Page 41 of The Wayward Sons & The Vampires of Fortune
“The vampires have your scent,” Nash reminded me, his voice loud and clear around the corner where I hid. “We need to ditch your clothes.”
“Yeah, well, I’m always going to smell like me.”Whatever that was.I was quick to change, not wanting to be caught naked by anyone or anything.
“We got a plan for that, too,” Cobalt-my-lawyer-or-whatever said. “You dressed?”
“Enough,” I replied as I yanked the t-shirt down. I didn’t have socks or boots on, but at least everything else was covered.
“Good.” He came around the corner, holding a can of… well, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know. “It’s magic to change your scent.”
Great.
“Hold your breath,” he ordered.
“Who are you?” I demanded instead.
“Sam West—” As soon as the words were out of his goddamn mouth, I hit him with everything I had. It was more than enough to send him sprawling back on his ass.Not enough to knock him out.It also didn’t stop me from thinking of hitting him again as he got to his feet. “What the fuck is wrong with you? I just saved your ass!”
“After everything you put Gray through, you’re lucky I don’t throw your ass off this goddamn building.” And I meant every word of it.
“That was a fucking lifetime ago!”
“It doesn’t matter. No one hurts Gray.Ever.”
“You owe me a date,” Nash whispered behind him, looking pointedly at Andrea.
“You bet on this?” Sam exclaimed ludicrously. “What the hell is wrong with you two?”
“If it helps, I didn’t think we’d make it out of the precinct before he hit you,” she retorted. “I also had him pegged for more than just one punch.”
“I’m seriously thinking about it,” I growled.I was.
“All right, listen here, you goddamn pain in my ass,” Sam snapped as he got in my face. Bad idea, considering how ready I was to put his ass right back down on the ground. Or down a flight of stairs. I had options. “If Gray didn’t want me here, I wouldn’t be here. I risked my fucking life to save yours, so backoff with your attitude problem, and let me do what I came here to do.”
There was a moment—a small, ridiculous moment—where I truly considered telling him to fuck off and hitting him again. Where I just walked away and figured this shit out alone. But I was one man against a group of vampires. I didn’t stand a chance.
No, if I had any hope of maybe getting back to Gray, I had to partner up with his ex-boyfriend.
CHAPTER 28
Now comes the hard part,” Sam was saying as we approached a navy sports car in the basement garage of the building. I stopped to glare at him.Yeah, I didn’t like the guy.
“Driving away is the hard part?” I demanded. “Maybe fighting a bunch of fucking vampires is the hard part.”
“Putting distance between us and them is,” he bit back.
“Three bets they kill each other before they reach the checkpoint,” Andrea commented. She rounded the back of the car, heading straight for one of the two motorcycles parked next to it.
“Please,” Nash scoffed. “They’re both too damn stubborn for that. Nah, they’re both goin’ to outlast each other just to say they did.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Sam retorted, the wave of annoyance in his tone twisting through my stomach. “Make sure we get the hell out of the city. After that, you know what to do.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Their whole way of keeping things from me was unwarranted and unwanted. But thefighting back didn’t seem to be working in my favor either. I didn’t like being put in the position they were putting me in.But what choice did I have?
“Be safe,” he said to the others as he reached for the driver’s side door. To me, he added, “Get in.”
I got in—not because he told me to, but because I needed to. And I understood exactly how petty my behavior came across. I trusted Gray, and if Gray agreed to partner with Sam and his team, I had to trust that, especially with how little he liked team ups.But I didn’t have to like it.
This stupid man in the driver’s seat had changed the entire trajectory of Gray’s life. He was the reason Gray went to jail.
