Page 12 of Twice Bitten
I hoped that squirming in my gut that nearly always meant trouble ahead wasn’t prophetic this time.
Chapter 5
Un. Fucking. Fair.
Gravel crunched under the tires as I pulled up at the very edge of the parking lot in front of the bar. It didn’t appear to have a name; the neon sign stuck to the edge of the overhang above the veranda simply said “BAR.” There were a few battered pickup trucks with fishing poles sticking out of the back, a cluster of dusty Harleys, one cheap sedan, and two guys smoking cigarettes at the end of the veranda. I could faintly hear something that sounded like “Freebird” echoing out of the building.
Yep, a bar in the middle of nowhere.
“We can’t just walk in there,” Jack said. “Brent’ll see me, and we’ll lose any surprise. And you can’t go in there because you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Everyone will look at you.”
“Of course we’re not going in there.” I turned in my seat so he could get the full effect of my eye roll. “They’re on the run. They’re not going to be in a bar full of people. We’re parking here because you said they’re in this vicinity, and my car doesn’t do off-roading. There’s nowhere else to leave it except this parking lot.”
Jack eyed me skeptically and raised one eyebrow.
“I do off-roading just fine,” I groused, answering his unspoken snark. “The suits and boots notwithstanding. I can hike through the woods.”
“You may not have to, though.” Jack turned away to stare out the windshield at the glowing-pink front of the bar. “I think they are actually inside. The bond’s telling me Brent’s close. Within a few hundred feet. I don’t recognize any of the vehicles, but one of them could be the other guy’s.”
I digested that for a second. “You’re fucking kidding me,” I said flatly. “In the bar. Having a drink. While they wait for you to show up all furious and vengeful.”
Jack cleared his throat, sounding a little uncomfortable. Well, I couldn’t blame him for feeling that way. He’d mated this idiot.
“Brent whines a lot when he’s not being entertained. He probably, um…”
I couldn’t help my crack of laughter. “So he steals this priceless half-artifact and runs two states away. And then takes his quote-unquote kidnapper to a dive bar because he’s bored?”
Jack’s profile showed me a faint golden glow in his eye and a slight upward quirk of his lips. “That’s Brent for you.”
Christ, he sounded so fuckingsad. I couldn’t take it. He ought to be furious, dammit! Enraged! Out for blood, not…heartbroken.
Because shit, it mademefurious and enraged—the simple unfairness of it. Assholes like Brent, whom I hadn’t seen yet but didn’t need to, because I knew he had to be gorgeous—I mean, he obviously didn’t have a damn thing else going for him, right? So gorgeous, flaky, lying assholes like Brent got to go to Vegas and meet calm, steady, loyal alpha werewolves and get all mated within a few days, taken home to a stable family where they’d be safe and protected and loved forever if they only didn’t, you know, kill anyone or steal anything or fuck their mate’s twin brother. Whereas awkward, skinny, short little vampires who’d have cut off their own right arms for a life like that went to Paris, had whirlwind romances with handsome Frenchmen, were kissed under the Eiffel Tower, allowed themselves to be bitten and mated, and then ended up alone after being cheated on, beaten, and locked up when they tried to leave the first time.
Un. Fucking. Fair. Fuck this. Fuck Brent. Fuck all of it.
I came back to myself with a start, breathing hard, with my hands wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel it was starting to warp from my supernatural strength. I loosened my grip, the plastic creaking and my knuckles aching from the strain.
Jack had leaned in, his brows furrowed, peering into my face.
“Angelo? Are you okay?”
Fuck it.
“No,” I whispered, looking straight into those faintly glowing eyes. “I’m really not.”
Jack’s face softened, his lips parting a little. He had such nice lips, firm and full and probably as hot as the rest of his alpha-heated skin. They’d feel like…I shook my head, biting my own lip again, a drop of blood welling up as the fangs that’d dropped a little dug in.
His still-glowing eyes fell to my mouth, and his body tensed. That glow didn’t look threatening anymore. It looked hungry.
“You should lick your lip,” he said hoarsely. “Seriously. Right now.”
What the fuck? Jack wasn’t a vamp. But I released my abused lower lip and swiped my tongue over it anyway, the taste of my own blood rich and metallic. It made mewant, thinking about how—someone else’s—gods, no one in particular, I wasn’t that crazy—would taste.
Jack’s gaze followed the motion, the glow deepening. “Why? I mean, you’re not into blood. Why did I need to get rid of it?”
He finally looked back up at me. “Because I’d have licked it off if you didn’t,” he said, very low. “Nothing to do with the blood.”
The few inches between our faces seemed to vibrate with the tension rolling off of him, and the tension making me as taut as a guitar string, the urge to touch that had come over me so suddenly I didn’t know how it’d arisen at all. My hand twitched with the need to reach out and trace the strong lines of his neck, feel his pulse beating under my fingers. Feel the heat of him, warming all the parts of me that felt chilled down to my very soul.
