Chapter 2
CHAPTER
TWO
A hand, small and gentle, settled on his chest. It pressed down just over that severed nerve like it belonged there.
Sloane blinked rapidly, the veil of fire clearing only enough to reveal that perfect face. She was alarmingly close. A sick feeling squirmed in his gut at the realization that she’d slipped under his arm and put herself chest to chest with him all without him even noticing.
She could’ve slit my throat, he realized.
Instead, she’d put both hands on him. Gently. Not even pushing. Sloane couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him like that. He couldn’t even imagine allowing it.
Stepping between an elf and his prey for any reason was brave. It was also so reckless it left him stunned. He stared at her like she wasn’t just a doe but a creature from another world, baffled by how easily she disregarded her own safety.
“…easy, okay? I think he got the message. Let’s just back up a bit.” Her voice bubbled up through the roiling flames, as cool and calming as fresh water.
His body moved without his permission again. Sloane took one large step back, releasing Cole with a shove toward the wall. The man slid to the ground with a gurgling sound, leaving a streak of red and a smattering of broken teeth on the brick.
Instead of staying put, Cece matched Sloane’s steps. Her gaze never left his face, hidden by the smokey black glass of his helmet’s visor, as she called out, “Cole, are you okay?”
“What the fuck!” He stumbled to his feet, one hand pawing at the wall and the other frantically smearing the blood that gushed from his smashed nose and bleeding gums. There were oozing black holes between the cracked teeth, which matched the scabbed vampire bites on his neck.
“The fuck! I didn’t— didn’t do anything! ”
Sloane’s upper lip lifted, revealing razor-sharp fangs no one could see. The only thing that stopped him from lunging for Cole again was the fact that Cece put herself firmly between the men, like she knew that his instinct was to protect her at all costs.
“I think this… officer believes you were accosting me,” she explained. Gaze searching his visor, she hazarded, “You were protecting me, right? Or are you a friend of Roxanna’s?”
Sloane’s voice came out flat and modulated by the programming in his helmet when he said to Cece, “You required assistance.”
Her wide eyes flicked down, taking in his black, standard Patrol-issue kit and the gloves all elves wore. The long line of her throat bobbed with a hard swallow when she returned her attention to his visor. “You are a Patrol officer, right?”
No, he wanted to tell her. I’m worse.
Instead, he inclined his head. Fear was written in the tense lines around her eyes and mouth. For the first time in his life, the sight bothered him. He didn’t want to tell her that he was a member of Thaddeus’s hit squad, his team of pet assassins everyone feared.
He wanted her to be… something. Something softer.
She didn’t immediately relax, but she did let out a breath. “Cole, get out of here before he arrests you. We both know you can’t take another strike on your record.”
“Cece—”
Her head snapped in the bloodied man’s direction.
“Glory give me strength, Cole! Shut the fuck up and go before I tell this guy to finish what he started. And if you ever follow me or another server home again, I’m telling Roxanna.
You think this was bad? Wait until your vampire hears you’ve been following other women! ”
That seemed to light a fire under him that the beating to his face hadn’t.
Cole wheezed as he scuttled away, his shoulders hunched and his t-shirt bloody.
Sloane turned his head sharply to keep him in his sight until he left the alley altogether.
Everything in him screamed to follow, to finish the job and get the kill he’d hunted all night for, but that pulsing severed nerve in his chest stopped him.
It refused to let him move even an inch away from the woman who stared up at him with eyes as big and brown as a doe’s.
Flexing his claws, he demanded, “Why did you protect him? He attacked you.”
“And you smashed his face in so bad it actually flattened,” she replied, shockingly frank. “I think he learned his lesson.”
Doubtful.
Scum like Cole, who followed women down dark alleys and didn’t like the word no, rarely learned anything besides how to not get caught.
That was why Sloane did what he did. If Patrol and the laws that governed the Elvish Protectorate let monsters slip through the cracks, it was his job to pick up the slack.
He said none of this to Cece. Instead, he watched her intently through the glass of his visor, his claw-tipped fists curling and uncurling. The nerves in the tips of his fingers tingled with an urgent feeling he couldn’t place. “I’ll escort you to your home,” he informed her.
Her lips parted with surprise. It became difficult, suddenly, to look anywhere besides that tiny, glossy opening into the warm well of her mouth.
“Thanks for the help but you really don’t need to,” she protested, palms up.
It would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to sling her over his shoulder and deliver her to a safer location. That was what a real protector would do. If he were on assignment, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
But he wasn’t, and something about the wary look on her face made him second-guess his impulse to use force to get what he wanted.
Sloane did a rapid calculation in his mind, weighing the risks versus the possible benefits of a new approach. If he used force, she would be more afraid of him. If he tried the hitherto untested tactic of coercion, she might… not be.
He reeled with the possibilities. At the forefront of them all was the foreign longing for the return of her hands to his chest. He wanted to know if it felt good a second time, too.
The modulator in his helmet scrubbed all inflection and identifying features from his voice, so she couldn’t hear the cautiousness in his tone when he said, “It’s late. You were attacked. You are alone. It’s my duty to get you home safely.”
She shifted her feet nervously in the grit and dust of the passageway. “No offense, but you’re, like, really scary.”
“Correct.” He nodded toward the alley’s exit.
A soft sound escaped her. It wasn’t quite a laugh but it was close. A new light entered her eyes when she peered up at him then. It looked something like curiosity. “Most people would try to deny it or maybe put the other person at ease.”
Sloane couldn’t readily recall a time when he’d willingly spoken this much, let alone put someone at ease. “I have no reason to do that. Your observation was correct. I am scary. It’s an advantage.”
There was a long moment of silence. With a twist of her full lips, she appeared to accept the fact that he wouldn’t be swayed. Still eyeing him, she turned toward the exit.
Sloane tucked his hands behind his back and shortened his strides to match her much shorter legs as he followed her out onto the street.
“Is it always?” she asked, running her fingers through her hair with a nervous flick of her wrist.
He had to think hard about his answer. Not because it was a difficult question, but because he found himself distracted by the curve of her jaw when she tilted her head just-so.
“Usually,” he amended.
Truthfully, it was very rare that he encountered a situation that couldn’t be turned in his favor with a large dose of terror. Fear made prey stupid. Stupid prey made for easy killing. Killing gave him meaning.
Everything had its place.
But he didn’t want to see fear in this woman’s eyes. It served no purpose. If he didn’t want to kill her or extract information from her, then it was a useless tool. He’d have to find a better one to get what he wanted, which was, at that precise moment, to get her to safety.
And to be touched by her again.
His blood still rushed in his veins, too hot, as they walked down the quiet street.
The few people out in the hour before sunrise gave him a wide berth, which suited him just fine.
He didn’t like the idea of anyone getting too close to his charge.
The thought filled him with a deep and dangerous sort of discontent.
It was the same way he felt about his few possessions.
No one was allowed to touch his things. No one was allowed to even look at them. What was his was his. End of story.
“Have you been a Patrol officer long?”
Sloane’s gaze moved from examining the street for threats to tracing the contours of her profile in an instant. “Yes,” he answered, surprising himself.
Her dark brows furrowed. “Do you like it?”
“That is irrelevant.”
“How? Shouldn’t everyone like what they do? Even just a little?”
He watched her closely, more curious about the inner workings of her mind than anything else. He’d never thought to talk to prey before and had no idea what truly motivated them. “Do you?”
“Not really,” she admitted, rubbing her shoulders. Only then did he notice that her sweater was gone. Lost, he realized, sometime during the scuffle with Cole. A sharp need struck him when he imagined that soft garment lost in the filth of the alley.
Oblivious, she continued, “But there are good parts about working in a vampire bar. It pays the bills and works with my school schedule. I get to be with my best friend, usually, and it can be… exciting. I swear I don’t have creeps following me home on a regular basis.”
Sloane found himself grinding his fangs, unconsciously sharpening them as he imagined what it must be like for a creature as soft and vulnerable as her to work in a vampire bar. “That’s too dangerous. You should find a new job.”
She snorted. “Now you sound like my mother. If you must know, I’m working on becoming a teacher.”
He grimaced. Caring for young was an esteemed position worthy of respect, but it wasn’t a job he enjoyed. That was why their captain used work in the Solbourne Nursery Center as punishment for misbehavior.
If he had to choose, he’d pick having his claws pulled out one by one over caring for a fleet of slavering, sociopathic young every time.
Mind churning through the problems she’d presented him, he demanded, “Do you walk this route at this hour regularly?”
She gave him a wary look. “I don’t know if I should tell you that.”
That’s a yes.
They turned a corner. He glanced around critically, judging the distance from her work, the sparse street lights in the slightly run-down area.
It wasn’t far from the glittering Haight district, with all its vice and blood vendettas, but in San Francisco, moving even one street over was like crossing into another universe.
The street was all sleepy old homes with caged windows — a remnant of the war years — and apartment buildings that hadn’t seen upgrades since the 60s.
“You shouldn’t walk by yourself,” he firmly instructed her.
“I don’t, usually. My friend works in the same bar, but she has the flu.” She shrugged. “I can handle myself.”
Sloane took in her fragile frame, her blunt nails, and the sheer softness of her. “You cannot.”
“Okay, this was a bad night, but I—”
“You are soft and small and defenseless,” he bluntly explained. “Your senses are dull and your reflexes non-existent. In a confrontation, your best bet is to run as fast as you can. That is unacceptable. You may be weak, but you deserve to be safe at all times. It’s my job to make sure you are.”
She shook her head. “You know, for a job that doesn’t seem to bring you joy, you seem to take it pretty seriously.”
Already making plans, he replied, “I take protection duty very seriously.”
Cece slowed to a stop in front of an apartment building. Sunlight had just begun to color the horizon. It touched the long black strands of her hair, turning them a deep, bloody red. She faced him with a nervous smile. “Well, um, thank—”
“What is Cece short for?” The words tumbled out of him in a way they never had before, as if each one was a link in a chain he desperately wanted to wrap around her, holding her there with him in the soft glow of dawn.
She blinked rapidly, that nervous quirk of her lips softening into an expression he’d never been on the receiving end of before: one of gentle delight.
“Cecilia,” she answered, walking backward up the short flight of steps to the door. She placed her hand on the knob, but she didn’t flee his company immediately. Not like she should’ve. Not like any sane creature who valued their life ought to.
Her big brown eyes, liquid gold in the new sunlight, gazed intently at his visor. “What’s your name, Officer?”
Fire crackled in his belly and licked up his throat, making it hard to speak. “Classified,” he finally answered, forcing himself to take a step back, away from the doe.
“Oh,” she breathed, smile falling. “Well… thank you. For the assistance.”
He nodded once. It was the only thing he could think to do as he watched her turn away and enter the building.
The flames spread beneath his skin, tracing the fine webbing of his nerves until every part of him burned with the desire to follow her up the stairs.
To make sure she was safe. To listen to her voice.
To watch a doe in her natural habitat and maybe get a glimpse into a world he could barely imagine.
But Sloane was well trained in the fine art of self-deprivation. Besides, he had a hunt to finish.
He forced himself away from his doe, but he didn’t bother depriving himself of a smaller consolation prize. It was an easy thing, retracing his steps back to the alley. It was even easier to pick up her discarded sweater from where it lay in a heap on the ground.
And after he’d stored it in a cache to be retrieved later, it was his pleasure to finish his night exactly as he envisioned: hunting down a man who thought he’d gotten off with only a few missing teeth.