Page 13 of Pike

Pike gestured toward the bartender. Ten minutes later, two beers found their way into waiting hands. “Now,” he began, “I want you to turn around. Tell me what you see with your other four senses.” Instead of sitting next to her, he kept his back to the bar and leaned on an elbow, making sure he faced the crowd on the floor.

“What am I looking for this time?” Lavinia kept the glass clenched tightly between her hands and sipped.

“You tell me. Whatever happened to you affected your cells. Your soul. It seems to attract some creatures more than others. Though frankly, you do carry a certain…pungent…aroma.” At her wide eyes, he continued smoothly, “Not that it’s a bad thing. A tad inconvenient at times, but not bad. Intriguing, mainly. You need to learn how to defend yourself. This means you need to read the signs. The signals. Sight, Smell, you name it.”

“Yeah, I realize. We’ve been talking about it for weeks. Years, if we go back to the first night we met. You don’t need to tell me how ill-equipped I am, or wonder how I’ve managed to stay alive this long. It’s called being skilled at hiding.”

“Be that as it may, it’s beyond time you learned,” he said. “I want you to dance.”

She choked on her beer. “You want to dance with me?”

“Yes.”

“Does this pertain to you and what you are?”

His answer was a chuckle. “No. I don’t plan to tell you what I am. I just want a dance.”

“I thought you wanted a drink.”

“Stubborn wench.”

Either the beer was going to her head, or Pike’s nearness was starting to get to her. She wouldn’t admit it to him, and even knowing the future, she wouldn’t trade a second of their time together. What was life without the risk? She thought about it when he led her onto the dance floor. When his arms wrapped around her waist and she had to fight off a round of giggles like a girl at her first school dance. One dance turned into two, turned into three, and another. Another.

Soon Lavinia no longer noticed the smoke curling in the air. The press of bodies around them. She noticed nothing except the man pressing his thighs against hers. His nose to the top of her head when he breathed her in. The clench of his fingertips on her waist for a split second before they released their hold.

Did anyone else see them together? Did they question the strange tableau Pike and Lavinia made together? They had to, she thought. He was out of her league by a good mile and a half. Maybe more. She was just a shop clerk from Black Mountain who happened to be at the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how she looked at it.

Pike was different. She was not.

Her head spun to the clouds and she let loose a whoop of excitement. These were her people now. People like her, outside the normal spectrum. Could it be she was actually enjoying herself?

God, it had been a long time. She lifted her hands in the air and twirled, seeing Pike’s smile flash by with each rotation. It had been a long time since she’d been happy on her own terms. When she’d read from the spell book that changed her life, any ability for an ordinary adulthood was taken away. Buying a home in the suburbs or moving somewhere fantastical with her husband and two kids…those things weren’t in the cards. Even if she could find a mate among her kind—whatever her kind was—it wouldn’t be the same. They would be immortal together, and with the expanded timeline of her life came certain expectations.

She’d gotten a look behind the curtain. There was no going back.

Hands curled around her shoulders and drew her close. Head thrown back, eyes closed, she leaned forward. Heat enveloped her in a warm cocoon. Safety, desire. A tingle of lust bursting to life below her belly button.

Yes. Yes. Yes! The word played on repeat in her head. This was right. Perfect. The sensation of skin against skin was heady and powerful.

Lavinia didn’t realize the fuzzy feeling in her abdomen was rising higher and higher until the rest of her body felt the same. She twirled around and around. Ignoring the hands on her body. The press of another midsection against hers and lips on her neck. She ignored the push on her rear sending her toward the door. The apex between her thighs tingled. Moisture pooled. She would have walked off the side of a tall building and done it happily when Pike grabbed her wrist.

His eyes were hard. “Enough.” He pronounced each syllable carefully, the better for her to understand the words he spoke. “Lavinia. Enough.”

His edges softened until she saw him through a nimbus of smoke.

A gentle tug in the opposite direction had her swiveling and smiling. Warmth returned to her chest and her feet moved.

“I said enough,” Pike commanded.

It was like the burst of a fired gun resounding next to her ear. Reality returned in a flood of sound and light. Lavinia inhaled, the heat within her replaced with an empty chill. She focused on Pike, the feel of his fingers, the sheer magnitude of his closeness. Her skin pebbled. Then she turned to the left, toward the magnetic presence she’d almost let draw her away—a blond-haired woman laughing in a seductive manner, crooking her finger in a beckoning gesture.

“We’re leaving,” Pike muttered, strengthening his hold. Despite the noise in the club, Lavinia heard everything he said, her gaze still drawn toward the glamorous woman in latex. Wondering at the pull she’d felt deep inside of her.

The desire persisted until Lavinia actually tugged back in resistance. Her heels ground into the dance floor as she made her stand. Her response was faint and shaking. “I don’t want to.”

“And you don’t have to,” the strange woman purred. “Come with me, sweet one. Sweet little one.” She slithered forward and tugged at the straps of Lavinia’s dress, causing the material to shift and slide, exposing her shoulders. “Come with me and taste pleasures you’ve never imagined.”

When Lavinia turned back to Pike, he was standing like a statue. Looking at her. Moreover, to her bewilderment, she saw nothing but choler staring back at her. Turning his eyes charcoal black. The other woman must have seen it too. There was a ripple of movement as both she and Lavinia took a step in the opposite direction.

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