Night Moves (The Night Songs Collection) (25 page)

I stopped asking for permission as I moved down Ryder’s body to take him in my mouth. His groans resonated through my body, making my nerves tingle and my muscles tighten. When I knew I’d brought him to the brink, I freed myself of him, making him gasp. I straddled his hips and lowered myself down. He pulled the top of my body down on to him, so he entered me completely.

Ryder’s phone rang next to his guitar. Although it was distracting, neither of us did anything about it. It didn’t stop, providing a soundtrack to our dance. I arched my head back and screamed half to drown it out, half to complete the release that had taken hold of my body. Ryder pulled me back in, refusing to stop.

I loved it when he took control.

Both of us lay panting; a sweaty heap once we’d exhausted each other. Ryder put his hand over my chest. “I love the feel of your heart beating.” His words made it race more.

“I love what you do that makes it pound.” I smiled at him, tracing my fingers along the outline of his lips. “You’re phone has been going crazy forever.”

Ryder rolled his eyes. “I don’t really care about anybody’s nonsense right now.”

Still he reached for the vibrating phone. “What’s going on?” His face darkened as he listened to the person speak on the other end. I felt my heart drop into my stomach. He looked down at me with an expression I couldn’t read. “All right.” That’s all he said before he put down the phone.

“Get dressed.” He said flatly. “They’re waiting for you.”

M
y body shook violently with fear and my muscles didn’t work. Ryder guided me back to the bedroom, cleaned me up, and dressed me. I stared straight ahead like a zombie as he brushed my hair and wiped my face with a cool cloth. I felt like I was being embalmed. All the thoughts colliding in my brain short circuited it. I had to remember to breathe.

When Ryder was satisfied with how pretty he made me, he held his hand out to me to help me off the bed.

“You’re really going to bring me there? Just because they snapped their fingers? You’re bringing me to a cage match with a lion.” I wailed.

“It’s not going to get any better if we don’t go willingly. I’ve already learned this lesson the hard way.” Ryder’s voice was even and emotionless.

“You’ve just accepted your fate. Take off your fucking hair shirt, Ryder. You don’t have to be a martyr. None of this has to happen.” I dissolved into sobs.

Ryder picked me up of the bed, still hysterical, and started to carry me out of the room. I beat my fists against him, wriggling as hard as I could. He was just too strong. I screamed like a toddler having a tantrum. He didn’t flinch. I was so mad I could have probably exploded.

“You think I deserve this!” I screamed.

He grabbed my flailing arms with his free hand firmly, and pressed the rest of my body against his so I couldn’t move.

“Calm down, Melanie, and look at me.” He said sternly. I turned my face away from him, still acting like a child. “Look at me.”

I steamed for a minute, trying to catch my breath. I didn’t want to give in, like Ryder did with everything. I wanted to keep fighting.

But I needed him on my side. There was so much fight left to go. He might not be helping me, but I didn’t need him working against me, either. I turned my face back to his, forcing myself to meet his eyes. Not in defeat, but defiance.

“The police might not be able to find you. But Drake and Talis will. They will go to the ends of the earth to hunt you down and drag you back. This might seem like the absolute worst thing in the world right now. And you’re right. It sucks. But it won’t get any better if you run. I’ve run. I’m back. They will make you do what they want you to do.”

“So they just get their way.” I whispered, my throat raw from screaming.

“Pretty much.” He sighed.

“Why can’t you fight them?” My lips quivered, on the brink of another breakdown.

“They created me.” He explained again, his patience ever ending. “I answer to them. It doesn’t matter what we think, what we want. They pull the strings, Melanie. I can fight a lot of battles, but that is one I will lose every time. Do you understand me?”

I nodded, exhausted, and put my head on his shoulder.

He let go of me, my legs slid down his body. Too weak to stand, I had to hold on to him by the waist. He put his arms back around me to steady me. Humiliated by my body’s response to this challenge, I couldn’t look at him.

“We’re going to go talk to them. We don’t know what they want right now. We might be thinking the worst.” Ryder tried to make his voice soothing, but I bristled at every
we.
It didn’t matter how many ways he explained it to me that there was no way around this, I still felt like he was selling me down the river. This wasn’t
we.
It was
me.
“Let’s just make this easy on ourselves.”

W
e rode in silence to the Alta Vista hotel. Ryder drove the white car Joy had delivered me in. I could barely see, still furious with him, furious with the whole situation, furious with myself. I had to fight the urge to jump out of the moving car.

Ryder drove into a back entrance of the hotel, far removed from the fanfare of the Strip. I didn’t move when he stopped in the space. He came around to my side and opened the door and offered me his hand. I glared at him.

What a gentleman. Leading me to my execution.

The service entrance reeked of hot garbage. Bile rose in my throat, as it had been threatening to do ever since Ryder answered the phone. I fought the urge to let it go. Sweat dappled my brow.

“Melanie!” Ryder said sharply as I ran between two cars over to the concrete wall. Did he think I was enough of a moron that I would run away from him into a wall? Probably. I was enough of a moron to follow him to this place.

He rubbed my back as I purged, again, his gentlemanly gestures ironic in the face of where we were. I got up off my knees and wiped the pebbles off of my knees with as much dignity as I could muster, refusing to look him directly in the eye. I wanted to smack the look of pity right off of his face.

“Come on, let’s get this over with.” It didn’t even sound like my voice. Rage ripped in an electric undercurrent under my skin. I’d felt like this once before. When I came home in the storm and found Jamie with Angela. It scared me. Not so much about what would happen to me anymore, but what I would do.

Ryder didn’t say another word as he headed into the building. I followed, having to walk double time to keep up with his long, quick strides. This wasn’t like him to leave me behind like this, but everything leading up to this moment was unprecedented. We walked through a maze of hallways, unimpressive concrete and linoleum, not meant to dazzle. Ryder entered a code into an elevator control pad and we stepped inside. My knees buckled as the doors closed. My stomach stayed in the basement as the unit shot upward. I held on the railing for dear life. I had to try to be strong.

I expected to see a dark, dank basement like room that I’d seen in mafia transactions time and again on TV and in movies. Instead the doors opened into an opulent golden hued room with low blue and orange Moroccan style furniture and strings of lights cascaded down like curtains.

Nothing bad could possibly happen in the most beautiful room I’d ever seen, right?

Heels clicked on the dark wood floor. Drake walked out, looking like the small person he was against the grandeur of the room.

“Where’s The Mistress?” Acid dripped from my tone. I was beginning to relax. This wasn’t what I expected at all.

“Do you really think Talis could be bothered with the likes of you?” His words delivered as much bite as mine. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

So it looked like I might have relaxed prematurely. I resisted the urge to hold on to Ryder. I snuck a sideways glance at him. He stood stiffly with his arms crossed. I had to put aside my rage for him right now. I needed to channel it all towards Drake.

“Then why are we here? You got us out of bed for nothing.” I spat.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I interrupt your fucking?” Drake mocked me. “It would explain why you look like something the cat dragged in.”

“I don’t know if you would call it that, since no one beat me with a strap.”

“I’m willing to bet you didn’t have any of Ryder’s precious blood, either.” Drake looked so amused.

Ryder sighed. “Drake, just don’t.”

“Just don’t what?” Drake flashed a toothy grin. “Just don’t share blood? Just don’t get close to anyone? Just be afraid? Is that what I should do, Ryder? This is why you’re not a leader. You won’t take a chance.”

Ryder closed his eyes. I could tell he was mentally counting to ten.

“You dragged us here so you could ridicule Ryder?” Why was I coming to his rescue? It should have been the other way around. “Like you haven’t done enough of that over the last decade?”

“Oh, I know, poor Ryder. Poor, millionaire, famous, beautiful, tragic Ryder. No, Melanie. You know why you’re here.”

Drake snapped his fingers, and I heard wheels scrape the expensive floor. Two men flanked a cage that housed a snarling, wild Rachel. She looked more like a rabid coyote than the sweet girl I left at the party.

“Oh my God,” I gasped. “What did you do to her?”

“This is what you did to her.” Drake spoke to me like I was a child. “New vampires are very unpredictable, Melanie. She needed to be secluded for her own safety. For the safety of the general public. She has no mentor, since no one wants to own up to creating her. No one to teach her how to survive.” He looked back at the cage sympathetically. Rachel reached through the bars, grabbing at him. Of course the slippery bastard was just out of reach.

It hurt to look at Rachel. She had been reduced to an animal so Drake could prove a point. There was no reason why this couldn’t have been handled civilly, besides the fact that Drake was at the helm.

“I told you what happened already. You refuse to believe me.” I didn’t want to plead with him. I wanted to pretend I still had some free will in this situation.

“Because you won’t take responsibility for your actions.” He was so infuriating.

Even more infuriating was that Ryder had done nothing to stop any of this. Really, this was better than running? Drake was insane. With his superiority complex, I’m not sure he’d even notice we were gone.

“Fine. I’ll take fucking responsibility for my actions. Since no one else in this room will. No one would be in this mess if you weren’t so afraid of being the old has been that you really are. Nobody’s going to give a fuck forever, Drake. You aren’t the Beatles, you aren’t the Stones. You’re fucking Soul Divider. No one takes you seriously.”

“Well, you better start.” His calm was unsettling. He turned away from me. “Sweetheart, come in here, please.”

Erin came out from the same place the cage did, looking frightened. She didn’t say anything or meet anyone’s eyes. God only knows what she had seen happen in that room with that cage.

“I’m going to open the cage, Melanie.” Drake continued as matter of factly, as if he was telling me how to cook his favorite meal. “There’s a stake in there. You need to drive it into her heart before she tears apart your friend, or maybe even your boyfriend. Female vampires are extremely powerful. This one doesn’t know how to control her strength. And she’s hungry.”

“How the hell am I supposed to be able to take down a vampire?” I screamed. “If she’s strong enough to take down Ryder, she’ll kill me without even trying.”

Drake smiled. Fuck, was that his plan all along? “Maybe you need some blood to make you stronger.”

“I’m not going to have sex in front of you to get Ryder’s blood.” I was beginning to panic. I had no idea where this was going.

“Ryder would never give you his blood. That’s what ruined his marriage.” Drake mocked. “But I want to make this a fair fight. I’ll give you mine.”

Erin’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped. I’m sure she mirrored my expression. I couldn’t look at Ryder right now. I squeezed my eyes shut, weighing my options. And that’s when a plan formulated. I said a quick prayer to any deity that happened to be listening and took a deep breath.

“Okay.”

Erin’s eyes widened even more.