by D. N. Hoxa
His jaw clenched hard. “I can’t stand by and watch, knowing that you’re in danger.”
I stopped moving. “You can if I ask you to.”
“What did you want me to do? Let them attack you?” His voice rose and it sent shivers down my spine.
“I wanted you to trust me. How about that, Mister Vampire? How about a little trust?” I even showed him how much by holding up two fingers.
Suddenly, he was right in front of me, moving like a fucking ghost. His face took up all of my vision because I was too stubborn to move away.
He looked down at me, at my eyes, then my lips. “I risked your life once. I will not risk it again. The sooner you understand that, the better off we’ll be,” he said in a whisper.
My heart wanted to jump out of my chest. He was so fucking frustrating. I wanted to hit him just as much as I wanted to kiss the hell out of him. His lips were so close, and he was looking at me like that again, like he wanted to eat me, devour me in one bite.
My stupid body liked it.
I had no time for these stupid games, so I gave up and took a step back. “The next time I ask you to let me do something, at least give me the benefit of the doubt.”
I turned to the elevator again. I don’t even know why I’d come here with him. He’d just led the way and I’d followed, too angry to think straight.
“Where are you going, Sinea?” he asked.
“Home.” I pressed the button on the panel.
“Absolutely not.”
I wanted to laugh. “I’m not asking for your permission, Damian.”
“You were almost killed two nights in a row. Do you think it’s wise for you to be on your own, especially now?” He didn’t even mention the Guild, which to me sounded like an even bigger threat.
“I’ll be fine. You saw what I could do.” My fingers had literally glowed purple with magic. If I hadn’t been so freaked out about it, I might have even thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever experienced.
“You’ll be easily found out there, on your own. You know this. Be rational, Sinea,” he demanded.
“I have wards and I have magic.”
“And you also need your rest. In the morning, we’re going to receive a new lead from the Guild, and we’ll be moving. I think it’s best if you stayed here tonight.”
But I shook my head. “I’ve already overstayed my welcome.” I wasn’t going to sleep on one of the couches here, where everyone could see me.
“You haven’t. You can take my room again. Nobody will disturb you. It’s safer here. There’s six of us, and out there, you’ll be on your own.”
Shit, he was right.
I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. It was fine. It was just another night, and tomorrow, I’d find Sonny. Until then, the couch would have to do.
“I’ll just sleep here. I don’t want to kick you out of your room again.”
“I’m a vampire. I don’t sleep.”
Right. I nodded. “You don’t happen to have a charger for my phone, do you?”
He did that thing again, where he disappeared right before my eyes. It was unnerving. He opened a drawer of the desk and pulled out a white charger.
I refused to look him in the eye again when he brought it to me. “If the Guild comes back—” but he didn’t let me finish.
“Let me handle the Guild.”
I wasn’t going to let him handle shit. I’d handled myself—and my brother—all my life. Just because he was used to calling the shots didn’t mean I was going to let him.
But arguing with him would be futile, so I saved my breath. “Good night, Damian.”
“Good night, little thief.”
I rushed to the hallway and into the master bedroom. Nobody had been there. It was exactly as I’d left it. I put my phone in the charger because I needed to call Malin and Jamie. Then, I took off my clothes. The jeans would be uncomfortable to sleep in, but Damian hadn’t bought me pajamas.
I looked at the closet door, then at Kit, who was making himself comfortable on the bed with the incredibly soft sheets.
“What do you say, Kit? Do you think he’ll get angry?”
He ignored me completely.
I sneaked into the closet, as if somebody could see me, and took one of Damian’s blue shirts. It was soft and it smelled clean. It also smelled of him, which would be distracting. But I needed something to sleep in, and I was not sleeping naked. I took off the shirt and the bra, keeping only my panties on. Damian’s shirt was a bit smaller than I’d have liked. It barely concealed my panties, but I’d wrap sheets all over me in case I moved when I slept. Then, I lay down next to Kit.
“Tomorrow,” I whispered to him. “Tomorrow at midnight, we’re going to Sonny.”
He squeaked, covering his body with his fluffy tail. The fucker. He was only nice to me when he thought I was wounded or dying. Fine. I fluffed the pillow and made myself comfortable, closed my eyes and begged for sleep to take me. And when it did, I already knew what I’d be dreaming of.
His smell all over his blue shirt overpowered all my senses. I just hoped that once I found Sonny, I’d know how to untangle myself from his mess.
Chapter Fifteen
Damian Reed
“She’s mine?” Moira said as she paced in front of me, throughout the living area. “She’s mine?!”
“Calm down, Moira,” I said, but it was no use.
“Don’t tell me to calm down, Dam!” She was furious, her silver eyes turned almost red. And I knew why. “Do I need to remind you what happened the last time?”
I looked up at her. “This is not it, and you know it.” If she’d intended to piss me off, she’d managed perfectly—within one minute.
“I don’t care! The last time you claimed a mate, you ended up signing your life away—for one hundred and fifty years!” She rushed to me—I was sitting on the sofa, and she kneeled in front of me. “Dam, you can’t honestly still be that naive.” Her eyes suddenly turned soft. It made me very uneasy. “You have to make her leave—right now, before this gets even more out of hand.”
“I know what I’m doing, Moira. She’s involved whether we like it or not. The magic of the amulet is in her, and if we don’t get it back, we won’t be able to complete the job. It’s as simple as that.”
She arched a blonde brow. “Really. As simple as that.”
“Exactly,” I confirmed.
She pursed her lips into an awful smile and stood up. “Well, great, then!” she shouted, raising her arms by her sides. “But, just so we’re clear, when it becomes clear that you’re lying through your teeth, know that I will not stand beside you when you sign your life away again.”
She turned around and stormed out of the living area for the second time that night.
My mouth opened to call her name. I didn’t like her being mad at me. She was my deranged elf.
But something stopped me. Her words spun in my head as she slammed her door shut. She thought I was going to make the same mistake I made all that time ago. She was wrong.
Was she?
She had to be. I’d suffered for far too long to fall prey to the old game. I knew better. I would do better.
Moira was wrong. Even if Sinea made me lose control with one look, it was lust. It meant nothing, and it would be all over once we found the amulet and her brother.
It meant nothing.
I stood and went to John’s room. No need to knock. He’d already heard me approach. He was lying on his bed with his laptop in front of him.
“I’m going out. Make sure she stays in her room.”
He nodded his head. There was no need for him to tell me that he was mad at me, too. I could see it in his eyes, but he’d never say it. Moira was the only one in my life I allowed to speak to me that way. To shout at me.
Moira and Sinea as well, it seemed.
But she wasn’t my team. I wasn’t her boss, as she’d kindly reminded me on several occasions.
So why did I feel like
a fool?
I walked to the elevator before I drove myself mad with more questions. I ignored the need to check on Sinea, to see that she was sleeping, even though I could hear that she was. I could control myself. Moira was wrong.
The cold air of the night cleared my head in no time. A run was all it was going to take to get me back to myself. A run, and I’d think of the best way to make sure Flinn and Landon didn’t dare come to my home without an explicit invitation again.
And then, I had an old friend to meet.
The pier stretched over five thousand feet along the others lining the foreshore, the water of the Hudson splashing against its strong pillars beneath. To my right, boats were berthed to the pier, and to my left was the transit shed that led to a large, white container. It was quiet on the pier, and the heavy smell of the river successfully covered any scent of the man I was looking for.
Yutain had always liked the water.
I saw his silhouette crouching at the end of the pier, and I walked to him. He already knew I was here. He’d known the second I’d set foot in Manhattan, too. This was his City.
Yutain was a vampire, too, so old even he didn’t remember the time when he was alive. If you asked him, he’d tell you that the numbers lost meaning after the first five hundred years of his death. He also turned the man who made me a vampire.
“I hear you’re looking for me,” he said when I was five feet away from him.
“How did you hear?”
He rose to his feet. “The wind whispers, my friend.” He turned to me, all six feet four of him, wide shoulders and a hand twice the size of my own. He was the most powerful man I knew. He was an air elemental, and he claimed he could literally hear the wind speak.
I smiled and took his hand to shake. “It’s good to see you, Yutain.”
“It is, it is,” he said, looking me over, as if he’d expected me to change. I hadn’t, not even a little bit, and the bitter reminder was in every mirror I came across.
The same could be said for him, too. He was the man I saw about two hundred years ago, though then he’d kept his ash blond hair longer. Now, it was cut close to his head, but his grey eyes were as alert as ever.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Damian?” he asked and turned to the river. I stood next to him.
“I’m in need of some information,” I said reluctantly. I didn’t like to bother Yutain. In fact, I hadn’t been in need of his help for a very long time. But this time, it was different.
“You know I don’t mingle in the affairs of mortals, Damian,” he said, his voice so old, it became one with the wind blowing down the river. “Life is unfair to them. They have too little time.” He smiled. “And I, too much.”
“I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t have to.” He already knew that.
“Tell me, do you still serve them?”
“I do. But I will soon be free. It’s only a matter of days now.” Even less if I were lucky.
“Oh, my,” Yutain said, raising his head to the dark sky. “Has it been two centuries already?”
“Only one and a half,” I said. The concept of time had different meaning for vampires, for all immortal beings, but Yutain’s was something else altogether. I imagine it would be for anyone who lived past their thousandth birthday. “I’ve recently come across a group called the Uprising.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, nodding his head. “Yes, the Uprising. Is that what you want to know about?”
“Yes,” I said without missing a beat.
“They’re a group of darkling, as I understand. They started small, a few weeks ago.” He looked at me and narrowed his brows in confusion. “Could have been years—I’m not sure.”
“Who are they?”
“No one important, I don’t think. But they’ve grown bigger in recent times, and as I understand, they plan to overthrow the Guild and give freedom back to the darkling.” Yutain laughed, and his voice echoed into the night. “It should be interesting to see what they come up with, don’t you think? I do so like these kinds of events. They happen every few hundred years. Someone always feels oppressed, or they rise in the name of oppression because there is no nobler purpose than the idea of freedom.” Another laugh.
A resistance against the Guild. How could it be?
“What kind of power do they have?” I asked.
“They can take off the block that is put onto kids nowadays,” Yutain said. “The Nulling, you call it?” I nodded. “Yes, they have been releasing darkling Talents, as I understand. I’m curious to see how this one ends.” He nudged my elbow with his, smiling.
“Do you know where they’re located?”
“Not in my city. They used the Gateway some time ago but not anymore, as I understand. You know I do not mingle with the Shadergrit here. It doesn’t like me. My age makes it uncomfortable,” Yutain said, almost in wonder.
It would figure that the Shade didn’t feel comfortable with Yutain. Even vampires were not supposed to live as long as he had, to have seen the things he’d seen, to have learned the things he’d learned.
“Thank you for your help, old friend,” I said and patted him on the shoulder. He’d told me more than I’d hoped for. “I appreciate it.”
“Do come back in another few centuries,” he said. “But not too soon.”
I laughed. “I’ll see you then.”
I had turned around to leave when I heard him turn. “I only now seem to remember, Damian,” he said, the excitement gone from his voice. “She’s with them, as I understand.”
My entire body froze. For a moment, my mind went completely blank.
Then I composed myself. “Thank you.”
Chapter Sixteen
I gripped the glass in my hand tightly as I looked down at the City outside the windows of the penthouse.
She’s with them.
It wasn’t possible. I tracked her down every once in a while. I needed to know where she was so that I avoided the city, the country, and all the countries surrounding it, and the last I’d heard, she’d been in India. Apparently, not anymore.
I needed a distraction, but I had no patience to even read—and that happened very rarely.
A door opened in the hallway and the smell of jasmines mixed with my scent reached me. I stopped moving.
Sinea came out of the master bedroom, slowly. She walked on the tips of her toes, and it took her a long time to get to the kitchen. I was standing in the living area, to the side of the windows, with the drapes right at my back. All the lights were off, except the small blue ones under the kitchen cabinets.
She came out and looked at the darkness before she turned to the kitchen and opened the cabinet over the sink. She didn’t see me.
But I saw her. She was wearing my shirt. My shirt.
The blood in my veins heated.
She turned the faucet on and filled a glass with water. She drank it all, then filled another.
The kitchen isle only allowed me to see half of her—only one of her bare legs under my shirt. Her long hair was loose around her shoulders, shining golden even under the blue lights. She looked better than anything my imagination could come up with.
“Can’t sleep?”
My voice took her by surprise. The glass fell from her hand with a loud noise, and she cursed out loud.
“Mother-fucker-fucking-sonovo…” She spun around and looked at the darkness, right at me, but she still couldn’t see me. I stepped to the side, where the little light of the moon would reveal me to her.
Her cheeks were flushed, her hazel eyes wide as she watched me.
She seemed to realize what she was wearing and grabbed the hem of my shirt to try to pull it down. The sudden desire to go and rip it off her before I put her on the kitchen isle grabbed my mind, forcing me to imagine all the delicious details…
“Just thirsty.” She cleared her throat. “I…I didn’t see you.”
I brought the wine to my lips and drank, but it didn’t matter if I tasted its flavor. I
had plenty of things to ground me to reality just now.
“Right. So…” She waved a hand. “I’m going back to bed.” She turned around.
A monster roared inside me, one that didn’t want me to let her get away.
“Sinea,” I said, defeated. “Join me for a drink.”
She stopped and turned to me again, squinting her eyes. “Only if you ask nicely.”
But I didn’t do nice. Did I?
Was she mocking me? Was she just seeing how far she could go with me?
“Please, join me for a drink,” I said and bit my tongue, for a second expecting her to laugh in my face.
Then… “Sure. Since you asked so nicely.” And she walked over to me.
Stunned, I just watched her for a minute. Then, I turned to the desk, where the wine was, and poured her a glass.
She stood by the window, looking down at the City like it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. I walked to her, trying to block the smell of her, the sound of her. It was impossible.
Her flushed cheeks made her eyes look brighter as the City lights glistened in them. The blood in her veins rushed as her heart beat like a drum, finding every string of desire in my body and bringing it to life. I offered her the wine, and she took it with a smile. “Thank you.”
Again, she tried to pull the hem of my shirt farther down, to cover her long legs. She was uncomfortable, but why would she be? She looked like a goddess. She smelled better than blood. And my scent mixed in with hers nearly blinded me.
I walked to one of the sofas and pushed it with my foot until it was in front of the window.
“Sit.” Maybe she’d feel more comfortable if she sat down with the windows right in front of her.
She sat at the very edge of the sofa, the farthest away from me, her eyes forward She was aware that I was looking at her, and her heartbeat reacted, even though she refused to look at me.
It was part of the problem. She reacted to my look, to my touch, exactly the way I needed her to, making it impossible to ignore.
