LITMIR.BIZ

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I might not be able to find him at all. Besides, I didn’t want to chance being alone with him. I wanted to confront him in a public place.

      “Okay, so where is he?” Carly asked. “Let’s do this.”

      She thought my feelings were hurt and I wanted to lash out, and as my best friend, she was ready to back me up.

      Just like with my mother, I hadn’t breathed a word to her about what was really going on. I wasn’t sure what was stopping me, exactly. Carly, of all people, would probably believe there were angels and demons roaming the city.

      But still I didn’t speak up. She liked to protect me from people who might pick on me. Well, I’d like to protect her from people who might do worse than throw out a few insults. Cruel names might hurt feelings, but sharp golden daggers could kill.

      I did wish very hard that I could stop thinking about Bishop. He was constantly on my mind now. If he hadn’t shown up today, I had little doubt that Kraven would have killed me.

      It was an incredibly sobering thought. I owed my gratitude to Bishop for saving my life, and yet he’d threatened it himself just the night before.

      “I need to talk to Stephen on my own,” I said. “You should stay here and wait for me.”

      She eyed me. “Oh, I get it. So I’m just your chauffeur, huh? I don’t get a chance to tell him off, too?”

      “Believe me, I don’t think that. Although, I won’t say that you having a car isn’t a nice perk.” I couldn’t help but grin at her mock outrage. “This is just something I need to handle myself. Less embarrassing that way.”

      She considered this. “So what if he’s all schmoozy? All, ‘I really want to kiss your delectable lips again’? You’re just going to ignore it?”

      “That isn’t going to happen.” Even if Stephen was one hundred percent innocent, his reaction to me after the kiss spoke volumes. I mean, he’d called me kid. No, I had more important things to deal with than falling for some self-involved college guy right now, no matter how cute I’d always found him.

      It was funny how completely this had doused my crush on him. Like a bucket of water thrown on a lit match.

      Also, my immediate and overpowering attraction to Bishop—and the fact that I couldn’t get him off my mind—had shown me that my little crush on Stephen had been just that. Little.

      “You were really into him. What, are you interested in somebody else now?” she asked.

      There was a catch in her voice that made me direct my attention away from scanning the dark club to her again. “What?”

      She cleared her throat. “Jordan saw you talking to Colin in the hall this morning. She said you were standing really close.”

      I winced. Damn Jordan. My personal nemesis and a total gossip. “It was nothing.”

      Her eyebrows went up and she finally raised her gaze from the ground to meet mine. I saw relief there. “Really?”

      It wasn’t nothing, but getting into details about him asking me out and then me wanting to kiss him probably wouldn’t earn me any brownie points as a loyal best friend.

      “I know Colin’s totally off-limits,” I confirmed instead. “I promise, there’s no way I’d be interested in him like that. But why are you worried that I’ve been talking to him?”

      “I’m done with him. But …” She rubbed her temples. “My brain is going to explode just thinking about this.”

      “Let’s hope not.”

      “I don’t want to be with him anymore, but I don’t want him to be with anyone else. Does that make some kind of bizarre, psycho ex-girlfriend kind of sense?”

      “Sure it does.”

      She laughed before sobering. “No, it doesn’t. I know that. He’s just the first guy who … you know, the first one to really like me.”

      My heart felt heavy for her. I had to be really careful how I acted around Colin from now on. I didn’t want to give him—or Carly—the wrong impression. “Sorry this sucks so much for you. And you need to open your eyes when it comes to other guys. Paul is crazy about you, but you’ve never even looked in his direction. If you want to start dating again, you should give him a chance.”

      She frowned. “Paul? Paul McKee?”

      “The one and only.” He was a friend who always ate lunch with us. A pal, really. But I’d have to be blind not to see the very nonpal way he gazed across the table at Carly on a daily basis. Of course, she never noticed, because she was usually gazing somewhere else.

      I scanned the nightclub. It wasn’t nearly as busy as it had been on Friday. On school nights it became a restaurant that only looked like a club—like a school cafeteria, but better decorated, with cooler lighting and a sound track. The dance floor was deserted and the place shut down at eleven o’clock instead of 1:00 a.m. A quick inhale brought forth the scent of chicken wings, fries and onion rings. Not healthy, but definitely delicious.

      Something else smelled fantastic in here, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.

      Souls, a little voice inside me said. You can smell the souls of all the people near you.

      The thought nauseated me. Hopefully nobody would get as close to me as Colin had earlier today. That seemed to be what set me off.

      “There’s lover boy now,” Carly said, snapping me out of my daze. “You’re right, he is here every night.”

      Sure enough, looking every bit as gorgeous as ever in black pants and a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, Stephen walked along the side of the empty dance floor toward the spiral staircase leading to the upstairs lounge.

      “Okay, I can do this,” I said aloud, trying to summon some inner strength.

      “Are you going to talk to him?” Carly asked. “Or just punch him in the nose?”

      An excellent question.

      He’d done something to me—he’d even warned me about it first. He’d given me this hunger I couldn’t get rid of, this craving that now haunted me every moment I was awake and the chill that stayed with me from morning till night.

      I was ready to confront Stephen.

      Something wicked this way comes.

      This time I was talking about myself.

      “Wait here,” I told Carly. “Please.”

      “You sure you don’t want me there for support?”

      “I’m sure,” I said. Kissing Stephen had led to me almost getting killed. It wasn’t something I wanted Carly involved with. Her being here tonight was bad enough.

      She nodded. “Good luck. Give him hell.”

      I grimaced. Hell wasn’t something I even wanted to consider after meeting a demon today. Slowly, I started up the stairs.

      It’ll change your life forever, so you have to want it.

      I wondered if Stephen said that to all the girls. But I didn’t want a kiss tonight. All I wanted was answers.

      Stephen sat in the corner of the upstairs lounge on a plush red velvet chair. He watched my cautious approach as if not at all surprised to see me again.

      “Samantha Day,” he greeted me. “How are you this evening?”

      My mouth felt dry. Very dry. I tried to ignore how nervous I was. “I need to talk to you.”

      “But you didn’t answer my question. How are you?”

      “Not good,” I admitted.

      “Sorry to hear that.”

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