Chapter Nineteen: Wherein Some Characters Hook-Up

Dark brown eyes ringed in amber stared back at me.

Silence grew long and heavy.

Toby grinned suddenly and gave a chuckle. I found it a little dry and unbelievable.

“Really funny, baby.”

I raised a dark eyebrow, questioning him. “Am I?” I kept him firmly in place with my foot on his chest. He was stronger than me, sure, but he didn’t make a move.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes. “Paw print tattoo? Moonstone? Your eyes? The way you look at me and move? You’re totally a werewolf!”

“I...no, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

More silence.

“That doesn’t bother you?”

It wasn’t a “yes”, but at least he wasn’t trying to play me anymore.

“To each his own—I’m just not interested becoming one. Got enough problems—I don’t need to turn into a snarly beast at the full moon. Once a month is already enough.”

“I don’t snarl.”

“I bet you do.”

“You can’t catch it—”

“You think I’ve never met a werewolf before? Please. One comes in regularly to buy silver amulets, and he talks to me non-stop about picking it up from this werewolf girl he knew who thought they’d be together forever. They split up six months later. He’s still a werewolf. Now, I don’t expect to see you past six hours from now—I don’t want anything lasting, including lycanthropy.”

The conversation seemed to have waned his enthusiasm—and desire—so I walked my feet down his torso, hooked a foot on either side of his hip, and drew him forward. I held his gaze firmly. Though a lone wolf, I suspected he was an alpha and the average person would look away from his stare. But not me. I challenged him.

I leaned back on my elbows and arched my back. “Now, are we going to get started, or do you want to argue some more?”

He grabbed a condom from the jewellery box and climbed on top of me. His lips found mine and he hardened again. Minutes later he was ready.

Fingers grasped my panties and fabric ripped as he tore them from my body. I forgot everyone else. I forgot everything else. I wrapped my legs around him, lifted my hips to meet his, and gasped as he thrust in me.

My heels clicked on the pavement as I walked to my apartment. After sending Sebastian home in a cab, I went through my purse and found that I didn’t have enough to take one myself. But my place wasn’t far and I welcomed a walk in the warm June wind.

The street was near empty. Although streetlamps lit the sidewalk, it still felt dark and isolated. I glanced at my watch while I walked. It would be after two before I got home.

I heard the low rumble of male laughter and voices ahead of me.

My back stiffened. I knew not to look scared or nervous. I just wanted to get home without dealing with misogynistic stupidity. They stood several doors down, smoking in the doorway of an apartment.

The tone in their voices changed as they saw me. My step faltered for just a second.

I’m nearly home...nearly.

I gripped my purse tightly and continued on.

The group of men left their spot and started walking towards me. All three had their eyes on me, and as they whispered, there was no mistaking the intent: whatever they planned, I was their target.

They formed a line across the sidewalk. Several feet from them, I started moving towards the edge of the sidewalk.

They in turn moved to block me.

My throat went dry. I wish I had some special powers beyond seduction. I could bat my eyelashes and tell them to move, but I wasn’t entirely sure that would work.

It was clear I wouldn’t be ducking past them. My gaze darted to the buildings behind them—my place was so close.

The alley next to me led directly to the next block—I could take that. It was dark, sure, but if I walked—or ran—fast enough, three drunk thugs wouldn’t catch me.

As they neared me, I decided that would be the best course of action. I made a hard right and turned down the dark alley, my step quickening.

And then I stopped.

A temporary orange fence was set up about halfway down where there had been some drilling. I’d seen the workers earlier that day, but completely forgot about it on my way home—they’d been fixing pipes or something. And apparently weren’t done yet.

I turned to see three figures at the mouth of the alley, facing me.

Oh...dear.

I squeezed the strap of my purse, took a deep breath, and started forward.

Upon reaching them, my smile was forced, but I held on. “Excuse me, please.”

They didn’t move.

“It’s pretty late,” the tallest one said. Though lighting was dim, he seemed young. The drunken groups of idiots I would see harassing women a night often were still in their twenties. That actually gave me a touch of hope that this wouldn’t end badly—they likely weren’t actual predators. Just...stupid.

But that mob mentality was dangerous, I reminded myself. I couldn’t drop my guard at all.

“Did you get lost?” another one said. His light eyes were heavy lidded—if he’d been just a little drunker, perhaps he wouldn’t have been able to stand.

I kept up the smile. “No, just turned around. If you’ll excuse me—”

I started to walk again. They bunched in front of me.

To say I wasn’t scared would be a lie. I didn’t like to not have control in a situation. I straightened my spine and refused to look scared.

“I have to get home. Please let me through.” I tried to push through them, but then the tallest of the three grabbed my arm and pushed me deeper into the alley. I let out a surprised squeak, which I regretted immediately because it likely fuelled them on.

The shadow of a fourth figure played against the brick wall to my left, and I felt my stomach drop with dread. I didn’t have a chance...

One of my attackers shouted out in protest as the fourth figure grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him into a group of trashcans. I jumped as the metal cans clattered to the ground under his weight.

The others turned to my sudden saviour. Although I’d tried to use the reprieve to hunt through my purse for something, my attention was drawn to the man again and I tried to get a better look at him. His face and build weren’t familiar to me. I’d put him...roughly in his thirties, but then the alley wasn’t brightly lit and I was a poor judge of age once someone lost the youthfulness of twenty. He had dark hair that fell to an inch above his shoulder. His gaze darted back and forth between the two men about to leap at him, and then for an instant, it settled on mine. I felt something...strange come over me. A chill. Or tingle. I wasn’t sure what it was, but for a moment, I felt even my breath escape me.

I expected something...heroic, I suppose—I sudden roundhouse kick or punch or something. But it never came as there was the sudden whack of something hitting his head, and he slumped to the ground. Belatedly, I realized the one he’d tossed in the trash had gotten back up, and now he stood over the stranger’s body, a trashcan lid in his hands.

They’d all but forgotten me now—with a laugh, the tall one slammed his foot into the gut of the man on the ground.

I could make it past them now, true. And call for help...

The man who who’d attempted to help me pulled himself onto his hands, but then one of the others stomped on his back, slamming him back into the ground.

I fumbled around in my purse until I found what I was looking for. I yanked out a can of pepper spray, ran forward, and squeezed the nozzle, waving it wildly and hitting all their eyes in turn. My other hand pulled out my cell phone and I started dialling.

“I’m calling the police,” I said. “Get out of here!”

Shouting and rubbing at their eyes, they backed away, and soon I heard their steps fade down the street.

I knelt next to the stranger. “Are you okay?”

He pulled himself into a sitting position and reached for his head, then flinched. “I’ll live.” His eyes met mine and I felt that same strange feeling, like something had stolen my breath.

As he sat up straighter, light hit his face and I saw an ugly, bloody gash on the side of his head.

Immediately, I reached for him. “That doesn’t look good—”

He jerked away and I stilled my hand, just an inch from his face.

He glanced at my hand, and then at me. “It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, returning my hand to my side. “But it doesn’t look fine. Do you want me to call the police?”

“No.”

“Can I at least take you to the hospital?”

He began to rise, wincing as he moved. “No, I’ll be okay.”

I hope he doesn’t have broken ribs... I loathed the idea of letting him go home to possibly die of a concussion, but as I watched him walk away, I feared that was exactly what would happen.

“Wait!” I stuffed the pepper spray back in my purse, grabbed my cell phone, and rose to chase after him. “I...”

He stopped and turned to face me. He stood several inches over me, and gazed down to meet my eyes. He had a calm, gentleness to his expression that simultaneously both relaxed me and made my heart beat faster.

“I have a first aid kit,” I offered. Well, it was closer to a hospital supply cupboard, but then I felt it was always good to be prepared. “In my apartment. It’s right around the corner.”

He smiled, faintly. “You’re not worried I’m a serial killer?”

I wasn’t. I had a fairly good instinct for people, but this went beyond that. But in spite of what my gut was telling me, I figured I ought to be practical.

I held up my cell phone and snapped a picture of him, then sent it to Briar. “I’m sending this to my friend,” I said as I texted her. “Should anything happen to me, the police will have a photo, so don’t try anything.” I smiled, quickly, lest he think I was actually scared.

“I get the sense you could take care of yourself anyway.”

“Perhaps, if someone steps in and distracts whoever is after me.” I slipped the phone back into my purse and extended my hand. “I’m Lilith.”

He took my hand gently and smiled, but didn’t offer me a name.

“It’s just over here,” I said, leading him out of the alley. I glanced at him as we walked. His dark shirt looked too big for him—the arms were long enough, but the body of the shirt seemed more than a size too large. “So were you on your way home, or going to work or something?” We stopped at my apartment building and I unlocked the security door.

“Just out for a walk.” Another vague smile. “You?”

“Home from a...social gathering. Sort of a goodbye party with people from work.”

“Who’s leaving?”

“We all are.” I sighed heavily as we started up the stairs. “The store is closing.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

As am I.

We walked the rest of the way in silence. Rarely did I have anyone walk behind me up the stairs, and I was suddenly feeling very self-conscious in my skirt. Although it just covered my knees and was straight and simple with only a modest slit that showed nothing, I still felt a slight blush creep onto my cheeks.

I unlocked the door to my apartment and began turning on lights as soon as I stepped inside. “Please, have a seat. I’ll just...get some things.”

My mind seemed to be all over the place. I opened one cupboard, only to remember I wanted something else, so I went to another. Eventually I had some gauze, tape, and disinfectant in hand, along with a bowl of warm water and a fresh cloth.

I found him sitting on the couch, holding up the edge of his shirt to inspect where he’d been kicked. A dark bruise was forming.

“Do you suppose anything was broken?” I set the items on the coffee table and sat next to him.

“No, I’m fine.”

Sometimes I had the overwhelming urge to shake a man who just said “I’m fine” to everything when clearly he wasn’t fine at all. Instead, I took a few moments to slip off my jacket and put on my glasses before responding. “I wish you’d stop saying that. A doctor should check you out.”

“I heal quickly.”

I soaked the cloth in the water, then gently applied it to the cut on his temple. “Apparently not quickly enough. This doesn’t look good, but I don’t think you need stitches...”

He avoided my eyes while I cleaned the wound. The air around us was heavy and tense. I couldn’t lie to myself—I found him attractive. So there was the usual demonic pull of my succubus powers, but I’d always been able to keep that at bay fairly easily. But this close proximity had me barely able to breathe.

I applied the disinfectant, and thankfully, the wound seemed to have stopped bleeding. “Can you look at me? So I can see if you have a concussion?”

Hazel eyes glanced up at me, framed by long dark lashes. For a moment I stared, forgetting what I had been looking for.

And then I remembered we were supposed to be there to ensure he wouldn’t go home and die later.

He breathed in sharply through his nose when I touched his face and tilted his head back so that the overhead light shone into his eyes.

“I don’t think you have a concussion.”

He cast his gaze downward again and I ran my fingertips to smooth some hair away from where it had fallen over the cut. His eyes closed, perhaps involuntarily, as he seemed to lean into my hand.

“Any other scrapes?” I asked.

That seemed to return him to reality. His own hand moved over mine, holding it for a second before pulling it away from his face. He set my hand on my knee. “Thank you, but I should go.”

“Right.” I smiled quickly. “It’s late. And you...probably have something to get to...”

As he turned away from me and moved to rise, I felt something clutch my chest again, like I couldn’t breathe.

Without thinking, I reached out to grasp and turn his face towards me, and kissed him.

Just as I felt his lips move to kiss me back, cold reality struck me suddenly, violently. This wasn’t some cheesy romance novel—I couldn’t be kissing a complete stranger in my apartment.

I pulled back suddenly. “I-I’m so sorry, I don’t know...I mean, I had a few drinks earlier, but I’m certainly not drunk, but I don’t know...I apologize.”

He rose abruptly and started for the door. “I have to go.”

“Right.” I was at his heels, ready to lock the door behind him. It was too weird a night—I needed a few aspirin and to head straight to bed. “Thank you for helping me and—”

He spun suddenly to face me, and then he was kissing me. Rationality was totally lost. If this was a cheesy romance novel, count me happy to be in it. He backed me up against the wall by the door, strong fingers raking through my hair, and then down to my shoulders.

I had to be dreaming. This couldn’t be real. I knew it couldn’t be—maybe I’d been knocked out back there in the alley and all this was some dream as I lay there, possibly bleeding to death. Or maybe I’d just died and gone to some strange sort of heaven...

He leaned heavily against me, lips travelling over my throat, and I felt the bite of teeth grazing my flesh. My body ached for more—to tear off our clothes and ride him until sunrise, or to wrap my legs around him and get started right there against the wall.

I nearly whined in protest for a moment when he paused to stare into my eyes. He pulled off my glasses, and I didn’t argue because I didn’t need them at this proximity, and then brushed from my face several long strands of hair that had escaped their binding.

“Who are you?” I asked, searching his eyes.

Another searing kiss was my answer. Hands travelled down to yank my blouse from where it had been tucked in my skirt and jerked open the front. A few buttons hit the floor.

Our lips parted again for a moment, and once again, I looked into his eyes. “You’re not human,” I said.

“Neither are you,” he whispered back with a faint smile.

That sent a chill through me—very, very few could tell at first glance that I wasn’t a human. But that gave me no clue as to his identity, and I failed to care when he kissed me again.

It was stupid and irresponsible, but I didn’t care. I’d been alone for so long that I welcomed the feel of another body with me, in me, and...

He pulled away from me again, face flushing and eyes guilty. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s—”

“I should go.”

And this time he was gone before I could even register what had happened. I stood there on shaky legs, back heavy against the wall, and panting for several long moments, my mind racing.

What on earth was going on?

I sat at the bar and lifted a glass of clear, carbonated liquid to my lips and drank.

My cell phone vibrated on the counter next to the paper coaster, but I didn’t answer. I figured it was Wilhelmina...again.

Guilty thoughts plagued my mind. I wouldn’t speak of them to anyone, but...goddess, I wished I could.

Everyone else had gone home, mostly after embarrassing themselves on stage. Still, a few patrons remained—mostly the heavy drinkers, it seemed—so I remained since the place was still open.

“Perrier?”

Mostly everyone was gone...

I glanced to my left to see that kid...the Gothy one. Lilith had said his name earlier, but I’d forgotten it again.

“Gin and tonic,” I said. “I stopped drinking Perrier about an hour ago.”

“Oh.” The kid sat there in silence.

The bartender returned. I finished my drink and ordered another.

“I’ll have a gin and tonic too, please,” the kid said in an irritating, nasal voice. He casually pushed his half-finished bottle of Perrier to the empty space beside him.

What a weirdo, I thought as I took a sip of my new drink. Goddess help me, though, I would probably end up missing the kid and everything else now that my store was closed.

Probably.

Briefly.