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The point was this wasn't a story. The girl didn't always get with the guy, and the main characters didn't necessarily survive. There was also no plot armor to protect me from catching pneumonia in the middle of the second act and dying a sudden, ungraceful death.
I'd spent my whole life cooped up and dreaming about being the characters I read about. But now I was getting a taste of that adventure, and all I could think was how terrifying it was.
I closed my eyes and tried not to picture Riggs' naked body in the shower. I definitely tried not to think about how I could probably creep up to the door and watch him in there without him knowing. Because, yeah, emphasis would be on "creep."
I might've been sexually deprived except for some text on cream-colored pages, but I wasn't that desperate.
I could happily imagine what he'd look like without needing to stoop to that level.
So I rolled on my side and enjoyed the mental image of water splashing across his scarred, sculpted body. But the picture of a restless group of howlers waiting at the bottom of the stairs interrupted my fantasy.
I imagined them waiting with hungry eyes, the scent of my sister on their noses.
They wanted to come up here and hurt her—hurt us. But the only thing standing between them and us was Riggs.
Worse, I knew there were even more dangerous things lurking out there in the shadows beyond this bar. Things we'd have to face if we made it out of here in one piece.
I shivered, and it had nothing to do with my fading fever.
17
Sylvie
Maisey was getting worse and I was getting better. It felt like a cruel twist of fate.
I was also battling the guilt for how much I was excited to be in the middle of something different, even if it was scary and dangerous. I believed Riggs would find a way to help Maisey, because it was impossible not to believe the man would do the things he said. There was so much intensity and clarity of purpose in his eyes and the way he carried himself.
Riggs was like a force of nature, at least if nature had a tendency for abrasiveness and as much tact as a baboon.
He was downstairs at the moment and I had some time alone with a book Fang had brought me a few hours ago. Fang was in the corner of my room watching something on his phone with an idle smile on his face.
I still didn’t understand much about him, but he looked even younger than I was.
I set the book down, then looked his way. “Did Riggs tell you to bring me this?”
Fang looked up, then made a lip zipping gesture and winked.
“How do you two know each other, anyway?”
“Riggs was the alpha of my pack. The Silverbacks.” He grinned, pointing to the silver streaks in his hair. “When Riggs is in his full wolf form, there’s a streak of silver fur down his back,” he explained, as if that made it clear why he’d dyed his hair. “But I don’t care if he stepped down. An Alpha is an Alpha, and I’ll follow mine to the death if I have to.”
“Why did he step down, exactly?”
Fang pursed his lips and looked down. “That’s something for him to tell you if he chooses to.”
“Yeah, but he won’t answer any of my questions if they’re personal. I’m trying to figure out if I can trust him, but he-”
The door swung open and Riggs came in with two steaming soups and a big grin. “Clam chowder,” he said. He set them down and took one between his hands, slurping noisily as Fang tried to look like he hadn’t been talking to me.
“You can go,” Riggs said after a few sips, nodding to Fang.
Fang got up and gave me a quick nod of his head, then left.
“You told him to bring me this, didn’t you?” I asked, holding up the book.
“You’ll get better faster if you’re less miserable. I need you ready to move before our time here is up.”
“I see,” I said. “Before, you said you are helping us just because it will piss the vampires off, right? But why now?”
Riggs set his soup down, then met my eyes with that unnerving intensity of his. “It’s because of you.”
“Me?”
“You threw that dumbass letter out the window. I couldn’t believe someone so reckless was still breathing. All I wanted was to explain what an idiot you were, then you hit me with that bat.” He seemed to actually be smiling at the memory, even if only a little. “No woman has ever hit me like that, you know.”
I scrunched up my nose, tilting my head. “You decided to come out of retirement to protect me because I hit you with a baseball bat?”
