Unbound (Forbidden Bond Book 1)(10)

"That is the problem, Vince. She isn't with me. Have you ever seen her before?" Chase asked through his teeth.

"No, sir, I never met her before tonight. Would you like Vince to see if  he can get some information? I have friends all over. I'll make some  calls. Given her name I'm surprised you're not familiar with her."

"You know her name?" Chase raised an eyebrow.

"I'm on the door tonight. It's my job to check IDs," he defended. "Her  name is Danielle Vaughn. I assumed she was a friend of your family. I  set her and her human entourage up in VIP."

Chase staggered back a step. The Vaughn family was another of the three  ruling houses on the council. The council consisted of senior members of  the Deidrick, Vaughn, and Stafford families. "You did well, Vince. I  want you to keep this to yourself until I sort out a few things and try  to get information through my own channels. When she leaves, try to  assure she understands she's welcome to return." Vince nodded obediently  as Chase passed him to reenter the club.

He decided to make the best of the rest of the evening. He really did  need to feed that night, so he settled on the girl who'd been working so  hard for his attention all evening. She reached out and took his hand,  and he leaned toward her.

Just then, he saw the goddess coming in his direction. Jerking his hand  back, Chase stood to greet his little lovely. That was her name … Lovely.

The loathed blond human boy wrapped his arm around her hip. She eyed  Chase with an intensely angry heat. His blood burned again as she laid  her head on the boy's shoulder and allowed him to pull her away, not  breaking eye contact until she was out of sight.

Was Lovely pissed about the human girl touching him? That made no sense. He had to feed. They all had to feed.



Back at their dorm room, Dani fell onto the bed. She pulled off her boots and dragged the blanket over herself.

Olivia chastised her, "You better get that makeup off your face. Do you like clogged pores and pimples?"

She pulled the blanket over her head to block the light and informed Olivia, "I've never had a pimple in my life."

Olivia made a disgusted noise. Dani could hear her humming and washing her face as she drifted off to sleep.

A loud bang at the door woke her, and she begged Olivia to get it. The  knocking came again. Dani sat up in bed. Olivia wasn't in the room. She  must have locked herself out. To her surprise, it was Jared at the door  looking upset. "What's wrong?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.

"We need to talk, D." He stepped around her and into the room.

"Sure, come on in," she said a bit sarcastically, since he hadn't waited  for an invitation. "Is everything alright? Have you seen Olivia? I  didn't even hear her leave." She crawled up on her bed and Jared sat  nervously at her feet. "Jared, what's wrong?"

"I want you to have me, D," he said with his face in shadows.

"Have you?" She blinked the sleep away.

Jared stood and turned out her lamp, but she could still see him in the  light streaming from the bathroom. He was shaking when he pulled off his  shirt and climbed into the bed next to her.

Remembering how easy it had been to let him hold her made Dani shake a  little, too. "Jared, I really like you, but I have a boyfriend. I'm  sorry if I gave you the wrong impression earlier. We were only dancing."

"I have what you need," he insisted, only inches from her face. "I want  you to take it." He leaned over and brushed her bottom lip with his, a  simple act that sent a shot of warmth straight to her core. His green  eyes begged her not to reject his offering.

Dani tried to get out of the bed, but was pulled in by his heat when she  attempted to crawl over his body to escape. The smell of his skin made  her mouth water. He was just so sweet and warm, like mint and summer  rain. She draped herself over him, trying to absorb the warmth with her  face pressed into his neck. One of his arms wrapped around her waist.  The other brushed gently through her hair.

"That's right; take whatever you need. Take it all." He tilted his head to give her better access to his neck.

"I don't know. I can't." She whimpered against his neck. She could hear  his pulse pounding in her head, beating against her lips. Her teeth  ached. She wanted it. …          

     



 

Her cell phone rang and woke her up. It was just another damn dream. She  saw Lucas's name on the screen of her phone. She answered, trying to  convince herself she was actually awake. "Hello?"

"I've called you five times. What's wrong? Are you pissed because I went out?" he huffed.

"I just woke up, Lucas." The room around her was still dark. The clock  read 4 a.m. "Why are you calling me at four in the morning with an  attitude? I didn't get to bed until two o'clock myself."

"What do you mean by that? What the hell are you doing out at two in the  morning? Don't you have a curfew or something?" he slurred.

"Are you drunk?"

"Don't change the subject! I asked you a question! Where were you?" He was yelling at her.

"I refuse to argue with a drunk." She said each word slowly. "You can  call me later, when you locate your common sense." She hung up on him.  He called right back, so she turned the phone off. She was too pissed to  sleep by that point, so she quietly slid on her tennis shoes. Still  fully dressed, she whipped her hair up into a messy bun and left for a  walk.

Surprisingly enough, she was not the only one out wandering. It seemed  as though several people had finally started drifting back to campus.  She turned the cell back on to find eight new voice mails and erased  them all without listening to them.

Dani walked down the old cobblestone sidewalk that circled her favorite  patch of arching trees and found herself a bench in a clearing a few  yards back into the trees. People passing could be seen, but they  wouldn't see her, unless they looked in her direction as they passed.  She watched all the partygoers stagger back to campus and was highly  entertained observing all of them, except for the guy who puked in the  bushes. That she could have happily missed.

Lying on the bench, she stared up at the sky and remembered all the  nights Lucas and she had spent in the back of his pickup, gazing at the  stars and making out. As the sun began to rise over the trees, the  peacefulness around her began to sink in. She continued to watch as the  sky turned from black to dark blue and the stars began to fade. In the  quiet, she allowed her mind to wander over the thoughts she'd been  avoiding. She feared she was going crazy and was sure something was  wrong with her. First, she wanted to do God knows what to Lucas, and her  eyes went black as she invaded his mind. She'd had a great dream about  making love to Lucas that turned into a nightmare when she bit him. The  vivid dreams had then turned on her friends. And to top it all off, she  couldn't stop thinking about the beautiful blue-green eyes belonging to a  hot stranger, and Lucas suddenly becoming a drunk.

It wasn't like she could talk to anyone about that stuff. She'd always  been able to tell her mom anything, but how would one go about bringing  that up? Hey, Mom, guess what? I attacked Lucas, read his mind, and I  dream of biting people. How's your day? Maybe she would talk to her over  the holiday break if it didn't stop, or maybe not.



She'd slept most of Sunday away, ignoring Lucas's phone calls until  about the fifth time he tried to reach her, before she sent him a text  saying, "I'm still upset with you. I'm not ready to talk yet."

Apparently, he had no memory of speaking to her, which led her to ask  Lucas what else he might have done that he didn't remember.

On the way to class on Monday, Dani stopped at the coffee shop for her  usual nonfat mocha with extra whipped cream. While waiting for her  necessary caffeine fix, Dani thought she heard someone call her name in  the faintest whisper. She turned to see who'd said it, but no one looked  her way. She shrugged it off, grabbed the heavenly brew, and headed for  the exit.

Then, she saw him at a corner table. Chase was drinking an espresso and  typing on his laptop. He looked up and smiled, then nodded toward the  seat on the other side of his table. Knowing it was the wrong thing to  do didn't stop her. She'd been thinking about him since Saturday night,  so she was happy to see him-a little too happy. She sat across from him  and waited, until he smiled and raised one finger in a request that she  give him a moment. He finished typing and closed the laptop.

Looking at him in the light of day made her feel at ease. She'd been  having so many odd dreams that it was easy to convince herself the man  she met at the club wasn't real. He couldn't have been as striking as  she remembered. But he was. Chase was a beautiful man. He was sexy as  hell with dark hair in perfect disorder, and his blue-green eyes still  stunned her.

"You're just as lovely in the daylight," he flattered her with a soul-melting smile.