Love Game Chapter 8

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CHAPTER 8

Danica

“WE NEED TO TALK.”

The strong lines on Sebastian Wade’s face, his slightly aristocratic nose, gorgeous blemish-free skin, and perfectly frowned lips were a far departure from the smirking glow he had on the plane.

Her heart skipped a beat before settling into an uneasy rhythm. The few brain cells she managed to keep hold of scattered when another wave of his scent blew into her face.

Earthy and rich, but sweet like a full-bodied dessert wine. It knocked her back, awakening her thirst. Her vampire sprang forward. She tightened every muscle she had to control her vampire.

Fucking hell.

“I gave you a warning, Danica. Hurt anyone in my city and you’d have to answer to me.”

Her canines extended from her gum line into points. Venom filled her mouth.

“I haven’t.” She swallowed and nothing but arid dryness met her tongue.

“Then why are in this part of town?”

She was unravelling. In the middle of an alley on a crisp, cloudless day, she was going vamp mode and nothing could stop it.

So, she did what any sane person would do in her situation. She pretended not to hear Tattoo’s next question as she slid her phone back into her pocket. Big mistake. He grabbed her elbow and whirled her around. More of his delicious scent jostled her vampire.

“Danica, when I speak to you, you will listen to me.”

Her vampire took hold. She tightened her muscles, locking her bones into place so her vampire wouldn’t lash out. Sane thoughts were nowhere to be found. Only a warning.

“Let go of me,” she said through clenched teeth.

His grip tightened. “Answer my question, Danica. Why are you in this area?

The question was lost to her. Her vampire growled, vying for control. “You should really let go of me.”

“Or else, what?”

Or else her vampire was going to claw out and bite him. She flashed her fangs, trying to warn him of the impending threat, but he threw his head back and laughed.

“Am I supposed to be afraid of a few fangs? I said, we need to talk. Either you do this willingly or I will be persuasive.” Meaning, he would make her.

“I’m actually busy right now.” She tried to step away, put some distance between her and the sweetest blood she’d ever smelled, but his rough hands dug into her arm as he forced her back with a lot more strength than she thought a human, or mage, or whatever he was, was capable of.

Tattoos hardened like a king who’d been accosted by a peasant.

“That wasn’t a request,” he ground out. Her mind clouded over.

She fought it hard, but her head nodded consent anyway while her body panicked. Her stomach churned as it became harder to control her vampire. The surrounding alley awakened. His thudding heart called to her base instincts. She inhaled deeply.

He smelled so good.

So… So… good.

No vampire could say no to this. She licked her lips.

As his mind hold tightened, her ability to hold her vampire back dwindled.

“Last chance. Let go of me.”

He paused, raising a dark eyebrow. “I don’t answer to you.”

He pulled her away from the side door, tracking them deeper into the alley to cleaner air. For the moment. In the split second, she tried to find her place of Zen. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. Especially not the person who’d have an army of people after her and Kelly if she did. But her vampire disagreed. He was the one taking them into an alley that wouldn’t be discovered so easily. She could bite him and no one would know it.

“No, you don’t understand.” She focused on her feet. The smell of him was overwhelming.

“Danica, look at me.”

Her chin rose. By the gods, his pulse was strong, and it felt as though she hadn’t had a drink in weeks. Her throat was so dry, so arid, that nothing but a tsunami was going to quench it.

“Why are you shaking? Are you afraid?”

No, just the opposite. She shook her head unable to speak, trying to get her vampire to obey. She wouldn’t. She could only hear his heart thudding, slowly, methodically, temptingly…

“No? That’s unfortunate.”

Yeah, it was. The last spindles she held on her vampire shattered.

“Sorry,” she whispered, but her vampire pounced. She clutched onto his black blazer and her fangs found their way into his neck too fast for him to react.

When his life force hit her tongue, the alley peeled away. She didn’t care if anyone happened onto them and saw her drinking his blood. She only cared about the nirvana against her lips.

By the gods, he tasted amazing. Even more amazing that he smelled. She was never going to stop.

He groaned and grabbed at her hips, but she was stronger.

“Get off of me, vampire.”

Not when it felt this good.

She sucked at his neck. A warmth spread through her. His fingers dug into her hips, a soft groan tore from his throat. She couldn’t tell if it was from pain or from pleasure. Judging by the hardness in his pants, he liked it.

It wasn’t long before his hands tangled in her hair, gripping it by the root. He squeezed. This was no gentle squeeze, either. It was rough, rugged and all the things the tattooed god in front of her would be.

Fuck, that felt so freaking good.

Then it became a tad too painful, as if he was trying to rip her scalp off.

“Ow, shit.” She pulled her fangs from him. Seeing the trickle of blood on his neck made her fly backward.

“By the gods.” Her eyes widened into saucers. “I’m so sorry.”

He looked dazed for a moment. His head lulled forward as he backed against the opposite wall.

Oh no.

She’d gone too far. Her legs became boneless.

“Hey… Uh… Sebastian?”

He slid down the wall.

A sour mix of panic and bile rose in her throat. She’d just attacked someone in broad daylight. In shock, she stared at him, at a loss for what to do next. But her vampire’s instincts were still strong. She should run. Get as far away as possible.

Yet she couldn’t leave him there. Not half dead. She had to act while she could.

She pulled out her phone and texted Kelly.

SOS. I’m stuck outside. Hurry!

A few moments later, a flash of electric blue hair careened from the doorway as the heavy metal door opened with a wail. Thanks to the all gods she’d gotten the message so quickly.

“Sorry, I meant to tell you the door gets suck. You just have to…” Kelly ripped the safety glasses off her face, eyes glued to the heap of man at her feet. “What the…”

“Help me,” was all she could muster.

“Did you… Is… Is he… dead?”

“No, of course not.” He was alive—shallow breathing, slow heart rate, probably in need of a medic, but he was alive. “I accidentally knocked him out. He sprang up on me and my instincts took over.”

With a fearful glance over her shoulder, Kelly tiptoed toward her. As she hovered over the man’s frame, realization coated her face. A gasp rounded her lips into an O.

“Oh my God, Dani! T-that’s…” she stuttered, looking for the right word. “He’s…”

“I know. Now we have to move him.”

“Are you crazy? That’s… Oh my God. We’re dead. Dead!”

“Quiet or someone will hear you.”

“I told you he was coming after us.” Kelly shook her head. “Dani, what did you do? That’s Sebastian Wade. You can’t accidentally knock someone like him out. That’s certain death.”

“Not if we help him,” she pressed, trying to break through Kelly’s shell shock.

“And have all of magekind after us? No thank-you.” Kelly backed away looking ready to cry, scream, and run all at the same time. “We should just go.”

“We can’t leave him here. Others will know that he came here to look for us. And if they find him here…”

Kelly’s world looked ready to combust as she looked at Sebastian Wade again. “Are you sure he’s knocked out and not dead?”

“He’s unconscious,” she assured her, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. “In a few hours, he’ll be fine.”

Kelly stared down at the man at her feet. “And we’ll be dead.”

“Not if you help me.” Desperation saturated her tone as she pleaded with Kelly to not freak out and go nuts and prayed like heck that she didn’t notice the bite mark on his neck that wasn’t healing as quickly as it should have been.

“Oh, my goody good gosh.” Kelly rubbed her palms across her forehead, pushing her bangs out of place. “I’m going to get into so much trouble for this. Jeez, Dani, you know who this is! What if he finds out I helped you? We’re dead. Both of us.”

“He won’t. No one will. Not if we bring him inside. He’ll rest for a while, wake up with a wicked headache and think he’d passed out. It’ll be fine.”

Her explanation didn’t convince Kelly in the slightest. She paced the small expanse of the alley. This time, her wig moved a centimeter backward as she pushed her fingers through it.

“Come on,” she encouraged, hoping to snap Kelly out of her impending breakdown. “Grab his feet.”

She hoisted him to an angle where she could tuck her hands under his armpits.

“I swear Dani, if we get caught.” Putting her safety glasses back on, Kelly grabbed at his ankles.

“We won’t. Just come on.”

Sebastian Wade was heavy as heck. Vampires were strong, but pulling him was like pulling a semi-truck as they dragged him to the door.

As gently as she could, she let Tattoos rest against her shins while Kelly opened a door a sliver to peer inside. Racks of storage. The hazard room was empty. She opened it further.

“It’s clear,” Kelly said, grabbing his feet.

She grabbed him under his arms and tugged his heavy dead weight into the room.

“We’re going to get caught.”

“Shh. We’re fine. No one is coming.”

Except, that was a lie. Someone was coming around the building. The weak muscle in her chest raced. She gave Kelly a quick glance, wondering if it was wise to tell her that. Decidedly not.

“Come on, hurry.”

Clenching every muscle in her body, she hoisted the unconscious tattooed god from the door frame and into the room. They tried to let the door close, but someone caught it.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

Kelly’s back straightened upright like an ironing board, letting Tattoo’s feet hit the ground like cinderblocks, as her neck twisted back and forth between her and the thick-necked man behind her. He stood nearly as wide as the doorframe. If she wasn’t absolutely sure Asher was out front, she might’ve mistaken him for a palace guard. Except he didn’t look at them with kind eyes.

Kelly tried to scoot to the side to avoid him, but a stainless-steel rack blocked her path. A few of the plastic bins holding the blood bags shifted.

“It’s not what you think,” Dani said quickly when the flexing muscles in the man’s hard jaw made the scruff of his wiry beard more pronounced. “We found him like this.”

He looked at Tattoos, then back up. The moment his lips down turned; she knew she really needed to work on her persuasiveness. He leaned outside into the alley and whistled, still keeping his equally thick body wedged in the doorframe.

She reached for her phone to call Asher, but her arm froze in place. Her vampire rose to the surface, trying to get her body unglued.

“Seriously, he was just there,” she doubled down on the lie as panic hiked her voice until it was paper thin.

Two balls of mist materialized in the room. Once it dissipated, two people stood on either side of her and Kelly. She’d been around enough in her lifetime to know guards when she saw them. The man immediately kneeled over Sebastian Wade to check him over. She had to hope his bite mark had healed.

“W-We didn’t want to leave him outside,” Kelly finally found her voice even if it shook like a level 8 earthquake.

“Right,” she agreed more levelly. “We were trying to get him to a safe place, then get help.”

The man with the thick neck paused, his dark eyes looking for the truth on Kelly’s face.

“Lix,” the person who literally sprung from a ball of mist called to Thick-Neck, he moved Sebastian’s chin to display her bite marks still marring his skin. A few tiny drops of blood smeared across the guard’s fingertips.

The room turned to her.

“I can explain.” She tried to back away but couldn’t.

The lines in Lix’s face creased into a scowl.

There was no explaining. With a motion of his hands, the two guards who arrived on the mist grabbed them and took them away on the same cloud.

Author’s Note: Danica’s antics are legendary!