Davy Harwood

“I need your help. I think my friend is in danger.”





“Who is this?”





Good God. “The empath!”





“Oh.” He understood now. He was quiet for a moment, a long moment, and then he asked, “Your friend is in danger?”





“Yeah. I need your help.”





“The slayer.” He seemed to choose his words carefully.





“Kates. She’s not the slayer.”





“She has the powers of a slayer.”





“There’s a difference. She’s not a slayer,” I defended, heatedly. I shouldn’t care this much, but being a slayer according to the new decree was illegal and it warranted instant death as punishment. The Hunters replaced the slayers. The slayer elders had agreed with the decree and so it was born.





Roane didn’t respond to my argument. “Where are you?”





“At my dorm.”





“With your roommate?”





“Yes.” Why was this so confounding to him? “I got your number from her.”





“From Emily?”





“Nevermind. Where do I meet you?”





There was silence again on his end.





“I can come to you,” I cried impatiently into the phone. Why did he need to consider this? He was a Hunter. He had to help, didn’t he? Although, truthfully, I wasn’t sure what their job requirements were. I mostly just knew they hunted the bad vampires. I waited for a long breath and then he said abruptly, “I’ll come to you. Don’t leave your dorm.”





He hung up immediately and Emily snored from the couch. Ignoring her, I programmed the vampire’s phone number into my phone before I stood up—then I felt awkward. I didn’t know what I was waiting for, but I sat at my desk and waited… and waited …and waited some more. It’d been an hour before I growled to myself. I couldn’t stay in the room any longer so I left and went downstairs to the lobby. Of course, when I got there I noticed two things. It was two in the morning and Shelly was wrapped around Adam in the television lounge.





CHAPTER SIX





I tried to slip outside, but no luck.





“Davina!” Adam called out, hurried, and did my ears detect a little bit of guilt? I was pretty sure they did.





“Hey,” he called again and eagerly waved a hand.





Shelly unwound her tentacles around him, but one of her arms remained on his hip. It was intimate and I knew her smirk wasn’t coincidental. They both looked dressed up, but Adam had on a sleek buttoned-down black shirt that looked like it’d been ironed. He always looked nice, but this was a pay grade above that. Shelly wore a leather shirt fastened together by one big pearl button underneath her breasts. It added cleavage. Lots of cleavage. The girl knew how to dress. Even Kates would’ve been appreciative.





“Hi, Davy.” Shelly’s ruby red lips formed a perfect, unfriendly, smile.





Adam was blind. He beamed. “So… where are you going this evening?”





“More like morning, Adam.” Shelly laughed and patted his arm.





If I were a vamp, my fangs would’ve already been out.





“Oh yeah. I didn’t realize how late it was. We were just… talking. Time must’ve gotten away from us both.” Adam smiled nervously and shuffled on his feet.





He was uncomfortable. Good. He should be.





“Are you just going out?” Shelly asked this time. Her quick eyes skimmed me up and down. I wasn’t exactly dressed for a nightclub, but I knew I looked alright. How could a person go wrong with black? And it was tight. Tight always seemed to be good with guys, though that wasn’t why I wore it.





“Uh…” I opened my mouth, but closed it. I wasn’t sure what to say. I couldn’t tell them the truth, but I was a horrible liar.





Shelly’s eyes smarted. She asked, quick on the prowl, “Do you have a date?”





“A date?” Adam sounded taken aback, but he tried to hide it.





Oh yeah, bucko. I have a life besides you… wait. Was this what I wanted my future boyfriend to think? I wasn’t sure.





“Davina…”





I stiffened at that word and not because it was the name I started to loathe (no one can remember Davy), but because I was hit by the same cold blast as all the other times. It was followed by a host of shivers up and down my spine. Roane was able to make my name sound like a lover’s caress and as I turned to look at him, the way he strolled towards us, he looked like the perfect bad boy lover that all the good girls obsessed about. Plus, the whole supernatural predator thing molded to his form perfectly. He dressed like me all in black, but he ventured into leather land. He wore a black tee shirt over a pair of black leather pants. I never noticed how high his cheeks were, the angles seemed sharper and I realized it was because he had nearly shaved all of his hair off. He now sported a clean buzz cut and it made him look even more dangerous. I understood why Emily had a thing for him, but then again all vampires had an unnatural sex appeal.





Judging by Shelly and Adam’s reactions, both were aware of it. Adam seemed to stand taller while Shelly’s mouth could’ve dropped to the ground from her drool. Her eyes quickly darted back and forth from Roane to me. “Is this your date?”





I sucked in my breath as I waited for Roane’s response, but to my surprise there was none. I twisted back, prepared to see fury or something in those emotionless coal black eyes, but there was no reaction. He watched me steadily. So I gulped again and opened my mouth, but as I met Adam’s uncertain eyes I closed it with a snap. I had no idea what to say. If I said it wasn’t a date, they might ask where we were headed and then what? I couldn’t tell the truth. These two didn’t know about that world and I didn’t want them to know. Anyone who got involved with that world got hurt.





So I lied through my teeth and my fingernails cut into my palms, “Yes. It’s a date.”





Something slammed in Adam’s eyes and I felt effectively shut out.





Shelly’s smile lit up, but there was a calculating sheen there. I didn’t know how I felt about that, but I wanted to know exactly what she felt. I really, really wanted to know and before I realized it, I was already inside of her. Whoa—talk about multi-layered. The girl had it all, but the top emotion was selfishness. She wanted Adam, much more than me. Underneath that, she wanted to have sex with Roane, really badly and I even felt some of her calculation how to make that happen. She planned—no! I blinked, shaken, as I ripped myself out.





Shelly had plastered a fake smile on as she oozed, “…wonderful place. I highly recommend it. Right, Davina?”





“Uh…” I was a little mortified to realize that they’d had an entire conversation. “Yes. Exactly, but maybe not.” I learned long ago to always be vague when someone catches you at something. It never mattered what, just be vague. I’d never gone wrong yet and Shelly immediately supplied my question.





“The Shoilster. It’s a great club, right? Your… friend said that’s where you’re going.”





The Shoilster? That place was awful. The booths were plastic and cheap. The food looked decadent, but tasted like fish. All of it tasted like fish. Shelly was crazy. I smiled politely. “Well… yes, it’s wonderful at times, but not all the time. And really, we might not even go there.”





“Oh. I thought…” her eyes jumped to Roane, but to my shock, Shelly didn’t say a thing.





When I turned, I saw that Roane stared long and hard at her and I recognized that look. They did that when they wanted the other person to shut up. Craig had turned that look on me enough times. I couldn’t tell him to stop, not with Adam there, but I needed to do something. I might really hate Shelly, but even my enemy didn’t deserve to be on the other end of one of those stares. They just held a person immobile, like their thoughts were frozen in time. In my opinion, it violated their right and so I did the only thing that I could. I violated Roane’s right to privacy. I narrowed my eyes and I pushed through his shields. He had a lot of them, too many, but I got through and I read the first emotion. He was annoyed and exasperated, but I didn’t think it was with me or Shelly. I pushed further and found the same fierce determination to stand and stare death down.





I blinked, belatedly, and wondered where he got his motivation from. It might come in handy with a new diet I might need… I shook my head slightly and pushed even more. Vampires were a mass of swirling emotion. I’d been in enough to get a general feel, but this felt different. There was something… I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something different inside of him. He ran by a different set of codes than the others. I felt that and in that moment, I understood why he was the one to call. Blue hadn’t said it, not directly, but Kates respected this one. There was a reason… and then I felt a cold firm hand grasp my arm and I was wrenched out of him, physically and mentally. I gasped and blinked back abrupt tears—it happened sometimes when an empath was too deep. Then I looked up into Roane’s coal eyes.





He was furious. He’d been unemotional before, but he let me see that fury free and clear now. I gulped and my hand clamped onto his hand. Intending to try and yank his hold free, I couldn’t. I just wrapped my fingers around his arm. He was stronger than me. He wasn’t moving and I couldn’t make him move. We were deadlocked and then he said tersely, underneath his breath, “Stay. Out.”