Chapter 18 #2
No, that was a bad idea. If they knew about the Durands here, then I definitely didn’t want to be caught with my pants down. Literally. I could just imagine what my parents would say to that. My mom would find it hilarious, but Antoine? Darren? Marcus? Not so much.
Plus I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I could get the bottoms off without taking the whole jump suit off.
“Miss Durand?”
I spun around at my name, seeing the waitress from before.
“If you need to use the restroom, you can use the employee one.”
“Oh, uh.” I glanced back at the line and then smiled tightly. “Thanks.”
The waitress led me through a door in the hallway that said private. The lights here were brighter, and I had to blink to get my eyes to adjust quickly. With blurred vision, I tried to follow behind the waitress.
“Just in here,” she gestured to another door that said employees only.
“Thanks again, you’re a life saver.” I turned the handle and was already thinking of how to the best way to get the jump suit off when someone grabbed my arm. Their tight grip swung me around until my back was to their front, the sharp cold press of steel to my neck.
“You’re going to be a good little bitch and come quietly,” a harsh masculine voice demanded, “or your friends out there will find the wrong end of a stake.”
The waitress was nowhere to be found of course.
And, since we were out of the public eye, I couldn’t just cause a scene to get him to let me go.
I could have easily gotten myself out of his hold, but I wasn’t sure how I would fair in the heels — no matter their low height.
Plus, there was the chance he actually did have the ability to take out Iris, which in turn would kill Xinyi.
So, with no other options, I allowed him to pull me deeper into the back area. We reached a large door that opened as we approached. Once we stepped inside, the man holding me shoved me forward.
“Here she is, boss.”
The door snipped closed behind me before I could think about escaping, and suddenly, four sets of eyes were watching me. Three of them were inconsequential, playing the hired goon or pretty face meant to fluff the boss’s pride.
No, the only one that mattered was the male sitting on the black leather sofa in front of me.
He had deep auburn hair, tied up into a messy bun on the top of his head.
A pair of thick black-rimmed glasses sat in front of piercing green eyes.
A scar sliced through his face from the top of his left eyebrow to the bottom of his right cheek.
He wore a suit much like those Antoine did except he went for a silk black shirt rather than the classic cotton one.
Arms thrown over the back of the couch and one leg bent over the other, his eyes skimmed my form from head to toe. It wasn’t a lewd perusal, more like he was trying to figure me out or decide what my insides might look like.
I didn’t start spitting out questions. In my experience, guys like this only answered when they wanted to, and this guy didn’t seem the type to take demands.
Fuck if I didn’t wish I had control over my powers just now.
“Hello, I am Hamish,” the man said finally spoke, pronouncing his name so that it sounded more like Amish than Hamish. “I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here.”
I was definitely picking up an Australian accent now, though he seemed to be trying hard to hide.
I shrugged, crossing my arms over my chest. “Not really.”
Hamish stared at me for a moment and then laughed. “They said you were brave, I’ll give them that.”
I didn’t know who them was, but they were on my shit list.
He leaned forward, pushing the two females on either side of him away as he locked eyes with me. “You’re here, because your parents have been buggering up my business.”
“Sorry to hear about that.”
I scanned the room taking in the walls and the singular door behind me. The goon standing in the corner didn’t look too tough. A sniff to the air told me he was a werewolf. Since the full moon was long off, that made him the lesser of threat out of the two males in the room.
The bigger threat was the vampire before me, who smelled as if he could give Antoine’s age a run for its money.
The two women were humans. Though you couldn’t discount them right away. While they didn’t give off the scent of a human servant, humans were resourceful. One well-placed bullet at a moment of distraction would still make me deader than the vampire in front of me.
“I’m glad you find this situation so amusing.” Hamish cocked his head to the side, his lips pursed. “You really aren’t scared of me, are you?”
Dropping my attention back to him, I arched a brow. “Should I be? If you know my family, then you know I’m no stranger to vampires.”
Hamish laughed and leaned back in his chair. “You know, I like you. You got steel balls on ya. I really hate to kill you. Plus…” His eyes lingered on my hips and exposed flesh. “You would be quite popular with our buyers.”
He sucked in a breath and held his hands out as an apology. “But I need the council to back the fuck off, and you are the only one they value enough to give me what I want.”
“Look, I don’t even know you and couldn't care less about your business. But, if you think that killing me is going to get them to back off, you have another thing coming.” I dropped my hands behind my back, using one hand to pull the sleeve down on my arms to unclip my daggers.
“Oh, I’m not going to kill you yet.” Hamish chuckled, the confidence he had in himself making this all that much more annoying.
“First, I’m going to send them pieces of you to let them know I’m serious.
Then, once they give me what I want, then I will kill you.
Well… not me. I don’t do that stuff anymore.
” He held his hands up as if the very thought of killing me would make him dirty.
My fingers had just wrapped around my daggers when the goon in the corner pressed his finger to his ear, a voice crackling in his comm device. “Uh, boss.”
“What?” He flicked an annoyed look the goon’s way. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“There’s some kind of disturbance.” The goon paused, his brows furrowed as he answered the person in his ear. “What do you mean a shadow? What’s a—?”
The door behind me burst open, and darkness filled the room. The females screamed while the goon shouted, trying to fight off the shadows around us. An arm wrapped around my waist and, before I had a chance to fight back, a familiar scent filled my nose.
“Kyren,” I gasped, clinging to him. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer, wrapping his shadows around. I felt a pull on my stomach and knew he was about to do that thing where he transported from one place to the other. I couldn’t let that happen.
“No! What about Xinyi and Iris?”
“They’re gone already,” he reassured me. “Now hold on.”
The world around us turned to shadows. One minute, we were in Hamish’s office, and the next, we were out on the street. I stumbled as we landed, but Kyren didn’t let me fall.
“Here.” He ushered us to his car.
I waited until we were buckled in before turning to him. “How did you even know I was here?”
Kyren didn’t look at me as he cranked the car and started away from the club.
I sighed, shaking my head. “Stalking me, of course. You know, you need to figure out your shit. Do you love me or hate me? Cause all this back and forth is giving me whiplash.”
Kyren didn’t answer, and I thought he wouldn’t before his soft voice filled the car. “I don’t hate you.”
“Well, you sure don’t act like you love me,” I shot back and then groaned. “I forgot my clutch.”
Kyren gave me a look.
“Don’t look at me like that. It had my phone and my I.D. in there. Do you know how much a pain in the ass it is to replace those? No one wants to go to the DMV.”
His lips twitched.
Dragging a hand through my curls, I huffed a sigh. “Well, this night was a bust. What are the chances do you think that my parents don’t hear about it?”
Kyren didn’t answer.
“Yep, my thoughts exactly.”
There was little doubt in my mind that my parents would learn of my almost kidnapping and then I’d be locked up even tighter than I was before. The very thought of it made me want to tell Kyren to not take me home — to keep driving until we run out of road.
Sadly, I had a duty, and I couldn’t just leave my parents without letting them know about this Hamish guy and his threats.
By the time we arrived home, I was beyond beat and didn’t think I could handle talking to my parents, let alone explain everything that went down. So when Kyren got close to the gate, I placed a hand on his arm.
“Here is fine.”
He put the car in park, his hands on the steering wheel, holding it so tight the leather squeaked.
“Well…” I placed my hand on the door handle, glancing at him waiting for him to say something, anything. When he didn’t say anything or move to stop me, I opened the door. “I guess… thanks.”
Laughter and chatter filled the house as I walked inside. I headed for the stairs, most definitely not in the mood to meet any more of my parents’ friends.
“Jack?”
I leaned heavily on the banister at my mom’s voice. “Yeah?”
“You’re home early?” Her eyes scanned over me, no doubt searching for injury.
Not wanting to get into it, I shrugged. “Wasn’t my scene. I’m going to go to bed.”
“Okay, honey.” Her brows furrowed, but she didn’t stop me. “Let me know if you need something.”
“I will.” I gave her a weak smile and then hurried to my room, breathing a sigh of relief when the door clipped shut behind me.
My body was on autopilot as I went through the motions of showering and changing for bed.
For the first time in weeks, I grabbed Kyren’s shirt from the drawer, pulling it over my head without thinking too much into it.
It had long lost the scent of him, but my body didn’t seem to care.
It had already been conditioned to relax once I put it on.
Flicking the light off, I climbed into bed and closed my eyes. My mind kept bringing Kyren’s face in the car back to my mind. What had he been thinking? Why had he been there? What did he mean he didn’t hate me?
The bed dipped beside me. I jolted up, the dagger I kept under my pillow in my hand. It paused an inch from Kyren’s neck. Lowering the dagger, I blinked at him.
There were several things I could have said to him just then. I could’ve demanded he answer all the questions I’d just been thinking about a few moments before. But a weariness inside of me just didn’t have the energy to get into it right now.
Lowering back to the bed, I turned my back on him.
Kyren slowly laid down on the bed fully clothes and still above the blankets, his arms wrapping around me. I let myself sink into his embrace, just like old times. Every part of my body relaxed at his nearness.
“You’re still not forgiven,” I murmured, the scent of him already making me sleepy.
“Shhh.” His arms tightened around me. “I know.”