Forget About Midnight (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #9)(32)

“Brinley, you must understand that if you ask me to get involved, someone is going to die.” A thrill of excitement shot through me. It had been quite some time since I was approached to take out the trash. I didn’t count the hit job I’d done for the Doghead Alpha recently. That had been a job of necessity, not want.

There was no hesitation in Brinley. He merely nodded, accepting it. “Whatever it takes to keep these kids safe. I just wish there was something I could give you in return for your help.”

“Oh, I’ll be getting something out of it. Don’t worry about that.” Would I ever. Just the thought of hunting and killing a creep who defiled children got me excited. Some vampires preferred to kill at random, grabbing whoever caught their interest. It had always been in my nature to enjoy the hunt of one who deserved it.

“So there’s this girl.” Brinley scrolled through some photos on his phone before handing it to me. “Allie. She’s fourteen. On the streets. She usually checks in with me a few times a week, but I haven’t heard from her in almost two. I know she’s in trouble. I was hoping you could maybe check out her pimp’s place. That’s usually where she ends up. I would, but I can only get so involved before it becomes illegal. Trespassing, harassment. That kind of shit.”

A scowl marred my face as I stared at the picture. To think that the law would stop a caring human being from coming to the aid of a young girl was both sickening and scary.

Allie was young, but her dark eyes were like bottomless pits of despair. They made her appear much older than her age. Dark hair and light brown skin, she was lovely, other than the utter loathing in her expression.

“Get me an address. I’ll see what I can do. I can’t make any promises though.”

Brinley almost collapsed in his relief. Even as he slid off his stool, his shoulders slumped, and he sighed. “Thank you. Truly, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” It felt right to help him, but still I harbored some worry. What if I couldn’t? What if I only made things worse somehow?

Protector of Mankind.

It didn’t matter. I had to try.

I stayed at The Wicked Kiss until the threat of sunrise drove me out, along with everyone else. Nobody had tried to mess with me though there were a lot of hard to read stares and not so covert glances. I was a little disappointed.

Getting into the Camaro thrust me back into the awkward and heartrending chaos that was my relationship with Kale. I spent the drive back to his house telling him about Brinley and his kids. It was a good way to distract ourselves from the real issue for a while.

“You should take Falon with you,” Kale said, stunning me.

“Why would I ever do that?” I studied him from behind a curtain of ash blonde. Was this his way of saying he didn’t plan to stick around?

Kale glanced over at me, his expression guarded. “You should have someone there to keep you from losing control and attacking the wrong person. Like the girl. I can’t overpower you anymore. Well, not for long anyway. But Falon can.”

“Yeah that’s what Falon needs,” I scoffed, “an excuse to use force on me.”

Kale didn’t respond. His hand was tight on the wheel, making his knuckles bulge. Something was definitely bothering him. And I knew what it was, for that same voice lingered inside my head.

The rest of the drive was spent in tense silence. A few times one of us attempted idle chatter only to have it die out. We pulled up to Kale’s house, and immediately I wanted to be almost anywhere else in the world. Not because I didn’t want to be with him but because I knew it was coming to an end and I wasn’t ready to face that.

Since we’d left the house and returned, it felt as if everything had changed. We’d awoken at sundown in each other’s arms, and now we returned at sunrise with a wedge driven between us.

We entered the house, closing out the approaching dawn. I stared around Kale’s home, finding that it didn’t truly have a loved, lived-in feel to it. He had no roots here, nothing to keep him tied to the city. Only me.

I wanted to go back to the previous day, when we’d made love with wild surrender, when the world outside the door had momentarily ceased to exist. Except that it did exist, and here we were, thrust back into it.

We stood awkwardly in the living room, looking at everything but each other. Finally Kale said what we were both thinking. “We can’t keep doing this, Alexa. We crossed a line in the last twenty-four hours. Several lines actually. We’ve taken things too far.”

It hurt to hear him say it. But he wasn’t wrong. I’d gone off the rails since the turn, embracing the madness that came from a deadly combination of bloodlust and separation from Arys. Running straight into the arms of the man who shared my weaknesses had been a mistake, a beautiful, mind-blowing, spirit-shattering mistake.

“You let him get inside your head, didn’t you?” I asked, dragging my tortured gaze to Kale’s defeated one. “He has a way of doing that.”

I spoke of Arys with detachment, loathe to utter his name. It infuriated me that he’d gotten to Kale. If there was one person I wanted Arys to have no part of, it was Kale. He was mine.

Except he isn’t.

“He doesn’t want to watch you lose your mind. Neither do I.” Turning away, Kale slid his jacket off and draped it over the back of the couch. He seemed to be having trouble maintaining eye contact. “I knew that, if we took it this far, it would be damn near impossible to go back to what we were before, and I did it anyway. Because I can’t f*cking resist you. But it’s bad, my love. So bad.”