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“Don’t tease me, little one. You don’t know the kind of fun I want to have with you.”
“I sure do.”
“And you came anyway?”
“What can I say? When I found out you were in town, I couldn’t resist coming to ask for a play date.”
He yanked my hair harder, and his mouth drifted from my ear to my exposed throat, his cold lips trailing over the thin skin. I didn’t want to react, didn’t want to give him the pleasure, but my body gave a shudder of revulsion. Having his hands and mouth on me made me want to vomit and claw off my own skin.
“Let’s see what we have here, shall we?” His voice lifted again, and a moment later several spotlights snapped on, flooding the space with light.
I blinked against the sudden brightness, and when I was able to see, noted Desmond was struggling to adjust as well. We were in an area similar to that we’d entered through, with aging stone arches holding the ceiling. The pillars were stained with high watermarks, and the water itself was nearly up to my knees. A few of Peyton’s men were situated on a raised platform, keeping them and the lights out of the water. Underfoot the rock was slippery, meaning I didn’t have good purchase to make any quick attacks against Peyton.
Once I could see properly, I counted five vampires in addition to the one holding me. One was hovering near Desmond, guarding him in the loosest sense. Desmond had the shotgun aimed at me and Peyton, but his finger wasn’t near the trigger. I kept my gaze locked on the werewolf, trying to convey a sense of calm I didn’t necessarily feel.
So far this wasn’t going exactly how I wanted, but very little in life did.
“Five? Is that all you’ve got? I’m disappointed.”
Peyton chuckled. “My dear, it’s almost like you don’t know me. You think after all this time I’d be so easy to kill?” He clucked his tongue.
“A girl could hope.”
“Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like you to toy with. It can be misleading, and sooner or later you end up with none.”
Tell me about it.
Peyton gave a low whistle, and I waited, breath held. A moment later rustling in the tunnels drew my focus past the spotlights. I narrowed my eyes, trying to get a glimpse at what was coming. Once I did, I wished I was still blind in the dark.
A dozen or so more people—vampires
and a few bedraggled humans—came out of the dark passages and filled the spaces around us. A few joined up with those attending the spotlights, but the others merely fenced us in like a living wall.
This wasn’t great. I’d taken for granted that a vampire like Peyton wouldn’t change, assuming he would do things the same way he always had. Apparently his near-death experience made him more careful than he’d previously been, and it was coming around to screw me now.
Under normal circumstances, being outnumbered didn’t bother me. I could handle things skewed out of my favor. A one-on-one or even two-on-one fight was such a rarity for me I’d begun to assume I would be outgunned in most scenarios. But this wasn’t the same. We were looking at about twelve-to-one odds, and more than half those present were vampires.
Though none of the undead felt particularly old—and Peyton wouldn’t want to recruit anyone more powerful than him—we were still screwed. Vampires were stronger than werewolves. And though I was also stronger than the average werewolf, I was weaker than a mid-level vampire. If these guys were all warden-level or lower, I could handle them one at a time, but certainly not a dozen at once. I wasn’t sure I could tilt those odds in my favor given a clean headshot at each.
I considered going for my guns and clearing out a handful of them while the element of surprise was still on my side, but the second I started firing, Peyton would kill me. Then Desmond would be left alone with the remaining vamps, and they would literally rip him to shreds.
Nope, not the best option.
“This isn’t how I wanted to play.” I let my voice go soft, a teasing edge to it. It was damned near convincing as flirty. Desmond’s eyebrows went up a tiny bit. He hadn’t heard my flirty voice much lately, and it must have been weird for it to be directed at my worst enemy, even if it was obviously just for show. “Maybe we can go somewhere and talk, you and me.”
“That’s what you want, Secret? For us to play catch-up? Reminisce over the good old days?” His mouth was at my ear again, and I’d take the reprieve. He might only have one fang, but he was more than capable of using the remaining one to open an artery. All the same, another shiver rippled over me, and this time I could feel how much my discomfort pleased him.
An unwelcome erection in the back was definitely not how I’d pictured this night going. I should have known it was a possibility Peyton might get inappropriately excited by something that would occur, but I wasn’t ready for it when it actually happened. He was already at half-mast and he hadn’t had a chance to really hurt me yet. That didn’t bode well.
“Yeah,” I replied, trying to arch my back away from him. “We’ll have some tea and flip through old photo albums. Just you and me.”
He ignored my offer and instead shifted his focus. “What a pretty blade you’re carrying.” The hand not currently tangled in my hair looped around my waist, up my arm, and his cold fingers slid over the sleeve of my jacket until his hand covered mine.
Like I’d expected from feeling his fingers, his nails were long and had a faintly yellow hue. They’d also been filed into sharp points, and a couple showed signs of dried blood beneath them. Charming.
My hand jerked when he wrapped his palm around my wrist.
“It’s my blade,” I said, trying to wrench myself away from his grip. Given my current situation, both the response and the gesture were relatively pointless.
