Page 69 of Fanged Desire
Addison
The cab ride was quiet, but not comfortably so. It was the kind of quiet where you’re hyper-aware of every sound: the hum of the engine, the subtle crackle of the radio, the squeak of the cab driver’s seat as he adjusted himself.
Hunter sat beside me, her body stiff, her gaze fixed on the window. Her fingers tapped out an uneven rhythm on her thigh.
I glanced at her, then quickly looked away again. What happened at the lab – and everything that had happened after – played on loop in my head. I brushed my fingers over the small twin punctures on my wrist. I hadn’t expected her to drink my blood. Hell, I hadn’t expected tooffer. But now that I had, and she had, I couldn’t quite figure out where we stood.
“So,” I mumbled, lowering my voice and keeping one eye on the cab driver, “is this vampire hideout as sketchy as it sounds?”
Hunter’s lips twitched, the closest she’d come to a smile since we got in the cab. She kept her eyes forward, muttering under her breath, “It’s not sketchy. It’s discreet.”
“Discreet. Right.”
After another beat of silence Hunter blew out a breath, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. “This place is actually… uh, kind of unique.”
“Unique how?” I raised an eyebrow, making sure to whisper. “Please tell me it’s not a blood bank or something equally unsettling.”
She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, and I caught a faint grimace tugging at her lips. “No, but you’re not far off. It’s… a hotel. For vampires and their contracted humans.”
I blinked, trying to process her words. “Like a… a vampire love hotel?”
“Notjustlove,” she butted in quickly, almost defensively, and then quickly lowered her voice again. “It’s discreet. Private. Safe. Humans and vampires meet there for all kinds of reasons.”
She stole another glance at the cab driver, but the guy seemed oblivious to our hushed conversation, happily tapping out a tune on the steering wheel.
I narrowed my eyes, catching the slight flush in her cheeks. “You’ve been there before.”
Hunter cleared her throat, her knuckles tightening on her knees. “Yeah. A while ago. After Selene and I… ended.”
“Ah.” I nodded solemnly. “The post-breakup era.”
Hunter groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can we not?”
I grinned, momentarily distracted from my anxiety. “No judgment here. I mean, everyone goes through phases.”
Hunter shot me a look that was equal parts exasperated and amused before turning her eyes back to the window.
The city lights blurred past, familiar but distant, like a life I didn’t belong to anymore. My thoughts turned to my sister, as they always did, and my chest tightened.
“Do you think she’s still alive out there?” The whispered words clotted in my throat, a painful notion I hadn’t dared consider until now. “Penelope?”
Hunter’s reflection met my gaze in the glass before she turned back to me.
“Yes. And we’re going to find her,” she said firmly. “No matter what it takes.”
Her certainty was comforting, even if I didn’t fully believe it.
“Thanks for coming after me back there,” I murmured, tracing patterns on the worn leather seat between us. “I don’t think I said that yet.”
Hunter’s expression was unreadable, stiff and suddenly sullen like the memory left a bad taste in her mouth. There was a little bit of bite to her words, a venom directed at my captors. “I wasn’t going to let them take you.”
I glanced up at her, but whatever I wanted to say got stuck in my throat. The cab slowed to a stop on a dead-end street and the hotel loomed ahead, nestled between a cluster of trees that seemed determined to swallow it whole.
“This is us,” Hunter said, already reaching for the door handle.
Inside, the lobby was quiet and dimly lit, exuding both luxury and secrecy behind the understated facade. A young man in a sharp suit greeted us and Hunter booked a private room with the kind of ease that suggested she was very familiar with the process. I kept my mouth shut, though I couldn’t resist a small, somewhat condescending side-eye as she handed over more of my hard-earned cash.
Once we were inside the room – a sleek, modern space with heavy curtains and plush furniture – I let out a long breath and sank into one of the armchairs. Hunter lingered by the door, her gaze darting around like she was expecting someone to burst in.
