Darker (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #6)(69)

“I am going to make you so crazy, Alexa, that the only way out will be to drive a stake through my heart.” With that, he released me and left the room without a backward glance.

Chapter Seventeen

I stood there stunned. Then, with a surge of venomous rage, I went after him. I caught up to Kale in the hall and, without a second thought, slapped him with a psi ball heavy enough to take him down.

Kale lay on the floor in the hall, staring up at me with a combination of surprise and amusement. I stood over him, hands on fire with the power rippling through me.

“No f**king way. You don’t get to pull the dramatic exit. I’m sick of you vampires and your dramatic friggin exits.” My voice rose, and several light bulbs in the hall exploded in a shower of glass. “You can clean up the mess you helped me make. I get to make the unnecessarily over-the-top exit. Got it?”

I didn’t wait for a reply. Instead, I stormed out the back door, ignoring those who surfaced to see who was making all the noise. I kicked the door open and raged through the parking lot. I was spoiling for a good fight. What I most needed was a good kill of the supernatural kind.

A basic vampire kill would do little to ease my appetite for violence. I wanted Lilah, but rushing back to her simply because Kale had pissed me off would be stupid. I needed to do a little planning first. So, I went to the next best place where I could let off a little steam and get my head together, a dance club down the street from The Wicked Kiss. With the bloodlust appeased, I was free to walk among the heavily packed human bodies and enjoy the energy that a crowd hopped up on booze and music gave off in abundance.

I wasn’t yet ready to join my vampire brethren in drowning my sorrows in blood baths and mayhem, so letting loose human style was just fine with me. I told the bartender to keep the whiskey coming until my vision swam. Then, I slipped onto the dance floor and remembered what being human felt like.

The steady beats kept coming as the DJ successfully packed the dance floor with writhing bodies. A few guys approached me, seeking someone to take home. I merely smiled and shook my head before dancing away. They didn’t know it, but I was the last woman in the building they wanted to go home with.

Music is a force as powerful as any other that goes unseen. Like love or the exhilarating sensation of leaping from a plane, it was one of those entities that might exist outside of you, but their real power was born from within. Though trendy dance beats weren’t my general cup of musical tea, that night they set me free.

After an especially wild song ended, I slid onto a bar stool and signaled the bartender for another shot.

“You started without me,” came a voice to my left. Willow clinked his beer bottle against my shot glass in cheers. “How the hell can you dance in those things with a bottle of whiskey in your veins?”

I followed his gaze to my heeled boots and laughed. “It’s a talent possessed only by women—and some g*y men.”

“You look happy out there, being one of them.” He nodded toward the dance floor. “Do you miss it?”

I watched the people dancing the night away, each one of them here to leave something behind as they did so. Being human didn’t make one void of trouble or pain. If anything, it made those things worse.

“Yeah, I do. Mostly, I miss the ignorance, not knowing how bad things really are. I miss that.”

Willow wore a sour expression. “I know what you mean. Seeing the dark from the inside is a f**king ugly experience.”

“Why do you always show up when I’m miserable?” I asked, sucking on a lime wedge from the nearby dish.

Willow shrugged and drained the beer bottle dry. “Just lucky, I guess.”

He ordered a round of tequila shots, his favorite. I curled a lip in disgust; the drink didn’t agree with me.

“Did you come to talk me down? I didn’t think I tapped enough power tonight to draw attention.”

“You didn’t.” Sliding a tequila shot in front of me, he flashed a lopsided grin. “I dropped in at your club to talk about last night. You weren’t there, but a couple of bodies were along with one hell of an angry vampire. I thought you could use some drunken shenanigans.”

“Shenanigans,” I repeated. “Funny word coming from an angel. What did you have in mind?”

He continued to nudge the tequila shot a little closer until it was bumping my hand. “We could start a bar fight. Or, steal a car off the Ferrari lot. Maybe even try some illicit narcotics and spend the rest of the night staring at our hands.”

“Sounds like you’ve been watching a few too many teen party movies,” I laughed, giving in and taking the stomach turning shot. “That crap will rot your brain.”

“Good. I got you laughing. Now, tell me what’s bothering you.”

The alcohol-induced happiness dulled. Willow was easy to talk to. Telling him the horrible things I’ve done, confessing my dirty little secrets, I never felt judged. With him, I was able to share feelings no words could fully describe. He seemed to understand, always offering words of wisdom from a place beyond my reach. He was a genuine friend, and I didn’t have many of those these days. Of course, the fact that our relationship was platonic helped. It allowed me a sense of liberty. I was able to expose my soul to him without fear.

I swirled my whiskey but pushed away the next tequila shot Willow placed in front of me. I considered the deep golden liquid in my glass, imagining it as red and warm, straight from the vein. Muttering obscenities under my breath, I drank down the liquor, finding it to be a poor substitute.