He was holding my elbows, looking down at me with a tender expression, and I suddenly realized I’d just slipped back into old times. I’d forgotten we weren’t dating or that he had a girlfriend and had stomped all over my heart.
“Sorry.” I yanked myself back, wiping the smile from my face. “Got excited.”
Sterling watched me with a solemn face, his “I’m too hot to show emotion” face. One I loved and equally hated.
“You should be excited. It’s a great honor.” Sterling’s voice was deep and low and I tried not to pay attention to the way it made my stomach do flip flops. “Aspen … I left because—”
“Oh look, Maz is ready,” I interrupted, and beelined it over to the priestess.
I had enough on my plate. Listening to Sterling talk about why he’d left me after I confessed my love was not something I could handle right now.
* * *
Shit.Shit. Shitty shit.
The gala was in an hour and it lasted until midnight. If I didn’t go and feed Luka right now, I wasn’t going to be able to at all and he would probably die. Besides, I felt like absolute crap. My head throbbed, my mouth was as dry as the Sahara Desert, and I was about to rip someone’s head off with anger.
My phone buzzed.
Random Dude from Bar: I feel like I’m dying FYI
Crap. It was his fifth text of the day.
Me:Me too. The day got crazy … I’m coming now. I just need to sneak out.
Random Dude from Bar:Cool, my two friends are here. Werewolves but very cool. You’ll like them.
I nearly choked at reading those words. Cool werewolves? I’d like them! Werewolves might not be evil by my standards, but they were … unnatural in God’s design … and I was glad I wasn’t tasked with disciplining them like some of the other orders around the world were when they got out of hand.
I walked over to my hunter bag and pulled out two silver stakes. Reaching up under my black dress, I slipped them into my thigh holster and pulled on my stiletto boots. As a woman who was five feet four inches, I needed all the height I could get, and the tips bonused as a killing weapon. If Luka or his friends got out of hand, I’d end them and feel zero guilt.
My long red hair was curled into ringlets, and the upper half was braided over my shoulder. The dress I’d chosen wasn’t exactly hunter modesty code, but Maz didn’t seem to mind if the younger girls showed their body a little. Controlled rebellion she called it, and a good way to find an interested husband she would say.
The black silk material hugged my frame before slightly poofing out at the waist like a princess gown. The top part was a corset bodice that laced up the front and squeezed my tiny boobs together to make some semblance of cleavage.
Liv and I laughed sometimes at how opposite we were. Where my hair was straight, hers was curly, where my skin was fair, hers was bronzed, and where I was flat, she was curvy. Yet none of that made her less of my sister.
“I got this,” I told the mirror by the wall, and slipped a decorative silver cuff over my right wrist that would hide the marks I was about to put there.
My hand stilled on the knob as I prepared what I would say if Maz or Sterling were right outside this door, but when I pulled it back, I was alone.
Thank God.
Slipping out into the hallway, I took the stairwell down to the ground floor, and then burst out the exit door that led to the side alley of the hotel. There was a waiter wearing a dirty white apron, smoking a cigarette, but other than that I was alone.
Giving him a smile and a wave, I booked it for the Duniway Hotel, all the while trying to convince myself that I was doing the right thing by keeping Luka alive.
God, if you want me to stop, give me a sign, I prayed.
As I turned the corner, a redheaded chick a few years older than me popped off the wall she’d been leaning on and waved me down. “Aspen?”
What the…?
I just nodded and she smiled, pulling out a card key. “I’m Sage, Luka’s friend. He told me to wait for the other smokin’ hot redhead and bring you up to the room.”
Smokin’ hot redhead? I doubt he said that.
I relaxed a little, and then eyed her with scrutiny. “Werewolf?” I raised an eyebrow, inhaling. Something smelled different about her, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
