Chapter 17 #3
There was no bitterness when he said it, only certainty, like he knew where he was meant to be.
I stared out the window for a second before quietly asking, “Do you ever get angry at them? Your parents, I mean.” His brows pinched slightly, and I elaborated. “For sacrificing themselves.”
My mind flashed unwillingly to my mother. To the alley I was found in. To blood on concrete.
Rack was silent long enough that I thought he might not answer, and I didn't blame him.
“When I was younger?” His fingers drummed once against the steering wheel. “Yeah.” A humorless breath left him.
“I hated them for it.”
Then his posture eased slowly. “But eventually…” His gaze softened, going somewhere far away. “I understood why they made that choice.”
The car smoothly rolled to a stop outside a massive shopping district before he reached into the center console.
When he turned back, a matte-black watch rested in his palm.
“I had this made for you.”
I blinked. “For me?”
“It’s a disguise device.” He held it out carefully. “Most of ours are more advanced, but this one was rushed. Cloaking and facial alteration only.”
I took it slowly, turning it over in my hands.
“This is actually genius,” I admitted out loud. Relief loosened something in my shoulders as I looked at it.
“I was starting to get nervous about going out looking like…” I gestured vaguely to myself. “This.” Especially since I still can’t remember who shot me.
Rack’s fingers curled tighter around the watch before letting go. His eyes drifted toward the windshield, expression sharpening.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Until we resolve that issue, hiding your appearance feels safer.”
The tension in his voice made me cover his hand instinctively. The second my skin touched his, his fingers loosened, and air magic lifted the watch from my palm.
I jerked slightly as it moved around my wrist in smooth spirals before locking itself into place.
“I thought your magic couldn’t touch me?”
Rack smirked then, smaller and more genuine.
“It can’t.” The watch rotated once around my wrist. “I’m affecting the object. Not you.”
Something about the way he said it made warmth creep into my cheeks. Like he enjoyed finding loopholes.
“How do I use it?” I asked before I made a fool of myself for blushing too much. His grin widened just enough for me to notice.
He leaned closer, pointing toward a small button along the edge.
“Press there.”
The second I did, something cool washed over my skin, the soft, prickly sensation rippling before it settled on my skin.
I flipped the visor mirror down and found a stranger staring back at me.
Bright green eyes. Chestnut hair. Softer nose. Rounder face.
I touched my cheek carefully, but nothing distorted beneath my fingertips. All of it felt real.
“Holy shit.”
Rack laughed quietly beside me. “Most supes hate using disguise magic,” he said. “Too prideful.”
I couldn't help but think that tracked. Supes were naturally gorgeous, so why should they ever cover it up?
“Then why do you use it?”
His gaze slid toward me knowingly.
“Sometimes being left alone is worth more than pride.”
That hit harder than I expected, because honestly? Even after becoming a vampire, I still wanted the same thing I’d wanted as a human. Peace. Space. The ability to exist without being hunted, watched, threatened, or used.
Maybe that had less to do with species and more to do with me?
“Come on,” Rack said, flicking his fingers lightly. My door immediately popped open. “We can’t have you stealing our clothes forever.”
I climbed out beside him, already calculating prices in my head. Essentials only. No extras. No matter how rich these people were, I refused to become someone who took and took without earning it.
Olivia Savin had survived too much to turn into a mooch now.
***
I should’ve known something was wrong. Really, this was on me.
The realization sat bitter on my tongue as city lights streaked past the windows while Rack drove us home.
He looked entirely too pleased with himself.
One hand rested loosely on the wheel while the other held a single shopping bag in his lap like that tiny thing explained the disaster he’d caused.
Because somehow, despite leaving every store practically empty-handed, I’d still ended up with an entire new life being delivered to the house. I didn’t even realize what he was doing until it was done.
It wasn’t until halfway through the third store, when a sales associate smiled at me and said, “The rest will arrive this evening, miss,” that I caught on.
Apparently, everything I touched had been purchased. Shirts. Boots. Jackets. Pillows. Blankets. A stupid crooked lamp I’d picked up because it looked like something a haunted grandma would own.
When I demanded to know why he bought it, Rack hadn’t even looked embarrassed.
“You stared at it for four minutes,” he’d said simply. Like that justified anything.
I told him I didn’t know if I even liked half the stuff I tried on, but he didn't seem to mind.
He just opened another door for me and replied, “Then you can figure that out once it’s in your room.”
And when I argued that he was wasting money? Nothing. Complete indifference. I was learning this was his way of laughing in my face.
He’d gone cold and unreadable again whenever employees spoke to him, all clipped answers and sharp nods, like the version of Rack who’d I met the morning I woke up in Calix’s bed.
That's not true. He was kind once before.
My mind drifted unwillingly back to the Track, to warm hands hauling me off the pavement while chaos exploded around us.
To those dark purple eyes locked onto mine hard enough to drown in. Back then, fear had swallowed everything else whole. Now that the fear was gone… I felt a familiar desire bubbling its way up to the surface.
Tingles began to spread from my core, racing through my veins. A deep coldness settled in my bones, making me shiver in the car. I turned to ask him what was going on with me, but my eyes snagged on the pulsing vein on the side of his neck.
The rush beneath his skin filled the car. I could hear it, actually hear it. Blood surged through him in warm rushing waves.
My tongue dragged slowly across my teeth before I realized I was doing it. Every beat beneath his sun-kissed skin tugged at something feral inside me.
Mine.
The thought slammed into me so violently my stomach twisted. A low sound rumbled out of my chest before I could stop it, and Rack’s eyes flicked toward me.
The car jerked violently as he swerved onto the shoulder. The sudden movement broke my focus enough for panic to crash in.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I folded forward hard, staring at my hands. My nails were buried into my thighs, sinking deeply enough to tear fabric. The hunger hit in waves after that.
Hot. Cold. Violent. Desire. Need. It spread through every inch of me until it felt like something alive was pacing beneath my skin, clawing to get out.
I tried breathing through the cycle, tried forcing the alive being inside down, but it only got worse. The more I resisted, the more that thing inside me lunged toward him, urging me to take that the blood moving beneath his skin.
“It’s okay, Olivia.” Rack’s voice came low and steady through the chaos pounding in my head. “It’s going to be okay.”
I shook my head immediately, still staring at the floorboards.
“No, it’s not,” I forced out through clenched teeth. “Rack, I don’t—”
The scent hit me so suddenly every thought shattered.
Fresh blood. Metallic and warm.
My head snapped toward the scent so fast my neck cracked, pupils blown wide.
Rack was facing me now. Calm and still, a knife loosely resting in one hand that was stained red.
My eyes tracked the bright crimson drop that slowly rolled down the side of his neck where he’d sliced. He’d missed the main artery, but the cut was close enough it made me salivate.
He smiled at me while the blood ran over his skin.
“I told you…” Rack breathed calmly, reaching for my waist as he vowed, “I’ll always take care of you.” No matter what my face must’ve been doing, he continued staring at me with that same unwavering certainty that kept undoing me.
“You can take whatever you need from me.” His thumb stroked along my side once. “I’m here for you, my Flame.”
If my head had been clear, I probably would’ve melted right there. Would’ve hidden my face against his shoulder and admitted how badly those words affected me. How no one in my life had ever spoken to me like I was worth choosing before.
But the hunger came first.
The thing inside me lunged before the rest of me could catch up. Before I knew it, I was ripping out of the seat belt to get to him in a flash.
My body slammed into his hard enough to rock the car as my teeth sank into his neck.
Rack groaned beneath me, his head falling back against the seat while his hands grabbed at my back, holding me to him like he wanted me closer instead of farther away.
His blood flooded my mouth, hot and rich. Smoke. Spice. Warm berries. Every swallow sent heat racing through my veins until my entire body throbbed with it.
More.
The thought pulsed through me with every drag from his throat.
“Take it,” Rack rasped, one hand sliding higher along my spine. “It’s yours.”
My nails dug into his shoulders hard enough to crease fabric while rough, desperate sounds spilled out of me between each pull of blood.
I couldn’t stop moving.
My hips rolled against him instinctively, chasing friction, while the hunger twisted into something lower and hotter.
Rack cursed softly beneath me.
One of his hands slipped beneath my waistband. The second his fingers found me already soaked, his breath hitched and he pushed two fingers inside me.
The sound that tore from my throat bounced around the inside of the car. Demanding. Needy.
My back arched hard against him while his hand worked between my legs, and the pressure building inside me sharpened painfully.
More. I needed more of everything.