I was definitely picking up an Australian accent now, though he seemed to be trying hard to hide.
I shrugged, crossing my arms over my chest. “Not really.”
Hamish stared at me for a moment and then laughed. “They said you were brave, I’ll give them that.”
I didn’t know whothemwas, but they were on my shit list.
He leaned forward, pushing the two females on either side of him away as he locked eyes with me. “You’re here, because your parents have been buggering up my business.”
“Sorry to hear about that.”
I scanned the room taking in the walls and the singular door behind me. The goon standing in the corner didn’t look too tough. A sniff to the air told me he was a werewolf. Since the full moon was long off, that made him the lesser of threat out of the two males in the room.
The bigger threat was the vampire before me, who smelled as if he could give Antoine’s age a run for its money.
The two women were humans. Though you couldn’t discount them right away. While they didn’t give off the scent of a human servant, humans were resourceful. One well-placed bullet at a moment of distraction would still make me deader than the vampire in front of me.
“I’m glad you find this situation so amusing.” Hamish cocked his head to the side, his lips pursed. “You really aren’t scared of me, are you?”
Dropping my attention back to him, I arched a brow. “Should I be? If you know my family, then you know I’m no stranger to vampires.”
Hamish laughed and leaned back in his chair. “You know, I like you. You got steel balls on ya. I really hate to kill you. Plus…” His eyes lingered on my hips and exposed flesh. “You would be quite popular with our buyers.”
He sucked in a breath and held his hands out as an apology. “But I need the council to back the fuck off, and you are the only one they value enough to give me what I want.”
“Look, I don’t even know you and couldn't care less about your business. But, if you think that killing me is going to get them to back off, you have another thing coming.” I dropped my hands behind my back, using one hand to pull the sleeve down on my arms to unclip my daggers.
“Oh, I’m not going to kill you yet.” Hamish chuckled, the confidence he had in himself making this all that much more annoying. “First, I’m going to send them pieces of you to let them know I’m serious. Then, once they give me what I want,thenI will kill you. Well… not me. I don’t do that stuff anymore.” He held his hands up as if the very thought of killing me would make him dirty.
My fingers had just wrapped around my daggers when the goon in the corner pressed his finger to his ear, a voice crackling in his comm device. “Uh, boss.”
“What?” He flicked an annoyed look the goon’s way. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“There’s some kind of disturbance.” The goon paused, his brows furrowed as he answered the person in his ear. “What do you mean a shadow? What’s a—?”
The door behind me burst open, and darkness filled the room. The females screamed while the goon shouted, trying to fight off the shadows around us. An arm wrapped around my waist and,before I had a chance to fight back, a familiar scent filled my nose.
“Kyren,” I gasped, clinging to him. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer, wrapping his shadows around. I felt a pull on my stomach and knew he was about to do that thing where he transported from one place to the other. I couldn’t let that happen.
“No! What about Xinyi and Iris?”
“They’re gone already,” he reassured me. “Now hold on.”
The world around us turned to shadows. One minute, we were in Hamish’s office, and the next, we were out on the street. I stumbled as we landed, but Kyren didn’t let me fall.
“Here.” He ushered us to his car.
I waited until we were buckled in before turning to him. “How did you even know I was here?”
Kyren didn’t look at me as he cranked the car and started away from the club.
I sighed, shaking my head. “Stalking me, of course. You know, you need to figure out your shit. Do you love me or hate me? Cause all this back and forth is giving me whiplash.”
Kyren didn’t answer, and I thought he wouldn’t before his soft voice filled the car. “I don’t hate you.”
“Well, you sure don’t act like you love me,” I shot back and then groaned. “I forgot my clutch.”
