Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
bloom
I was sprawled out on my back on the floor, regretting every decision I’d ever made, when Maverick returned.
He wasn’t alone this time.
My fangs were still descended and throbbing, but I was trying to ignore them. Something told me they weren’t going to stop until I washed Maverick’s weird scent off my skin. Or maybe just fed.
I sat up slowly, taking care to keep my blood-crusted hair and sweater off my wound as I silently took in the man who’d come inside with the Alpha wolf.
I’d seen pictures of him online, too. Rhone Longfang, the Alpha Pack’s Beta.
He was built slightly thicker than Maverick, with long, black hair that had been tied up in a man bun that somehow managed to make him look more ferocious.
All he had on was a pair of sweats. Black tattoos began at the top of his throat and decorated nearly every exposed inch of his olive skin.
He was barefoot, like Maverick. Maybe that was a werewolf thing. I’d never heard of it, but I’d only been trained on how not to be caught by one of them. Which clearly hadn’t worked out for me.
Rhone came up close to the bars of the cage and studied my neck with his electric blue eyes. “That’s a fucking huge bite.”
Maverick’s jaw was slightly clenched as he stepped up next to Rhone, but he didn’t respond.
Rhone’s nostrils flared.
The men didn’t look at each other, but I was somewhat confident werewolves had some kind of mental connection that allowed them to communicate without speaking.
My eyes caught on Maverick’s chin. Specks of my blood were still dried in the copper scruff there.
“What’s your name?” Rhone finally asked me, folding his arms over his chest.
Maverick answered for me. “Bloom.”
“Bloom? Like a flower? She’s a fucking vampire.”
“I noticed.”
If they thought my name was bad, they really didn’t know vampires. All vampires had been giving their children ridiculous names since the end of the war. It started as an attempt to make us seem less like the terrifying murderers the rest of society thought we were.
My mom’s name was Taffy. My dad’s was Glint. My sister’s was Whimsy, and her wife’s was Mouse.
I could’ve had it much worse than Bloom.
“I didn’t do it.” I was still talking around my fangs. “The bite would’ve healed by now if I had drained Steven last night.”
“How do you know it didn’t happen this morning?” Rhone asked.
Dammit.
I really needed to think more before I spoke.
Sleeping would help with that. I was really regretting that all-nighter. I should’ve just let the werewolves pay another fine instead of rushing to get the paperwork done.
“Vampire kids are shown pictures of victims at different stages of decomposition. It’s supposed to scare us so we don’t turn into murderous monsters. There are some images you can’t get out of your mind after seeing them,” I explained.
“And Steven happened to look like one of those images.” Rhone didn’t sound impressed.
“Yes. Draining someone before tearing the wound to hide the size of your bite is a vampire classic.”
“Considering it a classic doesn’t work in your favor,” he said flatly.
“We all know you’re going to kill me no matter what I call it.”
“We all don’t know that,” Maverick said. “With the current… situation… if you’re not the murderer, we’re not going to be able to kill you.”
I blinked. “What? You hate vampires. There was a whole war because of it.”
“We didn’t start that war, Bloom. We ended it.” Maverick’s voice was blunt.
“So if I didn’t kill Steven, you’re just going to let me go?”
Maverick worked his jaw. “Possibly.”
That answer didn’t exactly excite me.
“Where were you last night around 9 PM?” Rhone asked.
“At the office, doing paperwork. Like always. You guys are just wrapping up a massive deal, in case you didn’t know. You’re about to make a sickening amount of money.”
Maverick’s forehead creased. “You’re Arthur’s assistant. What paperwork do you have? You should just be tracking deadlines and managing a calendar.”
“I do Arthur’s job. You can ask literally anyone I work with and they’ll confirm it.”
“Are the company’s security cameras fast enough to track a vampire’s movement?” Maverick asked Rhone. “That could prove whether or not she was there.
“Our guys are still working on getting the security footage,” the Beta said.
I shook my head. “There are no cameras fast enough to track a vampire’s movement.”
“So, you were at the crime scene at the time of the murder, and you could’ve committed it fast enough not to be seen,” Rhone summarized.
Wow, I needed to shut up.
“Technically yes, but it takes longer than that to fully drain someone, and—”
Rhone interrupted me. “You have no proof that you didn’t commit the crime.”
“You have no evidence that I did commit the crime, either.”
Neither of the men disagreed.
A moment of tense silence passed.
Whatever was going on, I hoped they had at least called the police. The cops wouldn’t intrude on werewolf business without permission, so they weren’t just going to involve themselves.
And so far, I was not impressed with the wolves’ ability to solve a murder. I was their only suspect, and I didn’t kill Steven.
I lowered my back to the floor and went back to staring at the ceiling.
Regretting all of my decisions, too.
“You still haven’t told me why you bit me,” I said.
My fangs ached. So did the rest of me. I was getting dizzy, which was a sure sign that I’d lost way too much blood. I was still bleeding a little, and that couldn’t have helped.
My body would be burning through a lot more blood than usual in an attempt to heal the bite wound, which meant I was going to continue feeling worse until I fed.
I couldn’t imagine a werewolf offering me his wrist or finding me some blood bags, so feeding was unlikely to happen. Instead of killing me, the Alpha could just let me starve to death.
Parting my lips, I breathed slowly through my mouth in an attempt to ease the ache in my fangs.
It didn’t help.
I could still smell vanilla. The apples and cinnamon had faded, at least.
Closing my eyes, I tried to sink into the cold tile.
It didn’t work.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t a power vampires possessed. We didn’t actually have any power. Just good senses and a little extra speed and strength.
More time passed. I wasn’t sure how much.
The chills set in slowly, and I started to tremble. Vaguely, I heard one of the men say my name. I couldn’t have replied if I wanted to.
The cold tile no longer felt nice, and my body was now physically incapable of warming it.
I wasn’t unconscious, but I wasn’t fully conscious, either.
The many lectures I’d received were right. Blood loss was horrible.
Multiple urgent growly male voices dragged me back to the land of the living. Someone else must’ve joined them.
I wasn’t aware enough to put voices to name, but I followed the conversation for the most part.
“What the fuck happened?”
“She said she hasn’t fed in a while.”
“She drained an entire human man this morning.”
“That’s not possible. Look at her. She’s starving.”
“Could she have thrown up the blood?”
“Vampires value blood more than humans or werewolves value food. None of them would try to expel blood after feeding.”
“What if she wasn’t sane?”
“She would have to cut herself. By the time all of the human’s blood left her system, she wouldn’t be able to heal the wounds at a magical speed.”
“If she drained the human, she’d still have deep cuts?”
“Yes.”
“So she didn’t drain him.”
“No.”
“You’re positive?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“Should we feed her? Before her hunger kills her?”
“That’s a good question for the bastard who bit her.”
“I’m obviously going to feed her.”
“You can’t. If she bites you, the bond will be permanent.”
“Well she’s sure as fuck not biting one of you assholes.”
There was a commotion, and a couple of growls and snarls.
“Give her your fucking wrist already, Rhone,” someone grunted.
There was a clicking noise. The cell door, probably. A moment later, a large finger slid my lip up to expose my fang.
The owner of the finger made a disgruntled sound. I’d guess it was Rhone, based on the tattoos I could see. He seemed to have even more ink than Maverick.
More growling, snarling, and commotion followed.
“Get it over with,” someone barked.
A moment later, my fangs were buried in his wrist, and instinct had me basically inhaling his blood.
With the sweet scent of vanilla in my lungs, the taste was disappointing on a deep, visceral level. It satisfied my hunger anyway.
I drank deeply.
All hell was breaking loose out outside the cage. There was roaring. Snarling. Growling. At one point, I was pretty sure I heard teeth snapping and skin tearing.
But I didn’t stop drinking until the arm was ripped away from my face.
My eyes flew open in time to watch Rhone land on his feet just in front of the bars of the cage.
Looking at the Beta was a mistake, because I completely missed the actual threat.
Maverick’s body landed on mine. There was copper fur on his arms and face, his glowing green eyes meeting mine for a moment. His skin was deliciously warm.
That scent…
Bliss.
Pure, undiluted pleasure.
And then his teeth found my throat.
Again.
Cutting into the other side of my neck like he was the vampire here.
“What the fuck?” I gasped, as liquid heat rolled through my veins instead of pain.
I shouldn’t have liked the way his fangs felt in my skin. I should’ve been trying to roll us over and get away from him.
But that was the last thing on my mind. I wanted more. I wanted him.
So yeah, I’d officially gone insane.
As quickly as the bite happened, it ended.
Maverick was torn away from me, his teeth ripping through my throat even more brutally than they’d bitten down.
I sat up quickly, my wide eyes following him as two other men literally dragged him out of the cage kicking, fighting, and shifting.
The newcomer had his black hair shaved completely, showing off his smooth brown skin and chiseled face. Like Rhone, he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he also wasn’t wearing shoes.
That really had to be a wolf thing.
The new guy let go of Maverick long enough to slam the cell’s door shut. He typed something into the keypad before rejoining Rhone, who was now wrestling an oversized copper wolf toward the door.
Rhone and the new guy were both bleeding in various places, and sporting patches of fur in even more. Maverick didn’t look injured, but he was in his wolf form and covered in fur, so that didn’t mean much.
The copper wolf that had to be Maverick snarled at the men, snapping his teeth but missing Rhone’s thick forearm.
It almost seemed like the men had done this before.
I watched in open-mouthed shock as Rhone and the new guy exchanged a look and lowered their shoulders. Their bodies swelled larger at the same time, and a dusting of fur broke out on both of their visible skin as they shifted partway.
Then rammed the giant copper wolf.
All three of them stumbled through the doorway, disappearing from my sight completely, and the door shut hard behind them.
Yet again, what the fuck was going on?