Sacrifice Me: The Complete Season One (6 page)

It was the way he said the word trust that calmed
me.

This was not the man from the darkness. This was
someone trying to protect me.

Only, I couldn’t shake the question of what,
exactly, I might need protection from.

I turned my head, but still couldn’t see his
face.

“Keep dancing,” he said.

Our bodies moved together, his hands firm on my
hips as he pressed his solid, muscular body against mine.

I moved my hands to his and when our skin touched,
an electric shock went through me for the second time that night. It
was like a static shock times ten. I gripped his wrists and pulled
his fingers from their hold on my jeans.

“I need to see your face,” I said,
turning my head slightly so that my cheek was practically touching
his.

He gave way, letting me turn around, but never
taking his hands from me.

In the pulsing lights, I recognized the deep black
of his eyes and the wild black hair.

The bartender who had been staring at me earlier.

I stepped back in surprise, but his arms reclaimed
me, pulling me closer, as if we were lovers reuniting after being
apart for far too long. My heart pounded so hard against my ribs, I
was sure he would be able to feel it beating against his chest.

“What's happening?” I asked, barely
able to hear my own voice over the music. “Someone is watching
me.”

“Now they’re watching us,” he
said, a hint of a smile on his lips that disappeared so fast I
wondered if it was ever really there.

I let my hands wander up his arms, gripping the
muscular biceps that bulged against the sleeves of his black t-shirt.
He was taller than me by several inches and I had to look up to meet
his eyes, pools of black liquid with veins of silver running through
them. I disappeared into them for a moment. My knees went weak and I
fell against him, blinking to force my gaze away.

I was not the swooning type, so I refused to
believe I had just swooned over this dark-eyed stranger. Maybe my
blood-sugar was low. There had to be a logical explanation.

“You okay?” he asked, steadying me.

“I’m fine,” I said through
clenched teeth. “Or at least, I think I am. Something is
definitely not normal about this place.”

His smile played another disappearing act. “You’re
just now figuring that out?”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to punch him or
pull him closer.

“Care to explain?”

He raised an eyebrow and shook his head, amused.

Punch. I definitely wanted to punch him.

But that was impossible considering the fact that
our bodies were pressed tighter than I’d been with any man in
months. And like it or not, mine was definitely responding to him. If
I thought my skin was on fire earlier, it was burning up now. I
thought I might turn to ash at any moment.

“If you didn’t know what kind of place
this was, why did you come here?” he asked.

I narrowed my eyes at him. Why did everyone keep
asking us that? “It’s a public place, right? People come
here all the time? Why not me?”

He cocked his head slightly, studying me. “Not
many people wander in here on accident,” he said. “It’s
not that kind of club.”

“So I've heard,” I mumbled. “What
no one seems to want to share with me is exactly what kind of club it
is.”

The music changed and his hands shifted on my
hips. The tip of his thumb brushed against the bare skin at my waist
and I tensed, flames rising up through my core. I gasped for breath.

He raised his eyebrow again. He was getting a kick
out of my reactions, and I hated him for it. I hated that one tiny
touch of his skin against mine could tilt my entire world on its
axis.

Maybe it was the alcohol still working its way
through my system. That had to be it. Men just didn't affect me like
this. At least none who had ever touched me before.

“You’re not going to answer me, are
you?” I asked, my voice unsteady. I straightened my shoulders
and tried to put a little space between us so I could think straight.

“Not until you answer my question first.”

He was toying with me. Why come over here to
protect me from some unseen stranger if he just wanted to play with
me?

I didn’t like to play games.

“I was invited by someone,” I said.

Darkness crossed his features. That wasn’t
the answer he’d been expecting.

“Who?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea.” I
shrugged, trying to pretend I wasn’t completely distracted by
the way his body moved against mine.

“Someone you don’t know invited you to
a strange club and you came?” he asked, his voice raw with
anger. His muscles tensed against my hands. “Expecting what?
Some kind of affair? A fun time?”

I pushed against him, but he only held me tighter.

“Who the hell are you to judge me? I don’t
even know you.”

“You don’t know the person who invited
you either,” he said.

“Why are you getting mad at me for that?”
I raised my voice over the music a few heads turned toward us. “You
don’t own me. You don’t even know me. If I want to come
to a club to meet up with a guy, that's none of your business.”

The muscles in his jaw tensed and he took a deep
breath. “Lower your voice,” he said.

“Or what?” I challenged him. I had
been on my own for most of my life. I didn’t do well with
people spouting orders at me. I certainly didn’t need this
asshole telling me what I could or could not do on my own damned
birthday.

He pulled me closer, bringing his mouth close to
my ear again. “Or you’re going to end up getting into a
lot more trouble than you bargained for when you walked through that
door tonight. Trust me.”

There went that word again. Trust. Not a word to
be taken lightly in my experience, and I wasn’t about to let
this guy threaten me.

I moved my hand up his arm and shoulder, then
around to the back of his neck. I threaded my fingers through his
long dark hair and tugged slightly, pulling him toward me.

“In my world, people have to earn my trust,
so don’t throw that word around like it means nothing,” I
said. “Just because you’re stronger than me doesn’t
mean you have the right to push me around, you got that? So if you
have something to say, you’d better start talking.”

I loosened my grip on his hair and he pulled his
head back, his eyes wide and the first solid smile on his lips.

At first, he didn’t say a word. He just
stared at me, as if in shock. Then, after a long moment where I
thought my heart might beat completely out of my chest, he pulled
away from me and held out his hand.

I stared at it, not knowing whether to take it or
turn and walk away.

“You want to talk?” he asked. “Come
on, then. Let’s talk.”

Was he really offering me answers? Or was this
just another part of whatever game he was playing with me? There was
only one way to find out.

I took a couple of deep breaths, then placed my
hand in his.

Katy grabbed my arm as I passed by her. “Who
is that?” she asked, her face turned away from him so he
couldn’t see or hear.

“One of the bartenders,” I said. It
was the best answer I had at the moment.

“He's hot,” she whispered.

“I’ll be right back,” I said,
biting my lip. Yes, he was hot, but he was also mysterious and way
out of my league.

“Don’t you dare leave me here by
myself,” she said with a nervous laugh.

“I won’t,” I said. She should
have known better.

She squeezed my arm and went back to dancing with
the guy beside her. I hadn't noticed him before and wondered if he
had appeared on the dance floor at the same time the bartender had.

“She’ll be fine,” the bartender
said. He was still holding onto my hand. “That guy’s a
friend of mine. I told him to keep an eye on her.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he tugged on my
hand, pulling me through the crowd. People seemed to part for him
with ease, letting us pass. A few of the people smiled, but many of
them lowered their gaze as he moved by, stepping back to give him
plenty of space.

Who was this guy? I certainly couldn’t just
call him the bartender all night. Especially not after he’d had
his hands all over me.

I followed him to the edge of the dance floor,
past the bar and into the shadows at the back of the room. He finally
stopped in a dark corner. Hadn't the girl out front made me promise
not to go into any shadowy placed with a stranger?

A shiver traveled down my spine and moved into my
stomach, making me feel jittery and unsettled. The alcohol in my
system wouldn't let me think clearly. All I could concentrate on was
how I felt. And how his hands felt on me.

He finally released my hand, but the warmth of his
skin lingered on mine. I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my
jeans and leaned against the wall, hoping I looked casual instead of
completely and utterly affected by his presence.

“Let me see it,” he said. He had this
way of giving orders that made me both angry and aroused.

“See what?”

“The invitation.”

“Oh,” I said. So not what I thought he
meant. I reached deeper into my pocket and found the folded piece of
red paper.

Before he’d even touched it or read a word
of it, his face turned almost pale. I held it out to him, but he
hesitated, just staring at the paper as if it were made of thorns.

He drew in a loud breath, then reached out for the
red invitation. He unfolded it and stared at it for a second. I knew
he was reading the words I’d seen this morning when it had
arrived with the mysterious black roses.

Happy Birthday, Little Bird

The address to the club was typed in neat letters
at the bottom of the paper.

The bartender crumpled the invitation in his fist,
squeezing it down into a small ball. His lips were pressed tight and
his shoulders were tensed.

“Where did you get this?”

“Hold on just a second,” I said. “You
haven’t even told me who you are or why you care. I’m not
going to tell you everything if you aren’t going to talk to me
first. You said you’d explain what was going on.”

He stuffed my invitation into his back pocket,
then ran a tense hand through his hair. “What do you want to
know?”

“Your name would be good for starters,”
I said.

“Rend.” His eyes followed someone
walking past us, then moved back to my face. Every time his eyes met
mine, it sent a warm rush of desire through my body. “Now will
you tell me where you got this invitation?”

Rend. An unusual name for a very unusual man.

“What’s going on in this place?”
I asked, determined to get some answers while I still had the upper
hand. “Why did you say people don’t typically come here
on accident? And what was up with that Red Dragon stuff your friend
gave us when we first got here? Why did it make me feel good and make
my friend feel like crap?”

He raised an eyebrow again. That seemed to be his
signature look. “Anything else? You sure you don’t want
to ask me a few more questions?”

I didn’t humor him with a response. I just
stared at him until he started talking. I didn’t owe him
anything, so if he wanted me to talk, he’d better start
answering my questions, too.

“You don’t give up, do you?” he
asked. “Look. None of those are easy questions to answer.
You’ve walked into something here you couldn’t possibly
understand, and I’m trying to protect you. You have to believe
that.”

“I don’t have to believe anything,”
I said. “This whole night has been incredibly strange and not
at all what I expected.”

“What you expected? So you did have some
idea who might have sent this?”

“No,” I said. “I don't know. Not
really. I thought there was some small possibility it might have come
from my mother, but then, why would she send me black roses? None of
this makes any sense.”

His eyes flashed almost silver in the darkness,
which was impossible right? Had I imagined it?

“Black roses?” He ran a hand across
his face. “Did you touch them?”

I shrugged. What kind of question was that? “Of
course. I put them in a vase with some water.”

His shoulders relaxed.

This conversation was getting stranger with every
word. He’d seemed worried about the roses. I’ll admit,
black roses are a weird choice, but they were strangely beautiful.
Exotic.

“Listen, if you ever get another box of
black roses, just throw them in the trash. Don’t even touch
them with your bare hands, okay? Promise me.”

“I don’t understand you,” I
said, anger growing in my voice. I was sick of people telling me to
promise them things when they refused to explain why. “You come
out of nowhere and tell me you know someone is watching me. You touch
me like you have some kind of claim on me. I can’t wrap my head
around it. What do you think I owe you? What is going on? Stop
talking in circles and just come out with it. I’m not some
stupid little girl who doesn’t know how to take care of
herself. I’ve been through shit, okay? I can handle it. Just
tell me what you think you know about that invitation and the roses.
Tell me who was watching me out there.”

Anger flashed in his eyes again and he gripped
both my arms and lifted me off the ground. He moved me into the
corner and pushed my back against the wall.

“An attitude like that will get you killed
in a place like this,” he said, almost growling. His face was
so close to mine, I could feel his breath against my cheek. “I’ve
only seen red paper of that quality one time before in my life, and
I’m telling you, if the same man who sent that to me also sent
this invitation to you this morning, you ought to run as far away
from this place as you can.”

He lowered me until my heels touched the ground.
Tears stung the corners of my eyes, and I was not the type of girl
who cried. Ever. But his outburst had scared me.