Chapter 2
Sam
Fucking Esmé. On days where she wasn’t ravenous, there was always one more job before she’d give me a decent hit.
One more thing I needed to do for her before she’d give me the one thing I craved, even as I loathed myself for craving it.
Even now my skin itched, and my blood burned as it raced through my veins.
I needed Esmé’s venom to take the edge off.
It no longer cured the withdrawals for long, but nothing beat the flood of ecstasy after her fangs ripped into my skin.
The thought alone made me antsy, and I picked up the beer in front of me, chugging it as I studied the guy I’d been sent to meet in Esmé’s place. He was… interesting. Well, would have been interesting to me once upon a time.
I’d been watching him for a while from across the bar, and I was just biding my time to approach. Waiting for that perfect moment where I’d have his undivided attention and it wouldn’t matter that I wasn’t the contact he expected.
He looked like a killing machine. I shifted, rubbing my thighs together as I imagined all the places I’d let him press his fangs into me.
My fingers would curl against his scalp.
There wasn’t much hair to hang on to, and even from here, the raised ridge of a scar was visible on his head. There had to be a story behind that.
And, as had become my habit, I assessed the newest target. Fresh blood. Could he help me?
He had an air of boredom, but he was anything but bored. He hadn’t stopped watching people coming and going since he sat down — almost like he was doing some kind of customer survey or his life depended on giving an accurate headcount or description of everyone in the bar.
His narrow-eyed gaze appeared to miss nothing, and I tilted my head.
This was the guy Esmé had said wanted to be brought into the Blackbloods on some sort of mission?
He didn’t seem like their usual type. He didn’t seem…
mindless enough. Brock tended to like good little soldiers.
Not anyone who could actually be a match for him.
He liked unquestioning minions. Everyone he accepted into his army was expendable. Except this guy didn’t look like he thought he was expendable. He looked… trained. Like he knew what he was doing.
I sucked in a breath. Damn. He looked like a threat.
Maybe it was a good thing Esmé had sent me tonight—given my take that he wasn’t the usual type to try to join the Blackbloods, which made him so much more interesting.
Useful maybe, too. I wanted to hear his story.
What had brought him here? Why did he want to be a Blackblood?
What was this top-secret mission? Could he help me?
How many times had I thought these same words over the years?
How many times had I flipped and flopped between desire to escape Esmé’s hold on me and resignation to my fate?
It was exhausting. I was exhausted now. Things were just relentless.
But the idea that this man could help me was important.
Esmé wouldn’t have wanted me to wonder or think about his suitability beyond what she’d already told me to consider when taking this on for her, but I was applying my own criteria.
Criteria Esmé didn’t know about — could never know about.
She was only interested in a deal with some guy she’d made to get this guy in.
I didn’t concern myself with those details. But Esmé would forever lean on how much I owed her. That and the addiction she’d created in me when I saved her life by almost letting her drain me of blood.
I studied the vampire a little more from where I perched in the lap of one of the motorcycle club prospects, ignoring the weedy guy I was sitting on while he nuzzled my neck with his lips, scraping over my skin with his too-scratchy whiskers.
His erection dug against my hip, but I ignored that too.
It wasn’t like I had any further use for this guy than providing cover while I watched my target.
And the guy I was watching was clearly still waiting like he sensed I was here or some shit. Like he knew his meeting wasn’t off.
And that was weird. Any other guy who’d been stood up by Esmé would have left by now. Most likely anyway.
The prospect’s hand drifted across the front of my top, but I batted away his unwanted attention. I didn’t care about a lot of shit these days, and I certainly didn’t care about casual sex. My attention was on my next fix, and I’d only get that if I met with the mark across the bar.
My time was nearly up. I could literally feel myself dying, the craving inside me replacing my will to live, but maybe that was the kindest way. I wouldn’t know the end when it came, and I wouldn’t care.
As the bartender sang out the familiar words of last call, I stood abruptly, pushing the prospect gently against the back of his chair, and attempted to sashay toward the vampire.
Then I dropped my approach to a saunter when it was clear his attention was nowhere near me, and I was too wobbly to pull off anything remotely like a sexy walk anyway.
If Esmé had just given me a damn small hit before making me come out here, I would have walked straight and tall, but oh, no. She preferred her little lapdog hungry.
This guy couldn’t have been sending out clearer vampire signals if he’d tried.
He was sitting almost in the darkest area, barely drinking.
I’d never seen someone nurse their beer for so long while hardly taking a swallow.
The server had visited his table a couple of times.
On both occasions, he hadn’t even cracked a smile.
My body tightened just imagining the fangs lurking beneath his gums, and I paused, resting a hand on the chair in front of me to steady myself.
The intense sexual desire inside me receded, and I grabbed some stranger’s leftover beer from the table where I’d stopped.
Throwing it into my mouth, I wished it could be Esmé’s venom instead.
I shook my head, sickened at myself and my need for the woman I’d accidentally tied myself to. Then I revisited the fantasy I’d had earlier where I’d chopped her head off and her blood had spurted high into the air, covering me and taking complete care of my Esmé problem.
The idea of Esmé dying barely bothered me these days — especially if she went out in a river of blood that I could drown myself in.
That end almost seemed better than merely fading away while still in thrall to her.
And I didn’t want to be turned, either. I didn’t want to be one of these fucking bloodsuckers. Especially not a Blackblood.
Esmé had me as her virtual prisoner. I literally needed her to live, but I’d be damned before I became like her. I almost laughed, suddenly giddy.
I was already fucking damned.
Of course, Esmé also believed I’d damned her.
I refocused my attention on the vampire in front of me. He was my mission tonight. Then Esmé would be pleased with me, and she’d feed from me. We could all win tonight. The guy would get his meeting, Esmé would get her blood, and I’d get my venom.
Short-term goals.
But I didn’t care.
In this life, they were all I had left.
He wasn’t looking in my direction as I approached him, but he knew exactly where I was. I could almost see him tracking me, working out my trajectory, planning his answering defense or attack… He really was a fucking machine.
But his face gave nothing away. Not a muscle twitch or a flickering eyelash. There was no reason for me to be so certain of him and his thoughts, but I was. Interesting.
I settled into the booth across from him, the vinyl sticking to the backs of my thighs as my skirt rode up higher than was proper.
I didn’t care. I was too busy studying this guy, a vampire who held himself so stiff he could have been carved of stone.
Except his biceps flexed as I sat down, like his fingers had just curled around something under the table.
I wasn’t even sure if he knew he’d moved but I noted the small reaction. The part of himself he probably hadn’t intended to show me.
I waited, studying him, a smile fixed to my lips as I watched him. His eyes were brown. A warm kind of brown that brought to mind liquid chocolate. Hot chocolate. Something I used to love. Something I could only remember loving now. But his eyes brought me a warm feeling I’d long forgotten.
I could have drowned in them.
His hair was dark too but cropped close to his scalp, and my fingers itched to trace their way over the scar I’d observed on his head.
And he was dressed like he expected trouble — a tight-fitted black tee that showcased more muscles than I’d known existed, and black cargo pants tucked into shit-kicker boots.
If he wasn’t military, he wanted to be.
He was also hot as fucking Hell. And if I wasn’t exactly what I was…
And he wasn’t just another leech… I’d go there in a New York minute.
Less time than that, probably. I wouldn’t exactly wait for an invitation.
Well… even virgins knew what to do really, right?
I read. I watched TV. I knew how my body functioned and what a guy could bring to this particular table.
“Who are you?” His voice startled me out of the smutty direction my thoughts had ventured.
It was deep and mellow. Another reminder of the hot chocolate I no longer drank.
A sound that surrounded me like a hug. But I didn’t want that right now.
I had a mission.
I had a fucking mission.
My grin widened. “I’m your way into this shit show.”
He tilted his head, just the tiniest evidence of curiosity, and his watchful gaze from earlier returned as he met my eyes. “And you are?”
Ahh, a man of few words, then. I nodded. Maybe he’d do fine in the Blackbloods after all. “I’m Sam. Esmé sent me.” Her name was like a password. Surely, he’d hear me out now?