“Not,” he said and smiled. The streetlights cut through the windshield and made him glow. His eyes lit up eerily in the flash of light, more startling than the gleam in old Polaroid pictures. It would be easy to stare at him all night.
“Uh, wow. Exactly. For hell’s sake, fucking go get checked out.” I blinked at him as I brought the car to a stop at the curb.
Noble pursed his pretty mouth as he glared at the ER entrance. Vanheim General Hospital easily took up half a city block, so it was imposing normally, let alone when dealing with an emergency. Black tiles went skyward on the lower levels and stopped midway up the fifteen-story building, where they gave way to gray brick. He leaned forward to watch as a red-and-white medical helicopter landed on a rooftop nearby. The action had him distracted and he bit at his bottom lip.
My cock plumped in my boxers. I couldn’t fucking win. All I’d wanted to do was get out of town, and now… Noble really was my speed. If it had been a different day, I would have done everything I could to help him, and then I’d have talked him into coming back to my place… assuming he was interested in men.
But I couldn’t. Not now.
“I don’t think—”
“You have to go in,” I demanded, harsher than I’d wanted to speak to him. “It’ll save me some trouble. Another emergency came up. I got a message on the radio.”
He frowned at the radio tucked under the dash on his side. It was switched off. “But you didn’t talk to anyone.”
Of course, if he was out causing freelance trouble, he wasn’t stupid.Damn it.“It came across before I stopped to help you. I’ll take your statement in person the day after tomorrow.” I held up the notepad he’d written his info on and wiggled it before making a dramatic production of stashing it back in the console.
“O-okay,” he whispered and still didn’t go into the damned hospital. After about a minute, he opened the door, gave me a wisp of a smile, and made his way onto the wide sidewalk. His shoulders were hunched under his thin jacket and he stood to the side of the stream of foot traffic going in the doors. He tugged his phone out of his pocket but didn’t walk inside. I growled and pulled the car completely into the drop-off lane. When I hopped out, a man from security started toward me, but I flashed my badge. He lifted his hands, though he still gave my car the stink-eye.
“I said go inside,” I growled out, stopping just before the point where I would have been looming over Mr. Noble Warwick, crusader for the light. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the union yelling at me later for not taking care of you and causing an incident.”
“The union? You don’t care?” he asked, tucking his phone away as he glanced up. The brat’s bottom lip jutted a smidge and I wanted to eat it up for him. Those pouty lips slayed me and had me staring way too fucking long. The beast stirred in me, and he was an animal who hungered for blood, sex, and anything else he could get his dirty hands on. If I didn’t go soon, I wouldn’t get a chance to talk to Noble later.
“When I come to find you to get your statement, we’ll go somewhere to do it. Hang out for a while. I’ll buy food. We’ll talk.” I lowered my voice and didn’t bother trying to make my tone anything other than intimate.
He smiled, and I couldn’t help but notice he hid his small hand away in his pocket again. His cheeks flushed an enticing pink as he ducked his head. “No, that’s okay.”
His breath kicked up as he glanced at me through his lashes. I almost melted on the spot. Damn it all to hell, I wished more than anything I didn’t have to leave right now. He really looked like hewantedto say yes. What was stopping him? Could I change his mind?
Confusion washed over me, in part because I didn’t get Noble. He seemed like maybe he was reacting to me the same way I was him; and I definitely found him attractive. Was I misreading the signs? Below the disappointment of rejection, an odd, shifting weakness rolled out through my body. I sucked in a deep breath. I’d fucked around too long.
“Go inside,” I barked, feeling mean and spiteful and vicious—but not at him, more at myself.
He nodded, eyes wide in what was probably fear, and practically flew toward the entrance.
It was a bitter deal I’d struck with Abraham Walker, though at the time I’d thought I was getting one over on him. I’d whispered dark promises in his ear: my demonic strength at his disposal in exchange for my use of his body. I’d never imagined how I’d come to detest the “day of rest,” when Abe got full, unhindered use of his body back, as per our binding and lifelong agreement. His thrill at blood squelching under our fingers was boring and rudimentary at best. I couldn’t wait until sunrise the day after tomorrow, so I could stuff him back in the mental box I would spend the time withering away in.
The second the doors closed behind Noble, I spun and hoofed it toward my car, winking at the security guard on the way past. He saluted me, and laughter burst from me while I hopped behind the steering wheel. I pulled out in a squeal of tires before my door was completely shut and slammed it closed on the move. I drove while sweat caked my body and my muscles began to shake from fighting back Abe. These transitions went much smoother when I could just let him out and allow him to take over, but I wanted to get far away from the delicious Mr. Warwick. He called to me in some very primal ways—which would be utterly useless if his blood didn’t stay on the inside of his body.
On the highway outside of town, speeding toward Abe’s grandmother’s house in the country, I let out a scream that made my throat raw. Abe ripped his way out of the hold I had on him. Technically I was violating the spirit of our agreement by trying to contain him longer than was his due, and he tore at my mind like a gnashing wolf to punish me. Heat swirled through the car. He was pissed and knew how to irritate me. The mental image of my favorite barista—a boy with black hair and dimples, who couldn’t be more than nineteen—flashed through my mind.
Hell’s sake, no. He makes my cappuccino just right, and you like that, too, you idiot.Abe, more beast than man after years of only being allowed out to vent his worst tendencies, flashed me his favorite dumping ground for corpses—the park in the center of Vanheim’s gentrified, and formally worst, neighborhood. The very one where Noble had been afraid for the homeless people.Don’t you make more work for me, you big lummox.
Abe laughed, and it gave me shivers because the sound came out of my mouth. I slunk down and cowered in the corner of my mind—technically, Abe’s mind. We weren’t far enough outside the city to cause any significant delay. He took the first exit he came to that would loop back around to the bright urban hunting ground, teeming with life he could snuff out.
I couldn’t bring myself to regret stopping to help Noble. Exhausted after fighting with Abe, I let myself drift and tried to block out what he was doing.
Coming to was not pleasant. The cold had seeped deep into me because my shirt and coat were missing. My teeth chattered as I sat up swiftly and glanced around. Abe always thought it was funny to dump me in the worst predicament possible, or maybe he was simply that bad at making decisions since he rarely got to do so anymore.
I tried to keep him out of the city.
There was a hole in the ceiling above my head. I sat on a pile of what seemed to be debris from some long-ago doused fire. The sound of sirens in the distance had me groaning and rubbing at my face. This burned-out shell of a building reminded me dismally of my life.
I hadn’t taken him far enough away from the fucking city.
Sometimes if I got Abe all the way to his grandmother’s house in the countryside before we traded spaces, he would putter around there mowing the lawn and dusting his eternal shrine to his dead granny. There didn’t seem to be anyone around in what I suspected was a crackhouse. I felt my neck and groaned. My badge was missing.Just fucking great.Real irritation pelted through me as I tried to decide where he might have left my work car.
But I glanced down and my hands were covered in flecks of rust—dried blood. The right pocket of my jeans was also smeared in gore I didn’t want to think too deeply about. I was a demon, not a serial killer—unlike Abe.
