“All right,” Sasha said, finishing her coffee and standing. “I’m going to do it.”
And why not? She had the backing of her friends, and if she didn’t meet up with Dare, he was just going to end up finding her anyway. And she didn’t want that.
Getting caught off guard again while at work wouldn’t be tolerated.
“I’m going to go call him,” she said, stepping out into the hall and pulling her phone out, trying to ignore the hammering in her chest, trying to tell her heart to stop panicking.
She looked at the card he’d given her and typed in the number, then exhaled as she hit the button to dial.
He picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
On the phone, without either the vision of his extremely handsome human form or his terrifying monster form, he sounded almost… normal.
Pleasant, even.
“Is this Sasha?” And then she heard the grin creep into his voice.
She changed her mind. There was nothing normal about this man. “Yes. I’ve decided I’m willing to meet you for dinner.”
“Hm.”
“What is it?”
“I thought we were going to meet for lunch,” he said quietly. What was that about?
“I can do dinner.”
“Fine, then,” Dare said. “We’ll have to make it quick.”
“In some kind of rush?”
“Actually, for your information, I have a job in the evenings, but I can get some time off for this.”
Horrible creatures like him had jobs in their free time? She shook her head. “Okay, where are we meeting?” She bit her lip at her mistake, realizing she should be the one to choose.
“Don’t you think it’s wiser if you pick the location? Since I know my brother and your friend will probably be outside, following.”
“I—”
“It’s fine,” he said. “I don’t expect you to be stupid. Then again, there’s nothing they can do to me.”
“He could get Theo to help—”
Dare let out a snort. “As if. That man is too busy hiding to give a shit what goes on outside his world.”
“I trust Nathan.”
There was a short silence, and then Dare cleared his throat. “Well. Good, if it makes you willing to meet me.”
“I don’t really have a choice, though, right?”
“Damn right. I would just keep showing up until you said yes to me.”
She let out an aggrieved sigh. “Why me? Of all the humans who would fall at your feet and do whatever you wanted, why does it have to be me?”
“Because you know what we are,” Dare said. “And other than Lillian, anyone else who knows is dead. I need a human female, and you are the only option. So name where you want to go, and I’ll see you there.”
“Fine.” She named a restaurant close to her favorite ice cream shop and not far from the library. “We’ll meet at six.”
“See you then.” And then Dare was gone with a click.
Chapter 4
She had dressed up for him.
Dare didn’t know whether to be pleased or amused as she watched her make her way to the table in the corner where he sat waiting.
She was following the hostess and looked slightly uncomfortable in a short, form-fitting dress and heels, along with a black jacket.
Her blond hair was done in soft curls that looked utterly touchable. He’d liked the look of her in the library, businesslike, comfortable, but he now liked this side of her as well.
His eyes dipped to her full lips, a deep red color. Had she even put on makeup just to see him?
He stood as she got to the table, pulling a chair out for her as he’d seen countless other men do when accompanying females.
He didn’t really care for human customs, but he needed this human to help him, to like him, so he’d do whatever it took to set her at ease.
He could always eat her later.
She took her seat uneasily, blinking those blue-gray eyes at him as she folded her hands on the table, nodding when the waiter offered her water.
He leaned back in his chair, pleased with the way things were going.
He knew his stupid brother was probably parked outside somewhere and Sasha would have her phone tucked safely in a pocket close at hand, but he also knew he wasn’t going to give any of them a reason to get antsy.
As much as he liked making humans uncomfortable, there were more important matters at hand.
“Thank you for coming,” he said quietly, studying her for a moment to try and gauge her mood.
She straightened, probably trying to look less nervous than he could already sense she was.
The closer it got to midnight, the more heightened his senses became as his monster got closer to the surface.
He loved his power but hated the way it tore out of him every time night fell, regardless of whether he wanted it or not.
It meant he finally had the senses he needed to track the people he needed to find, but none of the ability to do so without being invisible or a total monster.
That was where she could come in.
He waited until they had ordered and eaten, in complete, awkward silence, and then leaned forward to propose his plan.
He slid a hand over hers tentatively, and she jerked, looking up in shock and trying to get out of his hold.
He kept his hand on hers. “Wait. I need to see something.”
“Let me go,” she hissed. “I’ll call Nathan. Besides, you said you didn’t want me that way.”
He shook his head, a wry smile forming on his face. “This isn’t like that.” He focused in and listened to the flow of her past as it grew from a trickle to a rushing river, filled with images that gave him a greater idea of who she was.
Some of the most recent images made hunger and rage well in him, and he sat back abruptly, trying to regain control of himself.
“Phillip,” he said quietly, in a tone anyone who knew him would have recognized as fatally angry. “Who is that?”
“I… What? How do you know about him?”
“I saw him,” Dare said, leaning back in his chair, composing himself slightly. “So tell me. Did Nathan already kill him, or do I have to?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Ask him.” Dare didn’t even know why it mattered so much, but he knew the human who had manhandled Sasha in the car had to die.
Sasha trembled slightly as she took out her phone and hastily texted Nathan. When it dinged in reply, she showed him the phone with a little sigh. “There, he did. Happy?”
Dare nodded, relaxing slowly. He took a sip of his wine, pondering the rest of her terrible history. With Phillip out of the picture, he could focus on her other, less immediate problems.
Like an absolutely abysmal sense of judgement when it came to men.
Hell, she was out on a date with him now, wasn’t she? He snickered to himself, knowing the situation was anything but romantic, but still…
Sasha might act like she needed nothing from him, but her past said otherwise.
He tapped a hand on the table. “As I told you before, I need your help. And I’m willing to give you help in return. After seeing your past, I’m sure you need it.”
She snorted, looking vaguely offended and very cute as she resituated herself on her chair, cleavage squishing adorably above the neck of her dress. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Nathan didn’t tell you that part, did he? He can see someone’s future. I can see their past. It’s all part of the job we have to do in tracking down bad humans.”
“So you only judge someone on their past?”
“You can tell a lot about someone by what they’ve done,” he said, lips curving into a smirk as he calculated his next move. “For instance, from your past, Sasha, I can tell you are desperate for love.”
Her jaw dropped and her lip trembled—with fury or sorrow, he didn’t know—before she composed herself.
She slammed her napkin dow
n on the table, a little too loud. “I’m not going to stay if you’re just going to insult me.”
He leaned back with his hands behind his head. “Please. I’m not insulting you. It’s a common human malady. Wanting to belong. Wanting to be wanted.”
“Right, and you don’t want that at all?” she asked sarcastically. “That’s just something for stupid humans?”
“I’m fine alone,” Dare replied softly. “I always have been. It’s stupid ones like Nathan who ruin things for our kind by trying to fit in where we don’t belong.”
“So you don’t think he belongs with Lillian?”
“I don’t think a relationship between a hunter and his food can last long. Besides, we aren’t built that way. Possessive. Jealous. Protective.”
“If what you do for humanity isn’t protective, what is?”
He leaned forward, baring his teeth at her. “I don’t do it to protect anyone except my own kind. I kill humans with darkness because I need to feed on them. And because I enjoy it.” He folded his arms. “Don’t make me into some kind of a hero, snack.”
“Don’t call me that,” she spat, her eyes flashing furiously.
“I’ll call you whatever I want. Because once you hear what I’m going to be offering you, you aren’t going to be able to resist.”
She rolled her eyes. “I very much doubt that.”
He reached out and grabbed her hand again, too fast for her to resist. He stroked a thumb over her knuckles and watched as she gave a little shudder. He looked into her past again, noting with interest each one of the losers in the parade of her life but stopping before going any further.
He didn’t need to know anything about her other than what would serve his purposes.
“You want a man, but you don’t want to get hurt anymore.”
Her eyes met his in utter shock, and her lower lip fell open slightly. “What? How do you know that?”
“You want love.” He continued, stroking over her hand softly. “Using my powers, I can help you find it.”
“How?”
“I may be a lot of things, monster included. But one thing I am above all others is an excellent judge of people. Help me with what I’m asking, and I’ll help you find a man who is unlike anything in your past. I can promise you that.”
“Someone who won’t hurt me?”
He nodded.
She slowly ran her small, pink tongue over the edge of her lips. “And what do you want in return?”
He resisted the urge to smile, knowing he already had her. “That’s easy, really. You just have to follow me into the dark.”
Sasha stared at the man in front of her, aghast.
He’d looked into her past, but how far?
Far enough to see Phillip and her disastrous train of bad boyfriends, but far enough to see everything?
Based on the lack of pity on his face, she didn’t think so.
Then again, was a creature like him even capable of pity? She didn’t know.
And she couldn’t help but be tempted by his offer, as he must have known she’d be.
She couldn’t even imagine how many troubles she’d have saved herself if she could have looked into a man’s past before dating him.
Not that the past was everything, but it was certainly a place to start.
If you could see a trail of some man dumping women, you would know the same fate was probably awaiting you.
She looked into Dare’s deep-blue eyes, wondering what his past held.
“But how can I trust you?”
“I don’t know,” was his terse reply.
She fidgeted with the edge of the tablecloth, wishing she hadn’t gotten all dressed up in order to come.
Lillian had insisted on dressing her, saying she might as well make it look like a date to those around, even if it wasn’t really one.
Sasha also got the feeling Lillian was trying to make her seem more appealing, as if that would affect someone like Dare at all.
He was beautiful enough to probably scare off models, so there was no way he’d look at a plain librarian like Sasha.
And there was no way she wanted him to.
She’d only put on makeup to feel somewhat on more equal footing. Like battle armor.
She could tell it wasn’t having any effect. He had all the power here, and the smirk on his handsome face and lack of tension in his perfect jaw told her he knew it.
“So… what do you mean follow you into the darkness? Why would you need me for that?” She held up her scrawny arms. “I’m not exactly tough.”
“When Nathan was with Lillian, he couldn’t change.”
“What?”
“While she was close. When she held him.”
“Wait, wait, wait. So you want me to hold you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think you need to. I suspect that even though we were warned to stay away from humans at night due to our transformation, that has been the key all along. If our change would endanger a good human, it isn’t allowed to take place.”
“Oh.”
He carefully set a finger on his chin. “I’ve been thinking about it since that night on the rooftop. What it would mean to be able to go out at night. I haven’t been able to ask Nathan about it, but if you get a chance, it would be good to know what he knows.”
“You should just talk to him.” She sighed in exasperation. “Why is that so hard?”
“I disowned him,” Dare said. “And I mean it. So he can go play in La-la Land with his human snack food, but I’m going to be out here solving the real mystery of who we are.”
She leaned forward interestedly. “You don’t know who you are?”
“I know what I am,” he said, crossing his arms impatiently. “But that’s not the same thing.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know who…” He shook his head. “It isn’t important. There are people I need to look into, and I need to do it at night, when my senses are heightened.”
She frowned, biting her lower lip, as was her habit when nervous. “And you think having me around will help?”
He nodded.
“I just… Will it be safe for me?”
“I will absolutely protect you. You’ve seen my other form. You know it should be more than adequate for that.”
She nodded. “But… these people you’re looking into… What kind of people are they?”
“If my hunch is correct, they aren’t people at all. But I won’t know until I look further into them. For that, I need your help.”
She sighed, leaning back into the chair. “And what about me? Where does my part come in? When do you help me?”
“I could start today, if you like. If you find a man and you want me to look into him, I would do so immediately. It wouldn’t be a problem.”
She exhaled, shaking her head. “No. I don’t want to just find someone and have you veto them. You have to look out for me, find someone suitable, and tell me who they are. Deal?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, and the light reflected in his dark-blue irises glittered like stars. “I’ll find a man for you. Deal.”
She stood abruptly. “Good. When do we start, then?”
“Why not tonight?” He stood and walked alongside her, pushing in her chair.
She looked down to see the check was already paid, the napkins already folded, and there was no excuse not to go.
“You can tell Nathan and Lillian to get going. I’m not going to hurt you, and my word is as good as my bond.”
She pulled out her phone to text them as he ushered her outside. She glanced over to see a sleek, black car parked in the farthest corner of the parking lot.
She didn’t even need to ask to know it was Dare’s.
She typed in a message to Lillian and then hesitated, looking up at Dare as he walked forward in the evening light, hair waving rakishly in the wind.
“But where are we going?”
“Wherever I want.” He blinked at her. “If you�
��re not okay with that, back out now, snack, because I’m not going to answer to you. I have to have total control.”
Her hands balled into fists. Did she have any choice but to agree with this, or should she simply punch him in the face and run?
But looking at him, so handsome in the waning light, so fierce and stoic, a part of her felt tenderness for him.
He wanted to solve a mystery and needed her to do it. She wanted to settle down and find someone and not be totally alone.
He’d offered to help her, and for some reason, she trusted him to do it.
Why, she didn’t know.
But she wasn’t ready to leave him. Wasn’t ready to just abandon his side.
“Fine,” she said. “You can decide where we’re going, but just so you know, as long as you’re with me, you’ll never have total control.”
He smiled at her over his shoulder as he led the way to the car. “We’ll see, snack. We’ll see.”
Chapter 5
He was actually surprised Sasha had agreed so quickly. Perhaps she was more desperate to find a mate than he’d even thought.
For some reason, that unsettled him slightly.
He shook it off as they pulled into the parking lot of the club at which he worked.
He’d followed one of his private security leads here and noticed a high concentration of the types he wanted info from here, so he’d gotten a job.
It had been easy. He’d been overqualified, and even if he had to leave by midnight every night, he brought enough new faces by the club that they’d never dare fire him.
Besides, his boss seemed to like him a lot. And where there was bouncing that needed to be done, Dare was okay with it. More than okay. Sanctioned beating of humans was Dare’s favorite job.
He opened the door and got out, stretching in the cool night air. Then he checked his watch. Still a few hours until midnight.
Good.
The door opened on the other side, and Sasha stepped out, glaring around her. Loud music blared from the inside of the club, and neon lights shone overhead.
Nightfall (Nightmare Dragons Book 2) Page 3