Page 14 of Burn for Her

Handing the keys to Lucian, he went numb. He hadn’t felt this lost in a long time.

Desperate, Dorian flipped his visor down—thank fuck he hadn’t gotten rid of the mirror over here—and prayed to catch another glimpse of her. This is how Malachi feels, he realized. Knowing it and experiencing it were entirely different horrors. Mere knowledge of fate’s existence didn’t come with fear. This though? This need, this desperation for another glimpse? It was downright terrifying. Knowledge didn’t devastate the mind as well as experience could.

What if he never got another look at her? What if he couldn’t figure out where she was and she got hurt again? Had someone attacked her? Would they attack again? Was she dead already? A thousand screaming questions barreled out of him, robbing Dorian of breath and sanity.

“What does she look like, besides bloody?” Lucian flew out of the mansion’s private driveway, heading towards Dorian’s house.

“She—” His tongue was like sandpaper in his mouth. “She has brown hair. Brown eyes.” No, that didn’t do her justice. Her eyes were the color of tiger eye stones with specs of honey gold. Her hair wasn’t just brown, it was chestnut.

“Brown hair and brown eyes. Good, that narrows it down to like five gazillion women.”

Dorian didn’t laugh because it wasn’t funny. It was too true to be funny. He tried again. “She’s…” He thought hard about everything he saw. “About five-five, five-six, maybe.” He gauged that on where the sink of the public bathroom hit her waist in the reflection. “No tattoos that I could see.” Just blood and skin and welts.

He saw red and he tensed with a vicious need to protector her. A low growl rumbled out of his throat.

“Focus, Dorian. What else did you see?”

“I…” He had nothing else to go on. Too enthralled by her reflection, he forgot to look beyond her face for details of her whereabouts. “She’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen on this cruel earth.”

Lucian huffed a small laugh, but Dorian caught how his friend practically choked the steering wheel while driving. They drove in silence the rest of the way.

He frowned at the tiny vanity mirror—the lone survivor of his futile fight against fate. Dorian ripped all other mirrors out of his car the day he bought it but somehow forgot this one. The oversight was a miracle. He couldn’t stand the thought of missing another glimpse of that woman. Gritting his teeth, he ripped the damned mirror off the visor and hated the compulsion to not let go of it.

He caressed the mirror without even realizing what he was doing. The urge to somehow put her in his pocket and keep her was maddening.

Lucian didn’t seem surprised at Dorian’s behavior. Then again, he lived with Mad King Malachi and knew damn well what happened between a vampire and a mirror. Not to mention what Lucian went through with Luke.

Holy shit. Dorian was going to be sick.

As they pulled onto his street, he actually had to breathe through his nose and out his mouth to keep his panic in check.

“Home, sweet home,” Lucian announced as he cruised down the narrow street.

Dorian lived in Treme, just outside the French Quarter. The nine-hundred square foot residence was home to the vampire who chose to live alone, secluded from others of his kind. Six houses down, a man sat on his stoop, playing a trumpet. Trash cans awaited on the curbs. A roach skittered across the uneven pavement.

No one fucked with Dorian here. No one fucked with anyone here. He made sure of it.

Across the street, a screen door slammed shut. His neighbor stood on their porch and lit up a cigarette, not saying a word.

Dorian didn’t look at his neighbor. He barely looked at his own front door. With a wave of his hand, he unlocked the thing without the use of a key. Some perks came with being a vampire. Keyless entry to their own houses was one of them. It’s why he couldn’t unlock the mansion to leave earlier. He didn’t live there, so he couldn’t magically unlock the doors and get the hell out without an escort.

Swinging open the front door, Dorian was proud that he hadn’t just mindlessly kicked the damned thing down. He stepped inside and Lucian followed.

Dorian kept silent and headed straight forward—through the living room, kitchen, and to the back room. This narrow house boasted two bedrooms, but the back one was a gym and laundry area. He stripped out of his clothes and headed into his bedroom next, not giving two shits about walking around naked with company over. Lucian stayed out in the main area, quiet and patient as ever.

Kicking the bathroom door shut, Dorian’s hands trembled when he tried propping the vanity mirror onto the ledge of the sink so he could keep an eye on it while splashing cold water on his face.

How the hell was he going to do this? He couldn’t hunt her down and keep an eye on her at the same time. This was pure hell and it had only been less than a day. No! Less than an hour.

“Fuuuuck,” he groaned and then buried his face in a towel. This was going to be impossible.

Snatching a fresh set of clothes from his closet, he got dressed, grabbed the vanity mirror, and headed back to the living room.

Lucian sat on the couch, pitched forward, elbows on his knees with a scowl. “You’re such a minimalist.”

“When you come from nothing, you learn to not need much.” His house was triple the size of the shack he grew up in. The biggest difference? He was the only monster that lived here, and the place was clean. Impeccably so.

It was also barely decorated. He didn’t have paintings on his walls and festive pillows on his couch. There was a leather sofa, and a small media center with a flatscreen he probably turned on twice in three years. The living room bled right into the kitchen, which boasted one cupboard filled with cooking appliances, a drawer for dishtowels, and some cleaning supplies under the sink. The four dishes were stacked neatly on a shelf, beside two coffee mugs. The rest of the cabinets and space was empty.

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