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Chapter Five
Normally, after drinking too much, I’d wake hungover but sober. I tended to sleep hard when I drank, because it was one of the few times when my nightmares didn’t come. It meant I’d sleep long enough to wake to nausea and a splitting headache instead of fun drunkenness. This time, however, was different.
The spinning room had me reaching for my pocket, for the pill that Grant had given me. It tasted chalky, like mints, but almost as soon as I chewed it, my head started to clear.
I waited until the room stopped moving, giving it time to wipe away all the fuzziness before I risked sitting up and peering around. My cloak hung on a hook by the door. The room was small and dirty—everything I’d expect at a by-the-hour motel in hell. In the large bed, beside me, Kase had stretched out, his eyes closed.
It reminded me of the night he’d been naked, when he’d been in my bed back home. His lips had moved over my shoulder and even though his skin was cool, his touch had warmed me right up.
Heat stirred inside me, making me want to experience that again. The fact that I’d been angry with him, or how he’d betrayed me, or how he’d acted like my blood was the vampire version of cold, stale coffee didn’t matter all of a sudden, as if even though I was sober, the ambrosia had left that need in its wake. Or maybe it was just good old-fashioned horniness and I was reaching for another explanation.
He lay still in a way entirely unlike any regular sleeping person. When humans slept, we twitched, we breathed, we shifted. Kase didn’t move in the slightest. He wore his slacks and his button-up shirt—his jacket had been lost somewhere along the trip—though neither looked nearly as pristine as they had before. Between all the walking and the fight with Troy—which seemed like a lifetime ago—he was far less put together. His feet were crossed at the ankle, his black socks on and one of his hands rested on his stomach while his other was to the side next to me. Had he fallen asleep like that to touch me?
I shifted, moving slowly so I didn’t wake him. I really wasn’t sure how deeply vampires slept. My knees pressed into the mattress as I studied him.
His face looked younger right then, when it wasn’t pinched with that self-restraint. It made me wonder against just how old he was. When awake, he had an air of control, of caution. There was always a wall I couldn’t get past, like a ward around him that kept everything away.
Which was why it was odd to watch him sleep, to see him so…approachable. He didn’t look like the vampire who had terrified me, the one so many were afraid of.
I reached out and traced my hand over his arm, the skin beneath the shirt hard.
I wasn’t planning on molesting him, but I was drawn to how vulnerable he was. For once, I felt like I could see him, like he wasn’t hiding.
I moved my fingers down over his wrist to touch his hand, to where I could brush his actual skin.
The moment it happened, however, the room spun again.
When the breath rushed from my lungs, I realized it wasn’t the room spinning this time but me.
I found Kase’s face above me, his lips peeled back to expose his fangs, his eyes glowing red.
All those times I’d though he looked scary before were nothing. I’d never seenthisface. The idea he was older than Colter didn’t seem so crazy anymore.
If his face wasn’t enough, the hand I’d just touched was wrapped around my throat.
He could have snapped my neck right then, ended me without a second thought. It was reminding just how out-powered I was by these supernaturals. I had started to feel myself, to think I could stand toe-to-toe with them, especially after shoving that shadow from Troy, but in that moment Kase showed me how wrong I was.
His hand kept me from drawing breath—I was really tired of being choked—and even as I clutched at his wrist, I couldn’t make him budge.
Kase didn’t blink, but his hand tightened a hair before loosening. A split second later, he yanked backward and off me.
I rolled, then coughed hard while I fought to fill my lungs again. Suddenly the ash-laden air wasn’t so bad, anymore.
“Ava, are you okay?” Kase asked but didn’t touch me.
My palms pressed into the mattress, my lungs burning until I was able to stop the hacking and slow my breath.
To my left, Kase stared at me, gaze intense, his eyes that same red.
He looked like himself, that flat, expressionless face, except for the eyes. As if he’d realized it, he darted his gaze away and when he turned back, his eyes had returned to normal. “Are you okay?” he repeated.
I rubbed my fingers against my sore throat. “What was that?”
“You shouldn’t wake me that way.”
“I just touched your hand,” I argued. “It wasn’t like I was going for your pants!”
He dropped his gaze to my throat, and I thought I read a moment of regret. “I don’t do well with being…touched.”
