Page 48 of Cloak of the Vampire
“Fuck!” he yelled in surprise and annoyance before he turned to see me. His eyes then narrowed. “What the fuck, Aileen?”
I glared at him. “Go back to your seat, Bryce,” I warned. I was bored, antsy, and annoyed with this long-ass road trip, and I was ready to burn off some of that energy. All Bryce needed to do was give me an excuse.
He shook off my hold, rising to his feet too. “You’re interrupting a private conversation,” he said, ignoring my warning.Good.“So fuck off and—”
My fist struck his jaw with such force that he stumbled back, lost balance, and would’ve fallen on his ass had Jakob and Cynthia, who were sitting nearby, not grabbed his arms in time.
Bryce shook them off and straightened, glowering at me. “You’ll pay for this,” he growled, baring his teeth. His fangs were unsheathed.
My blood thrummed with exhilaration. I didn’t give him time to attack first. Instead, I propelled myself onto him in one swift step and pushed him to the floor. He yelped, but I couldn’t care less. He might be burly, but I saw him in gym class. He always moved heavily and clumsily, as if he didn’t know what to do with his own brawn.
I punched him in the other side of his jaw, making him grunt in pain. Pinning him under me using my thighs, I clasped my hands around his neck, feeling myself brightening from the inside. “Do you like it, prick?” I asked, my voice soft. “Do you like having no power, being at the mercy of someone else, forced into helplessness? Huh? Do you like it?”
His face started turning purple. He grabbed my arms, trying to get me off him, so weakly I almost laughed. Funny how these men who got off on weaker, meeker women being at their mercy were just as weak, if not more so.
Tears filled his eyes, and he managed to choke out, “Please...”
I tightened my hold and smiled. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
“Henderson.”
I froze. Slowly, I raised my eyes and saw Ragnor crouching before me. His eyes were a bright blue and his face grim. “Let him go,” he said quietly.
I dug my nails into Bryce’s skin, drawing blood. “No.”
He held my gaze. “You have to let him go,” he told me conversationally, very unlike him. I’d half expected him to growl and grunt at me as he always did. “You’re not his Lord. You do not have the authority to exact punishments.”
His sudden change of behavior was the reason I had to raise my guard higher than usual. It wasn’t like how he was back in the greenhouse. It wasn’t his usual self either. And not knowing what was going on behind those eyes of his half scared me, half enticed me. “He harassed her,” I said, voice low. “He deserves to have a taste of his own medicine.”
“And he will,” Ragnor agreed, which made my eyebrows shoot to my hairline. He wrapped his large, warm hand around my forearm, and his touch made goose bumps rise on my skin. “But it’s not your job to do that.”
When I simply stared at him without replying, his free hand went to my hands and slowly peeled my fingers off. My instincts told me to fight this, fighthim, but his gaze was still locked on mine, and his face was so calm, his touch surprisingly gentle, that I found myself letting go of Bryce and allowing my emotions to give way to another feeling altogether:comfort.
Once my hands were off, Logan pulled Bryce to his feet, glaring at me. Then he glared at Bryce before dragging him to the front of the bus. I realized then that everyone was watching us. Abe hadn’t stopped the bus, but the soft music he’d played in the background was now turned off.
Using his hold on my forearm, Ragnor pulled me up to my feet before letting go. “Come with me,” he murmured, and I followed himdown the aisle to the back of the bus, away from everyone else. He ushered me onto the seat and settled next to me.
He stared straight ahead at the onlookers who’d been staring at us, and growled loud enough for them to hear, “Show’s over.”
My classmates heard the angry undertone and made themselves scarce. Abe played music again. Chatter filled the bus once more as if nothing happened.
I turned to him. “Are you going to chew me out now?”
He turned fully toward me, crowding me against the window, much like Bryce had done with Tansy. Only this was different. Ragnor wasn’t Bryce, and I was not Tansy.
“You crossed the line,” he said in a low voice, his face serious while his eyes, which returned to their tranquil midnight blue, searched mine. “But I don’t need to tell you that. You knew what you were doing.”
I folded my arms, feeling the need to put a barrier between us. “Are you going to punish me?”
His eyes flickered to my mouth before they returned to my eyes. “No, Henderson,” he said, surprising the hell out of me. “Showing me a glimpse of who you really are is punishment enough.”
My cheeks burned as if he’d just slapped me, and I glowered at him. “I didn’t show you anything,” I said, voice on the verge of snarling.
He didn’t reply; his hand moved forward, and he curled his fingers around a rogue strand of hair before tucking it behind my ear. He brushed his knuckles against my cheek, making me freeze. “I saw your face, your eyes,” he said, staring into said eyes with a somber seriousness that set my heart aflutter in panic. “You liked it, having him at your mercy.” His voice dropped, and he leaned closer, his mouth nearing my ear, his breath warm and hot against the lobe, making me shiver. “You looked like you needed the violence, or you would go mad.”
He sees too much,a voice whispered in my head, a voice that sounded suspiciously like my father’s.You have to run before he catches you.
But before I could so much as take a breath, he grabbed my face and cocked it to the side, exposing my throbbing throat. I sucked ina breath as his lips faintly brushed against the skin under my earlobe. “Next time you need to resort to violence,” he said softly, “come to me.”
