Lost Angeles (35 page)

Of course, peace like this doesn’t last forever. When I open my eyes, the world surges back with a vengeance that I’m not immediately able to understand. Xaine’s standing on a table, shouting to the room. People crowd toward the bar, chaotic and cheering. My eyes shift back to where I last saw my vampire rock star friend, but he’s not there anymore. Instead, he’s plowing his way toward me with a single-minded purpose that sparks my own panic. He yells my name, but I see it more than I hear it as a heavy weight slams into my back and the tight anchor of an arm slides around my waist.

“Heya, Lo,” a familiar voice whispers into my hair. His breath curls into the shell of my ear, hot and damp, sending a ripple of revulsion down my spine. “Heard I might find you here. Social media is a beautiful thing.”

“Benicio.” My own voice sounds so distant. “Been looking for you.”

“I know.” He pulls me backwards, tugging me into the crowd that’s thwarting Xaine. “Saw you shaking your ass on TV. Thought you mighta missed me.”

Xaine’s shoving people out of the way, bouncing bodies off other bodies, yelling something over to the side. I search the crowd for Asher, but he’s not where I left him either. I spot Jackson Trace turning and tugging Tamsyn toward the front door. I’m caught in a tornado of anarchy, a perfect storm of chaos. The bulk of my safety net has vanished into thin air, and here I am, fish-on-a-hook, biting back a scream as Benicio’s tongue touches the bare curve of my earlobe.

“I missed you,” he says. “The other girls don’t taste quite so… damaged.”

I’m not entirely sure when
that
became a desirable personality trait, but I’m not really in the position to protest. He’s hauling me backwards faster than Xaine can catch up, and I start to think that maybe it’s best. Maybe I need to be caught. Maybe Benny and I need to finish this thing once and for all.

“Make you a deal.” The words fall out of me on a rush, expelled from my lungs by the shackle of my captor’s forearm. “Do whatever you want, but I want to
keep
the memories this time.”

“Trust me,” Benicio huffs out on a laugh as he plows backward through an emergency exit, “you don’t. You really, really don’t.”

“I need them.”

“Nobody needs these kinds of memories,” he says. “Nobody except me.”

One more heave, and he pulls me outside, into the alley where I stood not a half-hour before. The night air’s gone cold, and the bricks are drowning in shadows. Shifting his grip, the sin-eater curls his other hand over the lip of a dumpster and pulls it over to block the door. I have a moment to wonder if that’s the dumpster I’m going to end up in before he turns, starts dragging me away—

And pulls up short at the business end of Asher’s Glock.

Click.

“Well, hello there.” Ash’s voice is low and monotone, and if I didn’t know him better, I’d almost say I detect a hint of bemusement in it. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Something slams into the other side of the door, hard enough to make the metal to bulge outward. The pounding comes again, the heavy impact of something that keeps beating at the inside, trying to get out.

Xaine.

The heavy dumpster slides, inch by metal-screeching inch, until the door opens far enough that he can shove it the rest of the way, and my vampire watchman steps into the night. Two sets of footsteps echo at the other end of the alley as Jackson Trace skids to a halt with Tamsyn at his side. All at once, everything comes to a grinding standstill, bodies frozen in place, everyone staring at everyone else.

“You’re surrounded, Benny,” I say. “Trapped.”

“Eenie, meenie, miny, mo. Two mortals, a vampire, and a sin-eater.” He pulls me close until we’re plastered front-to-back. I stare ahead at Asher, but his expression is carefully blank. The gun is locked and loaded, but we both know it might not do anything. “Hardly ‘trapped
.
’”

There’s a snarl from Xaine, and Benicio’s head shifts until I can feel the wild flutter of his eyelashes against my temple.

“One more step, bloodsucker,” he says, “and I’ll snap her pretty neck.”

He keeps me immobile, using me as an all-too-human shield. I’ve got a free hand, but it’s the one opposite the pocket where I stashed the taser. Shooting Asher a look, I glance downward briefly, willing him to understand. Willing him to do something,
anything
to keep Benicio’s attention away from my roving fingers.

“Seems like you’ve had pretty good luck hunting these parts,” Asher says, drawing the sin-eater’s gaze and drawing the heat off me. “Lots of pretty girls around here. Everyone’s a blonde in LA, huh?”

“They’re all garbage,” Benicio says, shifting his feet. I can feel him glancing about for an escape route, and he’s pulled tighter than Asher’s stupid bowstring. “They all die before I’m done with ’em.”

“But not Lore.” It’s Jax this time, entering our little stand-off. “She didn’t die so easy, did she?”

The sin-eater breathes harshly in my ear, and I can feel his heart thrumming wildly against my spine. Not with fear, but excitement; the erection he’s digging into my ass is evidence enough of that. The hand on my wrist lets go and slides north, fingers skimming over the fabric of Xaine’s T-shirt until Benicio’s damp palm crosses my clavicle and curls around my neck. Right about then, I start getting a little warm. The heat spreads, but not as fast as before, and I wonder if maybe, just maybe, Benny’s whole bag of tricks revolves around the element of surprise.

Well, half the bag, anyway.

Benicio nuzzles the place where my neck meets my shoulder. “No, she didn’t die. I could keep going deeper, and deeper, and deeper…”

It apparently doesn’t matter to him that Asher’s got a gun trained on his face or that four people surround him, blocking every avenue of escape.

He’s not afraid.

“I could take the memories out and put them back a thousand times, and each time she’d be sweeter.
Riper
.” The rough scratch of Benicio’s jaw chafes at the flesh of my neck, rasping over Xaine’s puncture wounds. I feel lightheaded now, drifting on soft waves of desire. “Her body, her face, her fucking
eyes…
she’s perfect.” He chuckles into my hair. “Right, Xaine? Doesn’t she remind you of everything you ever loved?”

“Fuck you—”

“Everything you lost?” Benicio says, hurling the words at my guard dog. “Everything you had, and everything you fucked up? The thing you wanted so badly you’d
kill it
to keep it with you?” There’s an answering growl from somewhere over my left shoulder. “Yeah, kinda feels that way for me, too.”

“Let her go,” Jax’s voice chimes in. “You don’t really understand what you’re doing.”

“Yeah, fuckstick,” Xaine says. “You hurt a hair on her head, and I will
shred you
.”

“It’s okay, Benny,” I purr as I lean my head against his shoulder. Everything’s tilting sideways, and with every second that passes, I slip a little further away. “I get it. You can’t help it. Some people… they just
taste so good
.” Pushing back against my captor, I press the soft curve of my ass into his not-so-soft front.

Benicio groans, and his fingers tighten around my neck, damp and hot; whatever drug he’s pushing, he’s pushing hard. “Oh yeah, baby, you have no idea.”

I slide my free hand down, skimming my palm across his leg, over the bulge in his jeans. Benicio hisses and pulls back far enough that I can reach into my other pocket, snag the taser, and flick the safety off. His sucks in a sharp breath, but before he can get a warning out, I ram the tail-end spike straight into the meaty part of his thigh, twisting it brutally as I slam my elbow back into his ribs.

“Fucking hell!” He releases me so quickly that I stumble forward.

Asher immediately puts a bullet into Benicio’s chest, but the sin-eater shrugs it off like it’s only a flesh wound and grabs for me. In a moment of pure panic, I raise the taser and fire off the two spring-loaded diodes. Xaine chooses that exact second to tackle our friend Benny, and the moment those two electrically charged wires touch skin, both men drop to the concrete like stones.

Asher slings me out of the way as I sputter out, “Shit! Sorry!”

“Goddamnit, Lore!” Twitching at random, Xaine tries to get to his feet, with minimal success.

Asher carefully approaches Benicio; the second the sin-eater gets a knee under him, the hunter shoots him again, this time with a UV bullet. Benicio jerks on impact, and now I can see blood. It’s slick and red, but not the right shade of red. More like when your computer monitor or your television set needs to get adjusted.
Too
red.

Benicio snarls, flattening out against the filthy ground. Hurting, finally, but still not done.

“You think I don’t know what she is?” he yells at Jax. “What she is
to you
? I know exactly what she is, and she’s
mine
. I snagged me a little piece of
heaven—
”

Before he can finish, Jackson Trace’s shiny-as-shit gold-tipped shoe plows straight into his mouth. Benicio’s head whips over, droplets of blood and what looks suspiciously like a tooth arcing in the harsh orange glow of the streetlights. His eyes roll into the back of his head, only the whites showing.

“How’s that for a piece of heaven, you stupid fucker,” Tamsyn mutters, eyeballing Asher. “You got any handcuffs on you, Sparky?”

“I don’t want anyone touching him with bare skin,” Asher says. “He’s… not human.”

“That makes two of us.” Tamsyn holds out her hand. “Trust me, I won’t touch him any more than I have to. Anything dick or dick-adjacent I’ll leave to you.”

I snort at the wry frown that hits Asher’s face. Everyone turns to look at me then, and all I can do is offer up a shrug, taser still clutched in my left hand. I feel a little drunk, a lot dizzy, and I’m pretty sure that if I tried to walk, I’d have to think twice about every step. The adrenaline’s wearing off, and apparently that was the only thing keeping Benicio’s Jungle Juice at bay, because the minute my heart resettles into a steady rhythm, I start laughing.

“Why do you all look so serious?” I peer at the semicircle of solemn faces, then focus on Xaine, who’s peeling himself off the ground. “You have to admit, that was funny. Especially the part where I zapped Mr. Big Shit Rock Star.”

I can’t seem to get the rest out past the giggles, so I make a vague gesture and pantomime a body hitting the ground. Finally regaining his equilibrium, Xaine stomps over to me and snatches the taser out of my hand.

“It’ll be
fine
, she says. Asher can be my
date
, she says. He’ll keep me
safe
, she says. Who’s going to protect the rest of us from
you
? Huh, Thora, Goddess of Lightning?”

Clinging to his arm, I snicker into his shirtsleeve. Apparently self-preservation wins out in scenarios like this one, because I know that if I let go, I’ll be a heap on the concrete before anyone has the chance to catch me. Thankfully, Xaine’s not shrugging me off. He’s perfectly content to head for the Humvee, muttering under his breath, keeping the worst of it unintelligible and the other parts in Italian as he pries the door open and boosts me inside. I try not to laugh, biting down on my lip, but I’m punch-drunk and woozy and everything is hilarious.

I don’t really lose my shit, though, until Xaine mutters, “Thank fuck he didn’t give you a gun.”

The ride back to PFC is awkward but quick and probably less quiet than everyone would have liked. Turns out, Benicio’s not exactly the sort to die with dignity, so to speak, and it’s a pretty solid litany of expletives the entire way.

On my end, there’s a lot of squirming. Good ol’ Benny still managed to get a couple of licks in, literally, so I’m most definitely feeling the effects this time. Xaine’s arm is looped around my waist, and he holds me so tightly against his side that I can feel the heat of my skin burning between us. When my palm lands on the denim-clad expanse of his thigh, my nipples harden, and for a brief second all I can think about is all the things underneath those pants—

“So,” Tamsyn interrupts, flashing that manic-pixie smile of hers at me, “how big
is
Dark Prince Apocalypse’s dick? Enquiring minds are dying to know.”

“Big enough for you to choke on,” Xaine answers, but Tamsyn doesn’t pay him the slightest bit of attention.

“It smells like double-chocolate fudge brownies and cotton candy in here.” She leans closer to me, inhales deep, and adds, “I think
you’re
the cotton candy. I like cotton candy.”

Jax’s head appears between the two front seats. Those crazy-clear eyes of his zero in on Tamsyn, and he gives her that dad stare I recognize from the Audi. “Don’t.”

She lifts her hands in the universal sign of surrender. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Intent is the difference between murder and manslaughter,” Jax says, then turns back around in his seat. “You’ve been a total pain in the ass about pancakes since the hotel. And besides, she’s too young for you. Fifteen’ll get you twenty, just remember that.”

“I’m not fifteen.” Scowling at the back of his seat, I kick out with my foot, nailing the leather with my shoe. “Asshole.”

“Trust me, there’s a big enough age gap there that you might as well be.”