True.
But Orin being wrong didn’t make Myles right. “Orin never took advantage of me physically.”
“I shouldn’t have tasted your blood without asking. I admit it. I acted selfishly. I guess I thought it would help me protect you better.” He tugged his hand through his curls while he took an obvious deep breath. “But that’s no excuse.”
“I don’t need your protection. I can take care of myself.”
“I hate to break it to you, but you can’t.” He sat on the edge of the table, allowing her to get to her locker. She inched forward as he spoke. “A great power is inside you. I’ve tasted it. However, your abilities are sporadic at best. And we don’t know what your preternatural side will produce.”
His words froze her in her tracks. Just when she thought she couldn’t get any more confused. “We? What aren’t you telling me, Myles?”
“You think you’ve got this all figured out, that you can’t trust me. If you’re not careful you’ll let your lust-driven, childish infatuation lead you right into danger.”
Why did he think it was only about desire? Had he gotten some kind of read-out from her blood? He couldn’t have. Her feelings for Orin were more than just lust. Besides, they hadn’t done anything more than kiss.
“You’re a fine one to talk, Mr. I’ve Got Needs. Besides, who are you callin’ childish? You act like you’re so old and wise,” she said. “You’re only three years older than me.”
“I’ve been twenty-one for nearly one hundred and fifty years.” He laughed. The calm, smooth sound didn’t fit him in any way. “I think I’ve learned a thing or two about my own needs.” His gaze smoldered with desire.
Damn. Myles is old.
She was surprised, and he knew it through their blood-bond.
“You didn’t think I was so old.”
“Stop that.” Breena placed a hand on her hip, added a sharp eye roll.
“Orin’s just as old, if not older. He’s killed by profession for a long time.” Myles hopped off the table and in a flash he was on her, pushing her flat against the lockers with his hand braced behind her for impact. The clang of the door slamming shut reverberated in her ears. “Don’t think for a second you’re safe with him.” His words pierced her heart as if they were fangs.
Jealousy–and something she couldn’t pin down–raged through him like the Rhodhiss Dam balking under its heavy burden.
“You’re jealous.” Her heart hammered against her chest.
“My blood doesn’t lie.”
His lips were playing a dangerous game of chicken with hers. She could nearly taste him. He pressed his body closer, his muscles shifting against her, keeping her trapped in his arms. He wanted her. In more ways than one.
“Just admit you like me, Myles. You know I like you.” And maybe without the blood she more-than-liked him. Would she ever know for sure?
Myles angled her face up to his, searching her gaze. She saw pain in his eyes, and hope. She wanted to stay pressed against him. Wanted whatever he offered. He grazed her cheek with his fingertips. Her blood throbbed from his touch. His fangs slid out.
“Tell me,” she said, her voice breathy, loaded with emotion.
The moment came and went without Myles admitting to anything.
Typical.
The furrow of his brow seemed etched in stone, so serious. Suddenly, he backed away from her, leaving her limp against the lockers. His gaze hardened. “You don’t understand. It’s complicated.”
Hell, she understood all right. She understood she was totally pissed off. With a capital P. “Oh, I see. ‘It’s not you. It’s me.’ Get real, Myles. You’d think after all your years as a twenty-one year old you could come up with a better excuse.”
She huffed back around to face the locker, but her fingers fumbled with the combination to the lock. If only steam would come out of her ears like the cat on Jenny’s favorite cartoon. It might make her feel better.
* * * *
Myles watched Breena storm out of the break room, leaving him alone with his thoughts and heartsick for the halfling he could never have.
There was so much she didn’t understand. So much he wanted to tell her but couldn’t. If he told her he was fang-over-lip in love with her, what good would it do? Once the president found out, he would lose the thing he held most dear. The bewitched pills gave him his humanity. Without it, he would become a vicious killing machine. Again. Blood-thirsty. Sexually driven. Unstoppable. Breena could never love a monster.
Maybe if he hadn’t been made a vampire under such distress things would’ve turned out differently. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone on a witch hunt–literally–and gotten himself caught in the president’s snare.
But then he never would’ve been given the miracle drug. Never been allowed to return to Rhodhiss. Never brought Breena here. And never found something worth living for. No matter how bad his existence seemed, the thought of her kept him going. She was the most important person in his life and he would keep her safe, even if it meant losing her.
He lifted his head and scented the air. The smell of their magic was, as always, sickeningly sweet.
“Look what we have here, Doris.” Sandy, the heavily made-up redhead, tsked to her sidekick.
“Poor, pitiful vampire.” Doris shook her head.
The sound of their voices grated on Myles’s nerves. He wanted to lose control, drain them both where they stood, but they weren’t worth it. Instead, he dug his hands into his pockets and tried not to scowl.
Sandy’s low-cut black suit jacket revealed a lacy pink camisole, which dipped almost as low. She sashayed up to Myles, tracing the outline of her camisole to draw attention to her exposed neck and other nearly-exposed areas.
The vampire kept his eyes on the witch’s face, watching her thick black lashes flutter while her gaze roamed over his body. Not the first time she’d tried to tempt him. But he wanted nothing to do with her. She wasn’t Breena.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“That’s no way to talk to your supplier.” Sandy waved her index finger in his face.
Myles stood perfectly still. He didn’t want to give her any reason to draw her pointless babble out. “No problem. You’re just her mule.”
“It’s a good thing I find you so cute.” She took a step closer.
“Too bad the feeling isn’t mutual.” He stepped back.
“Here.” Sandy tossed him a bottle.
He dumped out the contents in his palm and counted the green pills.
“There’s only seven here.” Great. Now they’d be checking up on him once a week instead of once a month. “Why?”
“You’ve been a bad, bad vampire.” Sandy wet her lips.
Myles swallowed the anger blazing through him. “What’s your point?”
“He’s no fun. Is he?” Sandy shook her head at her witch coworker, who was currently winning the wall-flower prize.
Adjusting the skirt of her suit, Doris looked up at him. “Definitely not.”
He knew what they were doing, of course. Anything to get him to break the rules. But he’d almost served his sentence and had no intention of jeopardizing that. Although, the end of his term brought with it another set of problems. Namely, he’d lose his now-weekly supply of humanity.
“There has to be a reason you’re here. Other than to torture me.” He twisted the copper ring on his finger.
The redheaded witch shifted on her feet. She’d suddenly snapped into professional mode. “All work and no play, I guess. Fine.” Sandy pushed out her chest, crossed her arms under her breasts. “Tell him, Doris.”
“You’ve become a little too willy-nilly with the blood exchange.” Doris clucked, waggling a finger at him.
Myles should’ve realized they’d know. After all, they’d been watching his every move since he’d been sent here with Breena. But he’d only done it to heal her, to better look after her. He was fully aware of what would happen if they exchanged blood three times. “I�
��ve only taken hers once.”
Sandy’s heels clicked on the cement floor as she walked over to Myles and planted herself in his face. “But you’ve given her yours twice now. The president isn’t happy. Keep your fangs in your mouth, Big Bad, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Yeah,” Doris echoed.
“Consider yourself warned,” Sandy taunted as she began to spin in a controlled circle, gaining speed. Doris did the same, until they’d both whirled themselves invisible.
Chapter 13
Breena’s cell vibrated in her lap as she pulled into the Hardees’ parking lot to get supper for her and Jenny. Edging up to the drive-thru line, she read the text: Norma drunk as a skunk.
Apparently mom-of-the-year had finally stumbled into the house.
Guess it’s only one cheeseburger then.
She ate her meal in the car with the windows rolled down while Nirvana’s Come As You Are played on the radio. She considered herself an equal opportunity music listener for the most part, although she drew the line at country–how many beers could you cry into about your dead dog? Grunge wasn’t exactly her favorite genre, but listening to the despair and anger in Kurt Cobain’s voice lifted her mood in a warped kind of way. Maybe because, deep down, she felt the same sometimes.
It wasn’t until Jenny came into her life that she had wanted to live. Her sister had given Breena a purpose. A goal. And nothing and no one would keep her from reaching it. She wouldn’t accept defeat. Somehow, Norma had to be out of the picture. Was it too much to ask for her to drink herself into oblivion? A part of her thought that might be a little harsh. The other part thought, If I were twenty-one I’d buy the whisky.
Breena decided she’d taken a nose dive into uncharted and overly-cynical waters. Maybe a walk on her dam would help her refocus, because dark and depressed wasn’t who she wanted to be. She dumped the garbage and took off.
When she reached the gate, she pulled off the road, parking on the verge, though she didn’t know why she bothered. No one ever came here after the plant shut down for the night, and–at nearly seven o’clock–it had been closed for almost two hours.
The cement structure towered over her. Carefully she climbed the ladder fixed to the side.
At the top of the ladder, a chain-link gate bore a sign reading: Danger Electric Shock. She climbed over it without a moment’s hesitation. Stupid thing hadn’t been on once in ten years. Breena strolled until she came to the middle of the dam and leaned against the rail.
Up here, looking over the Rhodhiss River, her river, a sense of contentment flooded her veins. She connected to everything at once. Sky. Water. Earth. The sun dipped below the tree line, casting orange and pink light across the river. Dark shadows danced in the distance, tempting her.
The silence shattered as a scraping sound–like nails down a chalk board–rang out in the still night air. Without even thinking about it, she turned and the blue light shot out of her palms.
Orin stood on the other side of the chain-link gate. Shocked, almost literally. The lock swung loose. She’d apparently hit it with the crazy-fast blue-light-thing-she-couldn’t-control.
“If you’d been properly trained in magic, I might actually be scared,” Orin joked as he flicked open the gate and walked to her side.
“Why didn’t you use the apparition thingy?”
“We can only apparate to places we’ve been before.” She could almost hear the Duh, Breena in his voice.
“Oh, right,” she said and turned back to the water. “Why are you here? I’m still pissed at you.” Really she wasn’t. She wanted him to take away the pain. Needed him to. Needed him.
“Look at me.” His voice was gentle.
She glared at him.
“I know you’re angry, and I recognize what a complete ass I am. But I have a surprise for you.”
“Now I expect you to throw me into the river,” she mocked. “You’ve ruined the surprise.”
“I’m not here to kill you, Breena.”
“How am I supposed to believe you?”
“I want you,” he said, his voice low and husky.
“That’s not a reason. It’s an excuse.” She threw her hands in the air.
“It may have been my excuse to begin with, but now it’s my reason.”
“You barely know me.”
“I know you better than you think.” He stayed close but made no move to touch her.
Crossing her arms, she stared at him. “Okay. Wow me.”
“You’re loyal, kind, surprisingly fierce.”
“That’s the best you’ve got?” She rolled her eyes. “You described a golden retriever.”
“You hate country music.”
“Who doesn’t?” She shrugged.
He laughed. “Funny,” he said, though it seemed he was talking to himself. “Don’t you want to know how I know you hate country music?”
She kind of liked to see him try so hard. “Yeah, sure. Why the hell not?”
“That’s the spirit.” He smiled, and read her face with his gaze as if she were a book he’d devoured a hundred times before. His favorite book. “Every time a country song came on the jukebox at Mama Rosa’s your forehead crinkled and your eyes narrowed.”
Well rock my world, Captain Observant.
Fine, he’d nailed that one but it wasn’t enough. “What else?”
“You want me too.” His gaze seemed to bore into her soul. “We belong together, and you know it.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You want a relationship even though you act like you don’t. You want one with a take-charge kind of guy. Someone who can admit he cares for you.”
She gave him her best skeptical look.
“The vampire isn’t that guy.”
“Who? Myles?”
“What other vampire have you met?”
“True. But I never said I wanted Myles.”
“Don’t you?” Orin cocked his head to the side and his brows furrowed.
“No.” Who was he to tell her how she felt? Of course, she didn’t exactly know how she felt. Which was the problem.
“Good. Because he isn’t your soul mate.”
“And you are?” Breena could play this game.
“Yes.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You’re the answer.” He sounded as if he chose each word with extreme care.
“To what?”
“Everything.” He smiled, but his expression was sober.
The idea of being someone’s solution gave that balloon on a string a much-needed lift.
He wrapped an arm around her and drew her to him, hip to hip. Lacing his fingers in her hair, he caressed her neck in a way that felt familiar and safe, but somehow also hot and dangerous. She wanted to lose herself, surrender to him. Give herself over to the desire. She wanted to free herself. To be his answer.
His face was inches from hers and the gold in his eyes had turned liquid. He leaned the barest fraction closer, and when he spoke she felt his breath on her lips. “Kiss me,” he whispered.
Her lips found his. Passion consumed her. Any other thought seemed a thousand miles away. The way his lips moved with hers urged her to be in the moment, made her forget he was an assassin and she half-anything. With his lips on hers, she was complete.
He wanted her.
Draping her arms over his shoulders, she clasped her hands behind his neck.
At least she knew where she stood with Orin, unlike a certain black-haired vamp.
Holding her tight, he leaned her gently against the railing. He trailed his lips up the length of her neck until they found her mouth again. God, this was heaven. But kisses weren’t enough. She needed the chilling ache inside her gone. Abruptly she pulled her lips from his.
Though her heart pounded like a jackhammer, she needed to say it. “Take away my pain.”
His ears shot through his perfect hair. He lifted her hand and began to stroke her palm, slowly tracing a cross.
“Are you sure that’s what you want, baby?”
“Yes.” Her breath caught in her throat. She parted her lips, ready for him to taste her soul.
Leaning down, he gently nipped her bottom lip. His ears retracted. “Not here. First, your surprise.”
Her heart dropped to her stomach. She tried not to show her disappointment, so she focused on the second part of what he’d said. Surprise. She loved surprises.
Orin stepped away from her. Taking her hand in his, he led her back to the ladder.
“Can’t you poof us back to the bottom?”
“Doesn’t work like that, love.”
Breena’s cheeks heated, despite the chill inside her. It was the first time he’d called her that. And she liked it just as much as when he called her “baby.”
He smiled at her as if he knew, but kept on with his thought. “If you knew how to apparate then we could apparate together somewhere we’d both been before. But since you don’t, we’re stuck doing it the human way.” He winked and squeezed her hand.
Breena took one last look across the river. The sun had disappeared. The only light came from the full moon and the faint yellowish glow of the lights on the side of the dam.
They walked through the gate. Orin bent the lock back into place. It looked almost normal, as if a weird blue streak of light hadn’t zipped right through metal.
Orin climbed the ladder first and led the way down the ramp.
“How’d you find me?” she asked.
“The dam makes you happy, so it was the first place I looked.”
“And you just thought to check the top?”
“Not exactly. I followed your sound.”
“My sound? Was I humming or something?” The dull light of a streetlamp illuminated the path as they walked to her car.
“You weren’t, but your soul was.”
“My soul hums?”
“It’s more like a melody I can’t get out of my head.” His shoulder brushed against hers.
“Do you want to?”
“No.” He smiled.
“So when your ears pop up, you’re listening to my soul?”
“Intently.” His gaze found hers. “All the better to hear you with, my dear.”
* * * *
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