Page 4 of Where Dark Hearts Devour
She slurs a breathless apology.
“Don’t apologize,” I say firmly.
When she finds her feet, I reluctantly let my arm slip from her body.
“Are you okay?”
She rubs her eyes, smudging a little of the kohl across her lids. “I guess I drank a little too much.”
And I purposely tripped you up.But then again, if she weren’t so drunk, she’d have noticed my foot.
I call over my shoulder to the bartender. “Can I get a glass of water?”
It takes a while, but a half-full glass eventually appears. He’s probably cursing me for getting her off the hard stuff. I watch as she sips it then cradles the glass in her hands.
“I don’t normally drink,” she says, her gaze on the floor.
“I can tell. You don’t seem to handle it all that well. Why bother drinking at all?”
She looks up with a frown, and there’s an unexpected bite in her tone when she replies. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.” As if she’s overstepped a boundary, her skin flushes again. “I’m sorry. That was rude. And very ...unlikeme.”
I watch her, thoughtful. “You’re right though. You don’t have to explain yourself.”
She laughs darkly. “That’s a relief. Most people expect me to.” When she looks up again, there’s a new boldness in the set of her jaw. “What’s your secret?”
I take a long sip of whiskey to steady my pulse. “Who says I have a secret?”
“Everyone who comes here has a secret. Something to hide.”
I think about it and how right she is.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?”
She looks away, but I don’t miss the deeper shade of pink inching up her chest. “I guess not.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I ask. “Because you have a secret.”
“Maybe.” She glances up timidly. “Or maybe I come to Joe’s because it’s preferable to every other bar in this part of the city.”
I’m intrigued. Not only because every other bar around here is either owned or ruled by my family. “How so?”
She looks around. “It’s not perfect here, but at least there’s no violence.”
Something hardens behind my chest. “What do you have against violence?”
She touches the crystals in her hair, and when she answers, there’s a bitter burn in her voice. “It’s a weapon of the weak.”
There’s more to this girl than a tragic story and an annual drunken escapade. There’s anger and a thirst for revenge. I lived on the dark side of our world for long enough that I cansmellit.
I neck more whiskey. “Yeah, well, there’s violence and there’s violence.”
NowI feel her gaze.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I place my glass on the bar and drift my focus to her. “It means there’s more to violence than death and destruction.”
Her expression darkens. “I doubt it.”
