He choked out a noise. “I can’t speak, ease up.”
I released my hold.
He wrapped an arm around my thigh and slammed me to the ground. He was on top of me, pinning down my shoulders and hips in the time it took to blink. His cologne flooded my sense of smell. I fought for an opening, but every strike I made he caught and forced to the ground. Panic birthed a fury in me. I attempted to lash out any way I could.
“Stop struggling. I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Plus, you have the smell of wolf on you; I can’t stand being this close to you for long.”
With my struggle, I felt the fire spark inside my chest. Heat hummed through the air toward him. He flinched back and flicked his eyes down to me. In that instant they’d changed from blue to swirling black pools.
“You smell. You are going to take a shower to calm down. Then you are going to come out and have a civil conversation with me,” he said.
My insides screamed as he let me up, and I robotically walked into the bathroom. I tried to close the door, but my body wasn’t my own. Instead my limbs hung at my side, and the door stayed open. Andre watched, sitting back in his chair with one eyebrow raised as I stripped down.
“Sorry,” he said. “Wasn’t much time to be specific.”
Every instinct in my body recoiled, but my hands kept completing the task they’d been ordered. I stepped into the shower, red-faced with nothing but my necklace on. At least there was a shower curtain, so my shattered dignity had a momentary place to hide. The hot water hit my skin, igniting it with pleasure. After hours in the woods, a shower was a moment of bliss. My rib cage bore a huge bruise which matched the one on my leg. I unwrapped the tiny hotel toiletries, my body still on autopilot.
When I finished, I opened the curtain and stepped out. Water soaked the floor as I walked toward him. My cheeks burned with heat. I tried to will one of my arms to snatch a towel on the way out the door, but they just felt numb. I stopped before him, water pooling at my feet on ground.
“Miss Dalca, would you please sit down?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Andre.” I felt like a droid, following dutifully while my instincts wanted the opposite. I fought to draw up my earth magic. Focusing my will, I called to it, but the Charm didn’t answer. Andre never specified how long our civilized conversation was going to last.
A warm sensation passed over my skin and my senses snapped back under my control. My arm jolted with the delayed message from my brain, and I lunged off my seat for a towel. I wrapped it around myself frantically.
His eyes turned back to blue as he laughed. “I’m glad your need for a towel won over your need to strangle me. You really are just a baby vampy.”
I was so angry my hands shook. My fangs broke through the roof of my mouth, and my skin crawled with the need to tear him apart.
“Is being naked really that embarrassing for you?” he asked.
“You’re here for a reason,” I said. “You were hired to come here. Why? By whom?”
“I’ve been hired by a benefactor to find you,” he said, “and retrieve the appropriate verification of your identity. Once that’s been completed, I’m to deliver you out of the country to my benefactor.”
I believed the person who hired him might be someone who could help, but unless it was the person at the address, I would be wary. Still, Andre shared a valuable truth—he needed me. I also had a ride out of the country. My toes began to tingle with a familiar sensation. It was my earth magic I summoned. I need more time.
“What type of verification do you need?” I asked and paced the perimeter of his reach, careful not to look at his eyes.
“Your birth records, and your mother’s birth-certificate,” he said.
Interesting. Mine alone wasn’t enough. “And how do you plan on getting those things?” I could feel the magic building in my chest. I focused on a protective spell, and hoped I remembered it right.
“You’re going to tell me,” he said. “Or even better, give them to me, and don’t think I can’t feel what you’re doing right now.”
He launched from the chair, his mouth wide and fangs gleaming, causing me to flinch. Within my pause he’d closed the distance. His frightening black eyes reappeared, and he slammed me up against the wall. “Tell me where to find the certificates,” he said.
But he was too late.
I let go of the climaxed power in fear, the second he’d sprung from the chair. Now, I stared down the dark pools of his eyes and felt their lure, but my own magic hummed within me. My body was my own. I laughed in his face. “Aw Andre, I wish I could,” I said. “But my house burned down and I’m on the run. If you want my help, you’re going to help me first.”
“How about, I just rip your throat out instead?” His body shook, and the air crackled around him. Veins of violet lightning streamed across his body, shocking my skin where we touched.
“Now now, Andre, you can’t touch the cargo,” I said. “Your benefactor didn’t go through all this trouble for you to deposit my dead body.” I hoped.
The dark lightning around him grew, hitting my skin like needle pricks. He held me against the wall, and the drywall cracked behind me. His black eyes honed in on my neck. His face grew closer with each pulse in my throat, which boomed like a drum in my ears. My instinct was to fight—but incinerating my ride out of the country wasn’t ideal.
He ran his lips down my neck, sending goosebumps sprawling across my skin.
“If…this is going to work,” I said.
He paused at the base of my throat.
“Then we need to make a deal,” I said.
He laughed and the wet of his mouth touched my skin.
“You can’t…” I said.
“No?” he asked.
I cringed at my own stammering voice. Pleading wouldn’t help. “Do it,” I said. “Do it and see what your benefactor does to you.” I was bluffing, but I forced more power into my voice. “What will the big bad Andre do then?”
He tore himself away, punching his fist into the wall. The violet electricity which coated his skin flew from him in a sizzling blast. It burned like a comet into the drywall and a chemical smell filled the air. A large charred crater was all that remained on the wall. He extended his hand to the ceiling and ripped the fire alarm off before the smoke wafted up against the panels, then sat down.
“What are your demands?” he asked.
As gracefully as I could manage in a towel, I sat down. “I want the name of your benefactor. I need to know what’s going on, his interest in me. If you give me this, then I will go with you willingly. But first you have to use your crazy mind powers to get my stuff from my dorm.” It felt silly to tack on, but I needed my clothes.
“Fine, but ladies first,” he said. “Where are the certificates?”
“Benefactor first or you don’t get them,” I said.
“Your uncle. Now, where?” he said.
What the hell type of uncle hires him? I eyed the leather duffle bag by the bed. I needed more information on this man. I needed to know his story was true.
“In my pack beside you, in the wooden box at the top,” I said.
He rummaged through the bag, then a gold sphere of light burst outward. With a whooshing noise he flew from his chair and collided with the ceiling. His body fell back to the ground with a thump, and lay limp on the floor.