He tried to fucking bite me! What a weirdo.
He wrapped his hands around my throat, and I started to panic. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. This was it – I was probably a goner. Bye bye birdie.
But then, suddenly, the guy was gone. There was a fierce rush of movement and wind as someone knocked him off me.
I sat up quickly, rubbing my raw throat. I tried to see what was going on, but it was too dark. I heard a lot of that hissing going on, as well as the sound of hard blows being delivered.
Finally, I heard a voice say, “Go.” No one needed to tell me whose voice that was.
It was Risa.
There was the sound of sizzling electricity, and the streetlights came back on. She was standing there, right in front of me. But the huge guy was gone.
“Um – hi,” I said slowly. “Would you mind telling me what the hell is going on?”
She sighed heavily, looking down at the ground for a moment. “That’s kind of a long story,” she confessed. “Do you have a place where we can talk?”
“As in, a place where I live? Yeah, I have one of those. I’m not a fucking hobo.”
She smiled thinly and followed me as I picked up my purse and took off down the street. She stayed a little behind me, not trying to walk alongside me.
Now, I’m not going to lie. I had been crushing on this woman ever since I met her, and she just saved my life. That was a recipe for me to practically be swooning in her arms (if I were the type who swoons). But there was still the little matter of young girls being stowed into vans at the club she owned. How could she not know about that?
And also – what the frick was going on with the Incredible Hulk who’d just attacked me? Hissing and biting and all that shit? He didn’t seem . . . human.
One thing was for sure – this girl was about to get grilled. Like a Kraft single between two pieces of white bread.
***
We went up to my apartment, and I sighed when I remembered the broken lock. I’d forgotten all about it. I needed to call a locksmith pronto, or I was going to come home to find it empty of everything but the cabinets and the stove.
“Well, saves me from having to fish for my keys,” I said as I pushed the door open. I glanced at Risa and added, “I’d say I’m usually a glass-half-full kinda person, but that’s not really true.”
She showed that faint smile again, following me into the apartment. I shut the door softly, but nevertheless, two seconds later:
“You young hussy!”
Yep, that’d be Mr. Tanaka. Risa looked at me in surprise, obviously wondering who’d said that.
“My lovely elderly Japanese neighbor,” I informed her. “To state the matter simply – he thinks I’m a slut, so he’ll use any excuse to scream at me. The door is his favorite.”
“Has he called you that?” Risa asked, looking a little angry.
There I went again – fluttering because of her. I liked her looking angry at someone on account of me. It meant she liked me.
“Not quite,” I replied with a grin. “’Hussy’ is about as far as we’ve gotten – but I’m sure we’ll get there someday.”
“Someone should have a talk with him,” Risa said, shooting a bitter look towards Mr. Tanaka’s apartment.
“Are you volunteering?” I asked, my eyes fixed on the side of her beautiful face. God, I could stare at that face all day long. I just wanted to lick it or something.
She looked back at me, directly into my eyes. “I’ll put it on my to-do list,” she said.
She held my gaze as if with a physical touch. I couldn’t look away from her. I felt like I was falling down Alice’s rabbit-hole or something.
Man, I was in deep shit.
I shook myself roughly, snapping our connection. “Do you want a drink?” I asked quickly, walking towards the kitchen. “’Cause I know I want a drink.”
“Sure, thanks,” she replied, taking a couple of steps in my direction, but not following me quite all the way.
My usual glass was on the counter, but I pulled an extra one down for Risa, splashing a healthy dose of whiskey into both of them. I carried them back into the living room, passing one over to her.
“Your hand’s shaking,” she remarked, her voice tinged with concern. “Are you okay?”
Damn it, my hand was shaking. She’d thrown me off my game when she looked in my eyes like that.
“Yeah,” I said, tightening my fingers around my glass. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. And then, you know, there was that whole ‘weird guy tried to kill me’ thing.”
“I’m sorry about that,” she said. She looked, I don’t know – just really freaking sorry. I didn’t get it.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, taking a big swallow of my drink. “You’re the one who got him off me. What do you have to be sorry for?”
I thought for a moment. “Although,” I said slowly, “what were you even doing over here?”
“I’m going to explain everything,” she answered, looking into my face with supplication. For what, I wasn’t sure. “But you’re not going to like any of it,” she added.
“Well, to be fair,” I admitted, settling myself into a plush red chair next to the ruined sofa, “I never really like much of anything, so your chances weren’t good from the get-go.”
She smiled again. Jeez, I was on a roll in the Smile Department here. I wondered what I’d have to do to get her to laugh. Some people said I had good jokes, but that was mostly only when I was drunk.
She sat down in a chair across from me, settling back and crossing her legs. Damn, she had sexy legs. Toned and slightly muscular, they looked yummier than fried Twinkies in those tight jeans. She had on black cowboy boots that reached mid-calf, and they only improved the overall effect.
I think she caught me staring, because her smile shifted into Mega Gear. She didn’t say anything about it, though.
She knocked back her entire drink, then set the glass down on the coffee table. Impressive. That was a pretty hefty drink. This girl could play with the big boys.
She sat silent for a long moment, staring at the carpet and looking thoughtful. She opened her mouth a couple of times to speak, but then she closed it again, as if she didn’t like the words she’d chosen.
“You have to start somewhere,” I told her. “Let’s go back to last night at the club. Who in the hell was that crazy redhead mauling that dude on the dancefloor?”
She took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, nodding in agreement. “Yeah,” she said. “That might be a good place to start. But then – maybe something simpler first.”
She looked into my eyes again, and my heart flipped right over. Just like a fish on a boat deck that been taken off the line. It was as if I didn’t stand a chance, which really scared the hell out of me. I sucked down the rest of my drink, feeling shaky again.
“I guess this part is kind of like ripping off a Band-Aid,” she said. “And, trust me – I know how it’s going to sound. It’s going to be exactly like Edward Cullen in Twilight, and as corny as that is, there’s really nothing I can do about it.”
She held my gaze, going absolutely still. “I’m a vampire,” she said quietly.
I was silent. Even my brain was being quiet. It took a moment for regular thought processes to resume, but when they did, I found that I wasn’t shaking too badly.
“You know what?” I said to her. “I think I already knew that, actually.”
It was true. Put together the fight at the club between two girls with fangs, a gang named the SC Vamps, and some insanely strong, animal-like guy who’d just attacked me on the street outside my apartment, and voila!, you have a formula for convincing someone that vampires just might really exist.
Risa’s mouth practically fell open in shock. “You – you did?”
“Yep. It’s not like I ever believed in that kind of stuff – but there were just too many clues. Even a skeptic can’t refute the evidence when it’s staring her right in t
he face.”
“Well, that’s very reasonable of you,” she said in an admiring tone. “You’re the first person who’s ever put it quite like that.”
“I may have been called ‘original’ once or twice in my life,” I conceded.
“Whoever said it, they certainly weren’t wrong,” Risa told me, smiling more brightly than ever now. Now with the flattery. God, this girl was going to be the death of me.
“Okay,” I said, unable to suppress a smile of my own. “Back to business. You were going to fill me in on Miss Thang Thang?”
Risa’s brows knitted in confusion, and I clarified, “The chick you were sparring with.”
“Ah,” Risa said with a laugh. I inwardly fist-bumped myself. The lady liked my jokes. “You mean Lady Serenity. I admit – I’ve never heard her referred to that way.”
I frowned. “What’s with the ‘Lady’ stuff? She thinks a lot of herself, huh?”
Risa’s expression grew serious. “She’s dangerous, Dani. She’s not just another vampire. She and her mate, Ronin, are the leaders of all Shadow City’s vampires – titled ‘Lord’ and ‘Lady.’ They’re both over a thousand years old.”
“No shit!” I exclaimed. “Well, that’s pretty nifty. But it looked to me like you were stronger than her.”
Risa lowered her gaze. “Physically, maybe,” she said quietly. “But Serenity and Ronin have a lot more allies, and a lot more power. If she had attacked anyone other than you, I would never have provoked her.”
My breath stalled in my throat, and my fingers clutched the arms of the chair. Anyone other than me? The girl had practically just confessed that she was totally crushing on me.
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “That probably sounded really weird to you. I have to tell you something else now, and – damn. I thought the vampire part was hardest, but I think this is worse.”
I watched her with rapt attention. Whatever she had to say, I had to know, and I had to know now. My gaze was so intent, it was probably almost a little creepy, but she just looked right into my eyes.
“When we met at the bar,” she went on, “something happened. I didn’t do it on purpose. No one ever does it on purpose. It just – well, it just happens.”
I thought of the jolt of electricity I’d felt when she touched my hand, so strong it made me spill my drink. I had a feeling that was what she was referring to.
“I marked you,” she breathed, staring at me with eyes that waited desperately to see how I’d react.
“You marked me,” I echoed, digging my fingernails into the chair. We were getting a little Twilighty again. Or was that imprinting? Whatever that wolf boy did to that baby. Which was super weird. But anyway.
“Yes,” she answered.
“And are you going to tell me exactly what that means?”
She hesitated for a moment before speaking. “Are you sure you want to know?”
I could have made some smart-ass rejoinder. Usually, that’s exactly what I would have done. But I could tell she was feeling vulnerable, and I wanted her to feel safe with me. “Yes,” I said calmly. “I want to know.”
“My soul recognized yours,” she explained, watching me closely. “It’s said that every living soul has a mate – and mine marked yours as its own.”
Yep, that was definitely more of a kicker than the vampire thing. That I’d seen coming. This I did not.
To say I was blown away would have been an understatement. Half of America was blown away when Trump was elected president. Millions of people were blown away when they realized Bruce Willis was actually dead at the end of The Sixth Sense. We were way beyond that.
“So you’re saying . . .” I asked in disbelief, staring at her with knitted brows, “you’re my soulmate?”
She smiled softly. “Yes.”
“But I don’t even know you,” I said, feeling kind of helpless now.
“It has nothing to do with that,” she told me. “My soul simply recognized yours. Sometimes, one person marks another, and those people don’t even end up together. They end up alone or with people they’re not really meant for. That’s just life.”
This perfectly sensible response served to calm me somewhat. So – she’d marked me. I didn’t really know her. But apparently that didn’t matter?
I was so confused. I was like Mark Zuckerberg trying to shop at Wal-Mart, looking quizzically at screaming babies and rollback signs with yellow smiley faces on them.
“I know it’s a lot,” Risa said sympathetically. “I wish I didn’t have to follow up that announcement with bad news, but I want to be completely honest with you. I’m sure you can understand why most supernatural beings don’t approve of our kind getting involved with humans – it can be messy and risky. That’s why some of my people broke into your apartment last night. They wanted to see if you were a threat to us.”
“Your people broke into my apartment?” I asked loudly. “They couldn’t have just approached me like normal human beings?”
She laughed softly, and I realized my error. “Well, you know what I meant,” I said, feeling a little peeved. “And, by the way – they didn’t have to wreck my sofa.”
She glanced at the couch with a frown, nodding in agreement. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “That must have been Max. She gets a little temperamental sometimes.”
“No kidding,” I growled, still feeling grumpy.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” she said in a wheedling tone, clearly trying to get me to smile.
“But I liked that one,” I whined petulantly.
“Sometimes new things are nice,” she said pointedly, looking into my eyes again. Damn. I could strip naked and go swimming in those golden-brown eyes of hers.
“Maybe you’re right,” I admitted. “I guess it’s not that big of a deal, anyway. It’s just a sofa.”
A thought struck me, then, and I had a sudden question. “But what kind of is a big deal,” I said, “is that meatloaf who attacked me. Who the hell was that?”
Risa sighed, looking a little frustrated. “That was Boris,” she said. “I own Bloody Teeth, but he’s the top bouncer, and in some ways he thinks of himself as Head Honcho. Everyone knows by now that I marked you. When a vampire leaves her mark, it sends a telepathic signal to her coven, and there’s no denying it. No one is pleased that I’ve marked a human woman, but Boris took it a step too far and decided to take matters into his own hands. I would have killed him right then and there, but I couldn’t just leave his body lying out in the street for the human authorities to find. Trust me – he’ll get what’s coming to him later on.”
“Ooohhh,” I said, feeling undeniably turned on by her protectiveness. “Are you going to rough him up for me?”
“Something like that,” she said with a little smile.
We were silent for a long moment, and I realized that I had no idea what to say. It was kind of like learning a new language – which, by the way, is the reason I’m not bilingual.
“Um . . .” I began tentatively, “what do we do now?”
“That’s up to you,” she replied. “Like I said before – just because I left my mark on you, you’re not bound to me or anything. You’re free to do as you please. I’d like nothing more than to get to know you, but the choice is entirely yours. The risks are significant, and I’ll understand if you choose to walk away. In fact – the part of me that wants to protect you actually wishes you’d make that choice. But the part of me that wants to know you is stronger.”
Gee whiz, this woman was good with words. I bet she wrote dope poetry. She might have even been able to spit in a rap battle. It was sooooo attractive.
But wait a minute – hold on just one goddamn minute. I was suddenly furious with myself. The night before, Kent had saved a young girl from getting kidnapped at this woman’s club. She’d been here for quite a while now, and I hadn’t picked up a single bad vibe from her – but how could she not know what was going on? It was impossible.
She must have n
oticed the change in my expression, because she was frowning. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “You look pissed.”
“I am, actually,” I admitted. “There’s still the little matter of girls who are being thrown into vans out behind your club. I find it extremely hard to believe you don’t know that’s happening – so you’d better start talking right now.”
She gazed at me with a deep frown and eyes filled with sadness. She looked almost heartbroken. Whoa, now. That’s not the reaction I was expecting.
“Of course I know about it,” she said quietly. “But I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you that I could never, ever condone it.”
She took a deep, shaking breath, but I didn’t press her. I knew that she needed a minute. Whatever she was about to say, it wasn’t easy for her.
“A few years ago,” she began, clearing her throat in discomfort and shifting in her seat, “I had a girlfriend named Brooke. She was human – and she’s the main reason my coven isn’t happy that I’ve marked you, another human. Anyway, we found out she was dying of cancer. Vampires have the ability to heal their own wounds almost immediately, but most can’t heal others’.
“There’s one in Shadow City who can. His name is Kristoff, and he’s the leader of the city’s largest drug cartel, the SC Vamps.”
Eureka! I’d just struck gold. Kent and I hadn’t known when or if we’d ever find this Kristoff guy. But here was Risa, handing him over to me like a whole roast pig on a silver platter, with a bright red apple sticking out of his mouth and everything.
“I begged him to heal Brooke,” Risa went on. “To take her cancer away. He agreed, but he had a condition. He wanted to put me under his thrall, to do whatever he wanted, whenever he asked. To make me his servant, basically. It was a blow to my pride, but I made the deal. Stupid fool that I was.
“Kristoff came to heal Brooke, and she got better right away. Only problem was – almost as soon as she met Kristoff, she fell in love with the bastard. Fucking bitch. She left me and went to be with him. May they both rot in hell with maggots crawling over their festering corpses. But wait – I didn’t finish the story.”
Marked (Shadow City Book 1) Page 4