Chapter 2
Rook
“You’re real subtle tonight, Rook,” my younger brother Kane says. “Real calm, too.”
“Oh yeah,” Calloway, the baby brother of our macho brood, chimes in. “Very zen. Nothing says inner peace like skating like you want to murder the ice every time she’s in the building. Though, I do wonder if there’s a slightly better approach you could utilize. Maybe a little…wooing, perhaps?”
I groan. “Shut the hell up.”
Kane laughs his ass off, thrilled to have gotten a reaction, and I yank the guards over my blades, shoving them into my bag harder than necessary.
“It’s not like that,” I continue. “And you know it.”
“Oh, we know,” Calloway says, peeling off his pads.
He’s always the calmest one out of the three of us.
Where Kane is the jokester and I’m what they’d probably call the asshole, Cal is the closest to Buddha a vampire will ever get.
“You watch her like a fucking hawk whenever she’s near, bro.
Kind of makes your…circumstances…hard to ignore. ”
I’m the oldest of the Slater brothers, but the way these bastards are calling me out, you’d think the sibling hierarchy doesn’t exist. Still, I find myself giving in to their nosiness.
“It doesn’t fucking matter anyway. She loathes me,” I snap. “Every time I open my mouth, she looks like she’s bracing for impact.”
“That’s because you look like you’re preparing to commit a felony,” Kane says. “You ever try a smile? A wink, perhaps? Anything other than a sneer would do.”
I zip my bag and stand. My muscles are tight as shit from all the adrenaline of the game and the awkward as fuck interaction with the female topic of the hour, and it’s making my blood feel a thousand degrees hotter than it should even be capable of feeling.
Unfortunately, Kane isn’t wrong. I look miserable because I am miserable.
One day, I was fine—I was a regular guy with a regular job and a regular set of annoying-as-fuck brothers with a special, but rarely inconvenient, biological makeup—and the next, I was a prisoner in my own body.
The second Kylie Moon stepped onto the ice a week ago—the day after I turned twenty-eight—a visceral, bone-deep reaction that locked all my senses in on her snapped into place and hasn’t left since.
As if her presence has the power to control me.
I thought the lore I’d read about us and our ancestry and the way our love works was bullshit—that if I hated the idea of it, it wouldn’t apply to me.
Turns out, it’s not bullshit, and no matter how much I’ve tried to convince myself that I’d be different or exempt, I’m not.
I’ve been fighting the magnetic pull to claim her ever since. Including tonight. Especially tonight.
It doesn’t matter that I didn’t want this—that I don’t fucking want this.
I’ve spent my entire life bucking the rules and the expectations of the machine that chews human women up and spits them out after giving them bullshit promises of luxury and status in exchange for their sustenance.
I’ve spent my entire life preparing to give it all the middle finger.
But now that I’m in the nitty-gritty of it, my body’s nearly inconsolable. It’s pathetic at best.
I spare myself no pity, slinging my bag over my shoulder with shaking hands, barking an order at my brothers. “Just fucking drop it.”
Kane smirks at me like he can see inside my head. The fucker can’t, no matter how hard he tries. That’s a gift reserved for only me, it seems.
“I know you’re fucking feeling it,” he pushes, not dropping it at all. “You have to be, bro. You look at her like the whole world will collapse if you blink.”
Calloway’s gaze sharpens as he searches my face for answers I never wanted to have. “Just tell me this…did you feel it immediately after turning twenty-eight? Just turned on like a light switch? Or was it, like, a slow build for the last few months or something?”
I don’t answer. I don’t have to. The look on my stupid fucking face says enough.
Kylie Moon has always drawn attention. I saw it, even if I didn’t care. But now, it’s killing me to let her out of my sight, as if my body registers her absence before my mind can even justify it.
It’s night and fucking day.
She’s always been beautiful, but now, she’s everything.
Kane’s mouth stays shut for once, and Calloway exhales slowly, finishing with a whistle that echoes throughout the locker room. “Okay, then. Immediate.”
“Finish packing your shit and meet me outside,” I snap through gritted teeth, grabbing my bag and storming out the locker room door to answer the loudening call to be near her.
Neither brother says a word as I exit because they know this isn’t something we talk about lightly. Both of my brothers are Chatty Fucking Cathys every goddamn day of the week, but there’s some shit you don’t say out loud, vampire and mate included.
I lean against the glass, across the rink from the other spectators—to put it nicely—watching Kylie on the ice.
She’s smooth and confident, and every muscle movement is tight and controlled, like she knows exactly where her body is at all times.
My body mirrors the feeling, reveling in the comfort of watching her.
She has no idea that she’s being circled as prey, and even more fucked up, my desperate, choking yearn is only a small piece of it.
Holland Thorne, the Fighting Fangs’s biggest piece of shit, leans against the glass on the far side, pretending to joke with the other guys on his team.
He watches her closely, tracking her movements, and logging something behind his slimy fucking smile I wish I could figure out.
Unfortunately, the elites have gifted him with the ability to shield, so I’m shit out of luck, despite my heightened abilities.
My jaw tightens. Fuck that guy. Fuck everything about him.
Kane, having joined me from the locker room, follows my line of sight. “He looks pretty focused over there.”
Calloway nods. “He’s also been asking questions.”
That gets my full attention. Cal has always had hearing like a hawk. “About her?”
“Yeah. Her job. Her routines. Where she lives. Where her roommate was tonight. If she’s dating anyone.
” Calloway’s voice drops. “Any chance he can get, I hear him asking her shit. Hear him asking other people about her shit. It’s nothing overt.
But it feels a lot like the pattern behavior we’ve seen before. ”
Fuck. My blood spikes sharp and violent.
I know what kind of man Holland is. I know who he works for. I know where his priorities lie. When it comes to women, I know what Holland’s motives are, and I really wish I didn’t give a single fucking shit. But I do.
The universe has seen fit that I would.
Every abominable cell inside my goddamn body feels like it’s programmed to care. I try to force the rage down, but swallowing past it feels like barbwire.
Before I know it, I find myself saying, “Keep ears on him.”
Cal waggles his brows. Kane smiles like a fuckwad. The only thing they love more than giving me shit is listening to me admit I might actually need them.
“Quiet fucking ears.”
“Wasn’t planning on making a scene, bro,” Cal says, and Kane is still grinning. “But I’ll keep my ears open.”
Scenes draw attention, and attention from men like Holland gets certain women killed. And sadly, because of how attuned I am to Kylie Moon, I know she’s a certain kind of woman—one that attracts the men Holland works for like bees to honey.
I risk another glance at Kylie, and the bond—the thing I refuse to name—thrums under my skin like a live wire. Every instinct in me screams to get closer, to put myself between her and the rest of the world, to drag her somewhere safe from assholes like Holland and never let go.
I clench my fists.
You know this is exactly how it starts. You’ve already seen it time and time again.
Calloway watches me carefully. “You know fighting it doesn’t make it go away.”
“No,” I say. “But it buys time.”
“And what exactly will time give you?” Kane asks. I don’t answer because I don’t know what time buys me.
Time to figure out what the endgame is?
Time to decide how deep this goes?
Time to make sure she doesn’t end up on a list she never agreed to be on?
I don’t fucking know. But that’s pretty on par for me these days, because I don’t know anything anymore. Besides the fact that I want Kylie Moon—and badly.
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” I tell them instead.
“Okay, bro. Let’s just keep buying time, for the sake of, you know, time,” Kane teases.
“Hell yeah. Let’s get more…time.” Cal laughs and offers me a high five. I don’t accept, but he finishes the gesture himself, slapping one hand against the other.
I groan. “How about you two fuck right off.”
Both of my brothers have the nerve to laugh, but I ignore them.
Across the rink, Kylie finishes a lap and slows her pace as she pushes her warm brown hair off her face. For a split second, her eyes flick toward the benches.
They land on me.
Something I don’t know how to describe passes between us. It’s recognition without understanding, curiosity edged with unease. The uncontrollable pull, it seems, isn’t exclusive to me.
Taking pity on what must feel impossibly confusing for her, I look away first.
Kane claps me on the shoulder. “We’re heading to the Suburban. You coming?”
“In a minute.”
They don’t argue. They know better when I’m in a mood like this.
When they’re gone, I pull out my phone and open the note I’ve been adding to all week. It’s not dreams or visions like I’ve experienced before. It’s not as formal as that, but rather, fragments of something my instincts won’t let go of.
Unattached Female
Stalked
Flat Tire
Private Event
Opulent Penthouse
I add one more line.
Intervene if it’s Kylie Moon.
Frustrated, I drop my phone inside my bag and take one last look at her. Then I zip my bag, sling it over my shoulder, and head for the exit.
Whether I want this bond or not, whether I fight it or not, one thing is certain: I don’t want anyone touching Kylie Moon.
Not even me.