Page 80 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
“He made a deal with Blood in exchange for the information we got from Wesley and Vincent, for keeping it buried, I guess. I’m sorry—I didn’t know he’d—”
“It’s fine. We’ll release the list ourselves, and then whatever deal he’s made will be void.”
Oh, obviously, part of Andres responded, while the other part droned,if we live that long. He couldn’t help but remember Maul’s accusations about Shane, and he was sure this wasn’t the time or the place, but it felt better to say the question out loud than hold its poison tucked against his heart. “You’re not just with me because you’re trying to get the Vitalis-Barron story, right?”
Shane went quiet. The sound of his side of the party collided with Andres’s. His final reply was gentle, but firm. “Would you let me have that story, even if I no longer wished to be yours?”
Andres didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes. Of course.”
“Then that’s your answer,” Shane replied. The sound that came through after was breathless and lovely. “You do know I was obsessed withyoufirst, right? You were why I started investigating vampires. You’re why I’d keep doing what I could to help them, even if we weren’t together, because I—” His voice broke, and the rustle that came over the speaker had Andres’s heart in his chest until Shane hissed, “Shit, I see Anthony Hilker walking toward the elevators.”
“Shane!”
“We came here for a reason.” Shane panted softly. Fuck, he was running.
“Wait for me, then.” Andres ran too, trying to dodge through the mingling guests with all the vampiric agility and speed that his anxiety-ridden legs were objecting to.
“He can’t know you’re a vampire.”
“I don’t—”care, he wanted to say. But he did care about that, the thought of losing Natalie, regardless of whatever horrors she’d committed, too unbearable to fathom. “Please, wait for me. I’m almost there.”
“It’s too late,” Shane said.
Andres side-stepped a couple just entering the party and charged into the roof’s lobby in time to watch the elevator door close, Shane and Anthony behind it.
29
SHANE
Shane was doing this. It would help if he knew exactly whatthiswas, but he’d stolen the longest, sharpest looking knife from behind the appetizer table—which, admittedly, wasn’tverylong orverysharp, but neither were vampire fangs and they could still slit a vein just fine—and Anthony had no reason to anticipate Shane was here to threaten him.
He looked surprised to see his girlfriend’s online bestie dart into the elevator, taking a step back as Shane approached. Shane hit the button to pause the elevator’s descent and hoped it didn’t automatically release an alarm. He didn’t think too hard, not about the look on Anthony’s face or how much taller he was this close to Shane. Anthony was just a human—a single, unarmed human who had used his knowledge of science and his access to holy silver to bully his vampiric coworker in the past, but a human nonetheless.
Gathering his courage, Shane shoved the knife against Anthony’s neck.
The skin puckered around Shane’s knife tip, and Anthony’s eyes widened. His lips parted and closed again. He slid his palms against the elevator’s shiny railing.
“You have my attention,” he said, finally.
“Perfect.” Shane tried to imitate the inflection Andres would say it with, and found it was easy. If all this took wasconfidence… He bared his teeth. “Here’s the deal. I want access to Dr. Blood’s office, and you’re going to help me get it. I trust that you can do me this simple favor, since you’ve wormed your way into this place so deeply that no one’s noticed yourcustomizedactivities yet.” Customized activities, like the custom drugs he’d been using Vitalis-Barron technology and resources to create for years.
Clementine hadn’t beencertainthat would translate into an ability to get them the files they wanted, but he’d been hopeful enough to suggest it. And the way Anthony’s expression shifted, every line going tight from withheld breath, Shane expected he was right.
“So, what do you say?” Shane asked.
“I’d say you don’t know how to hold a knife.”
He swore he didn’t see Anthony move, but the ground shifted out from under Shane as his wrist twisted. He hit the elevator floor with a painful thud that radiated up his hip, then a rush of panic that felt like fangs in his neck, in his wrists, Maul’s voice echoing in his head. But Maul wasn’t the one standing over him, carefully balancing the knife between two fingers.
Anthony snorted and shoved it into his belt. “You can tell your dear Dr. Hughes that Nat’s been teaching me a thing or two. Just in case.”
Then he leaned forward and offered his hand like he was going to help Shane up. It felt so absurd against the adrenaline still flooding Shane’s body that he hesitated.
Anthony snorted. “You should be aware that I’m not a man of any particular honor. If I was going to hurt you, I’d do it while you’re down.”
As ridiculous as this whole situation had turned, Shane couldn’t think of a reason Anthony would lie about that. In fact, he seemed incredibly calm, watching Shane with an amused congeniality. Shane had to remind himself that this was thesame person who’d nearly ruined Clementine’s life for no reason other than that his then-coworker was conveniently in the way. Whether that was before or after he’d developed the alleged crush on Clementine, Shane had no idea.
But maybe that very lack of morals and loyalty was his saving grace: Anthony was probably just as likely to turn on Dr. Blood as he was on the person who’d held a knife to his throat.
