Page 7 of The Guardian's Curse

Her heart thrummed as led her out. There was a weird comfort in knowing that he was probably the scariest thing in a five mile radius. And with his impeccably groomed goatee and tailored suit, he was in another universe compared to Elliott.

Once they were outside the club, she let out a sigh. “Love?”

“Did I misunderstand? You looked as if you wanted nothing to do with him.”

“No, you got it right,” she said. “Thanks for that.” It surprised her that he was that perceptive, honestly.

Elliott had been her first boyfriend, though things had gotten ugly when they broke up in their first semester of college. Despite filling her high school notebooks with Mrs. Shoshanna McAvoy inside hearts, distance had made the heart grow not fonder but increasingly aware of how big the world was. When she broke it off with him over Christmas break, she apparently shattered his heart and the fantasy of marrying his high school sweetheart.

On Valentine’s Day, he’d driven two hours to show up at her college dorm in one of those gestures that was romantic in movies and stalker-creepy in real life. When she refused to go out with him, he’d bombarded her with increasingly vicious letters and emails accusing her of leading him on, until her father finally intervened and informed Elliott that they’d be looking for his body for years if he didn’t leave his daughter alone.

Though he’d apologized profusely a few years later, she didn’t exactly have fond memories of Elliott McAvoy. If he thought that she belonged to Dominic, that was probably for the best. Especially since Emmanuel York was no longer here to put stalker ex-boyfriends in their place.

Even once they were out of the club, Dominic held her hand tightly as they walked around the corner to the guest parking lot. It was embarrassing to walk up to her beater of a car with Dominic in tow. The ancient Buick was as well-maintained as it could be for a fifteen-year-old car, but it was humiliating to know that Dominic’s suit probably cost three times what her car was worth.

He waited at the curb as she tossed her belongings into the back. When she turned the key, the dashboard lights flickered. No rumbling engine, just an ominous clicking. “No, no, no,” she murmured. “Shit.” She tried again, getting another death click.

“Battery’s dead,” Dominic said.

“Yeah, I figured that out,” she said sharply.

His eyebrows lifted. “Sit here.”

He was gone in a blur. A minute later, a gleaming BMW pulled up next to her. As if it wasn’t bad enough for him to see the Blue Monster in its death throes, here they were looking like the Transformers edition of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse.

“Pop the hood,” he said. He laid his jacket over the driver’s seat and rolled up his shirt sleeves. While she opened her hood, he hooked jumper cables to his own battery.

“You know cars?”

“I’ve been driving since they were invented,” he replied, attaching clamps to her battery terminals. He frowned, then started his car. “Go ahead.”

She turned the key and let out a heavy sigh of relief as the car rumbled to life.

He peered closely at the battery. “Your terminals are corroded,” Dominic said. “You need a new battery.”

“Great,” she said.

His lip curled. “Honestly, you need a new car.”

“We don’t all have money coming from our four-hundred-year-old bosses,” she replied. “How much does he pay you to stand around and glare?”

“You’re the one who keeps refusing an easy paycheck,” he retorted. “Blame your pride, Shoshanna.”

Easy paycheck? That paycheck came with an obligation to a vampire king and all of his bloody politics. “Can I go now?” she asked.

“Let it run for a few minutes,” Dominic said, folding his arms over his chest. It was impossible to ignore the boulder shoulders under those sleeves. God, she needed to get laid, because every hot vampire with an ounce of fashion sense had her heart racing. “Who was that man at the door?”

“Jealous?” she teased.

Not even a hint of a smile. “I want to know why a vampire from another court was so familiar with you,” he said.

“I knew him in high school,” she said carefully. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“He seemed familiar.”

“We dated for a few years,” she said. “There’s nothing. Not anymore.”

Dominic frowned. “If he contacts you, I want to know about it.”

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