Blood and Hexes (After Darkness Falls #4) - May Sage
Under the Surface
Diana Helsing considered herself a patient person, but if the regular human spouting line after line didn’t catch the memo anytime soon, she was going to snap his neck. It would be a service to mankind, truly.
“So, did your license get suspended for driving all the guys crazy?”
She groaned. “Stop, please, I’m begging you. You’re hot,” she admitted. The guy was just her type: tall, dark, and handsome. He must have had Italian or Spanish roots—she couldn’t quite place the look, and though she was naturally curious, she sure as hell wasn’t going to ask for his name to see if she could pinpoint his origins from it. It’d only encourage him. “But then you had to open your mouth, and given what came out of it, there is no way in hell I’ll ever end up in bed with you.”
The idiot winked. “It doesn’t have to be a bed, sweetheart. I’m flexible like that.”
Diana forced a calming breath out. It had been over a hundred years since she’d spilled human blood—a record she was proud of and wanted to keep intact. She was not breaking it tonight of all nights. She was on the continent for the first time since the Great Fire of London. Tonight was supposed to be a night of fun, indulgence, and above all, distraction. In the morning, she was flying up to Scotland and heading to Oldcrest. The place of her birth. Her home.
A home she hadn’t set a foot in for close to nine hundred years.
Diana had been changed nine hundred and one years ago, at age twenty-one. Early, for a fledgling of the House of Helsing. They normally waited until their twenty-fifth year. They hadn’t had much choice in her case.
She gestured to the bartender, who promptly abandoned the cocktail he was mixing to come serve her.
“What can I get you?”
“Just the check, sweetheart,” she replied, flashing him a grin.
She needed to get out of here before the Casanova wannabe trampled over her last nerve.
“Oh, I see,” the guy snapped, his smooth tone gone. “Miss Prissy’s too good for me, but you’ll slum it with a servant.”
Her eyes slid away from the bar, back to Tall, Dark, Handsome, and Dumb. A quick once-over, and she noticed the expensive watch, bespoke suit, and polished shoes she’d missed at first glance. So, he was one of them. The legacies who believed themselves entitled to anything they wanted because of the money Daddy had inherited.
She grinned at him. “That’s exactly it.”
The bartender handed her the check, but remained in front of them, looking between Diana and the boy who practically begged to become her prey. “Is everything all right?”
“No one asked you,” the rich boy spat. “It’s between me and her.”
“There’s nothing between me and you, boo,” she quipped with an air kiss.
Diana pulled a fifty out of her bra and handed it to the bartender. “Keep the change, will you?”
The bartender remained where he was, a glare fixed on the boy. “If he’s bothering you, I can ask him to leave.”
Wasn’t he sweet? He thought she needed help.
“I can manage him, but thank you.”
“Oh, yeah, you can manage me all right,” Rich and Dumb said suggestively, his eyes undressing her.
Ugh. That was quite enough of that. Diana stopped purposely slowing down her motion, moving with all the nature speed and strength of her kind, so fast she was just a blur to the humans in the bar. She would have been a blur to most sups, too. Her fingers wrapped around the boy’s throat and squeezed it. She could practically taste his fear in the air, teasing her senses.
Against her lower lip, Diana felt the points of her extended fangs. She didn’t need a mirror to know her dark eyes had turned blood-red in her anger.
“Here’s three lessons for you, baby boy,” she drawled, bringing her face to his ear. “When a lady says no, she means it. You don’t need to ask twenty-nine times. That’s just pathetic.” She tightened her grip. “Secondly, the whole class war thing is so last century. Your daddy has money. Get over it. He could lose it like this.” She snapped her fingers with her free hand. “Especially if, say, you happen to piss off a girl who can make sure all of his investments blow up by the end of the night. How would you like that?”
The boy was struggling against her hold, his fear more intoxicating with every moment.