She doesn’t really trust me. Of course she doesn’t. She barely knows anything about me. How can I get her to trust me with her secrets? If she’s in danger, if she owes someone a lot of money, she needs to tell me. Not telling me means she thinks I’m unfit.
Luis blinked sweat out of his eyes. Dissatisfaction clawed at his insides as the memory of her leaping from his lap played out in his mind again and again.
The contract is for thirty days. That’s more time than I’ve ever spent with a partner before, but I don’t think it’ll be enough. I can’t imagine ever getting enough of her.
The urge to look up at the little VIP section where his girl sat was a visceral pull in his gut. He could feel her gaze on him. It woke an urge he’d never felt before: the desire to show off. He needed her to see him as fit. Worthy. He needed her to know he’d take on any threat for her, whether she wanted him to ornot, and understand that he was better than every other vampire in the room.
That need electrified him.
The ache in his calves didn’t matter. He didn’t feel it. The sweat sluicing down his naked chest was immaterial. The noise of the howling crowd crammed cheek to jowl in the massive basement was nothing but white noise.
He swore he could hear her heartbeat from across the room. It pounded alongside his, a drumbeat that kept him focused.
Jacob didn’t have that motivation. He was being paid to fight for Raphael. He wouldn’t get a taste of the golden anchor his boss coveted. The desire to stay alive was certainly a motivating factor, but it didn’t provide quite the same vigor as the desire for an anchor did.
An anchor was blood. An anchor was life. An anchor was a chance to breed and a treasure to covet above all things.
Luis had never truly wanted one before, but as his muscles cramped and he narrowly escaped a nasty swipe to the side of his head, he realized that was exactly what he was fighting for. Not her temporary contract, and not the chance to play with her until he got bored.
He was fighting for something that felt vital to his very existence — a future he could feel even if he couldn’t quite understand it yet.
If he wanted those thirty days, that future, or even just the next hour with her, he needed to finish this damn fight.
They’d both been flagging, but Luis’s exhaustion dissipated. His body reacted before his mind did when Jacob took another mighty swing. Doing the one thing he’d been trying to avoid the whole time, he lurched backward into the ropes.
Jacob took the bait. He allowed his center of gravity to swing with his arm, thinking he finally had Luis cornered and couldtake the risk. But there was no honor in the Blood Games, and Luis didn’t care what he had to do to win.
He dropped.
Jacob lurched into the ropes, his big body thrown off balance, as Luis rolled to the side. One arm snapped out to rake his claws down the length of the other vampire’s leg, tearing through thin athletic pants like they weren’t even there.
A gush of blood exploded from the deep furrows. Skin split, revealing yellow fat and pink muscle as Luis rolled out of the way. A vampire could never be too careful with the blood of their own kind. If even a small amount got in his eyes or mouth, he could die.
And that would be fucking embarrassing.
Luis climbed to his feet just as Jacob collapsed, his shredded leg outstretched on the mat. Blood squirted from between the fingers he hastily pressed into the largest wound. It was nasty, certainly, but Luis was fairly certain he’d live.
Ignoring the roaring crowd, he turned on his bare heel to find Francesca. Catching her eye, he mouthed,“One to go.”
The party, such as it was, had shifted back to the ballroom. It was necessary to accommodate the influx of spectators and hangers on who’d begun to show up in ever-greater numbers as word spread. As happened at events like these, alcoholic synth flowed almost as fast as money into the betting pool before the final fight — Luis versus Malachi.
Considering the tension between them and the amount of money currently at stake, Milo advised his brother to make himself scarce. Luis was more than happy to avoid the crowd.
After the debacle that’d been the scene in the parlor, Francesca had been whisked off to the bedroom. Luis, a little more rumpled than before, made his way across the mansion, keeping to the service areas just in case someone happened to be wandering around.
Even well away from the ballroom, thumping music and roaring laughter could be heard. It vibrated the walls and the floor beneath his feet, hinting at just how many bodies would cram themselves into the basement for the final fight.
Realistically, he knew he should sit and rest a bit. Maybe strategize the best way to beat Dale, Malachi’s vicious right hand man and proxy.
Luis figured that if his main advantage was that he was more motivated than anyone else, then he ought to spend as much time as he could in the presence of that motivation. Fill up the tank, as it were.
He was just down the hall from Francesca’s room when he spotted the dark shape of a man he didn’t recognize coming around the corner. It took a moment for hard features and nondescript clothing to coalesce, but the green glow of his eyes and the distinct, sour note in his scent told him it was another vampire.
Too close,instinct screamed.Too close to my anchor!
Instantly on alert due to the proximity to his girl, Luis abandoned any chance of hiding and walked swiftly toward the primary suite’s doors. The other man changed course, too, aiming directly for the same destination.
“Hey,” he barked, “this part of the house is off-limits. If you?—”