Page 76 of No One’s Daughter

“Vampires,” he murmured so low, I almost missed the word.

My stomach dropped.

His eyes flicked past me, calculating.

I followed his line of sight to find two men, walking down the path. Ordinary looking at first glance, but once I studied them I noticed they were too fluid in their movements, too aware of their surroundings, too odd.

​Oh shit.

​Were they here for us? Had they found us?

​How?

​I swallowed hard as I tried not to think of what would happen if they discovered us.

This whole hunt had been a terrible idea.

​After how careful we’d been, this was how we’d get caught.

​My fingers curled slightly at my sides, resisting the urge to grab onto Davien, to urge him to run with me.

​He didn’t move, didn’t speak. Just held me there, hidden in the shadow of the tree we were pressed against.

​I tried not to make a noise and ignored how his muscular frame felt against mine. My heart beat like wildfire at his proximity. This wasn’t like when we trained. This was more intimate and it reminded me of that night I’d forced him to drink from me. The way his hand rested on my waist now wasn’t far off to how his fingers had dug into my skin with a possessive force back then.

It had been too long since I’d orgasmed. It wasn't like I’d had any chance. Davien was always close by and even when he was in the next room, he had that damn vampire hearing. Not that I’d really been in the mood, between all the death threats and running for my life. Still, in this moment, my lack of recent pleasure made itself known.

Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome after all?

Yes, I preferred that explanation to the alternative.

​His breathing slowed somewhat, seeming deeper, as his eyes slowly moved from where he had watched the rise and fall of my chest to what could only be my lips. It made me wonder if he was thinking the same thing. Surely not. He despised me. Okay, maybe tolerated was a better word, but still. I was fairly certain that he was as fed up with my presence as I was of his… at least, usually.

​Then he was gone as quickly as he had appeared, leaving nothing but the cold December air in his place. The men had walked on past, none the wiser to our presence.

​“We should get back,” he said, and for the first time I found myself agreeing with him.

​“Yes.” Yes indeed, before I said something stupid I’d regret. Or worse, do something I might not regret.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Davien

WE ARRIVED AT the shoddy looking address Niko had given me just as the sky hovered in that awkward space between late afternoon and dusk, the light thinning into something dull and grey that clung to the edges of the building.

​A narrow street, uneven pavement, bins left out too long, the kind of place people passed through quickly without ever really seeing it. The building itself was just as unremarkable; cracked brickwork, peeling paint around the windows, damp covered walls.

​Niko always knew how to choose a place.

​Hard to find and easy to ignore.

​His voice on the phone earlier had been a little on edge, but that wasn’t unusual for Niko. He was careful. Really really careful. It was one of the reasons I trusted him.

​I knocked twice—hard and deliberate, just like he’d instructed over the phone.

​Behind me, Ailsa shifted her weight. I’d gotten used to her always being around. Training had changed something between us—whether either of us wanted to admit that or not. Things were easy now. She listened, and she was improving. She fought me, yes, but with purpose, and I knew beneath her defiance was at least a little bit of trust.

​I trusted her too.