by Alex Lidell
Anytime you’re feelin’ lonely
Anytime you’re feelin’ blue
The music pumps through my veins in sweeping beats.
Anytime you feel downhearted
I sing openly, barely avoiding a stumble as a low voice suddenly joins in. A rich, perfectly trained voice that makes every hair on my body stand on end. Reese—Reese—steps up beside me with a microphone in hand. Our gazes meet, his ice and my fire clashing into steam. He’s trying to take some of the attention off me, but fuck it, with his voice, it’s pot meet kettle.
Cassis, not one to waste an opportunity, improvises a mischievous little interlude as Reese and I both bring the mics up together.
That will prove your love for me is true
We sing, each voice opening as if in battle. The irony of the song’s lyrics is not lost on me as the vamp and I face each other, the microphones surrogate weapons of will. My heart keeps time as everything but the song and music and Reese blur to irrelevance around me. At my side, my free hand squeezes into a fist, my body flowing all my strength to my lungs. My voice. My sound.
Endorphins spill into my blood until I’m drunk on them. I only realize that the song’s final notes have sounded when the room falls into silence. The music’s lingering notes hang in the air, the whole of Dusk seeming to hold still as my chest heaves, my eyes locked on Reese’s, on his stunned face.
The vamp’s grip is tight around the microphone, his broad chest expanding with slow, rare breaths. My heart pounds so fiercely against my ribs that, given vampiric hearing, I am certain the whole of Dusk hears its instant lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub.
Clapping starts slowly somewhere in the back, more and more hands coming together to fill the tense silence.
Reese’s microphone lowers, and he takes a step toward me, his tangy ocean-breeze scent filling my lungs.
My body responds without checking in with my mind. I can’t think. Not drunk as I am on the music and feeling, on the applause. On Reese’s scent. I swallow, the rest of the world disappearing except for the lines of Reese’s strong face, his rebellious dark hair framing an angular jaw, his blue eyes more open and vulnerable than I’ve ever seen them.
Reese reaches out toward me, his fingers cool as they brush a stray bit of red hair behind my ear.
Distantly, I notice the club filling with sound again, the beat of dance music, shouts, and laughter. The spotlight turns off. But I’m still caught here in the shadows with Reese.
My breath stalls, the male’s snowflake-light touch waking every nerve in my body. Despite all the eyes lingering on us, I can’t resist tracing Reese’s long lashes with my gaze, the scar at the corner of his mouth that betrays the violence I know filled his life.
With his same gentleness, I run my thumb over the tightness along his forehead.
Reese stills, his hand grabbing my wrist. The front of his trousers is bulging so hard that he must be in pain, pressed against the zipper like that. “You are a soul-shattering soprano.”
“Thank you.” I bite my lip, my thighs slick with arousal, which the sudden flare in Reese’s nostrils says he smells perfectly well.
“Hades take me,” Reese mutters under his breath and, gripping the back of my head, seals his mouth over mine.
I gasp, my lips opening to welcome him inside, but the vamp is not looking for a welcome. He sweeps in with a powerful tongue that claims my mouth with each stoke, all hesitation gone like a snapped rubber band. Deeper. Darker. Hotter. Each demanding sweep through my mouth sending zings of sensation to my breasts and sex and toes, my body aching with need.
Unable to contain the energy Reese’s kiss sends rocketing though me, I rake my nails over his steely biceps. A groan I feel more than hear vibrates from his chest. His hand tangles in my hair, the slight pain from his harsh grip somehow feeding my pulsing arousal. By the time his mouth releases me, I so weak-kneed that his hold is the only thing keeping me up.
Holy fucking fuck. All that. From a kiss.
Cassis, asshole that he is, starts playing again under the house music. This time, it’s “God Save the Queen.”
17
Sam
I kissed Reese. I kissed Reese. The memory hits me over and over the rest of the night, each time feeling like a new revelation. I kissed Reese. He kissed me. And then… I went back to the bar, and Reese went wherever he went. He didn’t come over to say goodbye before leaving, only asked Mika to remind me that our 6:00 a.m. training the following day was still on.
“Well, did you want him to cancel it?” Mika asks reasonably as I groan and rub sleep out of my eyes the next morning, pulling on my training clothes with more force than necessary. I barely slept, the lingering phantom of Reese’s lips arousing me all over again each time I closed my eyes. My friend frowns. “I thought Reese was still under Victor’s directive to teach you vampiric etiquette, and it isn’t the kind of thing you can learn in a night. Or a year. Trust me, I started when I was three, and I still bow wrong.”
“He is. And no, I didn’t want him to cancel. Fuck it. I don’t know what I want. But it wasn’t him kissing me and then hauling ass out of Dusk without saying goodbye.” I snort, shaking my head at my own words. I sound like a naïve high schooler, confusing a kiss with a proposal. In fact, now that I think about it, Reese did the right thing.
It was late, and we were drunk on music. We had a moment. It was thong-drenchingly good. And then it was over. Just like the other hundreds of kisses I’m sure Reese has experienced over the centuries.
The kiss didn’t change either of us. Nor does it change the fact that he’s my superior and has ordered me to do something. Nor the fact that I don’t like studying vampire etiquette at six o’clock on a Sunday morning. Hell, after what Sienna did to the vamp, I’m amazed Reese can still look at a witch, much less kiss one, even if it was only for the thrill of the moment.
Despite my rather convincing self pep talk, anxiety still prickles my body as I walk across the cool, misty green to the training room.
Reese isn’t there yet, so I take a few swipes at the hanging punching bags, my gaze sliding along to the clock on the wall. 6:02 a.m. My stomach clenches. The male is two minutes late now. And Reese is never late. He’s got that whole military “if you’re not early, you’re late” stick up his ass.
I kick the bag again, the minute arm sliding to 6:05, and wonder how long I should wait before acknowledging that the male has no intention of showing up. Probably because I was wrong—it’s not that he thought last night was nothing, it’s that he actively regrets it. Or he’s simply decided that I’m not worth his time.
Which would not be an altogether bad thing.
I don’t want to impose on Reese’s time, and I sure as hell don’t want him imposing on mine. In fact, the farther I can keep away from Reese and Ellis and any other male, the better off I’ll be. Isn’t that the most important lesson I taught Janie before leaving for Talonswood? Trust no one. Let yourself be dependent on no one. You are in charge of you. Always.
You’ll need help navigating this world, Sam, Reese’s voice warns me. I shudder. The male wants me to lower the high wall that I’ve built so carefully around myself for the past twenty years.
I shrug him away. It won’t be that easy, Reese.
“The answer is still no, Jack.” The door to the training room opens, and Reese strides in with a phone against his ear, my chest tightening despite myself. From the exasperated look on his face, he’s been at this conversation for some time. “I’m dead, remember? Lose this phone number for a few more years. I have an important meeting. Goodbye.” Clicking the phone off, Reese stuffs it into the side pocket of a gym bag he carries. “My apologies, Samantha. I had—doesn’t matter. Take off your shoes. We won’t be working on vampiric etiquette today.” His voice is as cool and collected as always.
Right. Good. We aren’t talking about anything. It must have been two other people who sang a duet and made out last night.
I pull off my sneaker
s at the edge of the mat. Reese toes his off across from me. He’s wearing slim black joggers today and a sleeveless shirt, putting the tribal tattoos running up his arm on full display. Along with his large muscular arms, so sculpted, they are fit for anatomy study.
“What are we working on?” I ask.
Reese locks the training room door. “On how to get away from an attacker. I believe Ellis started you on this, so we’ll pick up from whatever you remember.”
I blink as I try to recalibrate my priorities. “Is there someone coming after me?”
“I imagine the thought has crossed the mind of at least half the vamps who were at Dusk yesterday. We are predators. And you…” Reese straightens, his hard body moving with predatory slowness, each muscle a leashed cord of violence. “You are too damn tempting.”
“Was that…a compliment?”
“No. It’s reality, Samantha. You are beautiful, and you are a witch. A volatile combination that, as Quinn and Bernadette have proven, drives otherwise sane people to do things that they should not.”
“Would we call Quinn sane?”
“Focus,” Reese snaps. “You’re an exotic curiosity. It’s time you learned to defend yourself like one.”
Heat races through me, and not the good kind. The number of things wrong with what Reese just said… “I’m an exotic curiosity that corrupts nice little vamps like Quinn into doing misdeeds.” I yank off my socks, flinging them to the corner of the mat. “Well, good to fucking know. Let me apologize for corrupting you yesterday, Lieutenant. Apparently, that lust spell I’ve been brewing finally worked.”
“Samantha—” Reese cuts himself off with a sigh. He rubs his eyes wearily with one large hand, but by the time it lowers, something has hardened inside him, his sapphire gaze cooling to ice. “First. Do not speak lightly of your magic again, and do not dare jest about using it on me.” He draws a breath. “Second—yes. Yes, you are an exotic curiosity.” The words carry a finality to them, the vamp doubling down on his insulting idiocy. “Yes, you are bloody tempting. And yes, you are the sole member of a species that many of the vamps remember less than fondly. So you might as well stop whining and start training, because you’re in a dangerous place whether you think it’s fair or not. Victor and his tricks are only the beginning. Many are going to come after him, wanting things from you, expecting things from you, and you are going to have to learn to keep a cool head.”
Wait, now I’m whining? My hand curls into a fist, my knuckles itching oh so hard to sink into Reese’s jaw. The male of last night seems dizzyingly far away, I almost think I must have imagined him.
His gaze flickers to my clenched fist. “Go ahead and try it.” The sneer on his face seeps into his voice. “See how that ends for you.”
I snort and loosen my fingers, the rage flowing through my blood flashing from hot to cold. “You aren’t worth hitting, vamp.”
He shrugs a powerful shoulder, my words rolling right off him like the insignificant mortal blip that I am.
“We’ll start with basic grip escapes.” Reese’s fingers wrap around my wrist, that zing of electricity shooting through me at the touch. Plainly, my body never got the Reese-is-an-asshole message. He tightens his grip, my wrist small in his callused hold. “Work against the thumb. Start.”
Fine.
Jaw set indifferently, I practice the motion, twisting my forearm from Reese’s harsh hold. It’s fucking demoralizing since I know I’m not actually escaping anything—Reese is simply releasing me when he’s decided the effort is good enough. Except there are no effort trophies in the real world. Ellis and Quinn have already shown me what immortals can do, and I know that no matter how good I get at escaping holds or kicking in just the right way, I could never overpower an immortal.
Magic, however… That’s the equalizer. I hold on to that thought as a bruise spreads across my forearm, my skin red and sore from escaping Reese’s hold over and over. I worked on the closing rune Victor gave me all day yesterday, alone in the chem lab while every other cadet was out enjoying their liberty, and can seal a simple lock closed one out of three times now. Small step, but a start. There are more rune spells than that. And one day—one day, I won’t be relying on an asshole to decide the moment my wrist should be released.
Reese’s foot sweeps my ankle, and I fall hard onto the mat, the room blinking around me.
“Pay attention, witch,” he barks. “Because I can keep tossing you down on your head all morning.”
Heat pulses through me. “You can keep tossing me on my head as long as your vampiric strength lets you,” I snap, hopping back to my feet and extending my arm again. It might be futile, but like hell am I giving Reese the satisfaction of seeing me cower. My chest heaves, anger and fatigue melding together. “If you actually wanted to help me defend myself, you’d help me flex my magic, not my bicep.”
“You can’t control yourself, and you want to control magic?” Reese snaps right back at me, his nostrils flaring, his usually pale face taking on color. “Did you lose your mind? We don’t hand soldiers nuclear weapons and say, here, see if this works better for you than a handgun—no need to fucking aim. You think you’re any different?”
“You clearly think you are.” I step into Reese’s space and shove him as hard as I can. The male doesn’t move an inch, which only infuriates me further. Especially since angry Reese is sexy as hell, his angular jaw clenched, his already chiseled muscles all tense and quivering with power. I raise my chin. “You use your vampiric strength all the time and then have the gall to stand there saying I shouldn’t be doing the same. Because God forbid we stand on the same footing.”
The growl escaping Reese’s chest tells me how far I’ve gone, but I’m just reckless enough to keep going. “You know what you’ve been teaching me?” I snarl into his face. “How to bend a knee and gratefully accept whatever scraps you wish to offer.”
18
Sam
“Scraps?” Reese’s voice rises, filling the gymnasium, his broad shoulders spreading. Taking up space and air in a way that makes my sex clench alongside my fists. The vamp takes a step forward, looming over me, one unruly black lock slipping over his forehead. “If that’s what you think I’ve been teaching, you weren’t paying attention.”
I shove him away, and this time, he condescends to back up a step, his blue eyes flashing fire.
“What do you imagine you’re going to do, witch?” Reese demands, his wide chest all but begging to be shoved again.
I’m already in motion when I realize the asshole set me up, grabbing my wrists as I come forward and using my momentum to spin me around. The next moment, he slams my chest into the nearby wall. The scent of cool vinyl fills my nose, mixing with Reese’s minty ocean tang.
Anger courses through me as the vampire’s presence surrounds me completely—and my own unwanted arousal. There’s something about him pressing me against the wall, his chest heaving, his control strained to breaking, that makes me wet as hell. “I imagine you’re a prick,” I yell, though with my face squished against the padded wall, it comes out garbled. “A prick who can’t decide what he wants.”
“Says the fountain of wisdom who’s been alive for how long?” Reese growls into my ear. “Has it occurred to you for one damn moment that maybe you don’t have the whole world figured out? That maybe you should shut up for a bloody second and learn?”
I yank against his unforgiving hold. There’s no give. Not with how he’s pinned my arm behind me, making any motion painful, his powerful control sending white-hot streaks of need down my spine. I want him. Correction, my body wants him. Fortunately, I’m not going to let my body do the thinking. “Learn that you are stronger than me? I think you’ve made that plain enough.”
Reese twists me around to face him, now pinning my biceps to the padded wall. “You have no idea of your own power,” he says, filling up every bit of air in the world. “But you are too you, and blind and naïve to know the responsibility that—”
“Go to hell, Reese.” I aim my knee right into the large bulge pulsing in the front of his training pants. Given the size of the target, I fully expect not just to hit it, but to make the shot count.
Reese twists with vampiric grace, taking my shot on his thigh. “Been there, doing that.” His mouth is so close to my face that the words tickle my skin. Pressing me harder into the wall, he kicks my ankles apart, taking my balance until it’s only his grip that’s holding me upright.
And fuck me if I don’t like it.
I bare my teeth. “And apparently burned away half your soul in the fl—”
His mouth seals over mine, and I kiss him back hungrily, my head swimming. Somewhere deep in my chest, the buzz of magic awakens to Reese’s presence, making every sensation a thousand times more potent, especially his dizzying taste.
I want to kill him. I want him inside me. I want this kiss to never end. I want it over. I can’t think. I only want. Need.
My nails rake over the male’s skin, leaving gashes in their tracks, and he growls against my lips.
His hand tangles in my hair, his mouth hard and punishing enough to leave my own bruised. I don’t care. I have things I want to say to him too. And the gloves are coming off.
Reese pulls away as suddenly as he came to me. A scream catches in the back of my throat as he steps away and, in a lightning-fast blur, roundhouse-kicks the closest punching bag clear off its hook. Spinning back on me, the vampire grabs my hips and fucking lifts me into the air until our eyes are level. Until I see the blue flame and need roaring in his gaze.
“You have three heartbeats to get the hell out of here, witch,” he says, the words straining to his throat. “Otherwise…” His gaze shoots to the punching bag, now lying on its side. The hoarseness of his voice, coupled with the hard bulge between his legs, leaves no doubt of his intention.