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It was one of the things I loved about him.
There was no shortage of those, unfortunately. It made not loving him almost impossible.
“What have you gotten us into now?” he asked. “And who are these civilian casualties?”
“Dude,” Shane responded, “we’ve met. ”
“Ah yes. Secret two-point-oh. And you, tiny Irish?”
“Siobhan,” she said.
“Siobhan’s a druid,” I told him.
Holden wrinkled his nose, trying to keep from outright sneering at her. I admired his version of restraint. “How lovely. ” He drew out the word lovely, making it as sarcastic as possible.
“I’m sorry, why is he here?” Shane was clearly exasperated by the way the hunt was spiraling out of his control.
“I called him. ”
“For the love of—”
“Now, now, children. If you don’t want me here, I can just take my toy and go home. ” With a burst of vampiric speed he was across the room with his hands possessively around my waist, pulling me towards him. I guess in this scenario I was the toy.
“Who’s acting like a kid now?” I smacked his hands away. He might have handled my assets in every conceivable way, but it didn’t mean he had permission to act as if he owned me. “Look, if we’re waltzing into a vampire nest, we’d be much better off having some real strength on our side. No offense to either of you, but you’re both human. ”
Siobhan opened her mouth to protest, but I raised a finger. “And even a skilled human can’t face off against Grendel alone. ”
Holden was still touching me, running his fingers up and down my spine, and even through the leather jacket I was tingling with awareness from his lingering presence. I didn’t tell him to stop. The last thing I needed to worry about right then was my lover getting handsy with me in front of people.
Just thinking of him in conjunction with the word lover was more of a problem than I was willing to deal with at the moment.
“So what’s the plan?” Holden looked past me to Shane. I could have hugged the vampire for giving the hunter his dues as the leader of this expedition. Maybe the blood veneer made Shane seem more respectable to everyone.
“The elevator is out of the question, obviously,” Shane said.
Siobhan raised her bloody hands as evidence. Holden’s nostrils flared as the smell of the girl’s blood fanned through the air. He sucked in a ragged breath, and since breathing wasn’t necessary for vampires, I knew he was taking a good whiff of her.
“Has anyone checked for the stairs?” Holden asked, his voice strained.
“It’s at the back, but a section in the middle is rotted through. Not passable. ”
“A few stairs missing? That’s nothing. ” Holden stepped clear of us and bounded across the patchwork floor with the ease of an alley cat prowling the city streets. His confidence was contagious because the three of us followed after him, less nimble, but still able to track his route.
Holden was waiting at the top of the emergency stairwell, which must have been constructed in a bygone era before concrete was the norm, and we all assessed the rot damage.
The stairwell wrapped around the wall, with a broken railing along the outer edge. Where the railings gave way there was a central column open all the way to the ground floor. Since we were ten flights up, I didn’t think jumping to the main level would be feasible for anyone but Holden, and even he couldn’t guarantee making it without a broken ankle. He was still a man, not a cat.
Each section was missing six or seven steps—about half of the stairs—and the remaining bits looked worse for wear. I wouldn’t have trusted Siobhan’s lithe figure on the steps, let alone Shane or Holden. The weight of a full-grown man would fracture the threadbare wood.
“So, genius, you were saying?” I turned my attention from the stairs up to Holden.
He sneered at me and jumped to the next riser. Holden landed smoothly, avoiding the center section of the steps, and gave me a haughty I told you so look.
“Throw me the tiny one,” he said.
Shane and I stared at Siobhan, who was shaking her head emphatically and backing away from us. “No. Nope. I have no intention of being tossed into the waiting arms of a vampire. ”
“It’s okay, he won’t bite you,” I told her.
