Forget About Midnight (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #9)

He pressed his lips tight together and shook his head, like he didn’t trust himself to speak. It occurred to me that the erection pressed against me had also touched my sister, and for just a moment, I faltered. This wasn’t about sex with Briggs or even feeding off Briggs. It was about proving myself as the dominant of the two of us. Considering all that this man had done to me, it was irrefutably necessary.

There wasn’t a single part of me that wanted him. Like most human victims, Briggs was a means to an end. He just didn’t have what I hungered for most. Sure he was human, and the blood pumping through his veins tempted me as did the arousal between his legs, but there was something missing. Power. He didn’t have it.

Kylarai had been right. She’d once told me that I was power hungry, seeking it out in my lovers. There was no denying that now. What had occurred with Falon was evidence of her accuracy.

I wanted to place some of the blame for that on the evil in the building. Surely it had driven us past the point of reason. But what if it hadn’t? What if Falon had just been a prime source of power that I couldn’t resist? Even worse, what if I simply didn’t want to resist?

I wanted to feel guilty, but in the heat of the moment with the power raging through me and through Briggs, it just wasn’t possible.

“Tell me where my sister is,” I said, a command fueled by a force he wasn’t trained to combat.

“I sent her to Las Vegas,” he said, surprising me. “To keep an eye on your vampires there. I know that the Vegas FPA has been compromised. Juliet took a team to look into it.”

The backhand that I threw at Briggs snapped his head to one side. Blood stained the corner of his lip. I leaned in to run my tongue over it, and he shuddered. Even as he tried to be revolted, his body betrayed him, flooding me in lust and want.

“She just left town without her phone? No questions asked? Did she know you were luring me into a trap?” I ran a hand through his hair and nipped at his bottom lip.

Through glazed eyes, he regarded me with hostile desire. “No. She was instructed to gather her team and leave immediately without a word to anyone, especially not to you. I told her I would let you know she was away on assignment.”

I thought of my sister in Las Vegas, spying on Jenner and Kale. Then I considered what Jenner would do if he caught her. He’d made no secret of his interest in her.

“Las Vegas is not safe. I want you to get her back here. Like now.”

He shook his head and mumbled something that I had to coax him to repeat. He was falling a little too far under my thrall. “I can’t. I ran the assignment order through head office. She’s scheduled to be there until the Vegas FPA is running smoothly again.”

“Too bad. Send someone else. Bring her home, Briggs.”

“It doesn’t work that way. Every agent is considered equally capable and equally at risk. Juliet can take care of herself.” The fact that he said it while under my spell meant he really believed it. Still, it didn’t make me feel any better.

I smacked him again, a closed fist this time. Some people might say abusing an unarmed man with his hands cuffed behind his back while mind fucking him was sadistic and evil. Well, some people were wrong.

“If I have to go there and drag her home myself, I’m going to make sure that Shya makes what’s left of your pitiful life a living hell.” My tongue darted out to catch the next bead of blood that welled up from his lip. His blood was rich and strong, thrumming with vitality.

Briggs turned his head to kiss me, caught himself mid-action, and pulled back as far as the couch would let him. He was a fighter. I liked that.

“I sent her there to keep her from ruining her career,” he said, as if he couldn’t hold the confession back. “If she got caught helping you, her entire life would be ruined. I care about her. Would be nice if you acted like you did as well.”

I grabbed his face and forced him to meet my eyes. “I made the mistake of trusting you because of how much I care about her. I turned myself in when I thought she was in trouble.”

Briggs laughed, but it was a drunken sound. “So you did. Maybe you have a heart after all.”

“You have no fucking idea.”

Because I was infuriated and insulted, I turned up the heat and flooded Briggs with the drug-like force that would make him mine. And just when he’d begun to murmur, “Please,” over and over, I targeted the unblemished side of his neck and bit deep.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fucking love feasting on Agent Briggs. Though he lacked the power rush I craved, his rich, strong blood and virile lust more than sated my bloodlust. It appeased my personal need to victimize the stuffy Fed too.

My dark side wanted to take this all the way, to leave him a bloodless corpse with a smile on his face. The dragon on my forearm reminded me why that wasn’t the plan.

The softer side of me was disappointed that giving Briggs to Shya would mean some new agent to take his place and be a royal pain in my ass. There was a gamble in what I was doing. The new agent could be much worse than Briggs, if that were possible.