Page 26 of Burn for Her

Closing his eyes didn’t help cool his nerves. He fumbled with the air vent which did nothing at all. Jesus, he couldn’t breathe in here. Yanking his tie, he ripped the fabric clean off his neck.

“Nervous flyer?”

Don’t talk to me. “Just impatient.”

“I got ya. This shit is annoying. Better to be safe than sorry though, right?”

Please. Stop. Talking. “Yeah.”

Better safe than sorry—what a joke. Was Lena safe or would she be sorry? How was he going to introduce himself to her? Did he go to her address and knock? What if she wasn’t home? Did he wait by her door or come back later?

“Fuck.” He sounded like a sick stalker. But that’s basically what he was. Sick. Annnnd a stalker.

And a killer.

This wasn’t going to go well. Already, he could feel this overpowering drive to tear the world apart to reach her. His mouth started watering again. Opening his eyes, Dorian looked out the window and frowned at how blurry everything looked. His vision was getting worse. Soon he might be blind. Then what?

Holy Hell, was he even going to be able to drive after this? He might not even be able to see the airport gate much less anything else once they landed. Then what? How fast was he going to deteriorate? How the hell was he going to woo Lena and convince her to be his mate all before he turned to dust?

This was an impossible task. The lucky strike of finding her fast was quickly doused with the reality of finding her only being the first hurdle of the curse laid upon his kind.

The true issue wasn’t that he couldn’t find her or make her fall for him. The challenge would be not killing everything under the sun as his hunger worsened and his sanity unraveled in the process of convincing her to be with him.

How does a beast get a beauty to fall in love with him?

Spend a life with him? Love was too much to ask for. But friendship? Was it too selfish to pray for that? Wait… did he really expect her to be with him?

Yes, damnit. Yes, he fucking did. How deranged was that? He wanted her to choose to stay with him. Allow him to sink his teeth in her vein and suck.

SUCK. DRINK. SWALLOW. CLAIM. TURN.

He’d cherish her. Spoil her. Kill for her.

Dorian clenched his jaw and let the familiar sting of his fangs piercing his inner lip pull him down a few notches. He didn’t deserve a happy ending. He didn’t deserve the kind of love that came with having an alakhai. He deserved only what he was now suffering from—a deterioration of all his senses and the madness that would soon follow.

He didn’t know Lena. Didn’t even want to acknowledge the possibility of her existence until now. And all because fate said this was the one for him. It still shouldn’t be possible for him to feel this obsessive over a creature he’d never even met.

But here he was. On a plane. Biting his lip to keep from sinking his fangs in the neck of the human sitting next to him who was still flapping their gums.

Pressing his head back into the headrest, he fought the urge to puke. His duty was to be the King’s Reaper. His purpose was to slay the fuckers—the Savag-Ri—who threatened their race. He shouldn’t be on this plane. He shouldn’t be selfishly thinking of his own survival, but instead remain patrolling the streets of New Orleans and saving the House of Death from threats until he combusted.

That was the honorable thing to do.

He almost got up. Hand-to-the-Creator, he was just about to stand when he caught a glimpse in the reflection of his window. It was like Lena was on the other side of the pane, her head pressed against the same window, looking right into his blackened, tainted, doomed soul.

Lena. Of its own accord, Dorian ran a featherlight touch across the tiny windowpane. Was that a sign? To see her just before he was about to walk away from this endeavor? Maybe.

Or maybe his brain was already starting to melt. Honestly, it was hard to say at this point. But then the little ding-ding over the intercom chimed and the pilot said, “Good news, ladies and gents. We’re back on track and will be taxiing out of here in ten minutes. Please remain seated.”

Too late, Dorian thought. He was strapped in and committed to seeing this through.

Lena almost missed her flight. The problem with booking things last minute was yeah, the tickets might be cheaper, but it also left little to no time to get packed and to the airport. Staring out the window, she watched buildings and trees and cars come closer and closer as her plane prepared to land. She pressed her face to the pane and smiled down at New Orleans.

For the first time in a long while, Lena was excited and hopeful. Her heart pounded with anticipation in her chest. This beat any underground fight she’d ever been in. With those, there was anticipation, but also an aggression that kept her excitement on a tight leash. Here, however, she was unchained and out for a good time.

Pulling her cell out, Lena checked it for the one thousandth time to make sure her email with the room reservation was still there. It was weird to have it all set up this way, but the club was beyond exclusive and bordered on illusion. The leg work and strings it took to pull this off was going to be worth it though. It had to be.

The Wicked Garden was a fleeting opportunity and Lena didn’t let those go to waste. Ever.

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