Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
FOLLOWING THE CRUMBS
The ding of the elevator followed by soft footsteps signals the arrival of—Shit. What was her name again? Cecily? Caylee? Camila? C-something. I think. She said it on the phone when I called the front desk, but that was almost fifty-five fucking minutes ago.
I flick the deadbolt over and throw open the door before she can knock. The woman jumps back in surprise, lowering her hand.
My mouth is already open to complain about the delay, but the words die on my tongue. The sight before me slams the air from my lungs.
It’s not C-name at all.
It’s her.
What the fuck is she doing here?
She’s wearing a pencil skirt that accentuates her hips, with a matching blazer on which is pinned a name tag with the prissy logo of the pretentious hotel and the name Kallista.
Interesting.
So Kallie must be a nickname.
Under the jacket is a fitted white blouse, and where the woman at the front desk wore hers like a costume, Kallie’s looks like it was made for her, cut to her curves and her tanned skin without trying.
Her hair is tied up in an elegant, curly ponytail, exposing a long, slender neck.
My eyes trail up its length to finally land on her face.
A flash of recognition sparks in her violet gaze—gone in an instant, smoothed over by a professional mask. But I saw it. She knows me.
Fuck. Does she remember me following her? Or is it my voice she recognizes from that frantic phone call the other day? She had almost let that fang fucker inside her apartment.
“You’re not Cecily,” I finally say, like a fucking idiot.
Her brow dips in confusion. “Uh, who?” It seems to dawn on her a second later. “Oh! You mean Celia? No… I’m not her. That’s actually—um,” she pauses to collect herself. “She had an emergency, which resulted in your delay. I apologize. I got here as soon as I could.”
Her gaze dips to my chest and her eyes go comically wide as if she’s seeing what I’m wearing for the first time. Or rather what I’m not wearing.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips and I can’t help the involuntary flex of my muscles under her stare. I feel the familiar pull of ink on my skin as the runes shift, the old scars tightening around them.
Fucking hell. Now I’m imagining dragging her into the room and finding out exactly how quickly that professional mask breaks.
I cut that line of thinking off immediately. There’s no way to hide a fucking hard on in this fluffy white towel.
The memory of my fuck-up with Stark the other night surfaces—his vague answers, the way he practically snarled when I asked about her.
He should have killed me for wasting his time, for asking about a woman instead of my actual target.
He didn’t. The two facts feel dangerously connected, and now she’s standing right here.
Suddenly Kallie’s expression shutters, her professional mask slipping back into place. “Were you expecting Celia?”
I shrug. “She’s the one who answered the phone.”
When I motion for her to come in, she hesitates.
I flash her a wide smile. “I promise I won't bite.”
Unlike some of the other company you keep, I add mentally.
That seems to spur her into action. She shoulders past me, and a wave of some floral scent hits me—a distraction I don’t need. She heads straight for the bathroom.
She stops at the threshold, her eyes scanning the glittering mess on the floor before she turns back to me. “Tell me what happened?” she asks, raising a clipboard. “I need details for our maintenance crew.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. I didn’t think this through. There’s no way I can tell her I accidentally broke the shower glass when I activated my strength rune while jerking off.
How is it that I didn’t notice or know she worked here?
I mentally smack myself. You’re a goddamned trained hunter, Z. Fucking act like it. Stop letting this woman get in your head.
Kallie stands there expectantly, pen poised over her clipboard, and I notice the scatter of freckles across her nose.
The same freckles Stark was muttering about.
The memory is enough to make my jaw tighten.
What the hell is it about this woman?
Ancient predators don’t lose their minds over simple hotel employees. And a human, no less.
At least they shouldn’t.
And yet Stark has been.
I clear my throat.
“Well, I was getting out of the shower when I slipped on a puddle of water on the floor. I think it might’ve been leaking through the door. Anyway, I tried catching myself, but uh, shattered the whole thing.”
“And you didn’t think to get dressed between then and now?”
There’s a hint of disbelief in her harsh whisper. I don’t think she meant for me to hear it, so I don’t respond, but my mouth pulls sideways on its own.
Her gaze roves over the shattered shards on the floor, surveying the damage, pen scratching against the paper as she takes a few notes.
“Got it.”
While her back is turned, I allow myself a full assessment, tracing the line of her spine, the curve of her hip. It’s a tactical error. Every second I spend staring at her is a second I’m not paying attention to the thing that actually matters.
An attractive woman is a distraction. One tangled up with a creature like Stark is a goddamn liability.
Stark is obsessed with her.
Vampires keep orbiting her.
And now she’s standing in my hotel room wearing a pencil skirt that should probably be classified as a weapon.
Fucking fantastic.
“Are you injured?” she asks, turning to look me up and down.
A pink hue rises to her cheeks before she averts her gaze.
I raise my arms, flexing. The movement makes the rune tattoos shift across my skin. A low thrum of victory vibrates through my chest when I see the blush rise on her cheeks.
Which is inconvenient.
The smart move would be keeping my distance.
The smarter move would be figuring out why Stark seems obsessed over this woman.
She swallows hard, writing something down.
“Only my ego,” I answer, trying, and failing, to smirk in a playful way. My face only has two settings: resting dick face, and I’m-going-to-fucking-kill-you face. Add in the scars and two-toned eyes… It’s a wonder she hasn’t already run away screaming.
She gets extra points for that.
Maybe I am her type after all.
Which is dangerous information to give a man like me.
“Great,” she says, her voice a little too bright.
“Like I told the woman on the phone—Celia. Just a complete and total accident.”
Kallie’s eyes narrow slightly, but she makes another note on her clipboard. “I see. Well, accidents happen. “I’ll let maintenance know so they can come replace it.”
She turns back toward me and I feel her gaze sweep over me again, lingering on my bare chest and the towel slung low around my hips. Or maybe she’s checking out my many, many marks and tattoos.
I take a step closer, testing her reactions, crowding her space, pushing at that careful professional facade to see what lies underneath.
“Like what you see?”
To her credit, she holds her ground, raising her chin and looking me straight in the eyes, with something warm blooming in that unusual violet gaze.
Is it curiosity?
Women sometimes want a piece of what I do—the danger, the late nights, the sense that I’ve seen things they haven’t—until they actually see it.
The way they flinch when I thrash in my sleep, the questions they ask about scars I can’t explain away, the confusion when I scan for every entrance and exit everywhere I go.
Broken.
I step so close to her, we bump chests, the press of her body against mine doing nothing to help my focus, and that’s when she finally decides to retreat a little, bumping into the desk behind her.
But she doesn’t cower, doesn’t look away.
Another point in her favor.
Her hand slowly reaches out to touch one of the tattoos on my chest as if she’s in a trance and simply can’t help herself.
Fuck, she’s even more tempting up close, her scent hitting me like a fist—something I’d normally track across a mile of open ground. I can hear her breathing quicken as the tension mounts between us.
When her skin brushes mine, I tense automatically. I don’t let many touch me. And definitely not when I’m this exposed.
Kallie quickly withdraws her hand, snapping out of the trance, but I grab her wrist before she can retreat fully.
“Don’t… stop.” My voice is rough, deep, weirdly shaky.
What is it about this woman that has Stark acting like a lunatic?
And why am I suddenly just as interested?
Her eyes widen, her delectable lips parting in surprise, but she doesn’t say anything. Shock gives way to something more confident, more dangerous in her gaze, and I see the exact moment she makes a decision.
I have a front-row seat to her expression changing, but I still don’t expect it when she grabs my neck with both hands and kisses me, hard and desperate.
My breath catches.
Wrong. This is so fucking wrong. I can feel the warning buzz of my runes against my skin, a silent alarm. I should be pulling intel, not her closer. She’s a lead connected to Stark, a means to an end.
Which means I should be thinking with my head.
Unfortunately she’s kissing me, and my head goes silent, any thoughts drowned out by the roar of blood in my ears.
Give me monsters, and I’ll make split-second decisions most people couldn’t dream of.
Give me a purple-gazed brunette, however? My training dissolves into static.
Useless.
My body forgets how to move for several seconds before my instincts finally take over and I kiss her back.
Hard.
One hand finds her waist, the other settling low on her back as I pull her against me.
Fuck.
This is exactly why getting involved with her is a terrible idea.
She’s connected to Stark.
Stark is connected to my brother.
Which means she matters whether I like it or not.
The mission, Stark, my brother—it all shatters into dust the second her breath ghosts across my lips.
She swipes a hand over the back of my neck, activating my small repelling rune back there and making a small current of electricity zap from my lips to hers, making her jump back with a yelp.
Shit.