“Take me to Darius and I’ll deliver the message myself.” My fangs punched out as I thrashed my head.
Owen panicked when he realized he was in the car with a Vampire. He went for something beneath the seat, and I knew he must have impalement wood.
I quickly pulled the knife out of my thigh and drove it into his leg. “How do you likethat!”
He screamed louder than I had. Before he could react, I gripped his hand in mine and juiced all the Mage light I could.
“What the fuck?” he shrieked in bewilderment.
“Owen, you’re not the brightest crayon in the box.” I twisted the knife with my free hand, and he let out a guttural scream. “Why doesn’t Darius issue you stunners? Just a plain old dagger?”
He tried to fight me with his free hand, but I’d drained his light to the point where all he could do was drape himself over the steering wheel.
“It’s my turn to ask questions. Where does your boss hide? Better tell me, because you’re not going to like some of my other talents.” I pulled more of his energy out, already feeling nauseated from his dark light churning through my body like poison. “We’re going to keep holding hands until you decide how loyal you want to be to that monster you work for. I can hold on for a long time, and you don’t want to know how much I can take from you.”
Owen struck me across the face in a surprise attack. “Can you takethat?” He wasn’t as weak as he’d led me to believe. “That’s okay, bitch. I like it rough. Remember?”
* * *
When Christian’smotorcycle sputtered around the corner, I was reclined against an oak tree, replaying the events in my head to figure out where it all went wrong.
Had Owen’s friends discovered us in the parking lot, the situation could have escalated out of control. Three against one, and I couldn’t be sure if Christian would have intervened. Maybe I should have packed my stunner instead of the regular dagger.
The headlamp on Christian’s bike illuminated the fog, making it appear as if there was smoke rising from the earth. We were on a quiet stretch of road, surrounded by aging trees, moss, and croaking frogs.
His bike slid sideways, and the engine shut off. A cloud of fog and dirt eddied around the bike as Christian left it lying there and stalked toward me. All I could make out was a dark silhouette of a man, the tail of his coat floating behind him.
When he knelt down, I weakly swung my arm and slapped him. “You set me up.”
“Pardon?”
“You were supposed to be there and you weren’t.”
“For your information, this wasn’t an elaborate plan to sabotage you. If I wanted you gone, I’d drain you and bury you in the east cemetery. Now what happened?”
I lifted my eyelid and removed the contact lens from my blue eye. “This,” I said, balancing it on the tip of my finger. “It jinxed me.”
He scanned my body, which was covered with blood. “Is the dry shite dead?”
“I popped his cork.”
He furrowed his brow, not understanding. “How many drinks did you have this evening? You really know how to pick ’em. I would have gone for the little guy.”
I flicked the lens at him. “Then maybeyoushould have worn the dress.”
He winked. “Afraid it’s too short to accentuate all my curves.”
I closed my eyes, a gentle breeze cooling my face. The air smelled of wet earth, pine, and my beer-stained dress. I’d never been in a predicament like this where I was so gravely wounded. Owen had put up a heck of a struggle, and I’d lost a lot of blood in the process. I had my legs stretched out in front of me—the holster still strapped to my right thigh but missing the dagger. My left leg was a mess since a lot of the blood had gushed down to my foot when I stumbled out of the car. I wasn’t sure where my heels had gone.
Christian marched over to the vehicle, yanked out the dead body, and flung him into the open. It was almost comical to watch.
“Jaysus wept. It looks like you played pin the fang on the jugular in there.”
“I ran into a snag.”
Christian straddled the Mage, staring down at him. He could give a shadow a run for its money.
“A dagger in the heart was a nice touch,” he offered.
