leaning to the side let her see into an ensuite bathroom, which also seemed pretty small. The other door, she assumed, led into the rest of the…house?
Groaning again, Delia sat forward, her knees bent, and rubbed her face. Long angry marks wrapped around her wrist where the vamp had pinned her, and her body felt like she’d had the shit kicked out of her—which she had. The headache was manageable and swallowing hurt a little, but nothing was as bruised as her pride.
Wherever she was, it was quiet. There was a very real chance that the vamp had kidnapped her, but given he was clanless, he was probably homeless too. With no fresh puncture marks on her throat, Delia figured it was safe to assume his mealtime had been interrupted again.
Concentrate. Focus on the details.
Her purse sat on top of the set of drawers, along with some fresh towels. If her body hadn’t been so sore, she might have panicked more at waking up in a strange place. As it was, all she wanted was a couple of painkillers and a shower—after she relieved her full bladder.
She tried to make as little noise as possible as she went about her business. Once her bladder was empty, she washed her face and gurgled some water, but a shower was out of the question. Hanging around here any longer than necessary wasn’t on her list of things to do today.
What was on her list was to find her stake. It wasn’t in her purse no matter how many times she dug through it, shoving bits of receipts and food wrappers aside. Delia cursed as she pressed a hand to her head, willing away the pain as she wracked her brain for any sliver of memory about the vamp attack.
Nothing. Once he had her pinned to the wall, things went fuzzy.
Her phone battery was dead—classic—and there was nothing in the room she could use to call for help. The small window in the corner overlooked a sunny forested area, with thick pines obscuring her view beyond the immediate foreground.
“Perfect,” she muttered, squinting under the sun’s glare. From what she could tell, her room was on the second floor of a squat building, which seemed longer than it was tall. Birds chattered in the nearby trees, but otherwise everything was silent.
Well. Time to make a run for it. Out the window, if she had to.
Purse slung across her body, Delia kept her phone in hand in case she needed to slam it into someone’s face—she and Devin had recently attended a self-defence seminar where they’d learned how to use everyday objects to ward off an attacker. After yesterday’s shoddy performance, Delia was eager to prove her mettle.
The door was locked when she tried it, but after a moment of panicked thoughts of picking it or forcing open the window, she realized she could unlock it herself. With the lock. Which turned easily when she tried. Her cheeks flushed as soon as she got the door open.
Idiot.
After taking a deep breath and rolling her shoulders back, Delia poked her head into the hall and found a number of other doors on either side of her—like a floor at a motel. All closed, silent. She spared a quick glance back at her room before slipping out and creeping toward the EXIT sign at the far end of the hall, then took the stairwell down to the first floor. The bland décor followed her from the bedroom to the halls, with light grey carpeting and off-white walls, no pictures or plants or splashes of colour anywhere to be seen.
That is, until she found herself face-to-face with a woman stepping into the corridor at the same time Delia did, she coming out of the stairwell and the woman from a room. Both came to a sudden stop, Delia’s hand tightening around the door handle. The new arrival wore a neon-pink silk bathrobe, tied at the front, and a yellow sunhat. Fat black sunglasses dangled from the front of her robe, and orange flip-flops completed the assault of colour.
“Hi,” the woman said brightly after a tense pause. She shut the door and locked it, facing Delia with a smile. “Are you going to breakfast?”
“Uh…”
“Tracy,” she continued, hand held out expectantly. “Want some help finding the hall?”
Delia swallowed hard and shook her hand, brain suddenly in a fog. “Uhm. Where…? Sure. That’d be great.” When Tracy wouldn’t let go of her hand, Delia cleared her throat and added, “I’m Delia.”
Fucking hell. She could have at least gone with a fake name. She pulled her hand away quickly and smoothed it over her wild hair when Tracy’s eyes swept across the mane.
“Is this your first time here?” Tracy asked as they started off together, headed for a set of sunshine-filled double doors at the end of the hall. Delia frowned at the question, which prompted Tracy to keep talking, her voice not exactly the most headache-friendly. “Not to be rude. I haven’t seen you around before.”
“I… Uh…” Delia braced herself as they stepped outside, the sun taking her head pain from an eight to a twenty in about two seconds flat. She groaned and brought a hand up to shield her eyes.
“Oh my god, are you hungover?” Tracy asked, stopping suddenly and looking at her as she slid her sunglasses on. “I’m so sorry if I’m too chatty. Just a morning person…”
“Apparently,” Delia croaked, hoping her succinctness might shut her up.
“Who’s your vampire? I can see if they left you a package in the dining hall… Sometimes they do if you’re staying the night. You know, Advil and stuff. You can’t go in the main house during the day, though. No humans unless accompanied by their vampire.” Tracy stared at her, pro
bably because Delia was looking at her like she had three heads, each one wearing a more elaborate sunhat than the last. “I’m sorry. I’m talking too much again. Come on. Let’s get some coffee in you and I’ll see if anyone has some painkillers to spare.”
Delia followed Tracy along the dirt path, fighting with the haze that had settled over her brain, and glanced back at the building she and Tracy had left. It reminded her of military barracks. Even though they were clearly plopped down in the middle of the woods, the grass seemed maintained. Fruit-bearing trees dotted her line of sight. Through the trees, Delia spied two more barracks-esque buildings as she walked, doing her best to take mental snapshots of everything to use later.
Harriswood was bordered by hilly forests on most sides, excluding the lake, so she couldn’t be far from home.
“Don’t you think?”
“Sorry, what?” Delia had almost successfully tuned Tracy out, but somehow the question broke through.
“That the guest suites should be a little… brighter or something,” Tracy said with a sigh, waving her hands about as she talked. “I mean, I told Xavier when I first visited that something should be done. Make it a little more inviting.”
“Xavier?”
“He’s my vampire,” Tracy told her, her tone dripping with unnecessary possessiveness. “I don’t know how the other clans do it, but then again, I wouldn’t want to. I’ve heard they don’t exactly cater to us like the Grimm clan does.”
Delia stopped on the spot. “Grimm?”
Fucking fuck fucker fuck—
“Delia?”
As her brain started to wrap around the reality of her situation, an all-too-familiar voice called out her name.
“Oh…” Tracy studied the vamp hurrying toward them, hands on her hips. “Is he your vampire? Well done, girl.”
“No, he’s not my… He…” Delia exhaled noisily, rife with aggravation, as Claude strolled up to them, a brown paper bag in one hand and a cup of something steaming in the other. Just as he had been when he followed her into the café, he wore impossibly dark sunglasses, though this time he was sans trench coat. Instead, he wore a fresh cream button-up under a navy blazer, paired with dark grey slacks, and, as always, polished leather shoes. Delia crossed her arms as he came to a stop in front of them.
“Morning, Tracy,” Claude said, nodding to her companion. “I trust your stay was comfortable. I thought you’d be sleeping.”
“I love the mornings too much,” Tracy purred with a demure shrug. She spoke with a more girlish intonation in Claude’s presence. Delia, meanwhile, wondered if she could lose him in the woods if she got a running start.
“I can’t say I blame you.”
“I was showing Delia to the dining hall,” the woman continued, “but I see you’ve taken care of her needs. Excuse me.”
And as quickly as she had forced her way into Delia’s personal space, Tracy was gone, padding along the dirt path, her flip-flops smacking against the bottom of her feet with every step.
Once they were alone, suddenly the forest came to life. Birds chirped, bugs hummed, the wind rustled through the trees—and Delia looked just about everywhere except at the man—the vampire—standing in front of her.
“I was going to leave this in front of your door,” Claude said at last, “since I wasn’t sure how long you would want to sleep.”
With some effort, she finally looked at him, body taut with tension. As handsome as he was first thing in the morning, Claude was not a welcome sight. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but stalked down the dirt path in the opposite direction instead. This wasn’t happening.
She heard him call her name again, shortly followed by footsteps thudding after her.
“Where am I?” she asked stiffly, headed for the trees with absolutely no sense of direction.
“My estate.”
Figures. Tracy had said the Grimm clan, and here she was in the middle of the forest. HQ had files on Claude’s home being situated in the woods outside of the city. Obviously Claude had come to her rescue last night—perfect—and then brought her back here to recuperate. Why hadn’t she pieced that together sooner? Her expression hardened, eyes squinted under the sun’s unyielding glare, and she quickened her pace.
“Look, I didn’t know where you lived,” he said, easily keeping up with her. Delia stopped and shot him an incredulous look, to which he shrugged. “Okay, I have a general idea what neighbourhood you live in, but I wasn’t going to go door-to-door with your unconscious body hoping I found the right place. I couldn’t take you to the League because I would rather stake and behead myself, simultaneously, than speak with your High Council, so I put you up in a guest room.”
Delia crossed her arms, her whole body screaming to just sit down and curl up in a ball. Pain hummed in every limb, every finger, coaxing her temper out with ease. “A guest room, huh? Not your bedroom, naked? Where I’d wake up with silk sheets in a four-poster bed as you watch me sleep?”
“No need with all the cameras in the guest—”
She let out a huff and pushed forward, moving deeper into the trees. The thought of him seeing her like this, battered and broken and defeated, was enough to put her in a mood. He’d rescued her once already, from the clutches of Bella Donovan at the masquerade, and she didn’t need him swooping in to save the day every time she ran into a bit of trouble. Nothing cemented her failings more than feeling like a damsel in distress. So while venting her frustration on him was unfair, Delia couldn’t stop herself. Everything hurt, including her ego. It was too bright and sunny and beautiful out for the way she felt inside.
Behind her, Claude gave a weak laugh.
“Delia, I’m joking.” Suddenly he was beside her again, but she refused to even glance his way. If she kept walking, she’d have to hit civilization again sometime. Claude darted in front of her, though neither of them stopped moving; he walked backward, countering each of her purposeful steps. He held up his hands in surrender, food and drink in each, and her stomach gave a little rumble of approval.
“Can you just move out of—”
“I thought it would be presumptuous to set you up in my room, or any of the rooms near my room,” he told her. “Seeing as the only time you actually enjoyed my presumptuousness was the night of the masquerade, I figured the guest suites would be better for you.”
“Hooray,” she muttered, trying to move around him. The little voice in her head insisted that she should have swallowed her venom instead of spitting it out at him. Delia pressed her lips together, guilt settling like a rock in her gut.
“Delia, stop.”
They engaged in a little dance for a few moments, Claude blocking her path and Delia trying to move around him, the urge to run and hide prickling through her body, but she eventually gave up when she nearly tripped over a tree root.
“You’re clearly in pain,” he argued. “I brought some tea with lemon and honey because I’m sure your throat hurts. Come up to the main house. You can have breakfast, shower if you wish, and then I’ll drive you home. Or wherever. Downtown.”
She wanted him to stop being so nice to her. Her temper and her pride craved confrontation, yet he deflected every hint of snark with ease, steadily poking holes in her ballooning wrath until it finally deflated enough to let her think clearly. Her body had started to tremble, craving both nourishment and a soft surface to recline on, and when Claude held up the paper bag of what she assumed was some kind of breakfast food and gave it a little shake, she groaned. “Fine.”
*
If anyone found out that she had eaten breakfast in Claude Grimm’s enormous dining hall, at a table that was three times longer than her entire living room, Delia had every intention of claiming she’d done so to get insider information on a prominent clan leader.
However, if she only had to admit it to herself, Delia was just happy to be indoors in a place with air conditioning—the hike along the hilly paths had left her sweaty and miserable. She shoved a p
iece of everything bagel slathered with copious amounts of cream cheese into her mouth. Food and comfort. It was all her body needed, and in that moment the plush dining chairs seemed to cradle her battered bones like nothing else could.
Claude had settled on the same side of the table as she did, though a few seats of space sat between them. He had already peeled off his blazer and hung it over the back of his chair, the sleeves of his button-up rolled to his elbows. Drool-worthy, as always. He let her eat in silence, nursing his own mug of what she figured was blood. Delia had been stealing curious little glances at him whenever the urge struck, but this was the first time he’d caught her. She took another bite of her bagel and faced forward, cheeks hot.
“So, are we going to talk about last night?”
Delia choked after swallowing a little too fast, coughing and beating at her chest to get the mouthful down. When she was in the clear, she grabbed the to-go tea and took a quick sip.
“What do you mean?” she asked. When he raised his eyebrows at her, she cleared her throat and sighed. “Oh. Right. The vamp in the alley.”
Any time someone used the phrase with her—are we going to talk about last night?—Delia usually assumed it had a sexual subtext.
“Yes, him.” Claude pushed his mug away and shifted in his high-backed chair so he could face her. “Delia… What were you thinking?”
“I was doing my job,” she snapped, dropping the bagel and glaring. “Which isn’t really any of your business.”
Claude’s jaw clenched briefly. “He would have bitten you.”
“Not necessarily—”
“He would have taken blood from you regardless,” he pressed on, his eyes narrowing. “How could you be so reckless with your own life? I feel fortunate that I was even there, otherwise I might not ever enjoy the pleasure of your temperamental company again.”
Butterflies did cartwheels in Delia’s stomach at his little speech. Sappy idiots. “Hey, I didn’t make you to follow me around or ask me out or spend time with me. You decided to do that all on your own.”
