Chapter 7
Jason
Holy shit, Ciara was tough. I mean, I’d known that.
I’d never assumed my mate would be anything but a fighter—no one who wasn’t afraid to grab life by the balls and give them a twist if necessary would ever have suited me—but Ciara was calm and methodical in her approach when she needed to be, as well.
And this close, her scent drove me crazy. I wanted to bury my face in her hair and inhale. And bury my teeth in her neck…but that was for somewhere less public. My cock twitched at the thought, though.
She remained looking at me, he eyes fixed firmly to mine, not checking me out like she’d definitely been earlier. My balls tightened at the memory. There had definitely been something there. Some spark of interest, like she knew what we were.
Did the women know? Would Ciara know? Damn. I’d never asked Sebastian or Nic any of the questions I should have asked, and I didn’t feel at all like asking either of them now. It would give too much away. Perhaps it would even endanger Ciara in some way or mark her as a target.
I couldn’t risk asking any questions until I could be sure she would be protected. I’d need to protect her.
First, I needed to engage more with her. Gert her to talk to me. Even verbal sparring with her was better than silence. The way she was so passionate over the land deeds excited me.
“Not even going to say thank you?” My question startled her.
Her eyes widened, and she stopped meeting my gaze, looking anywhere but directly at me as she pushed her hair over her shoulder again.
That movement had the power to bewitch me, and it released her scent into the air at the same time. I almost groaned. She had no idea what a temptation she was.
I spared a quick look at the other vampires up here on the VIP balcony. Ciara was attracting a few interested glances, and I narrowed my eyes in challenge. She was mine and mine alone.
“What for?” She didn’t sound as confident now and she still wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I chuckled, but the sound meant to put her at ease sounded dark and a little dangerous, even to me. “For earlier.” For almost ripping the throat out of that guy was what I actually wanted to say, but maybe she wouldn’t have been as pleased with that outcome as I would.
He had deserved exactly that, though, for making my mate feel small.
“For earlier?” She cast me a quick glance like she had no memory of anything earlier.
I chuckled again. I liked this. “Sure. For putting that guy in his place.”
She shrugged. “Did you do that?” When she met my gaze, she arched an eyebrow. It was like a dare.
Accepted. I moved a little closer. “Sure I did. And I wouldn’t do it for just anyone.”
She stilled, and I could almost smell her sudden uncertainty and awareness of me. “Oh. Well, thank you.”
She didn’t move away from me, though, and I shifted farther forward as she spoke the automatic words, willing her to say more or to say something she meant, and her pupils dilated at my fresh movement, lust suddenly present in her gaze.
The smell of her arousal permeated the air between us, and I inhaled sharply.
She wanted me.
But then she sat back, opening additional space between us.
Ah. She was going to fight wanting me.
I grinned, not even bothering to conceal my amusement from her. I quite liked a challenge. Game on.
“Is your pack always so unfriendly to you?” It was as good a conversation starter as any, given we were already pretty much on the subject.
But she shrugged and looked steadfastly into her empty glass like she might find an escape in the remaining drop of the alcohol sitting in the bottom. “Sometimes.”
“Not friends of yours then?” I deliberately kept my voice soft because I wanted her to be able to confide in me. I wanted to take all of her worries away.
She shook her head.
The conversation wasn’t really getting off the ground, and I cast about in my head for something else to say. I didn’t usually have this problem. Of course, I didn’t usually try to talk to my mate either, and any attention I had from women was because they approached me.
I’d rarely had to do anything but stand quietly alongside Nic or Sebastian in order to garner some interest. It had been that way all of our lives. I’d been their constant companion and benefited from their natural charisma when it came to attention and women.
But it seemed my mate needed more than just a little conversation. She needed something else. Something other.
But could I provide that for her? Could I be the man she needed? Shit. I wasn’t used to feeling like I wasn’t enough. I usually had no problems with confidence at all. Perhaps I’d need to speak with Nic after all.
Not Sebastian—he didn’t need to know all of my business. But Nic was my best friend and my sire, and Leia, his mate, had been human before he turned her. I pushed aside that Sebastian’s mate had also been human. He just wasn’t the guy I wanted to speak to about this.
For some reason, Ciara was behaving like she’d been around vampires all of her life, as if being inside Nightfall was boring to her. Which on some level was fine—I didn’t want her to show too much interest in any of the other vampires here or the other supernaturals present.
But I did need her to fall for me. Nic had told me enough for me to know that to find my mate and not end up with her was the slow road to madness. I certainly wasn’t ready to end my life that way.
I glanced at Ciara’s drink again, still with that one last drop that she was looking at like it held the answers to life, the universe, and everything. She swirled it again as if hoping her fortunes might change. From her lowered brow, it had told her outlook not so good.
I signaled to the server, and my heart sank when her smile turned saucy as she approached. I could have done without Jasmine working the VIP area tonight. She didn’t seem to get that a fling was just… well, a fling. It had been over before it started between us.
And it had been when I first arrived in town, so over for a long time now. Well, not long relative to my life, but certainly long enough for Jasmine to have adjusted her attitude.
Except she hadn’t.
“Jason.” She greeted me with a purr in her voice and brushed her fingertips possessively through my hair. “What can I get for you?” She tipped a hip toward me suggestively—definitely more in mere offering than in an offer to get something from the bar.
I gestured to Ciara. “Whatever the lady wants.”
“Cosmopolitan, please,” she ordered in a quiet voice.
“And what do you want?” Jasmine upped the flirty purr as she rested her hand on my shoulder.
Ciara scoffed and looked pointedly away from us.
“Nothing for me, thanks.”
Jasmine winked. “Maybe later.” Then she sashayed away, more sway than normal in her hips.
Ciara made another noise of disgust.
“Everything okay?” Jasmine flirting had been awkward, but I hadn’t flirted back, and I wanted Ciara to see that my attention was solely for her.
She barely glanced at me before she grumbled her words. “Damn vampires.”
I laughed, the sound a surprise even to me. “What?”
“Always players, never faithful.” She scoffed again and looked past me like she was hoping for rescue.
I nearly laughed again. Ciara might have spent her whole life living in a wolf shifter pack, but she clearly knew nothing about vampires at all.
Once we’d found our mates, we were entirely faithful. Anyone else paled in comparison to that one person.
There was no one else in this world for me besides Ciara.
One day she’d know that.
I shifted my position, closing the gap between us as my thigh rested gently against hers. Then I sat still, allowing her the opportunity to move, but she didn’t. She sat, her warmth against my skin, even through the fabric of my pants.
As we sat together, tension seeped out of her, and she relaxed. If I moved just a little more, I could touch my shoulder against hers, too.
But then Jasmine brought Ciara’s drink and Ciara accepted it and took a delicate sip before resuming her people watching on the balcony, shrinking father into the shadows as she angled away from Jasmine, and her body language was a lot more closed than it had been before.
Any progress I hoped I’d been making with her had been lost, and now she was distant once more.
“Duuuuuuude!” An overly loud, giggly voice interrupted my thoughts of Ciara, and I glanced up to find her friend swaying beside me. “You’re in my seat.”
I started to stand, but she pressed me clumsily back to sitting. “No need to move. I just came for my purse.” She held her hand out expectantly, and I glanced at Ciara.
“Why do you need your purse?” Ciara sounded suspicious even as she fished around on the floor by our feet. “You need to start buying your own drinks?”
Her friend laughed. “Hardly. I’ve found someone very nice to buy my drinks. In fact, he’s so nice, he’s taking me home.” She wiggled her eyebrows in a grand gesture that was pretty much a parody of sexy. “His home.”
Ciara sighed. “Taylor…”
“Oh, shush.” Taylor interrupted her but her tone was amused still. “One of us knows how to have fun, at least.” She glanced at me, her gaze suddenly clear and calculating before she addressed Ciara again. “And maybe you should stay right here and learn how to have a bit of fun yourself?”
Ciara started to stand but Taylor made an impatient noise and waved her back down.
“Atch, atch, atch…You’re not spoiling my fun, Ms. Mom.
Sit.” She turned to leave then glanced over her shoulder.
“Maybe you can find a ride back of your own with a tall, sexy vampire. Check out his trouser snake while you’re at it.
” Then she did everything but point to me before she disappeared down the stairs to return to the main floor of the club.
I hid my smile as Ciara opened her mouth then closed it again as she watched the space where Taylor had disappeared. Then I cleared my throat.
“If you can’t find a tall, sexy vampire to give you a ride home, I’m available.” I held my breath.
I wasn’t touching the trouser snake comment, but in my fantasies, Ciara would smile and tell me I was exactly the tall, sexy vampire she wanted.
But these moments were not my fantasies.
She nodded, a small abrupt movement. “Thank you.”
It wasn’t really an acceptance of my offer, though. More a polite acknowledgment that I’d spoken. Although, if she wasn’t going to give me an outright no, maybe I could just take that as a yes?
“I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” I looked at her to see her response. I didn’t fully trust that she’d wait for me.
But she sipped at her drink again and gave the slightest of nods.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to leave her.
She was the only human in the club, and her friend had left her.
That made her vulnerable. But she was mine, which offered her some protection…
although I hadn’t claimed her, so no one else knew I’d protect her to my dying breath.
I vacillated, going back and forth over whether it was safe to leave her up here while I went to find Sebastian to tell him I was leaving.
Because I definitely had to leave. I had to be the one to take Ciara home. She had to experience my protection as much as I needed to offer it to her.
Were all vampires this driven to protect and ensure the safety of their mate?
I’d never experienced such a need to reassure myself of the welfare of another.
When I couldn’t see Ciara, I couldn’t shake the fear that maybe something had happened to her—maybe especially since she spent her life around shifters, whose strength surpassed hers. I’d seen an example of that here.
Worse than shifters, maybe, we had the Ancients here, too. And everyone required additional protection from them.
My mate especially so.
But probably Nic, Sebastian, or Kyle would fight me on that, seeing as they had their own mates to consider. But theirs were vampires now. Mine was still fragile.
I sighed. Dammit. It was like being left in charge of an egg.
As if he’d sensed that I needed him, Sebastian appeared at the top of the stairs and started mingling his way across the balcony, greeting some of the club’s biggest spenders. I waved him over, and he nodded before pausing to laugh at something a short, rotund rat shifter said to him.
When he finally arrived at our table, he glanced between Ciara and me. “Everything okay over here?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I just wanted to let you know that I’m taking Ciara back to the pack lands.”
Sebastian quirked an eyebrow, and he didn’t need to ask his next question before I rushed to answer it.
“She’s Conri’s sister and the new wolf liaison over the contract with Nic.” I wasn’t sure if I’d mentioned her by name or how much Sebastian knew, but this was the easiest way to explain my involvement with her, surely?
Sebastian nodded slowly, his brow creased as though he was in thought. “Okay.” Then he lowered his voice. “And you’re just keeping things sweet?”
I gestured, my arms wide as I wordlessly protested my innocence. “Always.”
“Thanks for coming in.” Those were his words of dismissal before he moved on to shake someone else’s hand, but he passed a lengthy and studious gaze over Ciara as he did so.
“Any time.” I offered the words to his back, but although he would have heard me, he didn’t react.
“Are you ready?” I held my hand out to Ciara, but she ignored it and stood, clutching her purse to her chest, a scowl turning her mouth down and making her eyes spark.
“I have my car in the staff parking lot.” I closed my eyes briefly at the end of my redundant sentence, but part of me just wanted her to hear me speak.
She huffed a sigh but lifted her drink and downed it in one impressive mouthful. Then she set the glass on the table, and it struck the surface twice as though it had wobbled as she let go or she’d been shaky in her movement.
She nodded as I gestured her in front of me, and my gaze drifted to her ass. The way she held her shoulders, though, suggested she was pissed. I didn’t really blame her. Her friend had dumped her on their night out, and now Ciara was stuck with me.
It was the best thing that could have happened as far as I was concerned, but it probably wouldn’t seem like quite the same sort of win in her book.
When we reached my car, I helped her inside. Hopefully, this evening would help me start to break down some of her walls.