Page 73 of Fanged Embrace
My fingers tightened on my forearm and I snapped my head toward the door. I itched to fling it open and meet the owner of that booming voice head-on, but Laurie told me to wait… So, maybe this was a friend of hers?
I cast my aura outward, trawling the area for hers until I feltthe familiar fluctuations of her emotions. She didn’t feel particularly panicked, some light nerves and nothing more. If she wasn’t in danger I would have to stay put, rather than ruin whatever her plan was.
So I waited, straining to catch snippets of conversation through the door. But Laurie must have moved further in, because I couldn’t hear anything other than the occasional murmur, garbled words swallowed up by the pounding music.
A minute ticked by. And then two more.
I glanced at the door again, mentally feeling around for a tendril of Laurie’s aura. It was faint at first, tense but not fearful—and then it detonated, out of nowhere, smacking into me like a tidal wave of panic and feral terror.
A jagged spike of fear sliced through my chest so abruptly I gasped.To hell with lurking.
I kicked the door open in a blink, hard enough to rattle the glassware in the swanky bar set up in the corner. A handful of slick suit-and-Rolex types jerked upright, whiskey sloshing from their glasses. Laurie was not among them.
“Where’s the girl?” I barked, looking from one wrinkled face to the next with a steadily growing panic of my own. Laurie’s aura had my own pulse ticking up, sirens ringing loud and clear in my ears.
I was met with blank stares and half-hearted shrugs. Laurie’s aura was elsewhere, moving—pulling me toward a side exit at the far end. I tore across plush carpeting, shouldered through the service door, and burst into another narrow brick corridor. Her aura burned brighter ahead, past a battered security gate.
I pushed through it and spilled down the concrete steps, tumbling into an alleyway just in time to see a thick-necked man drive Laurie back against the wall beside a battered green dumpster. She was kicking, cursing, writhing in his grip—biting and spitting like a wet cat.
“Do you know how much money you owe me?!” the guy was shouting, red in the face and utterly livid. “Six thousand dollars went missing the night you quit—I know it was you!”
“I didn’t steal shit!” Laurie bucked and wriggled, straining to break free from his grip on her collar. “You want to point fingers, start with your ‘friends’ in the VIP lounge. They’ve been swindling you from the start?—”
The angry man cocked his fist back and Laurie tensed against the wall. He moved to swing—but I moved faster.
He barely turned before I was on him. One wrench on his wrist, a strategic knee to the ribcage, and the guy howled and let her go. Laurie dropped to her knees, shaking all over. I planted myself between her and the wheezing man, fangs fully bared, aura flooding the narrow space with cold menace.
“Fuck off,” I hissed through a mouthful of teeth, towering over him with fiery fury burning in my chest. “Unless you want to lose your head.”
“What the–” The guy took one look at my face—taking in pointed canines, pure bloodlust in glowing ochre eyes—and blanched. “Fucking hell…” He backed up a step before turning on his heel and scrambling away down the alleyway, disappearing back through the security gate and slamming it shut behind him.
The echoingclangrang through the alleyway, sharp in the sudden silence.
I watched him go, resisting the urge to bolt after him and show him what kind of damage these teeth were capable of inflicting. It took monumental effort to turn away, to let him leave without earning so much as a black eye for daring to lay a finger on Laurie.
Laurie…
Adrenaline roared in my ears as I spun around to help her to her feet. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“No. I mean… I’m fine,” she muttered, but she kept her eyes down, rubbing her hands over her face. “That was my old boss, Micky. I—uh, I didn’t expect him to be quite so butthurt about my quitting six months ago.”
“Laurie, that guy was fully prepared to punch youin the face. If I hadn’t shown up…” I tried to tamp the anger out of my tone, but it flared anyway. “The next time you plan to get yourself into trouble, don’t leave me waiting outside!”
“River, relax. I’mfine.” Laurie snapped her eyes up to glare at me, arms rising to fold across her chest. “It was just a misunderstanding. I quit working at the bar a while back—by walking out mid-shift. Apparently some money went missing from the cash register after that and darling Micky back there—” she inclined her head toward the security door with a sour scowl on her face, “assumed that I was the one responsible.”
“Why were you even talking to him in the first place?!” I resisted the urge to grab her shoulders and shake, to holler at her that this reckless behavior had to end before she got herself seriously hurt. Her hair was falling over her face and I reached up to brush it aside, working overtime to keep my voice even. “Why did you have to leave me behind to do it?”
“I wastryingto find out if he’d seen the escapees hanging around lately.” She slapped my hand away and backed up a step, shutting down my attempted intervention. “He doesn’t trust strangers, and that includes you. I had to speak to him alone.”
Her voice was rough and rocky, her face crumpled in a scowl. But I caught the slight shake of her shoulders, and the faintest prickle of moisture in the corner of her eyes. She was shaken—and trying her best not to show it, but her aura was easy to read. She’d been scared. Terrified. That thought brought a lump to my throat.
“You could have at least told me that,” I murmured, stooping to meet her eye. “We’re a team, remember?”
Laurie looked away, refusing to meet my gaze. “Yeah, River, Iknow. All right?” She leaned back against the wall, the back of her head thunking against the brickwork. “Look, I appreciate you working with me—I really do. It’s nice to know you have my back, but… You can’t shield me from everything. You have to let me do what I need to do.”
“All I’m asking is for you to think about your own safety forfive seconds!” My words slipped out sharper than I intended. I cleared my throat, steadied my tone, brushed hair from my eyes instead of hers. “You don’t have to rush into every alley by yourself. Ask for help—ask me.”
“Ask for help?!” Her shoulders bunched, defenses snapping into place. “Yeah, I’ve tried that. You know what happens? People let me down. Every. Single. Time. So, pardon me if I’d rather rely on the one person who hasn’t failed me yet—myself.”
