Bound by Night(61)

“Glad we could be of assistance,” he said dryly.
“What did I say about not being an ass?” She huffed. “At some point during these last few days, I opened myself up to learning about vampires from your point of view. I let you in, Riker.”
“I’m sure you’ll regret that eventually.” Clearly, he wasn’t listening to her complaints about being an ass.
“I’ll never regret it,” she snapped. “Because somehow I feel like I’ve finally healed.”
“What are you saying? That if I open myself up, climb into bed with you, I’ll magically get better? I’ll forget how your family destroyed someone I cared about, someone I was charged with protecting?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. In fact, let’s try sex again.” She leaped to her feet and tore open her jeans.
“Maybe my magic vagina will cure you of all the traumatic acts my family has inflicted on you.”
“Dammit.” He snared her wrists to stop her from stripping. “Nothing you do will ever make me forget that.”
Fury blazed in her eyes, so full of green fire he expected to find scorch marks on his skin. “You know,
I’ve learned that not all vampires are the same. So why can’t you open your eyes and see that not all humans
 are the same, either? Oh, wait—you can, you just don’t want to. You’d rather hold on to your hatred and make everyone around you put up with your bitterness and guilt.”
“You know nothing about me or the people around me,” he bit out. “You’ve known me a few days, and you’re an expert on my life?”
“Am I wrong?” she shot back. “Or do you wield your venom like a weapon, poisoning everything around you?”
Her swipe at him hit so close to home that it was almost a physical blow. His temper swelled, fed by his own self-hatred, which had been encapsulated by hardened layers of denial. Now the capsule had cracked, leaking toxic anger that Nicole didn’t deserve but was going to feel the brunt of anyway.
“You have a death wish, don’t you, human?” He surged closer to her once more, tempted to take her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. The kind of sense that would teach her to never taunt a vampire.
To never tempt a vampire.
She lifted her chin stubbornly. “You said you wouldn’t kill me.”
“And you believed me?” He bared his fangs for emphasis. “Me, a vampire?”
She cringed, almost imperceptibly, but he also caught a whiff of anxiety, so yeah, she wasn’t percent sure she was safe, and he felt like a fucking heel.
He’d come here to satisfy a primal urge for a female who had captivated him from the moment he touched her, but even as those raging hormones rushed through his body, he’d calmed in her presence. She’d admitted to being frightened and confused, lost in both her world and his, and all he’d wanted to do was to comfort her. Now he’d made her feel trapped again, like nothing more than a sheep awaiting slaughter in a pen.
He drew in a breath, hoping oxygen would clear his head and magically give him the right words for this situation.
Apparently, neither magic air nor magic vaginas existed.
There was a pounding on the door, followed by Hunter slamming it open and crossing to the bedroom in a matter of a heartbeat. He stood in the doorway, his gaze sweeping from the messy bed to their disheveled clothing, and Riker knew he was in for a first-class dress-down later.
Awesome. Because it wasn’t enough to have Myne up his ass about his involvement with Nicole.
“There’s something you need to see,” Hunter said grimly.
Riker shifted his weight, crunching a shard of broken glass beneath his foot. “Give me a few.”#p#分页标题#e#
“Now,” Hunter countered. “Both of you.”
If there was anything Riker knew how to do, it was take orders, even if he didn’t like them. In sullen silence, he and Nicole followed Hunter to his office, where his television was on, the picture paused.
He punched a button on the remote, and a reporter standing in front of Daedalus’s headquarters started speaking.
“Dr. Nicole Martin, billionaire heiress and CEO of Daedalus Corporation, is still missing after being brutally kidnapped by vampires, igniting a cry from some to eradicate vampires once and for all, and counter— protests by the Vampire Humane Society demanding freedom for vampires that Daedalus has played a large role in capturing.”
The camera panned to a woman holding a sign that said VAMPIRES ARE PEOPLE, TOO. “Nicole Martin got what she deserved!” the lady yelled. “You reap what you sow. Free the vampires!”