Something Wanton (Mystics & Mayhem) (22 page)

“Let the games begin,” Tyler murmured in my ear, slipping an arm around me and handing me my drink.  I could smell the alcohol in it before I even wrapped my hand around it.  When I gave him a questioning look, he shrugged and tightened his hold on my waist a little.  “I think you’re going to need it.  It’s going to be a long night.”

“Let’s dance,” Kim said, taking her own drink from Blake and grabbing my hand.  “If we’re going to do this, we’re doing it right.”

Drinks in hand, we made our way into the crowd and started to dance.  I gave all of my attention to Tyler and tried to pretend Nathan and his entourage didn’t exist.  Ty was a really great dancer and, after a while, I found myself just enjoying being with him.  It was nice, being held in Tyler’s arms, and for the first time in a long time, I felt…happy.

We danced until our drinks were gone then sent Tyler and Blake for a refill.  I glanced up at the balcony then to see if my plan was working, but Nathan was gone. 
Ainsley and Zan were staring over toward the bar, like they were worried about something, and I suddenly had a very bad feeling that we needed to go look for Tyler and Blake.

They weren’t hard to find.  The crowd had moved back from the bar and Kim, standing on her toes to see over a few heads, gasped and grabbed my arm, her eyes so wide they were in danger of bugging out.

“Shit!  Not good! 
So
not good!”

When the crowd parted, letting us have a clear view of what was going on, I didn’t know whether to pat myself on the back for playing my part so well or kick myself.  Nathan and Tyler were toe to toe.  The anger o
n Nathan’s face was frightening, but Tyler didn’t seem intimidated.  That wasn’t surprising.  Tyler had never been all that intimidated by Nathan.

“If you don’t like the fact that she’s here without you, maybe you shouldn’t have let her go, Nate,” Tyler said, smirking when Nathan growled.  “Your loss, buddy.”

“Back off, Nate.  If you want to be pissed at someone, go look in the mirror,” Blake said, trying to step between them. 

When Nathan took another
menacing step toward Tyler, his fists clenched, Blake slammed into him, knocking him back a foot or so.  I cringed and glanced around at the watching crowd, hoping no one else had seen the little zap of Witch Fire in Blake’s palm that had helped him accomplish that heroic feat. 

Getting right in Nathan’s face, Blake growled, “I said, back the hell up!  Damn it, Nate! 
You
were the one stupid enough to dump her
,
remember?  What did you want her to do, sit there and cry over you forever?  You
really
don’t know Ember if that’s what you thought she would do.  It’s not her style.”

“That’s enough!” I yelled.  Kim jumped
noticeably, and I gave her an apologetic look before I turned my attention back to the testosterone-fueled idiots about to throw down over me.  If Nathan wanted to fight, that was fine.  He could fight with me.  “Tyler, Blake, go cool off.  I’ll deal with him.”

“Em…” Kim whispered, grabbing my arm.  I shook her off, never taking my eyes from Nathan’s when he turned to face me, his furious gaze pinning me in place.

“I’ve got this, Kim.  I can do it. You told me that. Now let me prove it to myself.”

“Have you lost your mind, Ember?” Nathan growled the second we were outside.  I didn’t answer him, just kept walking.  I had plenty to say, but I wanted to be sure we were alone before I said it.  “Do you want to end up like Sierra?  Is that it?  Do you have a death wish, damn it?”

As soon as we walked into the alley next to the club he grabbed my arm and I lost my temper.  I turned on him with a vicious hiss and slammed my hand into his chest.  The blast of power that erupted from my palm sent him flying.  I heard a sickening thud when he hit the wall of the club that was loud enough to echo over the drumming bass line coming through the wall
, but I couldn’t seem to dredge up any remorse for it. 

“I don’t need your permission to do
anything,
Nathan,” I told him coldly.  “You gave up all rights to any opinions about
what
I do or who I do it
with
when you decided you needed room to think or time to breathe or whatever that bullshit excuse was you gave me when you dumped me.”

“Oh, so
that’s
what this is all about!” he said, getting to his feet slowly, his eyes glowing white in his anger.  He took a step toward me, but when he saw the Witch Fire flickering over my hands he came to a very quick stop.  “You’re running around out in the open, practically naked, to prove some point to me while a group of highly trained hunters has made it their main ambition in life to take you out.  Very smart, Ember.  Odd, but I gave you more credit for intelligence than that.  I guess I was wrong.”

“What do you care?  It’s over, Nathan!  You should remember that since you were the one who ended it!”

He opened his mouth to respond and then snapped it shut again with a growl.  For a second, we just glared at each other, both of us too angry to say a word.  No matter what we said, it wasn’t going to be pretty.  We were past all of that.  There was too much hurt and anger between us, too many misconceptions and broken promises. 

I nearly died of fright when he let out a frustrated roar.  Before I could defend myself, I found myself pinned to the wall behind me.

“You will go back to Kim’s and you will
stay
there,” he breathed against my ear.  “You will
not
go to school.  You will
not
go out clubbing.  You will do
exactly
what I tell you to do, Ember, or, so help me God, I will chain your ass to a wall somewhere.  Do you understand me?”

Oh, he had
nerve!  Just who the hell did he think he was?  I wasn’t going to do anything he told me to do.  I was going to do exactly what I wanted to, and that meant doing pretty much everything he had just told me
not
to. 

“Bite me, Nathan!  If you want to order someone around, go find your skank.  I’m sure Stacy would be happy to do
anything
you wanted her to do.  As for me, I couldn’t care less what you want.”

As I glared up at him, I saw something in his eyes change.  The anger faded out of them to be replaced by something seriously unpleasant.

“
Bite
you, huh?  I’ve already had the pleasure of that experience, remember?” he whispered, his nose sliding down the line of my jaw as he took a deep breath.  “You
do
remember, don’t you, Ember?  I do.  I remember the way you felt against me, the way you tasted, the way you moaned and begged me not to stop.”

I stiffened against him as a wave of pain and anger swept through me, leaving nothing behind but the urge to hurt him as much as he had just hurt me.  Yeah, I remembered that night very well.  I had a permanent reminder of it
,
on my
neck,
that made it kind of hard to forget. 

I had asked Kim if there was a way to remove my mark and she had totally freaked.  Once a vampire marks you, you’re stuck with it forever.  If you remove it, you die.

I just looked at him for a second, noticing how his silvery aura had started to light up.  To make matters worse, the scent of his essence had started to envelope me.  I closed my eyes, trying
not
to feel the hunger beginning to burn in my stomach. 

But why should I fight anymore? 
He was right.  He
had
fed on me.  Twice.  Why shouldn’t I return the favor?  Hell, he
owed
me a taste. 

I stopped that thought right where it was—then stopped breathing. 
I had tied myself to him in enough ways as it was.  I would shrivel up into a little prune and die before I’d feed from him.

“Yes, Nathan, I remember,” I said, my voice so frosty I was surprised icicles didn’t form in midair from my very breath.  “I remember
everything.  I remember that I was stupid enough to believe in you.  I remember that I was stupid enough to love you.  I remember that I was stupid enough to give you everything I had so you could throw it back in my face when you were finished playing with me.  Does that answer your question, or should I keep going?”

He lifted his head slowly, and I thought I saw a shadow of hurt cross his eyes before he hid it behind an unpleasant smirk.  He had been around Zan too long.  He was picking up his facial expressions.

And his perverted nature, too, apparently.

“I’m not,” he purred, using his body to press me closer to the wall and letting his hand slide down to grip my hip.

“You’re not
what
?” I snapped.

“I’m not finished playing with you,” he breathed, his other hand moving up my side.

When his hand slid past the hem of my skirt and started pushing it up, I felt my first tingle of fear.  I was finally able to name that unpleasant gleam in his eyes when he trapped my gaze in his just as his hand caressed my bare hip.  It was cruelty, plain and simple.  He
wanted
to hurt me. 

When the thumb of his other hand brushed the underside of
my breast I turned away, feeling something I had never felt with him in all the time I had known him.  In that moment, I felt dirty, cheap, and violated. 

“If you’re going to display your charms
, you have to expect someone to take you up on the offer,” he whispered in my ear when I turned my head and closed my eyes.  “You belong to
me
, Ember.  I don’t share my toys.  And the next time you touch what doesn’t belong to you, Jordan, I’m going to rip your damn head off.”

I opened my eyes to see Tyler standing right behind Nathan, his expression murderous.  His shimmering, aura was lit up so bright that it was hard to look at.  The angrier he got the clearer it became—and the hungrier
I
became.  I had to get away from them, both of them, and I needed to do it ASAP. 

Before I did something I wouldn’t be around to regret.

“Take your hands off of her, Ashley.”

The calm tone of Tyler’s voice was more chilling than if he had yelled the order.  The Tyler standing before me wasn’t the Tyler I knew.  There was a sense of leashed violence about him that kind of scared the hell out of me, to be honest.  Seeing the transformation from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde when it’s someone you think you know can be like that sometimes.

With another dark smile, Nathan slowly removed his hands, making sure to touch as much as possible as he did, and backed away.  I tried to cover myself with my arms, so full of shame I felt sick, and Tyler immediately reached for me.  Pulling me close to his side, he took off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders, hiding me from Nathan’s leering gaze.  Even then I kept my eyes down, too ashamed to look at either of them, especially Nathan. 

I hated him.  I hated him for the way he had just
treated me.  I hated him for thinking I still belonged to him even after he had tossed me like I was less important than yesterday’s newspaper.  I just hated
him,
period.

“Are you all right, beautiful?” Tyler asked softly, tilting my chin up with his thumbs.

I don’t know what he saw in my eyes, but one second he was standing there holding my face in his hands, and the next he was across the space dividing him and Nathan.  He slammed him into the wall and then slammed his fist into Nathan’s face.  It was the opportunity Nathan had been waiting for, apparently, because the fight was on.

“Stop it!”  I screamed, running toward them just as
Zan and Ainsley, followed by Kim and Blake, came tearing around the corner.  When they ignored me and just kept punching each other, I ran faster and managed to get between them just as Nathan took another swing.

The side of my face felt like I had been hit by a train and the world exploded in a burst of light and color.  He had put everything he had behind that punch and, had I still been human, I probably would have had a crushed skull. 
Undead or not, though, I was still going to be in some serious pain.  My cheekbone was on fire and, judging by the way my jaw clicked when I tried to grit my teeth so I wouldn’t scream, I figured it was probably broken, too.

“Ember!  Baby, I’m sorry!” Nathan cried, forgetting all about Tyler, when I screamed anyway and grabbed the side of my face.  When he reached for me, I jerked away from him and backed up as fast as I could.

“Don’t
touch
me!” I hissed while trying not to move my mouth any more than necessary.

He took another step toward me, and I backed away faster, tripping on my stupid heels.  I looked over my
shoulder when someone broke my fall to find Kim glaring at Nathan, her eyes full of the reflection of the Witch Fire crackling all over her body.

“Blake, get Em out of here,” she hissed, never taking her eyes off Nathan.

“No, Kim!”  She was out for blood.  If I didn’t do something, she was going to kill Nathan.  As much as he might have deserved it, I couldn’t let her do that.  “He’s not worth it.  Just take me home.”  When she just kept glaring at Nathan, I basically begged.  “Please, Kim!”

“Oh, no!  What did you
do
?” Ainsley whispered in horror, her gaze darting back and forth between my swelling face and Nathan’s stricken expression.  “Nate!  What the hell did you
do
?”

“Shut up, Ainsley,” Zan growled
.  When Nathan started toward me, he placed a firm hand against his chest and held him back, shaking his head.  “Bad idea, bro.  Just let her go.”

“Ember, he didn’t mean it,” Ainsley said, sounding close to tears.  “He didn’t.  You know he wouldn’t…”

I
didn't
know, though.  After the way he had just treated me, I wasn't sure what he was capable of anymore.  All I
did
know was that I wasn't going to stick around to find out. 

I was just about to teleport Kim, Blake, Tyler and I out of there when I got the strangest feeling.  I couldn’t explain it, but it wasn’t good. 

Ainsley's head jerked up to stare at the rooftop above us just as a shot rang out.  In the silence that followed she looked at
me
, her eyes wide, and then down at herself.  I gasped when I saw blood blossoming from a hole in her midsection.  She stumbled back a step, her mouth working but no sound coming out.  Her eyes found mine again and held them even as she began to fall.

“
Jordan!  Get Ember out of here!” Nathan roared, already moving, as Zan caught Ainsley around the waist and lowered her gently to the ground.

I couldn’t tear my eyes from Ainsley’s face.  She was still staring at me, her mouth working in that awful soundless way.  When Tyler reached for me, I dodged him and ran forward instead.  I had to know what she was saying.  I had to hear what she was trying, with her dying breath, to tell me.  I knew instinctively that it was more important than anything else.

From my first step, bullets rained down on all of us.  When Nathan darted forward to intercept me, I dodged him, too.  A bullet barely missed my skull, grazing my already screaming cheek instead, as I threw myself down next to Zan and Ainsley.  He was literally protecting her with his own body.

If Zan seemed shocked when I appeared next to him, he seemed downright frightened when I pushed him off Ainsley’s limp form.  I heard him growl at me
when I wrapped my hand around Ainsley’s and teleported us out of there, but I couldn’t have cared less.  He would just have to get over it.  He could get out.  The others could get out.  Ainsley couldn’t.  I
had
to save Ainsley.

And there was only one person I knew who could do that.

∞§∞§∞§∞

“Grams!  Grams, help me!” I screamed, reappearing in the kitchen of Winters’ Bed & Breakfast where Grams had been staying since returning to town. 

Given that my powers were still coming back after the bind she had put on me, I decided I’d been a little reckless.  My head was spinning like a top and I felt really weird, lighter, like I’d expended too much energy too quickly.  It only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to send a little spasm of fear shooting through me that maybe I’d done something wrong.