Craved: A Chosen Ones Novel (18 page)

His voice dropped an octave. “You’re right. Would you prefer me to call you sexy? Or to tell you that you’re fucking hot?”

A flush crept into my cheeks and my awareness of the world shrank to two specific things: His words and the way in which his powerful thighs straddled the chair.

And why in the hell did I really, really like the image of him doing that? No, an even better question was why in the hell him calling me hot made my stomach do little flip-flops or why him saying any variation of the word ‘fuck’ put very detailed, very graphic, very inappropriate pictures in my mind of him doing just that. I immediately cut the head of that thought off before it could go any further and the heat that had already started to burn within my core could amplify.

“Why did you crash my date Chase?” I purposely sounded irked. Hopefully it masked any traitorous huskiness in my voice.
 

His eyes lit up for a second then darkened again.“It wasn’t a real date. The only reason you’re here is because your grandmother orchestrated it. He’s not your type and we both know that too.”

Whitney was so dead when I saw her. I loved her, but I was going to kick her ass for having a big, fat mouth. She was the only one he could have gotten that information from. I told her about my date with Ben because I knew she’d feel some type of way about it if I didn’t and she found out about it after the fact. After all these years, she still harbored a thing for him. I assured her that I still had no interest in him and the only reason I was going was because my grandmother had set my grandfather up to do her dirty work. If she had asked me herself the answer would have been a resounding NO. Maybe even a HELL NO, depending on what type of mood I was in and just how much she got under my skin.
 

I cocked my head to one side and glared at Chase for the audaciousness of his statement. “And how do you know what my type is? You don’t even really know me. Ben is perfect. He’s rich, cute, an Ivy Leaguer and possibly the future President of the United States.”
 

He raised his right brow. “He’s also predictably boring and passive aggressive.”

“I like boring and passive aggressive,” I flat out lied through my teeth.

“Liar. Liar. Pants on fire.”

“What are you two?”

“No, but you can spank me like I am if you ask me nicely.”

And didn’t that comeback just sear all kinds of images of what his firm, hard ass would look like nude instead of clad in denim.
 

“I’m good, thanks. Not my thing.”
 

“Okay, fine. I’ll spank you. Is that more your thing? But you still have to ask me nicely. You know, say please before and thank you afterwards.”
 

Oh, God.
My body was starting to burn again.

“Why in the fuck are you here?!” I whispered fiercely at him across the table because the only other option was yelling it.

His eyes honed in on my mouth the minute it formed the work “fuck.” Something intense moved behind them. He leaned further over the back of the chair, putting his face mere inches from mine. “Say it again?”

“Say what again?” I played stupid. It was a bad idea.

“Fuck, Alex. Say Fuck again. You have no idea what it does to me when that word leaves your lips. The wicked images my imagination conjures up. Are you curious? Because if you are I can show you exactly how active of an imagination I have.”

I clamped my mouth shut. Not trusting myself to speak following that little admission. Who knew what I would say? Probably something I would never be able to take back. Something like
not as wicked as the ones mine conjures up.
Or something like
please show me and thank you in advance.
Damn it. Maybe Whitney was right. I really, really, really needed to get laid. It’d been way too long and I was starting to trip out.
 

When I finally trusted myself to speak without saying words that were completely off the table, I tried changing the subject again, steering us away from the word “fuck” and into safer waters.
 

“Chase,” I spoke slow and precise like I was talking to someone dense. He didn’t answer my question the other times I’d asked, maybe the words would get through to him like this. “Why. Are. You. Here? Either there’s something important you came to tell me or you went through my roommate to track me down because you’ve turned into some kind of freaky stalker.”

He looked at me offended. “I don’t stalk women. I don’t have to.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course he didn’t. “Then there’s only option A left.”

His eyes darted to the hostess stand.
 

I felt a slight chill travel the length of my spine. I looked in the direction of his cold stare.

A middle-age looking man had entered the restaurant with a pretty, human woman. He was surreal in his beauty which was perfection personified. He could have easily passed for a mortal man who’d been blessed with movie star good looks. There were no black wings trailing behind him and when he smiled, it was that of a human. No incisors lengthened or even played peek-a-boo with his gums.
 
The only thing that gave him away were his eyes. They were a dark ebony ringed in silver.
 

“Is that a
Brethren
?!”
 

“Yes, it is.” Chase growled the words more than spoke them. “We should go. If we’ve spotted him, he has likely spotted us as well.”

“Is that a quick question? He doesn’t have to be sporting black wings and deadly sharp fangs for me to tell. The silver around his pupils are enough.”

Chase looked at me with a shocked expression. “You can see that?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

“Because everybody else in this restaurant cannot. He is wearing a glamour that makes him appear completely human to everyone who looks upon him, including Neph-.” Chase immediately stopped talking and my hackles immediately rose.
 

His words hinted that while I was a Nephilim he was not. I looked at him and his blue eyes sparkled like sapphires. They were an endless, cerulean blue and within them I observed a kaleidoscope effect. But that’s not all I saw and I wondered how I missed it before. Flecks of silver flickered around the blue. They were not there for long, but I saw them before they disappeared.

And this,
I thought when the rock dropped into the bottom of my stomach.
This is why I knew better than to trust him. To let him get too close.
At least it wasn’t the case this time of hindsight being 20/20. At least my lapse in judgement, my blind naivety, was brought to the light before something irreversible happened.

My hand went to my waist and damnit, I didn’t have a weapon on me. I hadn’t expected to need one. I was going straight from my apartment, to dinner with Ben in his car, and back home. I eyed the steak knife and fork rolled up in a cloth napkin resting on the empty table next to us.
 

I forced my body to relax. My heart beat a mile a minute and my hands threatened to start shaking with fury at being made a fool. Again. But I needed to stay calm. He hadn’t moved to hurt me yet. He wouldn’t do so in a crowded restaurant. It would draw too much attention. He had certainly come for me though. What else would explain him suddenly tracking me down after four, nearly five complete days with no contact?

I forced myself to take my eyes off Chase and look at the Brethren in alarm.
 
“We should leave.”

He stood and held out his arm. “After you.”

Shit.
I really did not want him at my back, but I had no other choice if I didn’t want to let on that I knew he wasn’t what he pretended to be just yet. I began walking at a quicker pace than he would have expected me to. I used the distance between us to take advantage of my back being to him. I reached out directly in front of me and swiped the rolled up steak knife off the table. A nearly useless weapon was better than no weapon. It wouldn’t do him any real damage but it might buy me time to escape. I could embed it in his eye, or pierce a lung, or cut off his fucking balls. Either and all would hurt like a bitch and might make him pause for a split second. Sometimes a split second was all you had.

“Alex, what’s wrong with you? Where are you going?” He called after me.

 
I hadn’t waited on the elevator. I took the stairs two at a time and didn’t stop when I emerged onto the main street. I turned a sharp left onto one of the side streets. I expected it to be less busy but I didn’t expect it to be completely deserted.
Shit. Again.
I wasn’t yet ready for the confrontation that was about to happen.
Oh well. If wants were dreams, wishes would fly.

Leveraging the element of surprise, maybe the only advantage I had, I spun around and thrust the steak knife at his left eye. Some stupid part of me cringed at the damage I was about to inflict. I shook the feeling off.
It will heal. Probably in seconds.

His hand shot out and circled around my wrist, stopping it before the knife met its target. I swung at him with my free hand but he caught it too. He pushed my back and against the brick wall of a building. I tried to knee him in the groin, but he moved his body to the left and wedged it between my legs, forcing them a part more and rendering them useless. He used his entire body to pin me against the wall. There was nothing I could do to fight back. My body slumped in defeat but then a renewed sense of fight, of rage at being rendered so completely vulnerable so easily made it go taught again.
 

“Alex! What the fuck?! Did you temporarily lose your mind?!” He was good. Really good. He actually sounded dumbstruck and concerned.
 

“Fuck you,” I spat. “I didn’t lose my mind, but I’m no longer a fool either.” I raised my chin. Refusing to die like a coward. I would never beg for my life and there were no other lives to beg for this time either. “Hurry up and do it. Make it quick or slow. Torture me or not. I don’t give a shit.”

He dropped my wrists like they’d scalded him and jerked away from me. His head snapped back as if he’d been slapped. I sprang off the wall and buried the knife in his chest, past his breastbone and into his heart.
 

I should have run then. Sprinted around him and back onto the main street and kept running. But I didn’t. Because he hadn’t even tried to defend himself or deflect the blow. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think it was because I’d moved faster than he could react. I hadn’t. If that was the case, the knife would have found its mark in his left eye moments earlier.

 
Chase stared down at the knife in shock as crimson bloomed across his chest. Then he dropped to his knees. He gripped the knife’s handle with both hands and pulled it out. The knife clattered to the pavement beside him and his shoulders sagged. He took in a deep, visibly painful breath then he hit the ground too.
 

Again, I should have run. I should have stepped over him or around him and got the hell out of dodge. The stainless steel wouldn’t do any real damage. And yet, it clearly had. It should not have taken him down like it did. If by some small miracle I’d incapacitated him, it wouldn’t last for long. The wound would knit itself together and he’d be back on his feet. And yet it clearly, was not healing itself. I couldn’t run away. I couldn’t even walk away. My legs refused to obey the rational part of my brain’s command. Instead they listened to the irrational part. They moved closer to Chase’s body and bent down beside it. My hands hovered about the wound they’d created in his chest and my lips muttered the words to heal him. “Nunc ergo curate.”
 

They didn’t work. He was not
healing now.
If he was human or a Nephilim, he should have been. If he was a daemon or a Brethren he should never have needed the words in the first place. What the fuck was going on? Nothing was behaving as it should have been, according to everything I’d come to know as fact. In desperation and panic and half thinking I was going out of my mind I did the only other thing I could think to do. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
 

I paced back and forth across the floor of the hospital’s waiting area. If its floor had been covered with carpet instead of tile, I would have worried a hole in it by now. Chase had been in surgery for three hours and twenty two minutes. What could be taking that long? Was it a good thing or a bad thing? The better question was why the hell had he needed surgery in the first place?
 

I wiped the steak knife clean of both of our prints before the paramedics arrived along with the police. I’d told them we’d been mugged by some assailant I was too shocked to give an accurate description of. I told them Chase had stepped in front of me to protect me and the guy had stabbed him with the knife. They found it odd that he’d used a steak knife instead of an actual knife, but all types of weirdos walked around Downtown Atlanta after dark. They wanted me to go down to the police station to give a formal statement before going to the hospital. I pulled rank on them using my family’s name and insisted that they take my statement at the hospital and that they make it quick. They apologetically obliged, made quick work of their business and left.
 

“Miss Sinclair,” the surgeon who’d met the paramedics at the hospital’s emergency entrance and had wheeled Chase to the operating room addressed me as he removed his mask.
 

I faced him straight on, trying to read his expression. His face gave nothing away.
 

“Is he…okay?” I couldn’t ask the other thing.
 

“It was touch and go, but he is stable now. We will have to keep him for observation for a few days and it will take a few weeks, maybe longer, for him to fully recuperate but he should be fine.”

Relief flooded me along with something else I couldn’t quite name.
 

“Is he awake?”

“He is.”

I had no right to ask what I did next but I did anyway. “Can I see him?”

“Of course Ms. Sinclair. I will walk you back myself.”