Predatory (Immortal Guardians #3.5)(107)

“Pike?”

He was still dressed in his cocktail-hour deconstructed tuxedo but this morning’s look was for more deconstructed than it was tuxedo. His carefully disheveled hair was actually disheveled and he sported a spray of dark stubble over his upper lip and chin. He brushed a hand over the would-be beard when he glanced down at me, his eyes wild and disturbingly alive.

“Oh, Nina, my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.” It came out as one long string and I avoided the hand he offered, suddenly strangely suspicious. He may have once (yesterday) been my gorgeous future soul mate, but he was tainted by fashion thief Emerson, and was now running out of a building where my designs were supposed to be safe.

I pushed myself to standing, feeling my eyes narrow as I scrutinized him, and saw the barely imperceptible way his head reared back from my examination. There were no telltale bulges where he might have hidden my patterns or design notes—and I looked carefully, examining every bulge.

We vampires like to be incredibly thorough. I like to be incredibly thorough.

I smelled beer on Pike’s morning-after breath and his whole countenance was agitated, guarded.

“Are you high?” I asked, my arms crossing in front of my chest.

Pike actually stopped and seemed to settle, his pale lips quirking upward. “High? May have had a few beers to wash down my Wheaties but nothing more. What are you doing here?”

“I have a show to prepare for. And a passcode. How did you get in here? Why did you get in here?”

Pike’s sudden coolness ticked all the way through him and he patted the black camera bag that crossed his chest. “Working. I was here working.”

My eyes raked over his attire and I cocked out a hip. “You were up all night shooting designs for designers who were fast asleep in their own homes? Or, you know,” I said and licked my lips, trying to conjure up the best word. “Dead?”

Pike was unfazed. He actually looked cooler than before as he eyed me. “And I’m supposed to believe you were one of those fast asleep at home?”

Truth was, I’d spent my evening starring as Roxie Hart in an off-Broadway production of Chicago. Well, not so much an off-Broadway production as a karaoke bar with beer-stained carpet, but this grungy photog didn’t need to know that.

I just raised my eyebrows until Pike rolled his eyes. “I don’t only work for the Institute, you know.”

He brushed past me as though that were all the explanation I needed and even though his pain-in-the-ass quotient went up to about a thousand, I couldn’t help but sneak a peek and notice that his regular ass quotient still hovered somewhere between perfection and breathtaking. I watched him hail a cab with lightning speed, the yellow thing disappearing down the street.

I rode the crotchety old elevator (what is it with breathers and their need for all things retro?) up to the design studio and felt little butterfly flaps of anxiety in my belly. I have dreamed of having my own little studio since the early 1900s—you should have seen Coco’s little place in Paris!—and now, because of this design opportunity, I had it.

Well, almost.

One of the enormous benefits of this competition was that both Emerson and I were awarded top-notch design studios— outfitted with the latest and greatest of everything—in which to baste, steam, slice, and create the designs for each of our competing lines.

The enormous matching drawback was that each of these incredible studios shared floor space with each other. I had a bank of floor-to-ceiling cabinets and hanging closets at the front end of the room; Emerson had an identical setup on her side. We each had huge drafting and cutting tables, dual sewing machines, maiden forms, and steamers. As designers, all we needed to bring were our designs, our fabric bolts, and our personal tools. Where I traveled with a lucky pair of scissors, a seam ripper called Marie Antoinette, and a pincushion in the shape of a mushroom, I was fairly sure that Emerson only packed a tape recorder and a notebook titled “Designs I Stole.”

But it was nice this morning as the sun started to break through the heavy gray fog and the entire studio was peaceful, quiet, and Emerson-free.

I went to work outlining a new design and when the spark of inspiration slipped from the page and pointed at my rack of newly designed dresses, I couldn’t help but snatch one from the rack and grab my lucky scissors.

Only, they weren’t there.

I tore apart my pink-rhinestoned tool kit and then went to work opening every drawer and yanking open every closet. Finally, I dropped to my knees in a desperate hope that my lucky pair had slipped from their holster. I patted and searched until my knees felt knobby and raw—and I was facing Emerson’s side of the room.

I felt my hackles go up, a hot stripe of rage going from the base of my head to the end of my spine.

She did it.

Emerson Hawk stole my lucky shears.

I heard the electric lock tumbling downstairs, the ping! and rush of elevators coming to life as the people started to make their way into the building.

There wasn’t much time.

I sprinted the fifty feet across the room and grabbed at Emerson’s drawers, tearing through them like a burglar with a serious mission. In the back of my head I heard the footsteps and early-morning chatter as students and designers closed in on our room and when I grabbed the handle of Emerson’s closet door—the one marked “personal”—I was in such a fury that I didn’t care as the voices closed in.