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“Go show her why we call you Vicious,” Danny encouraged. Then, lowering her voice, she followed it up with, “Or get your ass beat.”

“Don’t worry,” Dana called, having no trouble catching their words thanks to her vampire hearing. She leaned her cheek against the top rope. “I’ll be gentle.”

dana

. . .

I meant to be gentle,especially since mortal bodies were just so…fragile.

But my vicious little human had other plans.

She struck out with shocking efficacy, not bothering to pull punches for the sake of flirting like I’d carelessly assumed she would.

Ilovedit.

“Come on,” Vi taunted, bouncing from foot to foot with the agility of someone who’d spent a fair amount of time inside the ring. “I’m not made of glass, Dana.”

Ah, there it was.

She didn’t want me to think of her as weak.

Impossible, anyway. Anyone with eyes could tell that there was more to Vi than what was on the surface. She was smart, quick as a whip, driven, and brave.

Most people who’d been attacked by a vampire would’ve spent a couple of days cowering in their bed, and yet here she was—stepping up to me in the ring, insisting that I take her seriously.

“You want the heat, Striker? Fine, you got it.”

I didn't expect her to be so fast, or so willing to throw a damn hard punch after she’d just been injured, but she went for it. Her fist whizzing past my head drawing my attention to the thin scar that remained. It made my insides clench with anger and, worse,guilt.

Who healed it? Juniper, maybe?

Should I have offered to do it before I sent her home?

It was my fault she’d been bitten; I’d been so distracted reliving my private peepshow that I’d barely been paying attention to the security feeds. I should’ve noticed when she was alone behind the bar. Should've been there quicker to deal with the vampire that had dared to cross the line and touch one of my girls.

Ren had the right idea, laying him out. If it hadn’t been in public, in the middle of my covens bar, I would’ve doneworse.

I sidestepped her punch, returning with one of my own—too wide—that she dodged easily. Vi ducked under my arm, landing a strike hard in my gut, forcing me to stagger backwards with a wheeze. Her next punch came off the first, my only warning the way her foot shifted as I planted my own feet, blocking with my forearm. Undeterred, she dipped forward, totally bypassing my defenses, her lips so close to my ear I could feel her warm breath skating across my skin.

“You should’ve seen what Ren and I got up to yesterday,” she whispered, head tilting to show off the fine line of her throat, damp with sweat where her pulse thrummed violently with her elevated heartbeat. “It makes what you saw with Elsie look PG-13.”

My eyes snapped to hers in surprise, my lips forming a nearly comicalo.

Ren? Does she mean…?

Sure, my covenmate had been absent from family dinner last night, but like the rest of us, she had her own space to retreat to when she needed it.

I’d assumed she’d been licking her wounds. Maybe listening to Lana Del Rey on repeat, taking moody black-and-white photos, gorging herself on the blood of someone who had drunk a bunch of cheap, shitty beer… the Ren special for when she was in a bad mood.

It never occurred to me that she would’ve tracked Vi down and disturbed her while she was meant to be resting. It wasn’t proper. There were social rules at play here, expectations…

You’re full of shit.

A prickle of unease licked down my spine.

No, Ren was just Vi’s co-worker. I mean, there were employment laws and all. HR or whatever.

Well,technically, I was our human resources officer, and what I said went.