Despite my sour mood, I smothered a laugh at his ridiculous and persistent assumptions. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I think you might have taken a few too many hits to the head there, buddy.”
He ignored the jibe. “Oh, or maybe you’ve already done both. Maybe you grinded on his pole and then ripped his heart out,” he said, breaking out into a full-blown smile. He laughed at his own joke, and it was infectious.
“You’re sick,” I accused around my own growing smile. “And what about you and Carly? What’s going on there?”
“What about me and Carly?” he evaded.
“Wow. Just wow,” I scolded the double standard. He had no problem prying into my personal life but didn’t want to share anything about his. “I guess I’ll have to talk to Carly. See what she has to say about it,” I threatened half-heartedly.
“Oh, I see how it is. Maybe I’ll go ask Gavin what the story is between you two.”
I laughed out loud at that. “Be my guest. Let me know how it goes.” We both knew he wouldn’t approach Gavin, especially about his personal life, because, well, Gavin wasn’t the most approachable guy on the planet. “He doesn’t even let me in. Good luck getting him to open up, though.”
“Maybe he’ll open up when you do,” he added, making sure there was no mistaking the innuendo.
“Nice.” My cheeks heated when Gavin’s dirty whispered words wiggled free from the chokehold I had them in.
The clattering noises of metal sliding against metal heightened before Nick yelled, “Hey, what are you guys laughing about over there?” He bounded over to us and somehow maneuvered Brody’s arm off my shoulders, replacing it with his own. “You two are looking pretty cozy,” he said, glaring at his friend.
I shrugged out of his awkward pseudo-embrace. It felt different with Brody, more brotherly. With Nick, his intentions were less friendly and way too friendly. His draw toward me was forced based on his attraction, not based on me as a person. I suspected it had more to do with what I was. Either way, it made me uncomfortable.
“Relax, Dude. It wasn’t like you stood a chance, anyway,” Brody retorted.
Nick folded his arms over his chest, puffing up as he scowled at Brody. He turned to look at me and his smile made a reappearance. “So swordplay, huh?”
“Yeah, I have some work to do before the assassin finds me.”
Two sets of eyes bulged. “What!” they shouted in unison.
Oops. That was probably meant to be classified information. But these people needed to be prepared for what they were facing.
“There’s an assassin here?” Nick asked.
“Maybe. He might be here, or he might be on his way. I thought I sensed someone in the woods on my way home tonight, but I never saw anyone.” Instincts, however, told me I wasn’t alone out there.
“That’s why you flipped the switched?” Brody asked, panic clear in his voice. I nodded. “A freaking assassin,” he exclaimed.
“I say we go out there right now and hunt this bastard down,” Nick suggested. Brody smacked him on the back of his head. “Ouch. What the hell, man?”
“Are you an idiot? Did you not here her say assassin?”
“He’s right, Nick. No one should be going out there. These assholes have the strength of ten normal vampires. I don’t want anyone playing hero with this guy around. Promise me you guys won’t do anything stupid.”
Jesus. That sounded all too familiar. I prayed Gavin wasn’t listening. My reputation for being reckless and impulsive would be tarnished forever. For some reason, that didn’t sit well with me. Maybe it was just my requisite to disagree with that man any chance I got, or perhaps I feared that I’ve lost those parts of myself permanently.
I listened for any sign of Gavin, but the only sound came from a shower somewhere above us.
“We promise,” Brody agreed. An argument was brewing on the tip of Nick’s tongue when Brody elbowed him in the ribs. “Dude, seriously. You don’t want to mess with these guys.”
“Fine, I promise,” Nick relented, rubbing his side gingerly. “Dick,” he said, driving his fist toward Brody’s stomach. Brody evaded, and the two boys took their wrestling match to the mats.
I gravitated toward the sword selection and drew the weighty claymore, wanting to practice with something befitting of my very large opponent. Remembering the last time we faced off, he had looked every bit of a ninth century Viking. And I wasn’t talking the sexy, Travis Fimmel type. He was the big, ugly, terrifying kind with cold, lifeless eyes that promised a painful death to anyone who dared to cross his path.
According to Wade, this sword was more of a Highlander’s sword than a Viking’s, but it would be long enough to give me more range against a much taller, broader enemy.
I spent the rest of the evening perfecting my techniques and ignoring Nick’s advances and flagrant staring. When it became apparent he wasn’t going anywhere until I sparred with him, I called it an early night, feigning intense hunger pangs. Well, I didn’t have to fake that part too much.
When I tromped down the hall to my room, I overheard shuffling noises in the room just before mine. Listening intently revealed my next-door neighbor was none other than the pain in the ass owner of the house himself.
Perfect. The hits just kept on coming.
†
“Little Hunter!” Chef called from his station in front of the boiling stockpot on the stove. “Things just got a little more interesting around here, huh?” he asked, referring to the arrival of the elusive landlord.
“You have no idea,” I replied.
My run-in with him last night left me tossing and turning the whole night and most of today. Sleep evaded me, and seeing my expression, Chef held both hands outstretched with a thermos in each. He was a godsend. I happily accepted both before tossing them back and taking my leave of him.
Wandering the halls, I replayed my heated conversation with Gavin. He had said he didn’t want to be with me when we parted in St. Louis, but last night, the weird spark I always felt around him returned. I knew I couldn’t be the only one experiencing it. Even if he wasn’t in love, there was something inside he fought to hide from me. It became clear I had to put on my big girl panties and talk to him.
Ugh. Normally, I would say screw it and put it in the lockbox, refusing to address the issue again. However, since my stellar avoidance skills proved to play a big role in my ability, or lack thereof, to fight my enemies, defining our love/hate relationship became a necessity.
Nearing the library, hushed voices filtered through the entrance. Curiosity had me slowing my steps. One of them was as familiar to me as the sound of my own beating heart. The other made my hairs stand on end and every muscle in my body clench in revulsion.
I rounded the corner but kept to the shadows, out of sight. They stood right inside the doorway. Gavin wore dark jeans and a hoodie with a fitted jacket over it. It made him look younger, and on the approachability scale, he was nearing a seven. Out of 100. On a typical day, he was a two.
Allison, however, wore a mini skirt and thigh highs that said ‘please, touch me.’
She brushed a hand across Gavin’s forearm. “If you’re interested in joining the Guard, I could use a good, strong partner. I bet you’ve killed a lot of vampires, haven’t you?” she asked, managing to sound seductive while discussing hunting.
He smiled at her sweetly before responding in that rich, succulent tone of his. “Thanks for the offer, but I work alone.”
Hey, that was my line. I relaxed slightly, recognizing the brush off. It didn’t deter Allison’s advances, though. My nails dug into the flesh of my palms when she pressed her body against his and she leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Well, if you ever want company, on or off the field, let me know.”
The not so subtle throat clearing, issued by yours truly, interrupted the heavy silence that fell between the thin gap between the two. Allison jumped, startled by the noise, and backed away from Gavin. When she realized th
e source of the disturbance, she glared at me.
I stepped into the library and folded my arms over my chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize this was a place to meet singles and hook up. I thought we were here to keep the world safe from monsters.”
For once, Gavin looked flustered and a little ashamed. “Lucy, this wasn’t what it looked like.”
“I’m surprised she could even comprehend what this was. She shuns every guy who gets near her.” She faced me as she continued. “You’re so clueless and such a freak that you probably haven’t even kissed a guy, have you?” she taunted.
Gavin stayed quiet, but I noticed his jaw ticking. I smiled, knowing just how wrong she was. She seemed oblivious as she kept flapping her mouth. “You probably can’t feel those things since you’re a vampire. Why don’t you run along and stay out of grown up conversations?”
I found her condescension incredibly humorous and a bit ironic. If she only knew she was flirting with a vampire. Oh, the horror. I couldn’t contain my laughter any longer. Casting aspersions was a desperate move on her part.
“That’s an awfully wild assumption. You’re really reaching to make me look bad, aren’t you? Maybe you should work on your own inadequacies so you have something to offer besides your body, instead of knocking down those around you to make yourself more appealing.”
“I have plenty to offer, and I don’t have to try to make you look bad when you are perfectly capable of doing that on your own. It’s pretty pathetic when you can’t even kill a couple newbie vamps and I have to do your job for you. And don’t think I didn’t notice it was you who set off the UV spotlights last night.”
Damn. She caught that.
“Okay. Enough,” Gavin interjected. “Allison,” he said her name smoothly, making me want to vomit. “Would you mind if I spoke to Lucy alone?”
She glanced between the two of us, reluctant to give me a shot with him. Gavin’s unwavering expression ultimately forced her to surrender.
“Yeah, sure. I need to practice my hand to hand combat anyway, so I can save your ass again when you screw up.” She tossed the slight at me before sashaying out the door, swinging her hips back and forth for Gavin’s viewing pleasure.
When my eyes drifted back toward him, however, they were locked on me.
“Nice to see you’re making friends.” The scathing remark escaped my lips before I could rein in the surge of jealousy.
“Lucy,” he warned, getting all up in my personal space so that he loomed over me.
I wondered what would happen to him if he lost the ability to enforce his authority. I pictured his head exploding from such a crippling debility.
His nearness played on my heart like a kick drum. Peering up into his quickly softening eyes melted the last of my resolve. I opened my mouth to tell him why I sought him out in the first place, but he spoke first.
“We need to talk about Allison’s… observations.”
A bucket of ice water wouldn’t have been more effective at squashing my resolve than those words coming out of his traitorous mouth. “You mean her insults? You’re taking her side on this?”
“No. I just want to get to the bottom of why you’ve been freezing up in a fight lately.” He lightly brushed his fingers across my face as he moved to cup my cheek. “What’s going on in here?”
I backed away seeking space. He meant to comfort me, but the topic of conversation created too much strain and inner turmoil to solicit physical contact. It needed an outlet before it shattered me.
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do want to know. You panicked last night because you were being chased, weren’t you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I want to hear about it,” he challenged.
The tension coiled too tightly and had no other way of release. I snapped. “You want to know?” I shouted. “Okay, what would you like to know? That I fled? That, for the first time in my life, I ran away from a fight?”
My unspoken fears resonated in the air around us. It was the first time I gave voice to what I’ve been afraid of since facing off with Shane. I feared the day when I might put my own life before the hunt. And that was exactly what I have been doing every night since coming here. Hiding out like a coward.
“Stop it, Lucy. It isn’t selfish to want to live. For the first time in your life, you realized that you are more valuable alive than you are dead. You realized how much faith these people are putting in you to end the evil that plagues humanity every night. You recognized your destiny.” His tone softened. “You realized you’re important, not disposable like you once thought. You’re not afraid of death itself. You’re afraid of losing because of what it would mean. But I’m not going to let that happen.”
Absorbing his words, I stood in silent contemplation.
“You’re right.” An unknown force pulled the whispered words from the darkest depths of me. I knew, from the bottom of my broken soul, I was more frightened of failing than death. The scope of my life had grown to encompass the entire world instead of those just within reach of me.
Before, I hunted out of remorse, but I chose to do it. I bore the weight on my shoulders willingly. Now, it felt more like duty. A weight that had been thrust upon me. I realized it had been crushing me this whole time. I needed to take back my choice and accept my destiny if I wanted to get past the mental blocks.
“Lucy, I told you I’m here for you, and I mean it. I’m going to help you get through this. I won’t let anything happen to you,” Gavin said tenderly, reclaiming the space between us.
His promise reminded me why I came here in the first place. Suddenly, it seemed urgent to work out the other puzzle in my head. It was one thing to accept my destiny and all that jazz, but if I couldn’t define every broken piece of me, I wouldn’t stand a chance against my battle with self-restraint. At least I could start working on one part of myself that begs my acknowledgement and acceptance.
My heart.
Sophie was right. I hadn’t really told Gavin how I felt out of fear of rejection. Above everyone, I valued his opinion, and I cared about what he felt for me.
I gazed up into those bright blue pools filled with hope. For me. I had to do this. Worrying about possible outcomes of this conversation, I nearly backed out. Instead, I blocked them out and plunged forward.
“Gavin, what’s going on between us?”
He went rigid and his eyes froze over. He was close to shutting me out, so I rushed ahead. “Before you left, I told you some things and we never really talked about it.”
“I thought we already discussed this,” he evaded, but I saw him cringe.
“Obviously not enough. You never really told me how you feel,” I forged ahead.
“I thought I, at least, made that part clear.”
“Yeah, about as clear as a mirror in a steam room. And don’t tell me you feel nothing.”
I opened myself up to get any kind of reading from him, but he shut himself off so thoroughly that nothing stirred but my own growing despair.
“Lucy, I’m sorry, but we can’t do this,” he said, guilt evident in the way he cast his gaze downward. “You need to let it go,” he said, his eyes meeting mine again and hardening.
“Can you let it go? If I’m not mistaken, I’m not the only participant in the shameless flirting. That last kiss, back in your penthouse, wasn’t one-sided. Remember how you pushed me to tell you what I wanted? Well, now, I’m telling you I want you to kiss me.”
“Lucy, things were different then. I see things differently now,” he said, his voice coming out strained.
“Prove it. You say things have changed? Show me. Or am I still just a bit of fun?” I taunted, remembering his hurtful words the day I left St. Louis.
Remorse settled over him like a black cloud. “Lucy…”
“Don’t,” I interrupted. “Don’t turn me into that pathetic girl who’s too stupid to realize the guy she’s pining for just isn’t that into her.
Don’t apologize because you think you’re hurting my precious feelings. We both know I’m not that soft. Save your pity for yourself, because a guy who can’t admit his own feelings to himself needs it more than me.”
A thousand emptions played across his face, one of them guilt, and I knew he was fighting an internal battle. He also displayed an unprecedented amount of shock at my candidness. I must have been the only woman to ever put him in his place, and I glanced down to smother my smile.
His hands cupped my cheeks as his thumbs stroked them in a feather-light, back and forth motion. He guided my head up to meet his gaze once again, and in the brief time between glimpses, his emotional wheel had landed on desire and settled in for the night. Those soft lips inched closer to mine, and my eyes drifted shut. They swept sweetly against my mouth and hovered in the space just before the point of no return.
The stiffness in his muscles was evident when I pressed into him. He continued to struggle with his decision. He hesitated so long, but I knew the exact moment he made up his mind. And my heart sank. The non-kiss ended before completion.
“Lucy,” he whispered against my waiting lips. His voice sounded contrite, and his hands slid away from my face. “We just can’t,” he said, resigned.
“What are you so afraid of?” I asked, wondering what kept him from dropping his guards whenever we were together.
He pondered how much he should divulge before responding, “I have one singular fear, Lucy. And it keeps me from doing a lot of things. You have no idea how much I’ve struggled with doing what I want to do and what needs to be done.”
We were practically standing nose to nose when I heard a soft squeak at the doorway. Sophie stood sheepishly outside the threshold.
“Um, sorry. I was going to get some research done. I can come back,” she offered quickly.
“No. It’s okay, Soph. I was just leaving. I’ll catch up with you later, though. Okay?” I asked, sneaking past her while trying not to make eye contact with her or Gavin, afraid she’d witnessed too much already.
Blinding Light (The Bloodmarked Trilogy Book 2) Page 19