by Riley Storm
“From—wait,” she said, comprehension dawning. “You’re super-serious about that, aren’t you?”
Pietro just stared at her.
“They can get me? In here?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
“Easily,” Pietro rumbled. “Nobody truly lives here. Getting in wouldn’t be an obstacle. You aren’t safe here. So I had to get you out, take you somewhere I can protect you.”
Claire started to nod along, then shook her head. When she spoke, it was in a hushed whisper. “Hold on a second. If you’re always going to be with me, protecting me, how are you going to go about hunting this vampire then? So that eventually I don’t need protection to step outside every night?”
“I’ll worry about that once you’re safe. Behind a threshold,” Pietro rumbled, his blue-green eyes troubled, constantly moving.
Searching for threats, she realized, abruptly noticing just how on-guard Pietro was. His stance was spread. He was balanced evenly and ready to move. There was not a single relaxed thing about him.
“This is real, isn’t it,” she said mostly to herself, but Pietro nodded anyway.
“Completely,” he agreed. “You told me to tell you the truth. I did. Claire, we have to go now.”
“I can’t believe you did this,” she muttered, but that didn’t stop her from following him as he headed toward the front doors. “You really shouldn’t have Pietro, honestly. That is a lot of money for you to waste on a criminal.”
Pietro pushed open the door, peering outside, looking around thoroughly before he went out and let her follow. Claire followed, nervously glancing at every shadow, trying to tell herself that she was safe with Pietro nearby.
It’s amazing how being behind bars made me actually feel a little safe…
“A criminal,” Pietro said quietly. “Yes. I suppose you did commit the crime.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” she said, hurrying to walk alongside him as he directed her toward a large black pickup truck across the street and several hundred feet to the left.
“I also noticed in the video, that of everyone there, you’re the only one who looked at the cameras. Who didn’t seem to know when to keep your head down. Or to pull your shirt up to cover part of your face. I noticed that your ex-boyfriend, however, had no such lapses. Nor did his crew.”
Claire didn’t reply. There was no point.
“I also notice how you’re the only one under arrest. For a tape of something that happened months ago, that never surfaced, until now. The day after I happened to beat up said ex-boyfriend.”
“And,” Claire said. “I know all this. What’s your point?”
“My point is, that it smells like a setup.”
“I still did it,” Claire pointed out. “None of this changes that fact. I stole cars, Pietro. Inescapable fact.”
“Everyone does weird things when they’re wrapped up in someone,” he said. “Like steal cars or buy them expensive things.”
Claire snorted. “I wish Pete had spent a few hundred grand on me instead of stealing it in cars. Wasting lots of money on me would have been far more preferential.”
“Like paying someone’s bail money?” Pietro suggested, the words sliding in so smoothly he had to have been waiting for the opening.
“Ahhhh,” Claire stammered. “Um.”
Pietro chuckled. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go, I’m teasing.”
Without waiting, he went around the far side of the truck and opened the door for her.
“Thank you,” she said, then paused before getting in to rest a hand on his chest and met his eyes. “For everything.”
“You’re welcome, Claire,” he rumbled, meeting her gaze and then tossing her a wink.
Claire blushed and hurried to get in the truck while Pietro closed the door behind her. She saw him look around for signs of trouble, then he went and got in his side.
“Where are we going, by the way?” she asked as he fired up the truck, the engine turning over with a deep throaty growl.
“Your house,” Pietro said confidently.
Claire grimaced, sliding down into her seat.
She really did not want to go back there. The confrontation with her parents was not going to be pretty. She was sure of that.
But what other choice do I have?
Chapter Fourteen
Pietro
“I need to ask you something,” she said as he pulled away from the curb.
“Go ahead,” Pietro said, his attention on the road but also on the shadows on either side of it. This was the most dangerous part of the journey. They were out in the open. Exposed. “Ask away.”
“Where the hell did you get that kind of money from on such short notice?”
He glanced over at Claire. “Really?”
“Um. Yes, of course really? What…why wouldn’t I be serious?” she asked indignantly.
“Sorry, I thought it was just well known that the dragon clans are rather well off. We do like our treasure, after all.”
“Do you have a cave and a treasure hoard too?” Claire joked.
Pietro just turned to give her a level look.
“Actually?” she said in a much more subdued voice.
“Yes. I do. We do. It’s not something we talk about much,” he said quietly. “But we’ve been mining these mountains for years. Decades I suppose. Much of what we find, we refine ourselves and keep. We…like gold,” he finished with a sigh, averting his gaze.
Humans always laughed at that part, despite their own obsession with the ‘precious’ metal.
“Is that part of the, um, the dragon side of you?” Claire asked, fumbling over the phrasing.
“Yes,” he said, glancing over at her again, his face breaking into a smile. “How did you know about that?”
She looked down. “Lilly has told me a few things,” she said, then rushed to continue. “I hope that’s okay. I don’t want her to get in trouble. She hasn’t said much, but sometimes the way she talks about Trent, it’s like there’s two of him. Him and his dragon.”
“There are, in a way,” he confirmed, happy to be able to talk about it, to get it out in the open.
Then, I can find a way to tell you what my dragon thinks of you, and maybe I won’t sound so crazy.
“Does it ever talk to you?” Claire asked, biting her lip while she waited for a response.
Pietro saw that out of the corner of his eye, trying not to smile at the dimples that formed on her perfect cheeks, or the way her lips occasionally puckered while she gnawed nervously.
He wanted to kiss her so badly. Regret filled him that he hadn’t taken his opportunity the night before, when he’d been so close. She’d given him the opening. It would have been so easy…
Easy, but wrong. She’d been caught by surprise. Not a few minutes earlier, she’d told him that she wasn’t ready for that, and Pietro needed to respect her decisions. If it was going to happen, it would happen when they were both ready.
Regardless of how badly his dragon was roaring at him to pull the truck over and kiss her now.
“Not in words,” he said quietly, forcing his eyes to glance back to the road every now and then as he grew more distracted by the redheaded beauty in his passenger seat.
“How then?”
“More like…ideas.”
Claire shook her head. “Can you give me an example? I don’t understand.”
“Last night,” he said. “When I, um, had you against the wall?”
“That was your dragon’s idea?” she asked. “Not yours?”
“Sort of,” he said, realizing that he didn’t want her to think it wasn’t his idea either. “The desire was…well, anyway, that doesn’t matter. But that was what my dragon wanted to do, and it managed to exert its ideas over me in that moment, when my mental control slipped. But I had known for several minutes before that it wanted that.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice.
Good job, Pietro. Brilliant example to use. Making her
think your dragon is the only one who wants her and that you can’t control it. That’s surely the way to win her over.
“Anyway,” he said, trying desperately to move on without making things more awkward than he already had. “That’s kind of how it works. It’s very…limited, in how it can communicate, but we live with one another. You sort of get used to the animal side of it.”
“Right, so does that mean that—”
Claire never got to finish her question, because at that exact moment Pietro’s door exploded inward under a thunderous impact that shattered glass and hurled the truck up and onto its side, sending it skidding over the asphalt, metal screeching loudly as sparks flew.
Before the truck had even come to a halt, Pietro had ripped his seatbelt free and was hammering on the front windshield, knocking it free.
“Stay here,” he growled, turning to look up and over at Claire as she stopped screaming. “You’re safer in here until this is done with. I’ll be right—”
Something powerful wrapped around his neck and hauled Pietro from the truck, bashing his head off the top of the cab as he went, opening a gash that started blood flowing down the back of his neck.
Unfazed, Pietro reached up over his head to grab what he realized was a human-sized wrist and squeezed.
A very inhuman scream tortured his eardrums, but the pressure on the back of his neck vanished. Pietro stumbled slightly, surprised at how much of his weight had been supported by the hand, and spun to face his attacker, already lashing out with a leg.
There was no doubt in his mind who it was—one of the vampires had tracked Claire down and now was trying to finish the job.
“Not on my watch,” he grunted as his foot made contact, and the vampire was flung back through the air and through a wooden fence, into someone’s backyard. “Much better.”
He started after the creature, intending to finally kill it, when a noise from where the truck was resting on its side reached him.
“Pietro!” Claire shrieked as a second vampire clambered up top and ripped the door off.
He charged to the rescue, casually batting the door aside with an arm as it came flying in at him courtesy of the second vampire.
“I don’t think so,” he snarled, launching himself in a flying tackle at the vampire as Claire kicked and flailed as best she could while suspended mid-air by nothing more than a seatbelt.
The flying leap took the vampire in the midsection, and they went down in a heap on the far side of the truck. Pietro landed on top, giving himself the first good glimpse of the creatures that he’d had since they had come through the portal.
To his shock, their skin was no longer the glossy midnight black of a beetle’s shell. It was now a much lighter shade of gray and was losing much of the shine. To his eyes, it was like it was becoming—
“Human,” he hissed in surprise. Pietro hadn’t known vampires could do that.
Does anybody?
The creature used his shock at its changed appearance to writhe and slip free of his grip. Without a word, it went straight for the car, like a mindless beast with thoughts of one thing, and one thing only.
Pietro’s hand closed around its ankle, stopping the creature cold. It hissed and swiped at him, fingernails elongating into razor sharp nails that dug furrows in his skin, blood welling up easily after.
The sight of the red life liquid sent the vampire into a frenzy. It launched itself at Pietro, mouth seeking the source of blood like a hunter-killer missile. Nothing else mattered as it sought his wrist with single minded fury.
“No,” he said, and for the first time in the fight, used his dragon powers.
A burst of light blossomed in the palm of his unharmed arm, and with a vicious motion he shoved it into the vamp’s mouth, where he abruptly fed more energy into it.
The hissing obsession with his blood turned into a shriek of pain, and the vampire moved quicker than he thought possible as it flung itself away from him, hacking and coughing from its seared lungs.
Pietro got to his feet and stalked over to it.
Metal crunched under impact and he saw the second vampire had returned, and it was also going after Claire. He snarled and altered course, charging after it.
That was when the ‘hurt’ vampire hit him in the side, taking him down, raining blows on him.
Pietro’s eyes were wide with shock. The pair were working together, coordinating their moves and attacks in time with one another. All without speaking. Something else he hadn’t even known was possible.
“Still not enough,” he growled, reaching out to embrace the closest vampire and squeezing.
He felt ribs crack, and the vicious blows turned into frantic attempts to slip free.
“Tell your friend to get off the truck, or I’ll crush you in half,” he snarled.
The vampire twitched, and then its friend ceased trying to rip Claire from the truck.
“Idiot,” Pietro muttered, rolling onto his side, sticking a hand out. A lance of flame shot out and took the truck-vampire center mass, flinging it off down the street.
His head rocked back as the freed vampire hit him hard and slipped away. Pietro almost started after it but then changed course and went for the truck. He leapt up onto the side—what was now the roof—and peered down into the cab to check on Claire.
“Ow!” he yelped as the rear-view mirror came hurtling out and struck him in the eye.
“Pietro! Oh shoot. I’m sorry. I thought you were one of those things,” Claire cried apologetically.
Growling, Pietro stood up, watching the two vamps as they retreated into the darkness, just as the first bystanders started to close in on the wreck.
“Are you okay?” he asked, crouching down close to her once he was sure the vampires were gone and that the pair were safe for now.
“Scared shitless,” she asked. “What the hell happened?”
Pietro grunted. “Vampire ran into my door. Flipped us on our side. Tried to kill us. I fought them off. Are you hurt physically in any way?”
Claire shook her head. “No. Just…Pietro, can you please get me out of here.”
He nodded and reached down, grabbing under her arms with one hand, while ripping the seatbelt in half with the other, so that he could hoist her out of the truck.
As soon as her feet touched the metal of the truck’s side, she flung her arms around him in a big hug. “Thank you, thank you so much,” she said, shaking slightly.
Looking down at her, Pietro gave her the best reassuring smile that he could.
“I told you I would protect you,” he growled. “I’m just glad you aren’t hurt.”
“Just shaken up,” she said, leaning back slightly to look up at him.
Their eyes met. Pietro’s mouth went dry as he saw the gratitude and admiration within their mesmerizing centers. She really was stunning. The hair, the eyes, just everything about her spoke to him, and Pietro was tired of denying it. Tired of pretending that he didn’t notice her curves every time she walked or the brilliance of her smile every time she laughed.
He was tired of not showing her how he really felt. In that moment, at that precise instant, it did not matter to him what had just happened. Nothing existed in his world except Claire. And she deserved to know that.
So, he kissed her.
The instant their lips met, he felt the fireworks go off in the rest of his body. Vibrant explosions rippled out over his skin, standing every hair on end, every nerve opening wide, providing raw, unfiltered feedback of how Claire felt pressed against him.
His ears heard the soft sigh as the kiss deepened. The fingers on her back sensed every muscle flex and bend as she arched up into him.
For a brief second, there was nothing but him and Claire.
Then, someone started shouting, asking if they were okay.
Chapter Fifteen
Claire
She paused at the door to her parents’ house, the spice of Pietro’s kiss still teasing her lips with its ling
ering presence. Her heart fluttered, beating a little faster at the memory of being kissed on the topside of his truck.
It was all a little surreal.
Everything had happened so fast. It had felt like an eternity passing, but in truth, it had been less than half a minute from when the truck had been hit until Pietro was pulling her out from the gaping doorway.
They’d spent more time waiting around, dealing with the aftermath, than anything else. The police had been less than enthused to see her at the middle of something involving automobiles, but once the female deputy, Frazer, had shown up and spoken with Pietro, everything had been cleared up rather rapidly.
Leaving little for the pair to do except get her home.
“Do you want to come in?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.
Pietro hadn’t let her more than a few yards away from him since the attack, and Claire hadn’t fought him over it. In fact, when the medics had tried to separate them to ensure she was okay and that Pietro wasn’t hurting her, she’d all but thrown a fit until they’d let him close.
The only person I can trust not to hurt me is Pietro. He’s the one keeping me safe.
That was why she was inviting him in, Claire told herself. Because she felt safer with him around. It had nothing to do with the burning memory of the kiss they’d shared and her body’s desire to be touched that way once again.
Arousal after a life-threatening situation is only normal. Just don’t act on it, that’s all. Acknowledge it, but don’t let it control you. You’re in charge here.
Besides, Pietro had fought off two vampires and paid her quarter-million dollar bail. The absolute least she owed him was to spend some more time with him. If she just so happened to feel safer and more secure with him around, well, that was a pleasant bonus.
“Sure, thank you,” Pietro rumbled, following her inside and down the stairs, following her lead of being as quiet as possible.
It wouldn’t stop what was to come, of course. Claire knew nothing could stop that. But perhaps, if they were quiet, she could delay it. The longer she could put it off, the better.
They went down the stairs, neither talking. After all, what more was there to say after everything that had happened tonight? Claire needed time to process it all. Time, and a drink.
