Page 87 of Bite Marks

“Oh, so she’s already trying to get into the future-sibling-in-law’s good graces? Excellent! I’ll wear a suit when I’m your best them at the wedding.”

I scoffed. “As if! Kaylee is going to be my maid of honor if in the far-off future I ever decide to get married.” At Danny’s overly excited look, I groaned. “Far, far,farfuture.”

“Fine,” they grumbled. “You heard from Mom much lately?”

I shook my head. “No more than usual—calls every couple of days, texts infrequently. She’s tired. Her incision site is itchy. Same old, same old.”

It felt insane to be so blasé about cancer, but now that Mom had gone into remission, it was all about making sure it stayed that way. And trying to pay off her seriously monumental pile of medical bills.

Fuck medical insurance companies to hell and back.

There was a small crowd of half a dozen people as we approached the ring. My trainer, Riley, who I no longer could afford to do private sessions with, was the instructor for this lesson. Which—admittedly—was half the reason I’d chosen it. I really missed gossiping with the little vampire whenever I got the chance.

I wormed my way through the crowd with Danny at my heels, breaking through the knot of people to catch sight of Riley and an opponent weaving between each other, trading punches that would make my fragile human bones turn to splinters.

But it wasn’t the ferocity of the blows that made my lips pop open in surprise; it was Riley’s opponent.

I watched—gapedwould be a better word for it—as Dana bounced back and forth on the balls of her feet, easily dodging strikes from Riley even without her vampire speed.

The first thing I noticed was that Dana’d taken her braids out, her hair sitting in two natural buns on the top of her head as she ducked and weaved.

Riley leveled another barrage of attacks that Dana easily dodged, her foot coming up to clip the side of the trainer’s head, stopping just before she made contact.

“Dirty,” Riley chuckled good-naturedly, knocking Dana’s foot out of the way and throwing punch after punch toward the petite vampire. It should’ve been easy enough to catch her with Riley’slonger range, given she had about a foot on my boss, but… Dana wasfast.

She bobbed and danced around her, a matching two-piece spandex set in slate grey hugging her beautifully curved form. If she’d been human, I was sure a sheen of sweat would be covering her warm brown skin by now.Instead, the vampire wasn’t even panting as she moved from offense to defense and back again.

“Come on, Dana!” I shouted from the sidelines over the catcalls and jeers from the others gathered around to watch.

Her eyes flicked away from Riley for a fraction of a second, a surprised smile tugging at the corner of her full lips. It was the opening Riley needed, and she took it, landing a bone-crushing punch to the side of Dana’s face and forcing her to stagger backwards. She recovered quickly, returning with a flurry of strikes with newfound energy.

Showoff.

It wasn’t long until the fight was won, with Dana using her size to her advantage and taking Riley out at the knees, coming to straddle her on the mat with a self-satisfied smirk as she struggled.

“One,” Dana called, leaning down to whisper something to Riley that made her laugh.

Jealousy coiled in my stomach like a living thing.

“Two.”

Here she was, giggling away with another girl when she hadn’t even called me after?—

Whoa, hold up, Vi.

You were with Ren, her covenmate. She was giving you space.

And she texted.

“Three.”

But rationality and a jealous streak didn’t always go hand in hand. Especially when it came to beautiful Brazilians with a charming accent.

Dana hopped off Riley once the match was called, pulling off one of her gloves to help the other vampire to her feet while Riley used her teeth to loosen the Velcro clasp before tugging one of her own off to accept the help.

“Good match,” Dana said, though her eyes had already flicked back to me.

“One of these days I’ll figure out how you do that, you know?”

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