Page 18 of B Negative
Sunny lied.
The whole time, she knew what he was doing. Knew how much I didn’t trust the mate process.
The tightness in my chest clamped down harder than ever, eliciting a groan. I nearly fell to my knees in the elevator.
“Ms, Vaughn, should I call a healer?” the guard asked, gripping my arm to steady me.
What for? Could a healer fix a heart broken by two people? Could a healer repair trust? Make me not an ignorant made vampire? Could he fix whatever was broken in me that attracted all this mess?
“No. I just need to get out of here.”
“Absolutely. Where shall I tell the driver to take you?”
Another question I didn’t have the answer to.
I couldn’t go back to the compound.
I couldn’t go to my old studio, not since Julian had defiled it with his security teams.
I had no idea where Jaxson’s pack was.
I couldn’t handle the bar, not in my current state.
I had nowhere to go.
I took a deep breath, gripping the railing at the back of the elevator. “Tell the driver to drive.”
“Very good, ma’am.”
The city wasn’t nearly as foreboding in daylight, and I found it easy to lose myself in the little neighborhoods and communities I was chauffeured through, making up stories for the kind of bars people who lived there might like based solely on vibes.
In an industrial-leaning section, I imagined a hipster style micro-brewery serving gross, hoppy beers with punny names like Eternal Hoptimist or Sheet Faced or Ale Hallows Brew, whose only competition was an artsy, upscale martini bar, with a minimal design aesthetic and a just as minimal drink menu.
In the more spread out, suburban areas, I thought a nice Irish-style pub might work but could never really compete with a sprawling, multi-screened sports bar.
When we broached the vampire section, I envisioned a thumping club, bedecked in either vampire red and black or old-school techno/raver theme for those younger vamps wanting to relive their misspent youth.
If they didn't have one, they surely needed it.
The town car slowed, drawing my attention away from my escapist fantasy of building a Pam and Eric club in Cypress City and raking in the dough, to the bright double Ts on the side of the tower we’d circled back to. The driver made eye contact with me in the rear-view.
“Shall I continue on, Ms. Vaughn?”
“Please.”
The driver nodded and accelerated away from the Titus Tower once again. Only this time, he didn’t take me through the city; he took me on a long circuitous route around the outskirts. Like Laurel Cove, Cypress City was also surrounded by dense forest.
Was it also home to wolf packs?
Had those wolf packs been freed by Julian’s negotiates as well? Or were those more lies?
No. That I could believe. Jaxson told me that himself, and he was one of the few people in my life who’d never lied to me.
Him and… strangely…
Titus.
As fucked up as his past was, at least the version I had, he’d told me the truth from the moment I met him. He probably had some self-serving reason to do so, but the truth was still the truth.