Bane's Choice (Vampire Motorcycle Club #1) - Alyssa Day Page 0,65
him,” Sylvie scoffed, stretching like a cat. “They only use humans for food, except for their servants. He’s probably just fucking her before he kills her. We can’t use a human as leverage over a vampire, Constantin. It would be like trying to use a pork chop as leverage over a hungry lion. It might annoy him for a minute or two, but then he’d turn around and rip your throat out and to hell with the pork chop.”
He sneered at her. Her metaphors were as tiresome as the stupid Goth clothes she’d been wearing for the past forty or so years.
“Well, this pork chop is a doctor, and the Minor demon followed Bane to a hospital, didn’t he? So maybe the pork chop is more important than we know. Put somebody on her.”
“But—”
“Now.”
She stalked out of the room, careful to swear at him beneath her breath so he couldn’t quite call her out on it. Or so she thought. One of these days, he’d decide he was tired of her insubordination, tired of her mouth, and tired of her stupid clothing choices.
And then she’d be the pork chop.
He started laughing, and the human cringing on the floor started to weep.
Constantin smiled. He loved it when he made the pork chops cry.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Why don’t you ride up here with me so Meara can sleep in the back and you can look out at the scenery?” Mr. C opened the door to the front passenger seat and smiled at Ryan.
She glanced at Meara, who waved her in and then yawned before climbing into the back and pulling the door closed. Before they even pulled out of the garage, though, Meara rolled down the privacy glass and tapped Ryan on the shoulder.
“Really? In the car?”
Before Ryan could answer or even have time to wish a hole would open up in the floorboard and swallow her up, Meara pealed out a laugh, leaned back, and powered the window back up. Face burning, Ryan resolutely stared out the side window so she didn’t have to see Mr. C’s expression.
“Don’t mind them, Doc,” he said cheerfully. “They just don’t understand human embarrassment after all these years. When they found out Mrs. Cassidy and I were out skinny dipping in the pool, we didn’t hear the end of it for weeks.”
Ryan thought about how long ago that must have been, given the Cassidys’ ages.
“And that was just last month.” He shook his head. “Why have a pool if you don’t sneak in a midnight swim once in a while, I say.”
“Last month,” she said faintly.
Wow. Even septuagenarians had more exciting love lives than she did.
Not anymore.
Her thighs clenched as she remembered exactly what they’d been doing in that backseat, and she realized she’d put up with any amount of embarrassment for another round of that.
Mr. Cassidy pushed a button, and both of their windows rolled down, letting in the steamy fall air. “Too beautiful to always be cooped up in the dark when you don’t have to, am I right? Especially in these parts.”
In the light of the morning sun coming through the window, though, he looked tired.
“Is it a lot, trying to keep vampire hours?”
He glanced over at her, his smile fading. “No, not usually. We get plenty of sleep. I’ve just been fighting a bug, I think. Pretty tired.”
“Do you want me to take a look?” She didn’t want to be pushy, but maybe he was hinting, and she’d be glad to check him out.
“Oh, no, no. I’ll have a nap later, and I’ll be fine. See what’s over there?”
Ryan decided to keep an eye on him and take his temperature later, when she had her bag. She looked out the window, realizing that she really had no idea where they were, and then sat up straight in her seat. “Hey! That’s Bonaventure Cemetery! I didn’t realize we were all the way out here. It’s so beautiful.”
“Yep. The house is right on the Wilmington River, too, just down a ways from Bonaventure.” He glanced over at her. “The cemetery doesn’t frighten you, does it?”
“No. I think it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen,” she admitted. “My gran took me there a lot when I was a little girl, to pay our respects to the dead, as she used to say. She claimed she saw ghosts there all the time, but I’ve always been a scientist. I’ve never believed…” Her voice trailed off when she realized what she’d been about to