“Perhaps it is both.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
He didn’t answer immediately. He stood there motionless. Watching. Thinking. Considering… something. Just before she decided she was done with waiting, a smidgen of life returned to his expression.
“Did you return to accept the wager?” he asked.
“Your name on my lips before the next full moon?” She shrugged. “No. I’m not in the mood for mediocre sex.”
“I am wounded,” he said with zero inflection.
Headlights flashed across his face when a car turned in to their lane. A shiny black Tesla slowed to a stop beside them. Jared opened the back door.
Nora looked at the leather interior, then at him, then she rapped her knuckles on the driver’s window. After a long pause, it rolled down, revealing the vampire Deagan, who did not look at all happy to see her.
“Yes?” Deagan asked flatly.
“Get out.”
“Pardon me?”
“Vampires aren’t deaf. You heard me.”
“This is my vehicle.”
She stared at him and didn’t rein in her werewolf magic; she unfurled it, let it push her expectations and demands into the air. It wouldn’t manipulate strong-willed paranorms, but they would feel it. They would sense her power and know she wasn’t messing around.
Deagan rolled his eyes toward his master. Jared said nothing. With a mutter and an exasperated sigh, Deagan climbed out of the Tesla.
A beep sounded from the dash, signaling that the keys had left the vehicle. Deagan removed them from the pocket of his purple longcoat and held them out toward Jared. “Your chariot.”
Nora swiped the keys from his hand, dropped into the driver seat, and shut the door.
“Jared,” Deagan said, indignant.
Jared clasped the other vampire on the shoulder. “I will take care of her.”
“Do you mean Nora or Delilah?” Deagan called as his master circled around to the passenger side.
Nora rolled up her window. As soon as Jared opened the door and sat, she stomped on the accelerator. Momentum slammed the door shut and pushed Jared into the seat. The Tesla squealed out of the parking lot, cutting off a truck before she sped through a yellow light, then took a sharp left turn.
“Deagan will be upset if you damage Delilah. Not as upset as when you ripped the arm off his favorite coat but close.”
Nora veered onto the highway. The Tesla was the newest model. It responded to the slightest press of the pedal, and the steering wheel felt good in her hands. It might be time to get another car, something she could outrun the world in.
Preferably outrun it without a vampire sitting beside her.
“Where can I dump you?” she asked.
“Do you intend to steal Deagan’s car?”
“I haven’t decided yet. And this car isn’t a Delilah.”
“You prefer another name?”
She shook her head, not in response to his question but because she didn’t know what she was doing. She shouldn’t be breathing the same air as Arcuro’s henchman, shouldn’t be feeling his presence along her skin or imagining his lips on her body, her throat. She couldn’t even blame the latter on his power-laden aura. He was muting it, making it easier to treat him like any other person.
Or any other vampire.
