“I do not need your help.” When his nasty stare stayed locked on the other jackass in the parking garage, she batted at his chest. “Hey, Shawn. You can leave now—”
Annnnnnnnd that was when a bunch of human cops burst out of the stairwell, guns up and blinding flashlights pointed straight ahead.
As Shawn dropped another f-bomb, and the vampire in the mink coat threw up his hands, Mae shielded her eyes with her arms—and was very clear on the fact that, probably for the one and only time in all of their lives, she and these two males were in complete agreement.
Fuck was right.
• • •
As Rehvenge was hit with a retina-busting beam of LED, he was so not feeling the female with the bright ideas about something she needed to avoid like the plague. He was also totally annoyed by Shawn and his he-man posturing—although that was mostly because the fight had been forfeited and now Rehv had twelve kinds of headaches to look forward to as he settled up with the bettors. But the police? Well, those boys and girls in blue ticked him off.
He had enough problems without them interfering.
On that note, he froze the trio with the shields where they stood. As a symphath, reading their emotional grids was both irresistible and a blink-of-the-eye kind of thing: The woman on the left was highly anxious, a new trainee still getting her feet under her; the man in the middle was completely calm, a veteran who had seen pretty much everything; and the guy on the far side was hiding something from everyone around him.
“Be of ease,” Rehv commanded.
In a coordinated dance, they lowered their flashlights, turned off their body cameras, and reported to their shoulder communicators that there was nothing out of order on the sixth floor, nothing wrong, nothing going on. Whatever had been happening here had wrapped up. The call-ins had been incorrect or it was another case of a false report to divert resources.
Probably a bunch of kids, playing around.
Stupid kids.
One by one, they turned around, and they were chatting casually as they reentered the stairwell in single file: The woman had had a Reuben for dinner that wasn’t sitting well with her, the guy in the middle was worried about the closing on his new house, and the man who was bringing up the rear was hoping to get his overtime approved.
Ah. He was saving up to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend. That was what he was hiding—and how nice it wasn’t kickbacks or some shit.
So fucking sweet.
As the steel door they’d come through slammed shut into its jambs behind them, Rehv looked at the pair of vampires. Who’d obviously just fed from each other. He could scent it in the air.
“Are you sure you two aren’t together?” he said to the female to distract her. “Isn’t he yours?”
“No!” She fiddled with her purse. The collar on her sweatshirt. Her left sleeve. “He’s not—Jesus, we just met—I mean, we did meet. But I don’t even know his name. Or didn’t until you came—what was the question—”
While she babbled, Rehv went in and checked out her emotional grid—and what he saw was bad. Very bad.
“I don’t know about any book,” he said, cutting her off. “Sorry.”
The female took a deep breath. “Tallah told me you did, and that you’d know where to find it. She was sure of this—she—”
“She’s wrong.” Rehv frowned. “How is she doing, by the way. I haven’t seen her for years. She was a good friend of my mahmen’s.”
“But she said—”
“I’m done denying facts to you.” Rehv smiled slowly and nodded toward Shawn, who was still steaming with aggression, a vampire clambake of possessiveness. “But you can answer me one thing. If he’s not yours, why did you feed him?”
That stopped the female in her tracks. “He was dying.”
Rehv laughed a little. “Let me get this straight. You come here looking for some kind of bestseller, run into this flyboy, and when he springs a leak”—Rehv indicated the oval blood carpet on the concrete—“you risk your own life to save his? ”
“I did what anyone else would do.”
No, Rehv thought to himself. You had your own reasons for giving him your vein, and whatever they are, they’re making you desperate.
“No, you didn’t,” Rehv murmured. “Most would have left him to die. In fact, all would have. So he’s yours now—”
“No, he’s not—”
“He owes you his life. So he’s yours—”
“I don’t want him!”
Shawn—and by the way, who the fuck volunteered for a human name like that? Couldn’t the bastard have thought of something else to disguise himself with?—suddenly looked offended. Like she’d passed on USDA-inspected meat fresh out of the refrigerator.
Yeah, because a male like him was such a prize. Especially for a nice female who was clearly out of her depth with whatever the fuck was going on here.
“Okay, fine, that’s your business.” Rehv shrugged. “And on that note, I’m out—”
“I need your help,” she pleaded.
Rehv narrowed his eyes again. As she put her palms together and tilted forward like she was praying to him, the expression on her face would have been heartbreaking if he’d given a shit. But he couldn’t afford to. Her grid, that superstructure that only symphaths saw, was glowing with a fierce, destructive illumination—that rose to the level of a five-alarm fire.
Especially given what she was asking about.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Is that important?”
“Nah, not really—”
“You’re my only hope,” she begged.
After a moment, he shook his head. “That’s a line from Star Wars, female. It’s got nothing to do with me. Later, you two.”
As he dematerialized, he had a thought that he needed to leave all this alone.
Unfortunately, given what she was after?
He was as involved as someone tied to a sinking anchor.
It was a good thing that the Reverend left. As that male with the fancy-ass coat had been flapping his gums, Sahvage had been wondering which way of killing the motherfucker would be the most satisfying. There were a lot to choose from, which was what happened when you’d spent a couple of centuries stalking the night and eradicating things. A lack of weapons, however, did limit some of his options—although bare-hands-only was hardly a deal-breaker.
In the end, the pick of the litter had been taking the guy’s head and slamming it face-first into one of the readily available concrete walls—with the result being that the Reverend’s skull cracked like an egg, and his brains broke out of their cranial prison like pigeons flushed from underfoot, scatter, scatter, splatter, splatter.
Oh, what a relief it is.
Unfortunately, before that happy little plan could be put into action, the fucker took off—
“No,” the female hollered as she raced forward.
She was holding her hands out into thin air, even though her eyes must have told her there was no one there to catch, no one to hold. No one to help her.
Standing off to the side, Sahvage thought it would be interesting to be needed by her like that. Wanted like that. Determined to be necessary—
What was the hell was he thinking.
Been there, done that, and look at allllll the happy shit that had fallen on his head because of it.
“So what’s this book?” he asked.
Damn it. No. He did not just open that door—
The female pivoted around. The utter defeat on her face was a shock—for absolutely no good reason at all.
“He was my last chance.”
“For what?”
The female stared down at her shoes. When she finally looked back up at him, she tightened her lips and shook her head. “I have to go.”
Sahvage crossed his arms over his chest. “If you want, I’ll bring him back to you.”
With raised brows, she cupped one of her ears, like she couldn’t have heard that right. “What?”
“I’ll find him and bring him back to you.”
She let out a tired curse. “You can’t do that.”
“Watch me.” He shrugged. “I don’t mind carrying heavy loads with big mouths. Done it before, I’ll do it again.”
“He knows where it is,” she murmured as she glanced back at where the other male had been standing. “Tallah would never lie to me. He knows where the Book is, but for some reason, he’s pretending like he doesn’t.”
Sahvage went still. “What book are you looking for.”
Absently, like it was an afterthought to everything else that was going through her mind, she said, “And you need to stop fighting.”
Sahvage frowned and motioned around at all the empty space. “With who? We’re alone here, FYI, and this saucy repartee of ours can hardly be considered pugilistic.”
For some reason, he felt like proving he knew some fancy words.
Her eyes returned to his. “You need to stop fighting with everything and everybody.”
“Don’t pretend you know me, female,” he warned.
“I don’t have to pretend. It’s a billboard hanging over your shoulders for all to see.” She shook her head. “Just stop fighting. It’s a goddamn waste of energy. And I’m sorry I distracted you so that you got hurt. I think we’re even on that score now, though—”
“You thought I was the Reverend,” he said abruptly. “That’s why you came back, wasn’t it.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“You’re right.” He took at step toward her. “But answer me something.”
“I have to go—”
“If you’d known I wasn’t him, would you have still tried to save me?” When she didn’t reply, he lowered his lids. “Come on, be honest. What do you have to lose?”
“No,” she said after a pause. “I wouldn’t have come back.”
“Good.” As surprise flared in her face, he shrugged. “It proves you have half a brain, and something tells me you’re going to need it, sweetheart.”
The female took a deep breath. “If you call me ‘sweetheart’ one more time, I’m going to mace you.”
Sahvage chuckled a little. “Sounds like fun. I’ll even let you hold me down when you do it. I like the idea of you on top.”
The flush started in her throat and rode up to color her face—and that wasn’t the only heat that flared. The scent of her arousal traveled on the breeze to his nose, and he inhaled slowly, deeply.
“It’s a shame you’re leaving,” he said in a low voice. “I have to take a shower and I could use some help with my back.”
The female shook herself, as if out of a trance. “It goes without saying that I am beyond uninterested. You can keep your soap to yourself.”
On that shutdown, she dematerialized so fast, he was astounded at her mind control. And then, as her absence properly registered . . . for a split second, he did as she had, and reached out into thin air.
Even though there was nothing in front of him.
Dropping his arms, an emptiness washed through his chest and was carried out to his limbs. The feeling of being nothing more than a void that breathed was a familiar one. It was who he’d been for a very long time.
Yet for some reason, that female made him conscious of his barren existence as if the weightlessness was brand-new.
Like anything mattered, though, he told himself as he dematerialized out as well.
Besides, he could reach his own goddamn back.
Always had, always will.
• • •
Down below, at ground level, Mae re-formed in the darkness and studiously ignored the fact that she was panting. And there were all kinds of other things in her body she refused to acknowledge, but she wasn’t going to dwell on them. Not that they existed. Because she was ignoring them.