Mait strolled out of the strip club toward St. Louis Number One. “So will I,” I whispered, and followed.
Ruthie had said payment must be made, and I knew that was true. She’d also said that the dead couldn’t be raised without consequences.
I didn’t care. Two of the four people left on this earth whom I cared about were in trouble, and I could save them. All I had to do was embrace the darkness. Again.
I’d done it before, wound up a vampire. I wondered what doing it this time would make me.
Never sleep with a Nephilim.
“Shut up,” I told Sawyer, though I knew he wasn’t really there. The only way he’d ever be there was if I did whatever I had to do to get him back.
Summer had accused me of being unable to love enough. Would I choose a fate worse than death, the worst thing I could imagine, pledge eternity in the flames just to save someone I loved? I hadn’t known the answer then, but now I did.
If I did this I could save them all. Theoretically.
I swallowed. I could do it. I’d just close my eyes and think of—
“England,” I whispered as Mait turned onto Toulouse Street.
I’d been willing to give Sawyer up, had believed I was doing the right thing. However, I wasn’t willing to let his daughter go, or Jimmy, either. That was too much to ask. If I had to sacrifice my body, my mind, my life—so be it.
Having made the decision, I was suddenly calm. Which gave me a near hyper-focus. Everything around me receded—the music, the lights, the people—except for Mait, who seemed to be shrouded in a silvery gray sheen that set him apart from everyone else.
I needed to draw him away somewhere quiet and secluded where I could first seduce him, then kill him.
Yeah, I was one of the good guys.
After toying with several versions of what to do next—buy a disguise, accost him in a dark alley, lie—I realized the truth. All I had to do was let him catch me. He was a Nephilim. Nature would take its course.
I didn’t try to be quiet, didn’t really try to hide, and a few blocks from St. Louis Number One I no longer saw Mait ahead of me. As I passed a thin alleyway, a dark hand reached out and yanked me in.
“What do you think you are doin’?” Mait’s emerald eyes shone despite the lack of light between the buildings.
“Following you.”
“And why would that be? You and your friend already took all that I had.”
Not all, I thought.
“He wasn’t my friend,” I said. “He was a double-crossing snake.” Since he was, my words rang true.
Mait tilted his head, and the shadow of the moon cast over his face. He was really quite beautiful. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
Mait’s lips curved. My answering smile froze when he slammed me against the nearest wall hard enough to rattle my teeth and a few more of my brains.
“Perhaps you were lookin’ for dis?” He held Jimmy’s charmed dagger against my throat. No wonder we hadn’t been able to find it. “You meant to kill me.”
I met his eyes and didn’t answer. Why lie?
His teeth flashed. He lifted the flat of the blade and slid it first down my cheek then along the curve of my neck. “Afraid?” he whispered.
Not of the knife.
“You made a promise.” The weapon continued its path, over my right breast, down my ribs, my hips, then across my stomach and back up the other side. “One you did not keep. But we will remedy dat.”
He stepped in close, his body brushing mine. His remedy poked me in the stomach. I tried to jerk away, and ended up smacking my tailbone against the bricks.
I hissed in a pained breath, and Mait laughed. “Do you think you might cry? I like it when dey cry.” He leaned over and licked my cheekbone. His breath smelled like Bourbon Street, or maybe that was just bourbon—and rot. “I will have you.”
Since that was what I’d planned all along, I should have been happier about it. However, I was starting to catch a vibe. Mait liked to force women. He liked to hurt them, to make them cry. I could use that.
“No,” I said, my voice breaking right on cue. “Let me go.”
I fought, but my struggles only rubbed us together harder and faster, which was how he began to breathe, and so did I.
His free hand captured my wrists, drawing them above my head, pressing them against the wall, which only settled our bodies into more perfect alignment. He lowered his head, nuzzling my neck, breathing in as if to memorize my scent forever, then took a fold of my skin into his mouth and worried it between tongue and teeth until pain and pleasure meshed.
“You will like it,” he whispered. “Dis I promise.”
I wiggled again, as if trying to slip away. In truth, I was becoming aroused. I didn’t want to, but I needed to. To steal his magic required more than the act, it required fulfillment. To absorb the power, I needed to open myself, accept him, and—
Hell, basically, I needed to come.