I shift to face her. It’s hard to do in such a compact car. “Not a problem.” I lower my voice, putting my face inches from hers. “I’d love to drive you crazy, mate.”
Cassandra stares at me straight on, and I watch her throat bob. Do what you want, mate. I can smell the faint scent of your sweet arousal, and it just beckons for me.
I can’t wipe the smile off my face when she turns to stare out of the window, her cheeks pink. “Where are we going, Donatello?”
The vampire takes another sharp turn, his gaze flying to the rearview mirror all the time. “Just driving,bella. We need to distance from your place.”
“Don’t you think they saw us?” she asks, leaning closer to him.
I pick my phone up. There’s a new message, and I open up the app to read it. “My boss is asking about me. They found the scene empty,” I tell them, my lips tugging down. This entire thing of running from my superiors to protect her is plain wrong, and I’ll have to explain myself once my boss learns about it. “I’ll let them know we went the opposite way.”
Cassandra arches an eyebrow in doubt, so I put the phone down near my leg and type the message saying exactly that, the screen in such an angle she can read the words if she wants to. I need her to trust me. It will make it easier to ditch the bloodsucker.
Cassandra prompts a knee over the seat and twists around to peek through the back window. The white shirt she wears over a skin-tight dress is ripped from when I pulled her back, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, the shirt smells like vampire. I make that mental note.
If this vampire touched her, he’ll be dead before the sun dies. If I’m in a good mood, I’ll let him live longer to make him regret ever touching my mate.
“Cassandra,” the vampire calls in a low voice. I snap my head to glower at him, but he’s staring at Cassandra through the rearview mirror. “What’s that on your shoulder?”
She looks over her shoulder at the exposed skin. There’s a shape there, like the footprint of a bird or the letter Y with an extra line. I narrow my eyes, analyzing it.
“A tattoo?” I ask, meeting her eyes.
She shakes her head. “No. It’s a mark I’ve always had.”
I scoff. “Mate. This is no mark. It has to be a tattoo or something. The lines are too defined.” I stroke a finger down her skin, that buzz arching between us. The drawing doesn’t smudge.
She keeps looking at it. “Yeah. It looks more defined than before... Now that I think of it...”
Donatello jerks the car into another turn, and I slide against Cassandra, stopping myself from squeezing her with a hand to the window. “Motherf —," I start, but he slams the brakes, and I crash against the front seat. I shoot out a hand, and it's all I can do to stop Cassandra from getting hurt. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
He turns around to face her, ignoring me. “It’s a seal,” he says.
“A seal for what?” I look between the two. The drawing looks like the runes I’ve seen in magic circles.
“Do you think someone put this on me? What for?”
“To lock your magic away?” Donatello offers. Cassandra stares at him for a moment, then her jaw drops open.
“Wait. Yesterday, when that jerk froze me, I felt a burning pain on this shoulder, and then...” Her eyes go round. “You think I spent my life with magic sealed away, and the seal broke yesterday?”
“Makes sense.” I nod. “We should find a mage and ask.” I’m forced to glance at Donatello for it. As a shifter, I don’t exactly have good alliances with mages.
In truth, they hate us. But then, everyone hates each other in the supernatural world, and you can only count on your own clan.
“I have someone in mind.” Donatello turns to the wheel and starts the car again. “We have to go to Hiram.”
“To Hiram?” I reach out and grip his seat, my fingers digging into soft leather until it creaks. The vampire doesn’t falter. “Are you so old you lost your senses?”
“What’s in Hiram?” Cassandra asks, big, dark eyes glinting at me. I should not be thinking of how fucking pretty my mate is.
I suck on my teeth, keeping a smile on my face. This has to be some sort of sick joke. “Hiram is the biggest vampire city on this coast.”
CHAPTER9
CASSANDRA
Vampire city fills my dreams, a dark place where vampires like that one who attacked me back home jump at me from every nook and cranny. I jerk awake from a nightmare and bring a hand up to scratch my eyes.