Page 4 of Claiming Starlight
“Please.” His heated skin burned her fingers. Pulling back, shaking now from fear and adrenaline, Sophie had no idea what to do.Begging sounded like a good option. But what to say?
Damn troll. She hoped he lost his hand to pay the price of this broken bargain. It was going to cost her more than she could afford; she knew it.
“I’m wet, you’re soaked, my leather is getting wet. No time for this fucking crap. Get in the car.”
“I don’t want that. Just leave me alone.” She tried to square her shoulders and tell him off, but she couldn’t make her spine straighten, much less meet his eyes.
“No, baby. That’s not how this works.” He took her arm in a firm hold.
Sophie yelped, a half scream that echoed down the street and had him shooting her a warning glare. Hand on her head, he shoved her into his car, closing the door behind her.
“Hola, pretty girl, What’s your name?” Long Nose said in Spanish from the back.
Sophie pretended she didn’t understand him. She was just going to pretend this wasn’t happening.
The big cab of the car shrank in size when the man named Micah climbed in. Even though the stick shift separated them, the seat was one big bench all the way across the car, and she felt it along her body when he settled himself onto the leather upholstery.
She couldn’t take it. It was all too much. The situation, him. Everything. Scrambling, she tried to open the door.
“No!” he barked at her. His hand came down on her thigh in a loud, painful slap.
Sophie gasped, her eyes tearing up instantly from the burning hurt she felt through the material of her jeans. “Don’t! Please.”
Turning her body to face the threat, she pressed her back against the door, Getting as far away from him as she could.
Not far enough. His hand easily reached across the seat to her face, caught her chin, and forced her eyes to his. They were hard as granite. Intense and pale, luminous blue with emotion, surrounded by tiny broken wrinkles etched in the surrounding skin, framed by long eyelashes.
Dripping confidence and authority, his hand was firm, almost painful. His control over her absolute. “Stop. Now.”
Dropping her face, he started the car. “Not messing with you. You’re dog bait, little Starlight. You think I’m bad? What about ten guys like Jumper here, riding your ass all night long? You want me to leave you here to be played with hard? That why you come down here? You don’t look the type, but it wouldn’t be the first time a vampir girl left her masters for some fun. You tired of their chilly hands?”
Jumper hooted from the back, “Ice dick!”
“You hit me.” Sophie accused. Was he saving her from an attack on the street, or was he taking her so that he could attack her himself?
“Ten dogs like me, boss? No, there’s only one short guy with a big dick on this street. I’d fill her—” There was a laugh from between the seats as his friend poked his head forward. He didn’t get to finish. The driver pushed him back.
“Shut it, Jumper.”
Looking at Sophie, he said, “If I hit you, you’d have a broken neck. I won’t hit you. But I will spank that sweet ass red to teach you to listen. Gotta listen ‘round here, or you end up dead.”
She felt his warning like a stab in the gut. She did not want to be, where this stranger could spank her.
Putting the car in drive, he pulled out onto the deserted street. She felt his eyes go back and forth from the road to her and tried to make herself small. Unnoticeable.
“What’s your name?” he asked finally.
“I live in Hyde. You’re going in the wrong direction,” she whispered.
“Hyde is it? You more than just the regular vampir bitch, then, yeah? You don’t smell like that bastard Silver. Not yet at least. He got you on hold?”
“Could you take me home? I don’t have any money, but I can trade something.”
“Trade what?” He looked interested.
Sophie knew her value to the people around her. From the red-blood to the blue-bloods, she carried an ability to help them with any number of things. A bit of her DNA added to a sorcery spell or witch incantation amped up its power, but there was a catch; it had to be given willingly and with intent.It was dangerous to offer it, but she was feeling desperate.
Apocalypse Day changed the landscape of the world in many ways. Sophie was a red-blood, one-hundred-percent human, but the magical laws of blue-blood unnaturals—of all the supernatural alternate races—ruled her as much as it ruled them.
