by Lucinda Dark
“Doesn’t it though?” Torin sighed, and his hands fell away from my wrists, but he didn’t release me completely. His head bowed until his lips pressed against my neck and despite how used to his nearness I had grown over the last few minutes, I stiffened once more as he opened his mouth and his fangs scratched up the line of my throat.
“I drink holy water,” I said quickly. “Frequently.”
He chuckled darkly. “And?” he asked.
“If you bite me, my blood is infused with it. It’ll rot you from the inside out,” I warned.
Torin trailed his lips to the side and closed his mouth over the juncture between my neck and my shoulder, sucking sharply until I winced. “No, all it would do is give me a stomachache,” he replied. “I’m not fully vampire, remember?”
A bolt of fear shot through my body. That was right. A creature with all of the strengths of a vampire, but none of its weaknesses. He shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t right.
“Humans are far more dangerous than many vampires,” he said, distracting me. “But you’re right, Derick’s death is not because of a vampire.”
“So, you’re saying you know nothing about it?” I asked.
“No, I don’t but I intend to find out. Just as soon as you leave town.” He released me completely and nudged me to the side so he could go to the lock on the door and flip it. “I suggest you do so before it’s too late.”
The door cracked open, releasing all the light from the hallway. Gasping, I shielded my eyes with one hand as they went from near blindness to an overload of stimulation. When I lowered my arm once more, Torin Priest was gone.
Chapter 23
Maverick
I ducked my head and headed across the hall with my gym bag slung over my shoulder. Anger pulsed red-fucking-hot under my skin. I headed past people calling my name, making a beeline for my truck. Popping open the backdoor, I stuffed my duffle into the backseat before grabbing a baseball cap out of the side pocket and slapped it over my head, yanking the bill down low over my eyes to shield my gaze from the sun.
I was so fucking stupid. It was a damn hard pill to swallow, but it was the truth. I’d been fucking played. I paused and leaned my forearms on the leather seat as I bowed my head. Barbie fucking Steele. She was a fucking curse on my goddamn life. And she was a liar. I should never have believed that bullshit about her fucking family. She’d probably gotten into a fight with Torin that night. He’d been so quick to come to her aid, or at least to stop me from being alone with her. The image of the two of them leaving the janitor’s closet was burned into the back of my skull. She was just like Maryanne.
“Maverick!” I gritted my teeth and silently cursed my hesitation. I backed out of the backseat, slammed the door, and headed around to the driver’s side. “Maverick! Hey! Wait up!” I opened the door as Barbie hurdled herself forward, barely skating into the side of my truck before I managed to set even one foot inside the cab. She turned and leaned against the vehicle, panting with exertion. She was barely two feet away from me, her scent lingering on the air, lifting to my nostrils. I clenched my fists and shook my head, trying to focus my thoughts back on my anger.
“What?” I snapped.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her pull back, eyes widening. “What the fuck is with the attitude?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
“I don’t know, Barbie.” I slammed my door closed and turned on her. “You tell me.”
“As much as I’d love the ability to read a man’s mind, I’m afraid all I’d find would be pornography and a list of the best boobs in class, so I’m gonna take a hard pass,” she replied. “You’re a big boy, if you have a fucking problem maybe you should use your words and say something rather than getting all moody about it.”
The mouth on this girl made me want to fucking shove her against my truck and dive my hand beneath the waistband of her pants. I bet if I got my fingers in that sweetness of hers, and gave her an orgasm, she wouldn’t be so—shit!—I shook my head. No. I didn’t need to get distracted. She’d already done that enough. I’d been so fucking stupid, letting myself be drawn in by her. “I saw you,” I said after a beat. “With Priest.” I spat his name, biting fury itching at my skin. Barbie’s face froze for just a moment, but a moment was all I needed. I nodded my head as I scoffed. “Of course. You fucking went to him, didn’t you?”
“It’s not like that.” But her eyes veered to the side. The sign of a liar.
“Not like what? I didn’t say it was like anything specific, so if you’re saying it’s not like that, then there must be something you think it is like.”
Barbie cut her gaze back to me and huffed. “What exactly did you see?”
“I saw the two of you coming out of the janitor’s closet.” I’d been coming back from the gymnasium when I had spotted the two of them. Torin—who’d been absent all fucking week—and then Barbie, both emerging from the closet.
“That’s all you saw?” She arched one brow and pursed her lips.
“You’re not going to deny it?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Of course not.”
“Then maybe you’ll be willing to tell me what the fuck you were doing with him?” I moved closer to her, backing her up against my truck.
She looked up at me but didn’t seem too concerned by my nearness. Maybe I didn’t affect her the same way she affected me. Whenever she was nearby, it felt like my insides were vibrating with the need to tear her open and sink inside. She, on the other hand, had a poker face made of steel.
“What I was doing with Torin is none of your business, Maverick,” she said slowly. “That’s not why I came to you.”
“No?” I laughed, the sound dry and raw as it scraped out of my throat. Fuck her, I thought. And yet … I couldn’t back away. Instead, I felt myself leaning farther down until I had eradicated any last piece of personal space she might have had. My chest to hers. My arms settled against metal warmed by the sun as I bowed over her smaller frame. And finally—fucking finally—that external casing of hers cracked.
Her breath grew shallow as she looked up at me. Light pink blossomed on the tops of her cheeks. Still, she kept her lips pressed together as if refusing to answer me.
I slid forward until my mouth was right next to her ear. “You’re keeping secrets,” I whispered. “They have to do with Torin Priest and if you want me to trust you at all, you’re going to fucking tell me what they are.”
Small hands found their way to my chest and I closed my eyes against how good they felt. But then they pushed ever so lightly and the image was ruined. I should’ve known better. Barbie wasn’t one to be cowed by threats. I backed up a step, letting a wave of impassiveness fall over my expression.
“I can’t tell you, Maverick,” she said. “I wish I could, but it’s just too dangerous. Trust me, I would if I could.”
I glared down at her—at those big blue eyes beseeching me. “What is it about him?” I wondered aloud. “That makes every bitch lose her fucking mind.”
“I already told you it’s not like that,” she said. She hadn’t even flinched. No, of course not. Not Barbie fucking Steele. Hell, I was saying that enough that a curse should probably be her middle name. God knew she was a curse on me.
“Yeah, whatever, Barbie.” I pushed away from the truck and away from her. “Fuck you.”
“Maverick.” I ignored her call as I moved to the driver’s side door, opened it and got in. “Maverick!” I cranked the engine and revved before I put the truck in drive and left her standing there, in the student parking lot staring after me.
I didn’t want to admit how much it hurt to know she couldn’t be trusted, but if I was being honest with myself, I knew it from the start. I hadn’t trusted her when she had shown up and I certainly shouldn’t have let myself be swayed. I slammed a fist against the steering wheel.
Fuck her.
Fuck him.
Fuck them both.
Chapter 24
Barbie
I was one-hundred percent out of my depth and my emotion manifested itself in physical frustration. I slammed my fist into the punching bag in the McKnight mansion's at-home gym for the hundredth time and this time, my fist went right through the plastic-y fabric and sank into the sand filler. I groaned and jerked my hand out of the hole I'd made and turned away, kicking at the sack on the floor. Useless. I was so completely useless.
Sweat coated my upper lip and ran down the sides of my face. Exercise was always a routine my dad had ingrained in my brother and me. We'd used our irritation with our parents to beat the shit out of each other. I'd never been able to beat my dad in a fair fight, but somehow I'd managed to kill not one, but two vampires. Maybe it was just a damn stroke of luck.
The muscles in my legs bunched and jumped as I strode across the gym and then paced back. I was naked without my daggers. I should've taken more weapons from the house before I left, but there'd been no way I could hide it from DSS when they'd come for me. It was a miracle I'd managed to hide the daggers I'd had.
I stomped across the room to the sink and counter against the wall and snatched up a towel, blotting my face with it. Insecurity ate away at my insides. Was I just a little girl pretending at being a hunter? I shook my head. No. I threw the towel into the laundry basket by the door as I strode out. I was a hunter made a survivor. I'd find out why my family was attacked. I'd find the vampire responsible and when I did, I'd rip his head from his fucking shoulders and make sure that any and all vampires who thought to come after me again would think twice.
I'd put the fucker's head on a pike and send a message to the night crawlers. Come for Barbie Steele and she will return the favor ten-fold.
The doorbell below rang and I looked back over my shoulder, confused. Jon and Beth had gone out to dinner hours before and had warned Maverick and I that they would be out late. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the time, my eyes widening. I hadn't realized how late it'd grown. I moved towards the top of the stairs and what I saw had the phone slipping from my grip.
"Maverick, don't open the door!" I snapped. Maverick shot me a look over his shoulder and headed for the front door anyway. No. "Maverick!" I screamed his name, but his hand was already on the doorknob. I wasn't going to make it. I tried nonetheless. My hands gripped the stairwell railing as I leveraged myself up and over. My feet hit the floor below, slamming down with a loud echo that ricocheted up the walls.
"Barbie? What the fuck—" I reached for him. Too late. The realization rattled around in my skull. A nail in his coffin. No, I couldn't let this happen again. The door was open and Maverick's comment was cut off as a hand reached in and seized him by the throat, tugging him forward as her fingers began to smoke, long tendrils of gray lifting from her flesh as it sizzled and popped. Delia's lips—her face deformed as it now was—smiled.
"Invite me in," she hissed.
"Maverick don't—"
"Come in."
Delia dropped him unceremoniously and shot forward, bowling him over as she slammed into my front, shoving me to my back as she crouched down over me. "Hello dear." Her nails sank into my upper arms until beads of blood rose forth. I winced at the pain. "I wanted to stop by and thank you for the gift you gave me."
Kicking out, I slammed the bottom of my sneakered foot into her abdomen. Her nails receded, but as she was shoved back, they scratched down my arms in deep grooves until blood ran in rivulets down my forearms. Rolling backwards, I jumped to my feet and kicked again. Delia avoided it easily enough, flexing her nails as she looked at me.
"Fuck, you're ugly," I said with a laugh. "Did I do that?"
Her scowl made the scarred half of her face twist and pull tight against what was left of it. Vampire eyes flashed red and she dove for me just as I expected she would. I dodged and lunged for Maverick, who was blinking and sitting up from where he'd been thrown to the ground. "Maverick, you have to get out of—" My head was snatched back, cutting me off mid-warning as Delia used her hold on my hair to toss me across the room.
My body slammed into a mirror on the wall and shock coursed through me as I fell and landed amidst the shattered pieces. The shards cut past my clothes and into my flesh, each new wound burning with pain. I cursed and scrambled out of the way as she came flying at me again.
"I'm going to enjoy torturing you," she hissed as I yanked a particularly sharp piece of glass out of my leg with a grunt.
"You have to catch me first," I said through gritted teeth.
Sharp canines lengthened and I watched as she licked a drop of blood—my blood—that had hit her cheek. "Oh, you've already been caught little hunter, you have no clue, do you? There's no escaping now."
I spread my arms wide. "Does it look like I'm trying to escape?" I countered.
"You look like a pinned butterfly struggling against the inevitable." I didn't even see the punch coming, and truthfully, coming from a vampire, I hadn't expected one. My abdomen tensed and rippled with the blow and I landed hard on my knees as the breath was knocked from my chest. "Or maybe..." I looked up sharply, grinding my jaw as agony lanced through me. Delia had left me and moved to Maverick, her claws around his throat as she lifted his much bigger body as though it weighed nothing. "Maybe I can torture you another way."
"Stop!" My fingers wrapped around a jagged piece of the destroyed mirror, the sharp edges cutting into my palm.
Maverick's eyes widened as his feet left the ground and he struggled against her hold. It was useless. Leveraging up to my feet, I slammed against the wall as my balance went off kilter. Gasping, I closed my eyes and centered my thoughts. The world slowed down to the beat of my heart as it pulsed—rich with life—in my veins. Wet blood oozed from my cuts, sliding over my pale skin and dripped across the wood floor, leaving smudges as I moved forward.
"Release him," I commanded. "He's not the one you want."
"He has to die nonetheless," Delia said with a smile. She reached up and I knew her intent—vampires were ruthless and it seemed she was done playing with me. Or at the very least, using him to play with me. She meant to snap his neck. I sucked in a breath and let the mirror shard fly. It left my fingertips as I threw it and in the next instant, Delia froze. I blinked as I stared.
"Holy shit..." I didn't know what I'd expected, but damn I must have been practicing with those daggers enough because holy fucking shit, I had just sliced off three of her fingers from the hand she had raised.
She didn't cry out in agony or pain, but her eyes flared a dangerous red once more and she dropped Maverick to the ground. He coughed and choked, rolling to the side as he struggled to get up again.
Glass and debris from the fight crunched under her heels. Distantly, in my head, I wondered who the fuck wore heels to a fight? Evidently, she did.
I moved back, slamming into the wall as I watched Maverick get to his feet. "Get the water bottles from my room!" I screamed at him. "Go!" He looked at me as if I were crazy. I could imagine, but we didn't have time. "Maverick if you don't grab them, she'll kill us both. GO!"
With a gritted curse, he darted up the stairs and whether or not he came back with the holy water in time, I hoped he would at least be smart enough to try and escape. Because if I couldn't kill this bitch, we were both as good as dead.
"I've had enough playing around," Delia said conversationally as she bent down and grabbed the same piece of mirror that had sliced off three of her fingers with the hand that was still whole. She held it up so that it reflected in the light and I winced when it blinded me. But that had been her intention.
Moving faster than the human eye could see, she flew across the room and slammed the sharp fragment into my side, knocking the wind once more from my chest. Gasping for breath, I fell over and she followed me down, twisting the glass into my side. I couldn't help it, I screamed. "Fuck!"
Evil was a smile covered in blood. Delia leaned down and licked the side of my face, her tongue coming away wet with more of my blood. I coughed as I tried
to breathe through the pain. "Are you gonna want this back?" I panted reaching down as she released the glass and yanked it out of my skin on my own. "Or can I keep it?"
Before I could use it to stab her back, she caught my hand and slammed it against the floor. Once, twice, three times until I finally let the fucking thing go.
Black dots danced in my vision. A figure appeared at the stairwell. I rolled as Maverick vaulted over the railing in much the same manner as I had. Unfortunately, he landed on a table against the wall and the piece of flimsy wood buckled beneath his weight. I winced as the splintering wood shattered, the legs shooting out on either side and Maverick grunted. The water bottle in his fist went flying, bouncing against the ground until it rolled to a slow stop at the edge of the couch.
Long manicured fingers wrapped around my throat and I choked. Delia's face was before mine again. I coughed and kicked, struggling to get out but she merely compressed my windpipe until no air passed through. My breath stuttered to a squeaking stop as I wheezed and fought against her grip.
The light grew dim. The room around me blurred out. Then, all at once, her hand released me and it all came screaming back. Maverick stood over the two of us with two handles of a wooden chair in his grip, blinking down at us in shock and confusion.
Delia stood up and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, flinging him across the room—right through the doorway leading into the kitchen. The piercing shrill of breaking glass and dishes shot through my aching head as I turned and crawled the few feet to reach the bottle of holy water.
"Oh, no, no, no you don’t." A hand wrapped around my ankle and dragged me back, flipping me over once more. I uncapped the bottled water and threw half the contents into her face the second she had me on my back. "You bitch!" Her pained scream was garbled by the water as it ate away at her undead flesh. Staggering to my feet, I stumbled over to one of the broken legs from the table Maverick had landed on. Upending the rest of the bottle, I poured the rest of the holy water onto the makeshift stake—I didn't care if it was a waste.