Page 35 of Blood Secret

“I didn’t mean you had to gorge yourself to prove a point.”

She threw a withering look my way. “I like ice cream. I can’t decide which kind I want. I have a freezer. It doesn’t take a genius to understand this.” She pushed past me on her way to the counter.

I was about to follow her and come up with a retort when something else caught my eye.

Someone else.

Watching from just inside the door, though he pretended to thumb through a magazine.

Not a vampire—I didn’t sense it about him, and his eyes were still like a human’s. But he looked exhausted, with heavy circles under his eyes and sallow skin. His long, brown hair was greasy and lank. His clothes hung on him. He was one of their minions, no better than a cow for repeated milking.

And he was looking for her.

I kept my eyes focused on the back of her head as I walked to the counter, but he was always in the corner of my vision.

He watched her the way I did.

Who sent him? Did the one I killed in the alley have a mate? It was likely. Perhaps the male she danced with, the one Janna had watched.

I leaned in and caught the scent of her hair, her skin. She was still warm from all the sun she had soaked in throughout our day.

I brushed my lips against her ear, like a lover’s caress.

She went stiff.

“Relax. Act like nothing out of the ordinary is happening.”

“Why?” she breathed.

I could almost hear her heart racing. Even now, when I felt the stranger’s eyes on me, I could barely resist the temptation to taste her skin.

“Someone’s watching you. Do not look. He’s by the door.” I wrapped my fingers around her shoulder and held her in place. “Everything will be fine. I’m going to take him outside. You wait here.”

“And do what?”

“Just wait. You don’t have to do anything.” I squeezed a little harder than I needed to for effect.

She needed to remember who was in charge. This wasn’t the time for her to get ideas in her head about taking care of herself.

All I had to do was stand in front of him and flip up my sunglasses. As soon as he saw my eyes, he knew who he was dealing with.

“Outside,” I muttered. “I don’t want to do this in front of humans.”

“You… you don’t know who you’re dealing with…” His voice was high-pitched, anxious.

“Neither do you.” I took him by the arm and half-dragged him out the door, then around to the side of the building.

There were no prying eyes there.

I slammed him against the wall hard enough to make his teeth rattle.

“Please don’t hurt me!” he pleaded, shaking from head to toe.

I reminded myself he was just another stupid human who’d gotten in over his head.

“Who sent you here?” I snarled as my fangs descended.

His eyes went wide and perfectly round, and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of horror.

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