AllFreeNovel
Share Us
???????? Slay, bitch. Ambrose isn’t going to know what hit him!
Biting my lower lip in a smirk, I use both hands to type out a reply.
Fuck him. This isn’t for him. If I’m going to be in the Barrows, I’m going to enjoy it.
Satisfied, I bare my teeth to make sure I didn’t smear any of the lip color but the bright stain is perfect and my teeth are clear. One last plump of my hair and a quick spritz of hairspray, and I set off to find someone in the house. I definitely plan on needing a designated driver.
I’m not to the point where I’m familiar enough to knock on the bedroom doors on the second floor, so I keep going downstairs and start prowling through the house. I don’t know how long the staff stays before heading home, so my best bet is to find one of the vampires who stay here. If I can’t, I’ll check the kitchen and see if Joséphine is around. Even though the idea of asking her to take me to a club makes me feel like asking my grandma to take me.
Ashe isn’t around, and I’m about to chance calling a rideshare. It’s not like I’ve had anything to spend money on lately. Before I can pull my phone from the tiny black clutch I grabbed, I find someone.
Lan.
The vampire looks me up and down, a wolfish grin on his face. “Going somewhere, sweetheart?”
I roll my eyes and cock my hip with a hand on it. “Don’t call me that. And yeah, I’m going out. I’m sick of being stuck here like Ambrose’s forgotten toy.”
Maybe Lan isn’t the best choice, but there’s an understanding look in his golden eyes. I study his eyes as circumspectly as I can, and I don’t see a hint of red. I don’t have to worry about him taking a bite of me at least.
“Ambrose won’t like that,” he says as he crosses his arms. He doesn’t say it like I’m getting in trouble. Oh, no, he says it like he wants to help piss his king off.
I shrug. “Ambrose can fuck off seeing as he’s ignored me for the last two weeks. I’m bored and I want to have fun. Are you going to help me or not?”
Lan’s golden eyes brighten with perverse glee and my heart thuds in my chest but I stand my ground even as his grin turns into a smile made sinister by the point of his fangs becoming visible. He’s dressed more casually than I’m used to seeing the vampires, with black jeans and a gray fitted tee underneath his black leather jacket.
Oh, yeah, this is a really stupid idea. But I’m not going to back out just because Lan looks like he’s ready to fight or fuck.
“I know a place Ambrose would hate to know you went to,” Lan purred, his voice like gunpowder and smoke. “You game?”
“Always,” I bite back, the thrill of angering Ambrose rushing down my spine and spiking my adrenaline.
He jerks his permanently disheveled blond hair towards the garage before turning. I follow at his heels, practically skipping. In a few minutes and with only a minor hesitation, I’m pulling on a helmet and swinging my leg carefully over the back of a black motorcycle behind Lan. He doesn’t let me second-guess my decision and I squeak and cling tight to him as he lets out the throttle and we race out into the early night of the Barrows.
Lan pushes the bike ridiculously fast, hugging corners and weaving between vehicles and even market carts at one point. I have half a mind to remind him that I’m human and can, in fact, die, unlike him and his no-helmet ways, but the thrill is too perfect.
By the time we pull up to an unfamiliar club, the music is so loud I can feel the beat from out here, I’m goddamn high on adrenaline. Lan hits the kickstand and gets off before I can process it and he picks me up off the bike like a child, saving me the risk of flashing my crotch at the people staring at us from the line. I take off the helmet and shake out my hair again as he takes it and stashes it.
I see a few humans in the line passing around neon blue lab vials and side-glance Lan, who seems to be waiting for my lead.
“Do you have any Rapture by chance?”
A smirk twists his face, and he slides his fingers into a narrow breast pocket in his jacket before pulling out a light, bright glass vial. I snag it from his fingers and pull my camera up on my phone and hand it to him in a silent order. I bring the vial to my lips with one hand and flip the camera off with the other.
Lan hands it back with a dark chuckle and I trade him back the vial. I don’t actually want the stuff. He looks over my phone as I pull up Ambrose’s contact for the first time since I saw it added to my phone. I send him the photo without hesitation.
“Oh, I think I like you,” Lan murmurs and I watch him slip the newly stoppered vial back into its pocket.
“Yeah?” I turn and march towards the line, but Lan guides me to the door, the bouncer opening the velour rope and letting us pass without comment. “Then you can buy my drinks.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ambrose
Acrid copper overwhelms the brine-heavy air as the last body drops from my hand, the thick warm blood from his neck rolling down my chin. The nameless demon isn’t the only one’s blood that has wet my fangs this evening, but even after the slaughter, the blood I’ve tasted only increases my hunger.
I survey the docks, half lit by the tall stadium lights that shine bright every thirty feet. Malachi secured permission from Draven to deal with these outcasts and Lan had tracked them here, to my fucking docks, where their supply of Rapture was skimmed off of the Nightshades’. When I’d seen my own workers turn their backs and ignore the three creatures with duffle bags, I’d fallen on them with rage and destruction.
Eloise is right. I am hungry.
