Blood Type

by K. A. Linde

  “Fine. I’ll get it from Everett.” She hung up the phone before he could reply and returned to the room. “Did you hear that?”

  He looked up at her sheepishly. “Yeah. Sorry. Everything okay?”

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  “You know…you can stay here if you want.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but no.” She couldn’t do that. It would be the same as when she had lived with her brothers. She couldn’t get another job any more than she could have gotten one at home. Just another mouth to feed here too. At least Beckham could take care of her and she could send the rest of her money back home.

  “Oh okay…”

  “It’s not you. Really. I need to help my family, and this helps. So, I need the address to your place.”

  She handed over her phone and he texted the address into it for her.

  “Thank you for the exciting afternoon,” she said. “Oh! Your car! Do you want me to take you back?”

  “No,” he said immediately. “I mean…I don’t think Beckham is the first person I want to see right now after I endangered your life a second time. He was kind enough to save my life and pay my hospital bills…I don’t want him to put me back in there. I’ll take the subway or catch a ride with someone else.”

  “Okay. Sorry about all this.”

  “It was fun hanging out with you. Can’t seem to do it without risking your life, but hey, where’s the fun if you don’t live on the edge?”

  She laughed and gave him a hug. “See you later.”

  When she made it down the stairs to street level, Beckham’s car was already waiting for her. The driver opened the back door, and she slid into the darkened interior with a sigh.

  They were halfway home before Beckham said anything. He had been so fixated on his damn phone she wasn’t sure if he had even paid attention to her getting inside.

  “I’m glad that you’re safe,” he said.

  “Yeah.” She kept staring out the window.

  “Did you get the shots you were looking for?”

  She thought about the images she had taken tonight and smiled. “I think so.”

  When she wasn’t looking, he reached out and removed her baseball cap. She had forgotten she still had the thing on. She turned to look at him in surprise. He released her ponytail, threading his fingers through her dark hair and letting it fan out.

  “You never came out of your room.”

  She swallowed. “I know.”

  “I waited for you.”

  “Why?” He had been pissed at her, and her even more infuriated with him. Not to mention the mixed signals driving her insane.

  “I don’t know. It didn’t feel right to leave things like that with you,” he admitted.

  Reyna’s mouth dropped open. “Oh.”

  “Then I heard where you were and what happened…” He almost looked vulnerable, but that was the absolute wrong word for the formidable man in front of her. “If I’d known you wanted to go explore like that, I would have taken you.”

  “Really?” she asked, flabbergasted. “You would have taken me to the fights? Would you even have been allowed inside?”

  Beckham laughed, and it was the best thing she had ever heard. His laugh was electric, lighting up his entire face even in the briefest of moments. It was like a glimpse into the past. Before he had turned, before he had let the monster take over, before he had closed himself off from feeling. She would do anything to see it again.

  “Nowhere is barred to me. All you had to do was ask.”

  “Forgive me, but asking you for anything is a bit like pulling teeth, Becks. You don’t make any of this easy.”

  “I know. I am not an easy man to be around.”

  She frowned and nodded. That was true. And also…false. He was so easy to be around at times. When he let his guard down. When he didn’t hide his relationship with another woman. As much as she wanted to claw his eyes out for that one…and for kissing her despite it all…she knew that she didn’t really have the right.

  Part of her wanted to hold on to her anger and remember how it had flared up when he kept pushing her aside. She didn’t want to be taken advantage of if he was with someone else, but she also didn’t want to be away from him. She liked being near him. She liked his broody company. Even though she hated never knowing exactly where she stood.

  But staring up into his eyes as black as night wrapped a spell around them both, and she was not going to be the one to break it.

  “Will you take me?” she whispered.

  Their shared gaze turned heated. Her words held more than one meaning and until they left her mouth, she hadn’t realized how much she wasn’t talking about the photographs. She might have wanted to close her heart off to him, but her body certainly wasn’t listening. The backseat of the car suddenly felt stifling hot, and the short distance between them crackled with desire.

  Beckham broke her gaze and stared down at his silent phone. She let out a strangled breath, and tried to pull herself together.

  Jesus, Beckham…

  “By the way,” he said, “what the hell are you wearing?”

  Chapter 22

  Beckham let Reyna keep the clothes.

  She half expected her baggy T-shirts, jeans, and Converse to disappear from her closet the next day, but they remained safely tucked away. In fact, they were freshly laundered and returned to that same location.

  But since Beckham had picked her up, she hadn’t gone back out into the city. She knew that she could, but she was waiting for Beckham to take her. She was secretly thrilled about the idea. Beckham never did something out of his schedule that he didn’t want to. And if he wanted to take her to see some more of the city that she could photograph, then she knew it had to be good.

  Plus, the excitement of uninterrupted time with Beckham away from his work and his colleagues and Penelope…did sound inviting.

  While she waited, she spent a lot of time studying the images she had taken while out with Everett. She posted a few of the fighting ring to her site and wondered obsessively if anyone was looking at them.

  She particularly loved the close-up she had gotten of the smaller guy fighting. His face was so clear, and he had this defiant smirk. It was a perfect candid. Humanity rising above despite the circumstances. The world they were living in was horrible enough. It should be noted that there was still some hope out there.

  Not that she was the shining example of that. Visage wasn’t hope. Visage was a Band-Aid, covering up the real problems so many were suffering from.

  The elevator ding pulled her out of her melancholy. She quickly exited out of all the images on her computer. The fighting images disappeared and then the mysterious blood bank images followed. She had been sure to keep those in a separate locked file. She didn’t want them to end up online.

  Beckham opened the door without knocking, and she quickly closed her computer. It was late. She hadn’t expected him to come see her. All she was wearing was a pair of tiny silk shorts and a tank top. She knew that she wore small tight dresses around him all the time, but she felt so much more exposed in her sleeping clothes.

  “Have you put pictures anywhere but on that website I set up for you?” he asked. No greeting. All business.

  She shifted her weight on her bed. “No.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re in storage on my computer and then online. Why? You said that was all right.”

  “That’s fine. Just don’t ever show them to anyone. Ever.”

  Reyna sighed. “Um…but I went out with Everett taking pictures. He was there at the fights with me, and we went to a homeless shelter.”

  “Did you tell him that the website was you?” he demanded.

  His tone was so sharp she jumped. She knew that he hadn’t wanted her to tell anyone, but
Everett had figured it out. She never would have told him otherwise.

  “He guessed.”

  Beckham scrunched up his forehead and made a circle in her bedroom. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. He looked ready to punch through a wall…or a person. But she didn’t understand why he was so mad. She hadn’t told Everett. He had figured it out. She hadn’t meant for it to happen. But it wasn’t life or death.

  “I’ll have to look into him. I can’t have this get back to you,” he said, his voice determined.

  “You said that before, but I don’t think Everett is going to say anything. Who would he tell anyway?”

  “Can’t take the chance.”

  “Why are you freaking out? What happened?” Reyna hopped off the bed and stopped his pacing. It was starting to scare her. Had something happened? Was this related to the rebellion things that Everett had told her about? She didn’t want to cause Beckham trouble even if she was secretly glad that her images were making a splash.

  “Nothing. Nothing happened. I just want to make sure you’re protected,” he said. He pulled away from her touch. He looked shaken and that only scared her more. “Remember when I said a picture is worth a thousand words? Some people have different words for images than you or I. Those images can then become dangerous.”

  She stood very still and tried to imagine what could scare Beckham into worrying about those images. And if he was worried, why was he allowing her to keep them?

  “Should I stop posting them?” she asked.

  “You like them?”

  She nodded. “Very much. It gives me purpose.”

  He wavered before shaking his head. “Then they stay.”

  “Can I ask you something without you getting angry?”

  Beckham narrowed his eyes. “Okay?”

  She took a deep breath and then ventured forward with her question. “Is this about the rebellion?”

  Beckham stiffened and his eyes narrowed. He was perfectly still and silent like a statue. He searched her face for something, but she wasn’t sure what it was. “What rebellion?” he said very carefully.

  “Elle,” she said simply. His eyebrows rose sharply. “I heard that there was a rebellion or a resistance to Visage.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. Was it at the fight? Did you talk to someone or see anything suspicious?” he probed.

  She looked away from him. She wasn’t ready to tell him about the blood banks. If Elle was a real thing, it was very clear that Beckham was on Visage’s side. He was such a high-ranking official it would be ludicrous to think otherwise. It didn’t matter that he was different than the other vampires she had met in the upper echelon. He wouldn’t want to give up his power. Power made people hungry and greedy. Two things at which vampires were already experts.

  “You mean besides the fight, everyone’s reaction to the fight, and getting chased out of the place? No. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Beckham scowled at her. “Then where did you hear about it?”

  Reyna bit her lip before answering. “Everett. He was telling me about the fact that my images could be used to support the Elle rebels or something. That they showcased the crux of humanity’s difficulties. But I’m not part of the rebellion. I’m clearly with the system, here, working for you and Visage. I wouldn’t go against what you wanted with the company. I mean, I think people need help, but I don’t think we should take down Visage either. Some of the things they’re doing are really helpful. I just think we need an alternative way to also help the people who don’t work for them. Okay, I’ll stop now.” When she realized she was babbling, she quickly shut her mouth.

  Beckham didn’t immediately respond. He ran a hand back through his hair in frustration and seemed to want to say so many things. She could feel the indecision rolling off of him.

  God, she hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. When Beckham had given her this camera she hadn’t thought that her pictures would ever be seen by anyone. The power of the Internet was infinite.

  “Get dressed,” he said suddenly. “We’ll talk about it on the way.”

  “The way where?”

  “You’ll see. Just bring your camera.” And then he stormed out of her room in a hurry.

  That damn man was always in a hurry.

  Reyna slipped out of her sleeping clothes and threw on a soft black backless dress and red-backed heels. She longed for her jeans and Converse, but knew when Beckham said “dressed” that wasn’t what he meant. He let her keep the clothes, but that didn’t mean he wanted her to wear them.

  At least she was getting used to the shoes.

  They left the penthouse shortly afterward and got into Beckham’s car. The driver drove them through the darkened city, which seemed all closed up for the night.

  Reyna was anxious to find out where they were going and what he would tell her about the rebellion. She hadn’t thought he would actually say anything. Or at the very least she had thought he would get angry with her for bringing it up. Since neither of those things had happened, she waited rather impatiently for him to explain.

  “You don’t talk a lot, you know?”

  Beckham was gazing straight ahead, but she was staring at him and didn’t miss the upturn of his lips. “You only lasted through three minutes of silence.”

  “Well, if I kept waiting for you to say something, I’d be waiting forever.”

  “Silence gives me time to think and not act impulsively,” he said. His look was pointed.

  She gave him an innocent look.

  Her? Act impulsive? Never.

  After another quiet minute, Beckham continued. “For a long time, I didn’t think before I acted, and I’ve now cultivated this new skill to protect everyone around me.”

  “How does silence protect people? It just seems to keep them at a distance.”

  “Where they belong,” he said firmly. “Everyone should be kept at a distance.”

  “Everyone?” she asked. She couldn’t help leaning toward him. How could he think that? What had happened to him to make him want to push everyone in his life away?

  “Yes. I do not relish the thought of acting on my every whim.”

  “Do you act on any whims?”

  “Some,” he admitted.

  His eyes looked at her body and then up to her lips. She tensed as the memory of his kisses flooded her mind. She couldn’t get them out of her head. Even when she was mad at him, the touch of his lips still brought chills to her skin. She wanted more. She craved him like an addict craved the next hit. She didn’t know what he did to her, but when they got like this, she didn’t care. It didn’t matter how infuriating he was, she was caught up in the whirlwind of their desire.

  “Be glad that I do not act on more. If I did, far less people would have their throats intact.”

  Reyna’s mouth dropped open. What the hell was she supposed to say to that? She turned back to face the front. “Oh.”

  The car finally stopped outside of an outrageously tall building on the outskirts of the city. It wasn’t a bad area by any means, but Reyna had never been out this far. She didn’t even know that nice areas existed outside of downtown proper. Everything was pitch black, even the building didn’t have any lights on. It looked closed, but Beckham had said nothing was barred to him.

  Beckham helped her out of the car and then she followed him up to the front door. Reyna tried to peer inside, but the interior wasn’t visible. The glass must have been tinted or it was just that dark. Beckham slipped a card out of his wallet, scanned it against a magnetic strip she hadn’t noticed, and the door clicked open soundlessly.

  He ushered her inside and then took her hand to guide her through the darkened interior. She relished in the feel of his hand engulfing hers.

 
“What is this place?” she asked, looking around at the dark blank walls.

  “Office space.”

  “For Visage?”

  “No.”

  “Then what company?”

  “For once, be silent and just enjoy the ride,” he told her, pushing them through the elevator doors.

  She laughed. “Fine. You win.”

  “I usually do.”

  He pressed the button for the top floor, and the doors shut behind him. A dim light illuminated Beckham’s face and cast eerie shadows throughout the elevator. But her eyes were locked on Beckham, who hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since they had entered the elevator. The room seemed to crackle. She wanted to clear the distance that he always kept between them. It would be so easy to do. But the sharp sting of rejection still bit into her. It had only been a few days before when he had kissed her at the ball and then turned her aside.

  She was sure he felt what was passing between them. He would have to be an idiot not to feel it.

  “Becks,” she murmured.

  “Don’t, Reyna,” he said, but it sounded more like he was pleading with her.

  Her heart thumped in her chest. That was the last thing she wanted to hear, and he hardly sounded like he meant it. But she would stay still. Being in his presence was intoxicating enough. She wouldn’t throw herself at him in desperation.

  Slow agonizing seconds ticked by before the elevator opened again. He exited and she followed him down a hallway and to a stairwell.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Up.”

  “But isn’t this the top floor?”

  He smiled a heart-stopping smile. “The sky is the limit.”

  They traveled up two long flights of stairs and reached the apex. Another door stood in their way. When Beckham pushed it open, she walked out onto the roof. The wind was whistling at this dizzying height, and the temperature had dropped a considerable amount. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms to ward off the chill as she moved to the edge of the building and stood paralyzed and awestruck at the beautiful rooftop garden view.