17. Vi
vi
. . .
The gym Danny worked at—Fang Fitness—was, admittedly, a dirty fucking hellhole.
The smell of sweat hung mustily in the air despite the massive glass panels lining the back wall, open to the winter chill. Like no amount of airing out the cinder block building would be enough to rid it of decades of blood, sweat, and, after a couple of extremely harrowing boot camp classes—tears.
I lingered by the changing rooms waiting for my sibling, studying the chipped hand-painted mural of a bat holding a barbell over its little furry head that sat between sets of lockers.
If I’d had it my way, I never would’ve left the couch today. But I’d already committed to swapping my kickboxing class time now that I worked nights. It was a bit tricky to make a 7 p.m. class when I was busy mixing cocktails and flirting with half of my co-workers.
Wait, Ren and I weren’t just co-workers anymore, right? I mean, I was the only one who said the word girlfriend yesterday—twice—but come on! Jewelry for Valentine’s Day? Baseball tickets? We had to be official.
Yeah. We were totally, definitely, absolutely?—
“Ready?” Danny asked, appearing through the swinging door and interrupting my internal freakout not a moment too soon. “I don’t think there will be many people here today; the daytime class is usually pretty quiet.”
“Not really a bad thing.” I said, pulling at the sleeve of my hoodie down on instinct, even though only a small scar was visible after Ren fixed it up, it still felt... vulnerable.
Danny’s dark eyes—a mirror of my own—tracked the movement.
“You sure you should box today, sis?”
I shrugged. “It’s been healed, so it’s fine.”
They leaned in close, a hand gently resting on my arm at the crook near my elbow. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I’d filled them in, briefly and with as few details as possible, on the drive over but we weren’t really a ‘talk about it’ family. We were a ‘hope it goes away’ family. But I knew that they cared anyway… Especially when they were trying like this.
My eyes flicked away from my sibling to find my own pale face in one of the many mirrors affixed to the walls. Unable to look at the dark, exhausted circles under my eyes, I shook my head, my gaze moving to the high open ceiling, metal beams and ducting visible from the rubberized floor below.
“I’m all good, D,” I assured them, patting their hand with my own.
For the most part it was true, even if it still sounded a little hollow coming out of my mouth.More than anything, I was tired from all the adrenaline… And maybe a little anxious about going back to O.
But I wasn’t going to trouble Danny with that. I knew that they had enough going on with the gym and school. I didn’t want to burden Danny with what had happened and with my insane theory that I’d been bitten before. Especially when I didn’t have any evidence to show for it.
No, it was easier—for both of us—if I just accepted Valentine’s Day as an unfortunate accident and tried to move on with my life the best I could.
“Then why don’t you tell me about tall, dark, and butch kissing you outside Kaylee’s this morning?”
I groaned as they led me through rows of weight machines, treadmills, and ellipticals toward the open space at the far side of the gym. “Ren just happened to be picking up coffees for the coven. You know, this is why I never tell you anything! You gossip worse than Grandma. Please tell me you didn’t call Mom.”
“Not yet. I figured I should find out if it was a one-night stand or not first,” they teased, nudging me.“That kiss tells me it wasn’t…”
“As if it’s any of your business,” I quipped. “But no, she’s not a one-night stand. Her name is Ren.”
Danny oooh ed excitedly. “The bartender? The one Kaylee showed me on her phone? The one who wasn’t your girlfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“But now you’re kissing and…”
The prospect of discussing my sex life with my older sibling was too horrifying to allow this conversation to continue, leaving me hunting for a change of subject.
“She’s taking me to a Nightwalkers game.”
“Fuck off,” Danny said with an excited grin. “She’s a fan?”
“Yeah, bought you a ticket too—way better than the seats we usually have.”
“Oh, so she’s already trying to get into the future-sibling-in-law’s good graces? Excellent! I’ll wear a suit when I’m your best them at the wedding.”
I scoffed. “As if! Kaylee is going to be my maid of honor if in the far-off future I ever decide to get married.” At Danny’s overly excited look, I groaned. “Far, far, far future.”
“Fine,” they grumbled. “You heard from Mom much lately?”
I shook my head. “No more than usual—calls every couple of days, texts infrequently. She’s tired. Her incision site is itchy. Same old, same old.”
It felt insane to be so blasé about cancer, but now that Mom had gone into remission, it was all about making sure it stayed that way. And trying to pay off her seriously monumental pile of medical bills.
Fuck medical insurance companies to hell and back.
There was a small crowd of half a dozen people as we approached the ring. My trainer, Riley, who I no longer could afford to do private sessions with, was the instructor for this lesson. Which—admittedly—was half the reason I’d chosen it. I really missed gossiping with the little vampire whenever I got the chance.
I wormed my way through the crowd with Danny at my heels, breaking through the knot of people to catch sight of Riley and an opponent weaving between each other, trading punches that would make my fragile human bones turn to splinters.
But it wasn’t the ferocity of the blows that made my lips pop open in surprise; it was Riley’s opponent.
I watched— gaped would be a better word for it—as Dana bounced back and forth on the balls of her feet, easily dodging strikes from Riley even without her vampire speed.
The first thing I noticed was that Dana’d taken her braids out, her hair sitting in two natural buns on the top of her head as she ducked and weaved.
Riley leveled another barrage of attacks that Dana easily dodged, her foot coming up to clip the side of the trainer’s head, stopping just before she made contact.
“Dirty,” Riley chuckled good-naturedly, knocking Dana’s foot out of the way and throwing punch after punch toward the petite vampire. It should’ve been easy enough to catch her with Riley’s longer range, given she had about a foot on my boss, but… Dana was fast .
She bobbed and danced around her, a matching two-piece spandex set in slate grey hugging her beautifully curved form. If she’d been human, I was sure a sheen of sweat would be covering her warm brown skin by now.Instead, the vampire wasn’t even panting as she moved from offense to defense and back again.
“Come on, Dana!” I shouted from the sidelines over the catcalls and jeers from the others gathered around to watch.
Her eyes flicked away from Riley for a fraction of a second, a surprised smile tugging at the corner of her full lips. It was the opening Riley needed, and she took it, landing a bone-crushing punch to the side of Dana’s face and forcing her to stagger backwards. She recovered quickly, returning with a flurry of strikes with newfound energy.
Showoff.
It wasn’t long until the fight was won, with Dana using her size to her advantage and taking Riley out at the knees, coming to straddle her on the mat with a self-satisfied smirk as she struggled.
“One,” Dana called, leaning down to whisper something to Riley that made her laugh.
Jealousy coiled in my stomach like a living thing.
“Two.”
Here she was, giggling away with another girl when she hadn’t even called me after?—
Whoa, hold up, Vi.
You were with Ren, her covenmate. She was giving you space.
And she texted.
“Three.”
But rationality and a jealous streak didn’t always go hand in hand. Especially when it came to beautiful Brazilians with a charming accent.
Dana hopped off Riley once the match was called, pulling off one of her gloves to help the other vampire to her feet while Riley used her teeth to loosen the Velcro clasp before tugging one of her own off to accept the help.
“Good match,” Dana said, though her eyes had already flicked back to me.
“One of these days I’ll figure out how you do that, you know?”
“Do what?” she asked, though the distraction was obvious in the way her voice carried.
“Drop me to the ground.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Dana replied with a shrug, looking back at Riley—and her chest. “You’re top-heavy.”
The vampire scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Take fi—Vi! Hey! I didn’t know you were coming!”
If Dana felt the same irritation I did watching her with Riley now that the woman’s attention was on me, she didn’t show it. She crossed the ring to come lean against the ropes, looking down at me with an easy smile. “Fancy seeing you here, Striker .”
Cute , I thought, offering her a smile.
“Hey, Riley. Boss .”
Her tongue pressed against her fang, tooth gem sparkling as she tried to stifle a satisfied smirk at the nickname. “Feeling okay?”
“Yeah, pretty solid,” I said, touched by the concern in her voice. “I didn’t know you came to this gym.”
“Riley got poached from my old spot. Been coming to this class ever since.”
I waved at the vampire in question as she ducked under the ropes of the ring, hopping down onto the floor with an affectionate touch of her taped knuckles against my cheek as she walked by. “She just can’t keep away. How about you, Vi, here to flirt or train?”
I stuck my tongue out at her. Awfully rich accusation coming from her after the giggle party I’d seen.
“Can a girl not multitask? Besides, it looks like one of us needs to train a bit more, given how quickly Dana took you out.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Riley muttered, taking a long drink from her water bottle. Her wavy black hair swayed in its ponytail, slipping over her shoulder.
I’d always thought she was a good-looking girl, though strictly off-limits. It was definitely some kind of faux pas to sleep with one of your sibling’s co-workers.
Make it double if it happened at the gym you went to.
Triple if that person was also your personal trainer.
Though I wondered if Riley had ever been interested. You could only watch someone struggle through eight reps at a time for so long before you got the ick, right?
“Maybe I’ll have Dana train me instead.” I spoke slowly, biting back on a grin at her outraged expression—slack-jawed, looking dumbfounded.But she recovered quickly, hooking her thumb toward the dark-skinned vampire with a raised brow.
“I’d like to see you try to hold your own against her.”
“I’m game,” Dana said, smoothing some nonexistent stray hairs into her perfectly executed space buns.
I tried to stall as I looked between the two. Riley beat my ass to an embarrassing degree half the time, so I didn’t stand a chance if Dana was beating hers.
“Come on. You scared, darling?” Dana purred, her eyes trailing me in my leggings with keen interest.
My brain went straight to the way she’d looked at me in her old office.
Fuck.
My libido and I were going to have a serious conversation when I got home. In the tub. With my vibrator. Thinking long and hard about this exact moment, when Dana’s perfect lips parted on a soft laugh like she knew exactly what I was thinking about.
“Well, darling ,” Danny mocked at my side, nearly making me jump. I’d forgotten she was standing there. “What's it going to be?”
I wasn’t sure when I’dstopped being Striker and started being darling full-time, but I wasn’t complaining. Even if I knew Danny was going to be insufferable about it later.
“Fine, let’s do this.” I gave in, peeling off my hoodie to reveal my light blue sports bra. “Somebody needs to tape me up, though. My hand is a little stiff.”
“I got you,” Riley said, digging through her bag for a roll.
“Go show her why we call you Vicious,” Danny encouraged. Then, lowering her voice, she followed it up with, “Or get your ass beat.”
“Don’t worry,” Dana called, having no trouble catching their words thanks to her vampire hearing. She leaned her cheek against the top rope. “I’ll be gentle.”