Page 33

Reyna stumbled out of Beckham’s room and toward the elevator. She had no plan in mind. Terror pricked at her, and it was the only thing fueling her forward. She was shaky. Her body disagreed with every movement. She felt like she could sleep for days, but the desire to run, run far away kept urging her on.

The elevator door was closing just as she saw Beckham’s face appear. He slammed his hand in the slit before the doors closed, and they wrenched back open. She screamed at his appearance. Still completely nude, blood running down his chin and chest. He looked ferocious and deadly.

“Beckham, please,” she muttered.

“I wasn’t going to hurt you. You have to know,” he said.

“I don’t know.” Her body trembled. “You weren’t going to stop. You could have killed me.”

“It was a mistake. Reyna, forgive me,” he ground out, reaching for her.

She stepped back into the elevator wall and shrank from his touch. “You were right. You are a monster.”

Beckham recoiled at that word and removed his hand. They closed on his hurt face, and she heard his fist slam on the closed doors. Her heart rate picked up, and she had to hold on to the railing to keep herself steady.

When the elevator opened, she lurched forward through the lobby. She tottered and floundered until she made it through the glass sliding doors. Some part of her mind realized she was making a spectacle of herself, but she couldn’t seem to care.

As she stepped out into the daylight, she blinked back tears from the intense sun. She needed somewhere to go and collect her thoughts. God, this moving thing was horrible. So much of her body was screaming to slow down, but the other part was telling her to run. It made her head throb.

“Reyna,” Everett called.

She turned toward the voice and blundered forward into him. “Everett.”

He caught her easily. “Hey, are you all right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she slurred.

“You’re bleeding.” He touched her neck tenderly, and she winced. She hadn’t even realized she was still bleeding. Everett’s face darkened as he pieced everything together. “Did he do this?”

“Oh,” she mumbled. She placed her hand on her throat, and when she pulled it away, it came back red. “Yeah.”

“I’ve never seen you like this,” he said softly, concerned. “You’re really out of it, Reyna. Does it normally work this way?”

She shrugged and teetered forward. “I don’t know.”

He furrowed his brow at her answer but let it go. “You look fucked out of your mind. Where the hell were you going in your condition?”

Reyna shrugged again. “Away. I need to think…”

“You’re not going to think doped up on a vamp bite. Christ, how much did he take?”

“More than he should have,” she said with an uncontrollable giggle.

“Look, we need to get you cleaned up and somewhere where you can come down from this shit. Come with me. My shift is almost over. I can leave now,” he told her.

Everett put a comforting arm around her waist and helped her to his Mustang. He ran back to the front to tell his manager that he had to head out early, and then they were zipping through the city. They reached his apartment a short while later. Reyna’s head was drooping forward into her chest by the time they arrived. She could barely keep her eyes open. Her mind was muddled as if she was trudging through a swamp.

He unlocked the front door, and she sprawled onto the floor in a heap. She opened her mouth to say something, but she felt herself slipping toward unconsciousness.

“It’s okay,” she heard someone say to her through the murkiness in her mind. “I’ve got you.”

Then it all went dark.

…

Reyna woke up in a daze. When she reached out, all she felt was some kind of scratchy surface. She opened her eyes and groaned as she hoisted herself into a sitting position. She stared around at her surroundings. It was dark outside, so she couldn’t make out much in the room, but she was on a couch in a very strange place. Definitely not Beckham’s penthouse.

She placed her head in her hands and tried to remember what the hell had happened. Everything was fuzzy, and she struggled to recall anything. Or where the hell she was.

“You’re awake,” Everett said, walking into the room.

She glanced up at him and sighed. At least she was in a safe place. “What happened?”

“I hoped you’d tell me.”

Reyna shook her head. “I don’t know. Why am I here?”

Everett frowned. “You came out of the apartment building high as a kite from a vampire bite, with blood running down your neck. I stanched the blood and put a bandage on for you after you passed out.”

She gasped and touched the bandage on her neck. Everything slowly came back to her. The rally, the accusation at Visage, Beckham admitting he was a rebel and that he had used Penelope as a cover story, sex, the bite—

The bite.

“He bit me,” she whispered.

“I gathered that much.”

“He lost control when we were—” She stopped that sentence and flushed. Sex with Beckham had been incredible. Just thinking about it made her heat up at the remembered feeling of his body on hers.

“Right,” Everett said, looking away. “Doesn’t he do that all the time? Isn’t that your job, after all? I always thought it was supposed to be safe and controlled for Visage employees.”

Reyna stared down at the beige carpet and sighed. “That was the first time.”

“Doing what? Having sex?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. Well, yes. That, too. But it was the first time he bit me.” She laughed humorlessly. “I guess technically the second time.”

“You’ve been here for a month.”

“I know.”

“What the hell have you been doing?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. Today was the first day.”

She felt weird telling him this. She hadn’t told anyone but her brothers that Beckham hadn’t ever drank from her. It felt like a secret he liked to keep hidden, so she didn’t flaunt it. She had assumed he was drinking from Penelope this whole time, and he probably had been, to quell his cravings. That was probably why he’d bitten her at the Vault in the first place.

“Why wouldn’t he drink from you? You’re the same blood type, right?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “O negative. I guess he was afraid something like this would happen.”

She gestured to her neck, and waves of remorse washed over her. She shouldn’t have run out like that. It had been as if she couldn’t help it. Her first instinct had been to run, and that was exactly what she had done.

“Did he come after me, by any chance?” she asked softly.

Everett shrugged. “I don’t know. We left as soon as you came downstairs.”

“He’s probably beating himself up right now.”

Fuck, the elevator. She was just remembering what had happened. Had she called him a monster? How could she do that? He wasn’t a monster. She needed to make this right. She stood on wobbly legs. She was feeling better after sleeping for however long she had been out, but she needed to get back to Beckham now.

“He probably should be.”

“No,” she disagreed. “I trusted him to not go further, and I told him I trusted him. But he had trouble stopping. He told me ahead of time that my blood smelled too good. That’s what the vampire we met in the alley said, too.”

“Really?” Everett asked. He furrowed his brow. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“Yeah. It made it hard for him to stop.”

“So, just like that, you’re going to go back? After he almost killed you?”

Everett’s voice was low and pained. He clearly hated this line of discussion. He wouldn’t even look at her. He was staring down at his phone. She could never make him understand.

“He didn’t mean any of that,” she insisted. “He lost control. He wasn’t trying to hurt me. My fight-or-flight reaction kicked in, and I ran without thinking. He followed me to the elevator and said it was a mistake. Now that I’ve come down from what happened, I know he was right. I actually said some pretty horrible things.” She winced as the memory hit her fresh again. A monster. Christ.

“You should stay here a little longer, Reyna,” Everett said. His eyes finally met hers, and he looked sad. “I’m not trying to push you, but what you went through was traumatic. Maybe you should give yourself time to heal and process.”

Did she need time to process? Sure, having Beckham lose control had been scary. It had made her freak out. But he had said it was a mistake, and she believed him. She had been too freaked out to see beyond her own fear to his sincerity. She shouldn’t have let Everett lead her away. She should have gone to the park and then come back a couple of minutes later to discuss what had happened. Instead, she had barely made it inside Everett’s apartment before passing out.

“I’m fine,” she said finally. She started toward the door, finding her balance along the way.

“You might be,” he conceded. “Physically, at least, but that doesn’t mean your mind is. I remember my bite. My body recovered, but I was still fucked up in here.” He reached out and touched her temple.

“I’m fine,” she repeated. “Really. I know Beckham isn’t going to hurt me, and I want to let him know that I know that.”

“I hate to say this, Reyna. I really do. But have you considered the fact that you have Stockholm syndrome?”

Reyna’s mouth dropped open. He thought that she cared for Beckham because she was his prisoner? “I do not have Stockholm syndrome.”

“Come on. Isn’t it worth considering? It’s the same kind of situation. He takes you off the streets, gives you everything you could want except your freedom. Then the first time he hurts you, you go running back to your cage, hoping he’ll forgive you for leaving and wanting to make sure he’s okay?”

“No, I’m not considering that.” She refused. This was ridiculous. She had left. She had walked out of his apartment. She didn’t feel like his prisoner, and she hadn’t in a long time.

“He took you in, almost killed you, and now you want to go back without even stopping to think about it?”

Reyna narrowed her eyes. “Beckham isn’t a bad guy. He lost control this one time.”

“What happens the next time he loses control?” he asked, staring her down. “Do you wind up dead instead of drugged?”

“No. He would never do that.”

Reyna crossed her arms. She didn’t have to listen to this. All she wanted to do was get back to Beckham. Everett’s words were laced with jealousy or prejudice or whatever the hell his problem was. But he didn’t know Beckham. He wasn’t like all the other vampires she had met. One bad action didn’t make him bad.

“I hope you’re right.” Everett rested his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. “I don’t want to argue with you. I want you to be safe. I’m not sure Beckham is going to keep you safe.”

“Well, you don’t know him.”

Reyna pushed his arm away and walked toward the door. His time was up. The panic in his eyes about her leaving wasn’t helping anything. She was going to leave whether he thought it was a good idea or not.

Everett stepped in front of her. “Reyna…”

“Take me back to Beckham’s or get out of my way.”

“You can’t leave.”

She glared at him. “Like hell I can’t.”

She pushed past him, but he grabbed her hands in his and shoved her backward. She stumbled a few steps. Her feet nearly left the floor, but she righted herself. Her eyes rose to Everett’s. He had pushed her!

“Reyna, I’m sorry. I want you to stop and think about this.”

“I appreciate you taking care of me. I do. But I won’t let Beckham think I’m angry when I’m not. And you can’t stand in my way of doing that.”

“I understand,” he said. His shoulders slumped, and he looked resolved. “But it’s almost curfew.”

“Why are you stalling?” she asked.

“Stalling?”

“If you’re not stalling, then let me leave .”

As the words left her mouth, the door burst open. Reyna screamed as a group of men in all black stormed the apartment. Everett lay sprawled on the carpet, but they paid him no mind at all. Two of them rushed straight toward Reyna. She screamed again and ran away from them, but she was both uncoordinated and slow with the aftereffect of the bite still in her system. She fought the guys off, but she had no luck.

“Everett,” she cried. Tears streamed down her face in a panic.

One of the guys addressed Everett. “This her?”

He stood smoothly from the floor and dusted off his black shirt. He nodded once. “That’s her.”

“What the hell? Everett?” she asked, shocked and confused. What the hell was happening? Were they speaking to him? Why were they holding her?

“Reyna, I’m sorry,” Everett said softly.

Her arms were jerked behind her and knotted in place with a heavy black cord.

“Everett, please,” she pleaded. Tears streamed down her face. She couldn’t believe this was happening. “Did you do this? Who are these people? What are they going to do with me?”

He stepped in front of her, and their eyes met. “I regret that you had to be involved, Reyna. But it’s for the benefit of everyone.”

“What is? Please, no. No. You can’t do this. Let me go,” she screamed.

“Take her out, guys,” Everett said.

Reyna let loose a bloodcurdling scream. It was cut off as one of the guys behind her landed a swift blow to the back of her head. Her mind went hazy again.

“Beckham,” she whispered before she blacked out.