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I rubbed my neck in the limo on the way back to Sara’s inn.
Once he’d bitten me, I thought he would humiliate me by forcing me to sit as he had first commanded, but he merely stroked my neck and told me to go back to the hotel. He wasn't interested in humiliation, which was nice. He just wanted to control me.
Sara was lounging on a fainting couch in the lobby when I arrived, chewing on pieces of melon and reading a Japanese newspaper upside down. She glanced up at me briefly and went back to the paper. I could feel her disapproval, but of what I had no idea. Then suddenly, she looked back at me with a horrified expression and jumped up, tossing the paper away.
“He bit you,” she stated, her face shocked. I reached a hand up to cover my neck. “He forced his will on you.” She put a hand on mine and gave me a comforting look, like James had forced himself on me, instead of just biting me. Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure how those two options differed.
Then the air changed. We both tensed, though I didn’t know if Sara felt what I was feeling. It wasn’t a smell, more like my ears had randomly tuned into something happening outside.
“He’s here,” she whispered.
I turned around and went back to the front door. Sara joined me, pulling on some shoes that looked like they’d come from Aladdin’s closet. I expected to see James standing there, ready for round two of whatever he thought our evening had been, but that wasn’t what greeted me.
Knight was further down the road, kneeling in the street, a dozen vampires and human bodyguards either holding him down or pointing a weapon at him. James stood at the head of the group, looking down at Knight, about to pass judgment for a Lycan trespassing within his unmarked borders.
Even though the last time I’d seen Knight had ended in literal blood and tears, I felt elation and relief at the sight of him. I’d given up hope that I’d ever see him again. And despite the oddness of our relationship, I found I didn’t want him to leave again.
“Wait!” I shouted. James’s head turned to see Sara and I coming towards him. Two vampires had a rough grip on Knight’s hair, so he fought his captors to find my face.
“Hey, Lisa,” he said with a toss of his chin and a smile.
“Lisa?” I asked, completely confused. Did he forget my name? Was he playing dumb? Well. He didn’t really have to play.
He grinned. “Trying to find you a nickname. Not working?”
The look I gave him was utter disbelief at his choice of conversation, giving the circumstances. He shrugged and grinned playfully.
James hissed loudly so we’d stop talking. I felt the command, even if he hadn’t spoken it. “You know this dog, Elisabeth?” Knight’s mouth wrinkled when my name was said as if he disapproved more of James using my full name than being called a dog.
“Yes. He protected me before I came here. He’s my-” I checked Knight’s face before I finished my sentence, knowing I’d pay for it later. “-bodyguard.” James started to chuckle ironically and Knight scrunched his mouth up even more with annoyed disapproval.
“I can see that you’re serious,” James said after he’d finished laughing. “You had your reasons for hiring a mongrel to watch over you, I suppose.” Mongrel? That was much worse than dog. Even I was offended. “What shall you do with him?”
That surprised me. “I- what?”
“He bears your scent. You’ve bitten him. You decide what his fate is. Shall we kill him?” He waited for me to speak. To choose.
I glanced back at Knight, still kneeling on the asphalt and being restrained by so many other bodies, much more than a normal man would require. “Let him go.” I caught a slight nod from James out of the corner of my eye before Knight was released. He stood and brushed off his faded blue jeans.
“Thanks, Lis,” he said, the grin back on his face.
James straightened and flicked a hand for everyone to give Knight more space. “I expect you gone from my city before sunrise,” he commanded the Lycan.
“No, he’s not leaving,” I said, and instantly regretted it.
James’s body turned and seemed to tower over me. “Excuse me?”
I swallowed, fear trickling up my skin, and Knight gave me a perplexed look. It took all my power not to stutter. “I want him to stay.”
“Are you defying me?” James asked sternly.
I whimpered. It felt as if weights were crushing me and I struggled to breathe. I couldn’t defy my master. My panicked eyes went back to Knight. Although he didn’t know what was going on, he at least wasn’t mad at me for being a weakling. Wait. I wasn’t defying James.
“You...” I swallowed. “You said I decide his fate. I want him to stay here.” I waited to feel pain, weakness, the crushing weights again, but I didn’t.
James hmphed at me, a smile coming to his lips. “Clever. Very well. You win this time.” He raised two fingers and made a circle in the air, which tmeant the show was over. The humans and vampires dispersed. With a smile still on his face, he took my arm and squeezed it so hard his nails pierced my thick vampire skin. “Be glad I enjoy your companionship, Lisbeth.” And with that, he was gone, along with his bodyguards.
Knight ran his hands through his mussed hair. “Nice company you’re keeping, Lis.” My emotions swirled so badly, I had no idea how to react. Sara broke the silence, stepping forward and offering her hand to him.
“I’m Sara. Resident weirdo.”
He took her hand and pumped it a few times. “Nice to know you’re owning it.” She shrugged playfully and flipped some of her pink-tipped hair back. Was she flirting?
I interrupted...whatever they were up to. “What are you doing here?” I asked Knight sternly.
“Aaaand moment over. I’ll be in the lobby.” Sara about faced with a fancy twirl and half ran back to the hotel. Knight watched her leave (was he checking her out?), then he turned back to me. His face softened slightly.
“I thought you could use some backup.”
My first reaction was accusatory. Why had he left? Why had he suddenly come back? But I was too relieved to see him and too tired to argue. “The reason being?”
“I caught your scent at the gas station outside of town, and then I smelled other vampires. I figured you'd been captured.”
In the midst of everything that had happened in the past hour, I'd scarcely thought of Arthur. But that didn't matter much now since I was now bound to the small city and couldn't leave without James's permission. I'd have to take my chances with the Hunters, as disconcerting as that was. I had bigger problems at the moment.
“Thank you for the concern,” I told Knight. “I haven't been found yet, so I'm safe.”
He looked at the corner of the street, the one James had disappeared behind. “I highly doubt that.”
