“Let me go.” I try to wiggle out of Bran’s grip, but he has my back crushed against his chest, his arm still locked around my waist. It’s like fighting the wind—pointless.
Evan lurches to his feet. “The fuck, Duval?”
“The little mouse has had enough for one night,” Bran says. “She’s leaving.”
“Quit calling me that! And I am not leaving.”
I was just starting to have fun.
“You don’t control her,” Evan argues. “She isn’t even from a Duval family, for Christ’s sake.”
“And she’s not wolf bait either,” Bran says.
“And she is standing right here,” I say.
Bianca appears in my line of sight, but her gaze is firmly on Bran. I think they might be close to the same height, so being stuck between them, I really do feel like a mouse.
“Bran,” Bianca says. “What are you doing?” Her voice is level. There’s no snark, no accusatory bend to her question. It’s just a question. And the way she delivers it begs it to be answered.
“Yeah,” I say. “What are you doing?” As if she needs my drunken help.
Bran pushes me behind him, but he keeps one hand wrapped around my wrist. He takes a step toward Bianca, proving that he does have a few inches on her. She folds her arms over her chest.
Get him, Bianca! Curse him!
But then she frowns and steps back, and I realize that here, Bran is the oldest by several centuries. He out ranks us all. Even in Midnight, where different factions operate by their own code, Bran is clearly at the top of the unspoken hierarchy.
No one messes with Bran Duval.
I know that.
I’ve always known that.
Sam steps forward. She’s been downing drinks just as quickly as I have, so she’s got the courage of alcohol and the fierceness of a best friend at her back. “I would like it very much if you got your hands off my best friend.” Sam sways as she delivers this request.
“Who here is sober?” Bran asks the crowd.
Adam, the other wolf, raises his hand.
“Take that one home,” Bran says when he points a finger at Sam.
Adam nods and hurries to Sam’s side.
“Jess?” Sam says.
I scowl up at Bran. He looks down at me, and I catch a glint of fangs.
“I’ll be okay,” I tell Sam. “I brought my backup stake.”
Bran snorts.
“You sure?” Sam’s expression hardens. “I could call the Guard.”
Bran rolls his eyes.
“I’m sure.”
Adam puts his hand gently at Sam’s lower back and motions her toward the parking lot.
Bran tucks me in beneath his arm, his hand on my hip, and using his vampire speed, tears us away from the Harbor.
The first time I was introduced to vampire speed, I was five.
Julian Locke and several other Locke vampires came over for a BBQ. One of the female Lockes, Sasha, threw me onto her back, told me to hold on tight, and carried me away into the night.
It was like riding a roller coaster. That was what I told my mom later when Sasha deposited me, starry-eyed and breathless, by the bonfire.
“She was so fast!” I shouted and everyone laughed.
Being carried off by Bran is nothing like that.
It’s like being caught in a tornado.
His speed is ten times faster than Sasha’s.
And when he stops and rights me in the middle of Midnight Cemetery, it takes the world about another full minute to catch up to me.
Bran puts his hands on my shoulders, keeping me upright.
When I finally have my bearings, I curl my hand into a fist and punch Bran.
Except I’m a human, and he’s a vampire, and he catches my punch easily.
“No,” he says. That’s it. Just no.
I fight to get my hand back, but he won’t let me go, and worse, he doesn’t budge an inch as I flail in his grip.
“Why are…you—” I yank harder “—being such…an…asshole?!”
He lets me go abruptly, and I stumble back.
He turns away and stalks toward the cemetery fountain. I can hear the water splashing into the pool, but it’s too dark to make out the bronzed shape of the intertwined lovers at the fountain’s center.
“Running with the dogs?” Bran says to the darkness. “Beneath you, little mouse.”
I let out a growl of frustration and charge at him and leap on his back.
He deftly swings me around, and in a blink, he has me pressed against the trunk of an old oak tree.
The air leaves my lungs in a useless gasp.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, mouse.”
“Stop fucking calling me that.”
His eyes flash in the darkness, and the prey in me shrinks beneath his stare. My skin erupts in goosebumps.
“This is your fault, you know,” I say, and as the words come out, I know I’ve just set my own trap.
Bran laughs, low and beneath his breath. “My fault? How so?”
“You told me not to wear panties, so by the time I got to the Harbor, I was horny as hell.”
What I don’t say is that I thought he was going to come to the party for me, but I think he knows that.
His gaze levels, dangerous and dark. “So you threw yourself to the wolves?”
“He was willing.”
I lick my lips, and Bran watches my tongue dart out. I feel him grow hard against my thigh, and that burns away the last of the alcohol in my bloodstream. It yanks me back into reality.
He’s hard.
Because of me.
A thrill builds in my belly.
Bran’s hand comes to my face. His fingertips press hard at my jaw, but his thumb is gentle as he wipes the wetness from my lips.
“And now?” he asks. “Are you horny now?”
“Nope.”
He leans in and puts his mouth at my ear. “Liar.”
With no fabric to shield me, my wetness is coating my inner thighs. I knew he’d know that, but I like watching how he reacts to my defiance.
“Why did you bait me anyway? Tell me to go commando?” I squirm beneath his weight, but he just presses closer. “Was this your plan all along? Get me riled up and see what I’d do about it? Then show up at the Harbor at the last minute just to humiliate me?”
He laughs. “No. I did it to test your obedience.”
My eyes widen, and I grit my teeth and start swinging, but he dodges me easily and then catches both wrists, pinning them above my head.
I don’t know how I keep ending up in this position with him, but I both like and hate it.
Bran drops his free hand down to the hem of my skirt, fingers trailing along the press of my thighs.
A thrill races up to my core.
“If you want my help mouse,” he says, “then you need to listen to me.”
My eyes flutter closed as his fingers slip beneath my skirt. “I don’t need your help.”
“No?”
My entire body tenses up like a flower curling beneath the heat of a wild flame.
I’m going to get burned, but there’s nothing I’ve ever wanted more than what I want in this moment.
I want him to touch me. Hell, I’ve fantasized about this so many times, I have to wonder if this is a dream.
His fingers coax my legs open, and I readjust, opening my thighs for him.
“Do you really plan to leave Midnight without knowing why your sister is pawning you off?”
I can feel the heat of his touch just inches from my wet center. He’s so close. So impossibly close.
A moan escapes me, and I squirm in his grip.
“Mouse?”
“Huh?”
“Look at me.”
I open my eyes to find his glowing impossibly gold. It’s the flame all over again, burning bright in the dark.
“Look at me when I touch you.”
And then he sinks two fingers inside of me, and my world comes undone.
