Bane's Choice (Vampire Motorcycle Club #1) - Alyssa Day Page 0,33
me, it wasn’t my plan for the day, either. Fucking warlocks.”
They both drank, and then the wolf aimed a direct stare at Edge. “What do you know about them?”
“Unfortunately, not a hell of a lot. We wiped out a nest of them a few days back, north of here in the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge.”
“We go up there and run sometimes,” Reynolds said, his voice hard. “Fucking warlocks, indeed. They have time to kill off all the local wildlife?”
“It was definitely on the decline, but we think we got them before the situation was beyond repair. It was bad. Three warlocks are dead, but the worst of them—a necromancer—managed to escape. We’re looking for him, but the Chamber is very good at covering its tracks.”
Reynolds sat back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “That’s bad.”
“Bad. Yeah. If by bad, you mean apocalyptic. Listen, we should work together on this.” Edge said this without consulting Bane first, because he knew that they’d be in perfect agreement on this one. They already had a truce with the wolves, and as much as he hated to admit it even to himself, even werewolves were better than warlocks.
Barely.
Reynolds thought about it for a minute, to his credit, and then he stood up and held out his hand. “Yeah. Even vampires are better than warlocks.”
Edge almost grinned to hear his own thoughts paralleled so closely, but instead he stood and shook the wolf’s hand. “We’ll be in touch. We’ll find out what we can during the night, and you take the daytime. We’ll send these bastards back to the hell they worship.”
Reynolds nodded. “This is our territory, and we’re not going to let any fucking warlocks take it over. We’re with you, man. Have Bane check in.”
“Will do.” Edge put the empty bottle down on the desk and turned to go, his mind running scenarios for possibly tracking the Chamber operatives through the dark web.
That’s why he wasn’t on guard against the wolf who attacked him when he opened the office door.
Chapter Fifteen
The doctor didn’t run.
She didn’t scream.
She didn’t do anything that a thousand other humans had done when confronted with Bane in his most fearsome, almost-feral state.
Instead, she laughed in his face.
After the long, long moment it took for him to swallow his shock, he started laughing, too.
“Okay, that was a bit much,” he admitted.
“Prepare to die?” She put one hand against the glass wall of the shower, as if she had to hold herself up because she was laughing too hard to stand upright.
“It wasn’t that funny,” he growled.
She wiped her eyes with the corner of one of the towels she still held. “Oh, no. It really, really was. I mean, kill me if you must, but spare me the melodramatic threats. You’re no Inigo Montoya.”
A dark spear of anger caught him by surprise. “Who the fuck is this Montoya? Is he your lover?”
Does he need to die?
Her eyes widened. “Is he my…are you kidding? Have you never seen The Princess Bride?”
The conversation was spiraling out of control, fast. On the other hand, the way she was laughing was doing extremely interesting things to her curves, and suddenly he forgot about everything but the way she looked and the way his cock was hardening nearly to the point of pain.
If she’d only quit laughing, maybe he could convince her to let him strip her clothes off her lush body and carry her into the shower, where he’d soap down every single inch of that pearly, nearly translucent skin until she begged him to put his mouth on her.
Interesting how the glow in her skin calmed down when she started to laugh. It was definitely a symptom of heightened emotion. He’d seen fear, anger, and—he hoped—arousal cause it.
He stood there, frozen, listening to her musical laugh, wishing she were laughing with him and not at him, and realized the truth: he’d started giving a damn about her consent exactly when she told him she’d never, ever give it to him.
He stilled. He’d never taken a woman’s body without her agreement, but he’d taken blood from many people—both men and women—without their consent. Many, by force. He’d made them forget afterward, but that didn’t mitigate his sins. He had done horrible things in his centuries in the dark, and he could never be redeemed for any of them.
Even to touch this brave human—this healer—would be a grotesque affront.
Darkness besmirching the sunlight.
She’d braved his wrath and even taken the knowledge of what he was—what all of