Page 15 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
Shane-anigans
Hey, weird question but can we voice chat?
Nat1
Sure? What’s up?
Shane-anigans
Just trying not to die. You?
“I want to come with you!” Nat shouted, loud enough that Shane had to turn down the single wireless earpiece he was using to chat with her.
It was a little odd hearing her voice when they’d been strictly messaging since their first meeting, but the fervor with which she’d listened to his vague explanation and jumped to his defense without a question as to his truthfulness or sanity made him happy. Not that he had told her the truth—or the whole truth, anyway—only that the black market blood dealer he’d wanted to interview had threatened to kill him but he’d gotten away with a friendly vampire’s help. No good would come from her knowing that help had involved carrying his nearly unconscious body away from an attempted murder.
His new friend was angry enough as it was.
“I’m just here to look around. No interviews, no blood bags.” Shane ignored that last thought, folding his arms across his chest at the uncomfortable tingling in the crook of his elbow. He gave his car a once over as he passed it, still parked on the street where he’d left it the night before, and kept walking. “Even if I was looking for vampires, I’m not putting you in danger like that.”
“I know a lot more about fighting them than you do.”
“Because you were a corporate security officer? Are vampires that into espionage?”
The line went silent, Nat clearly seething on the other end. If Shane were being fair, she probably did know quite a bit more than him just by having been a part of a security team. His fighting ability began and ended with the knowledge that the thumb belonged outside the fist. But he wasn’t planning to fight anyone.
“If you came, it would defeat the point. They could get rid of you and we’re back to square one.”
“At least I have someone who would come looking for me,” Nat grumbled.
“Rude.”
“But accurate. Backslash apologetic.”
“Oh my god, that does not work the same way out loud.” Shane glanced at the map on his phone. He was a block away from the place he’d been taken. His nerves were alight like firecrackers, but otherwise he felt oddly dead inside. “You have my location. If something terrible happens, you are free to come after me, preferably with back up.”
“If a vampire kills you, I won’t need backup.” She sounded like she meant it, the determination in her voice so strong he was momentarily worried for Maul instead of himself.
But then he turned into the alley, and all his anxiety slammed into him like it had been waiting for that moment. He forced himself to breathe, to keep walking, arms crossed tight to his chest. His bus had been fifteen minutes late, made later over the course of the trip, but he’d still managed to get there before the twilight quite set in, and he could see down the gloomy cement path well enough without his phone. Empty.
Maul wouldn’t be here anymore—that was how this worked: set up for a night, vanish for two, emerge somewhere else. It made it easy to serve a larger territory while simultaneouslyhiding their tracks from the people they didn’t want to find them. But just because they had moved shop didn’t mean there was nothing left to learn. And it was the only lead he had right now.
The chalk mark had been washed from the door.
“You dead yet?” Nat asked. “You should know I’m sharpening my stakes as we speak. I’m thinking black roses for your grave? That’s adequately dramatic, right?”
“I’m not dead,” Shane grumbled, but as he did, a noise came from behind him. Nothing. His skin prickled. No matter how he turned, it seemed as though eyes followed his back. He pinched closed his arm and rubbed his neck with a palm. Carefully, he tested the door’s handle.
He’d brought a lock picking kit that he’d been learning to use since the Vitalis-Barron gala, but the door swung open with ease. The place was dark—too dark, a creeping, engulfing blackness that seemed to seep into Shane’s lungs like the clamping hand of Maul’s goon. He flinched. Behind him, the noise came again.
Shane whirled around, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. Arms circled his waist and shoulders, a presence at his back. He screamed. The hold on him tightened, solid but not painful.
“Quiet yourself, Cygnus, it’s only me,” murmured a familiar voice, dark and sensual, so close to Shane’s ear that the warmth of his vampire’s breath tickled.
Shane went weak in the knees. The fight didn’t drain out of him but it transformed, his nerves tingling while his adrenaline coursed a path like fire up his spine. “Oh,” was all he managed. He was excruciatingly aware of his vampire’s hands on him suddenly, one palm cupping his hip and the other on the crook of his shoulder. Every impulse told him to turn, to behold his captor, but his body must have given it away because his vampire chuckled softly.
“Now, now, did Isayyou could move?”
A shudder rolled across Shane’s skin like goosebumps. So this was how it was going to be. Whatever had happened between them last night had clearly convinced his vampire that he had a right to Shane. The thought slid through him in a hot tremble, tightening his lungs and settling in his pelvis. His heart beat faster, echoing through his skull like the voices of the vampires who’d attacked him last night.
