“Piper,” he says. His brows are raised, the warning in his voice is clear, but I pounce without another thought, tapping into the speed and strength I wouldn’t even have if he had just kept walking, picked another bar, or another girl. I collide with his solid form and bite into his neck in one motion. The blood flows into my mouth and coats my tongue. I swallow instinctively, and the burning in my throat fades. My muscles relax, and I notice a haze seeping in at the edges of my mind- his arm hooks around my waist, pulling me closer. The fog is growing heavier by the second. I feel my fangs retract, my breathing slows, and my head slumps against Bane’s shoulder. The last thing I hear before my world goes dark is my own faint gasp as he lifts me off the ground and pulls me into his chest.
When I open my eyes, it’s dark, and my head is spinning. I feel around me, it doesn’t take long to realize I’m laying in a bed, but it's not my bed, and it's definitely not my apartment. I jump up and focus my eyes, willing them to adjust to the pitch-black space around me. They do, sort of. I make out a huge barn-style-door on the opposite end of the room, and I’m shocked when it pulls open easily. I blink against the warm overhead light and step into a vast open concept living area. To say I’m disoriented wouldn’t even begin to describe how I feel, I run my fingers through my hair and touch my back pockets, searching for my phone and coming up empty. Then I see Bane standing at a massive kitchen island, leaning on his forearms, head low. The night comes flooding back to me. Every minute, every detail, and if guilt could kill, I’d be six feet under right now. I swallow and open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. For the first time since he broke into my apartment and told me that he’d turned me, I’m not filled with anger, hatred. No matter what he did to me, he also saved me from making the biggest mistake of my life. He kept Kit alive when I was seconds from tearing him apart. I stand in the doorway until he lifts his head, and his eyes meet mine. He inhales and exhales deeply, but he doesn't move. I'm frozen like a deer in headlights, a very guilty deer.
“How do you feel?” he asks, straightening his back and crossing his arms at his chest.
“Not great,” I admit. Slowly walking toward the island. I notice that the dry, burning sensation has returned in my throat, and my stomach feels hollow with hunger, but the memories of the night are sobering and hold me together.
“You need to call your friend,” he says, sliding my phone across the black marble.
I look around, sure he must be talking to someone else, but sure enough, we’re alone.
“I don’t understand… You saw me in there, we both know that ship has sailed.”
“He was drunk, he blacked out after drinking something out of a mystery flask, and when he woke up in his apartment, his best friend had grown fangs and was on the verge of drinking his blood. Then, in the blink of an eye, she disappeared,” he explains, retrieving a blood bag from the fridge and shoving it back across the island. “I think we can fix this.”
“We?” I ask skeptically, looking over my shoulder again to confirm that he’s actually talking to me. “I went rogue, I broke a bunch of your underground vampire rules, I almost killed a human and then I attacked you. Why the hell would you help me?”
“You wouldn’t be in this mess at all if it weren’t for me,” he says, scrubbing a hand across his jaw before he continues. “I know you hate me. I get it, but I also know that you need me if you’re going to adjust to this life.”
He’s right about almost everything anyway. I press my eyes shut tight, and huff out a deep breath before I swallow my pride and blurt out the words that will change everything, for me at least.
“I don’t hate you,” I admit, leaning against the opposite side of the island and watching his eyes for any glimmer of a reaction. I’ve learned two things in the short time I’ve known Bane. The first, he definitely doesn’t wear his feelings on his sleeve, his mood is basically a coin toss, and if I want to know how he feels, I'm going to have to pay attention to the deep, stormy ocean waves staring back at me. The second is that despite what he did to me, I just can’t shake him. It's stupid and potentially toxic, but from the moment he approached me in the bar, I was hooked. Even in his most dangerous moments, his voice and proximity are enough to simultaneously send shivers down my spine while an intense heat pools in my core. It's not just a crush; this man hasn't just gotten under my skin. His venom courses through me with every breath, every beat of my heart, and I can't deny this connection for pride's sake anymore. He's absolutely right about one thing though, If I'm going to come out of this with my humanity intact, I need him, in a profound, possibly addictive way.
His eyes share no secrets, but for a split second, I could have sworn I heard an uptick in his pulse, a single jump of his heartbeat, but it was so fast I can't be sure, I could have imagined it. I’m clearly not at the top of my game tonight, and with my hunger growing, everything feels off- my senses and emotions. I look down at the gray and white veins running through the sleek black stone beneath my forearms, deciding in a rare moment of complete clarity that I need to fix this alone, bolt, and head home before I can add anything else to my list of regrets from tonight.
I slide the untouched blood back across the counter, tuck my phone into my back pocket and force a small smile onto my face.
“I know you’re trying to do the right thing, and I appreciate it. I really do, but I should do this alone, you know, to avoid making this whole mess more complicated than it needs to be.” I huff out a deep breath, press my eyes shut, and head toward the front door.
My hand barely connects with the handle before a low snarl has every hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I feel the familiar chill of Bane's breath, ragged and heavy just inches from my back, then his hands are on my hips, and I can feel my mind losing focus.
“This is already complicated,” he says. His voice is perfectly balanced, sweet as honey, and as dark and smooth as my favorite cup of coffee, and just as likely to burn me with that first sip. His scent envelops me, and I feel every one of my muscles beginning to melt. He turns me around, pressing me against the door, and I notice that his eyes are like steel, as dark and dangerous as the first night he came to my apartment. I feel my breath hitch, lodging in my throat as my pulse rises. Part of me is tempted to look away, but the rest of me can't pull my gaze from his. Then I notice something else there- something I overlooked before. Deep within the darkness, mixed into the storm brewing behind his eyes, I see a familiar emotion- need. It's identical to the feelings I’ve been fighting for him, I know it. The need for the same uninhibited connection we shared the night he turned me, the intimacy we shared at his club before everything came crashing down. Without another thought I curl my fingers into his hair, tugging at the tousled strands, and as soon as our lips meet, tongues intertwined I know this is it, the reason I’m so tense when he’s around, and the reason I can’t get him off my mind when he’s not.
His fingers press into my hips as his tongue explores my mouth, pulling away slightly to nip and suck at my bottom lip. He lifts me off the ground, and I wrap my legs around his waist, desperate to be as close as possible, to discover everything I’ve been missing. A second later, he breaks our kiss, looking back at me with more emotion than I thought he was capable of showing.