Beautiful Danger

“I can’t watch this,” she decided, and turned away from what could become the beginning to a very bad day filled with memories she had thought to lock away when joining the Order.

“You don’t want to watch the insane vampire go through his contortions?” he hissed. “Because torture is not pretty, is it?” He leered, and leaned toward her. “You don’t want to see inside this.” He pounded the side of his head with a fist. “Pretty girl, look away!”

“Lark,” she offered, breaking into his tirade. “That’s my name.”

Domingos tilted his head. “Sounds like a bird. Can’t be your real name.”

It wasn’t. She’d shed Lisa Cooper when entering the Order. That woman no longer existed. She couldn’t exist and survive.

“Listen,” she said, pacing back to the window. “You know where I live, but if you value your life, don’t return.”

“Not even to keep away the wolves? Damn it!” He stomped the floor, then bent forward to catch the back of his head with both hands. His hair swung across the dusty floor.

Get out of here, Lark! Don’t look at this. All those wonders you had about what Todd suffered? This vampire can show you. You don’t want to see!

And yet his apparent pain touched her profoundly. While she wanted to avoid experiencing it at all costs, at the same time, the man was like an accident you slowed down to gawk at.

“Why didn’t you kill those wolves?” she asked, curiosity gaining the better of her discretion.

Domingos straightened and smoothed a palm down his shirt, which was only buttoned once in the center. He lifted his chin proudly. “I’m not a killer.”

“You’ve slain a third of the Levallois pack.”

“I am only taking the justice owed me!” He rushed her, pinning her against the windowpanes, which creaked with their weight. “Is that not my right? You’ve been hired by the Levallois pack to stop me, haven’t you? Stop me from claiming the justice owed me.”

“Murder is not justice.”

He shook his head violently, brushing her cheek with his hair. “Can’t tell me that. Stop the violins!”

He smashed a fist through the window beside her head, and Lark reacted by putting up her fists. Domingos saw her defensive pose and shook his head that he would not hurt her. He put up his hands in surrender. Blood trickled down his fingers, yet she watched the cuts heal instantly.

Vampires are creatures. Do not forget that.

“We have a truce for the day,” he said. “You don’t kill me. I don’t hurt you. Too bad. You smell sweet. Your blood would taste delicious.”

“You bite me and you die.”

“Fair enough. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying.”

“Why? I’m a hunter. You know I want you dead. Why don’t you run away from me?”

“Pretty little hunter without weapons to protect herself?” He laughed quietly now and tapped the floor with his toes. A flick of his fingers unbuttoned his shirt. “You are the sweetest thing I’ve known since before I was taken by the pack. I will crave you even as you plunge that metal stake into my heart, Lark. And yet you’ve not a lark’s song, which pleases me. Don’t like music.”

“Is that the violins in your head you were talking about?”

He nodded and bowed his head. Their distance remained but a hand’s width apart.

Lark exhaled shallowly. She didn’t want to know—yes, she did. “What did they do to you?”

No. You don’t want to know!

“Blood games,” Domingos muttered, and bent forward, clasping his arms across his chest, as if protecting his heart. “Very bad. Not stuff for pretty girls to know.”

He shook his head side to side violently, then murmured deep in his throat. And Lark reached out to stroke her fingers down his hair. It was ratted and tangled, but he closed his eyes and moaned softly as if her kindness eased a balm to his inner struggles.

Questioning her own sanity, she retracted. Don’t pick up another stray. “I should leave. The wolves will be gone by now.”

“No, they’ll linger around your apartment to see if you return. Give it a day. Or better yet, find a new place to live.”

He squinted and turned from the window. The sun flashed a sharp orange line on the horizon.

“How will you get home?” She didn’t care. Number seventy-two? Coming right up.

He pulled the goggles down over his eyes and slipped off his shirt.

“Most vampires can walk in sunlight for a few minutes without harm,” she stated. “But your goggles—”

“No!” He pounded his head. “UVs. They burn me. Cannot look at the light.”

Lark recalled that the pack principal had mentioned UV sickness. It resulted when the vampire was kept imprisoned under harsh UV lights. She wasn’t exactly sure of the results, beyond burns and sensitivity to light, but Domingos’s strong shoulders actually shivered now.

It was too close to home, seeing a man cower from torture. Get away from him, Lark. You don’t need a plunge back to memory now. She must stay strong, and make a call to Rook to secure a safe house for a day or two.

“Take it!” He thrust out his shirt, not meeting her eyes.

“I—No. You’ll need protection from the sun.”

“I’ve ten minutes.”

“If you’re lucky and you move right now.” What was she doing? She wanted the bastard to get fried.

“You shouldn’t be walking through Paris in your bra like that. I don’t want them to see you.”

“Them?”

“All of them. The men. They will look at you wrong. Take it!”

She grabbed the shirt to appease the agitated vamp.

“Now go!”

Startled into motion, Lark hustled through the doorway near the shattered window. When she stood on the other side of the wood door in a stairwell that descended to the ground floor, she flinched when feeling the thud against the other side. He stood there, body slammed against the door. Listening? Waiting?

Shirt clasped to her chest, she placed her hand on the door. “What did they do to you?” she whispered.

But she wasn’t asking about Domingos’s torture; rather, she had never dared to ask her husband about his 366 days of captivity.

She had wanted to know. The vampires had changed him. Irrevocably.