Молли Харпер - Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs

That meant I still had to fight. Dang it. While Dick had Missy distracted, I had a small panic attack.

“I haven’t been a vampire for very long, but I’m pretty sure I can’t toss someone like that,” I said, wincing as the wound in my shoulder closed. “I want her tested for steroids.”

“She’s been drinking the blood of older vampires for years. It makes her the equivalent of an East German gymnast,” Dick called over his shoulder. He glared at Missy. “Trust me, I know.”

This prompted more indignant chatter from Missy. I groaned, clutching Gabriel’s arms. “Gabriel, I don’t want this to be the way you remember me. Just leave now, before I get my ass handed to me by a sorority reject from hell. I’m sorry I dragged you into my weird, drama-ridden existence. I’m sorry I screwed things up so badly with you and me.

I’m sorry I have the emotional maturity of a grapefruit.”

He grinned, his fangs glinting. “You don’t have the emotional maturity of a grapefruit. A tangerine, maybe, but I think you’ve got to work your way up to grapefruit.”

I smacked his chest. “You’re joking. I’m going to be beaten to death with a hotpink faux-alligator handbag, and you pick now to develop a sense of humor.”

“You’re not going to be beaten to death,” Gabriel said in a bemused, soothing tone.

He held his wrist to my lips. “Drink.”

Sensing Gabriel’s maneuver, Dick began arguing in a louder, more demanding tone, casting aspersions on Missy’s character, business acumen, and sexual prowess. She screamed back that she faked something a lot. I didn’t catch what, but I think I can guess.

“I don’t think now is the time for naughty blood-swapping fun,” I said, shoving Gabriel’s arm away. “Besides…” I jerked my head toward Zeb. “He’s watching.”

Zeb waved my concerns away. His eyes were glued to Dick and Missy baring fangs and snarling insults. “I can’t tear myself away from the most frightening breakup fight I’ve ever seen.”

Gabriel nudged his wrist toward me again. “You’ll absorb some of my strength. It will help you.”

“It’s just that, drinking your blood, it’s kind of what got me into this mess,” I said.

“I didn’t see you complaining when you were dying along the roadside,” he huffed.

“Or when we were making love.”

“What?” Zeb shouted.

“Zeb, shut it,” I warned.

Gabriel ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end in a wild Beethoven that would have been hilarious under different circumstances. “Would you please just accept help from me and stop being so, so—”

“So Jane?” Zeb suggested.

“Zeb!” Gabriel warned.

“OK, you need to back off,” I said, poking Gabriel’s chest. “You’re suffocating me. You never tell me anything unless it’s your ‘listen to Daddy’ voice, which is incredibly annoying in someone you have feelings for. I never know how you feel about me, about anything, except that you like to see me naked, and you have caveman ‘must protect Jane’ impulses. I’m not a mind reader.”

“Technically, you kind of are,” Zeb volunteered.

We both growled at Zeb, our fangs bared.

“Shutting up!” Zeb said, throwing up his hands and backing away.

“I don’t write love poems,” Gabriel said. “I don’t cuddle. I don’t spend hours on the phone, cooing, ‘No, you hang up first.’ I was raised in a time when if you had feelings for a woman, you proposed or you made her your mistress. I think, given the circumstances, you should give me credit for being as evolved as I am.”

Damned if he didn’t have a point. But I would have to hand over my womanhood membership card if I ever admitted it.

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

I threw my arms up. “I don’t even know what it is.”

He sighed, a short snort of impatience. “I like you. You’re unpredictable, and you always say what you think, even if it would be better if you didn’t. You get yourself into situations that Moliere couldn’t think of.”

“OK, OK, so you like me.”

“Yes, I think we should see each other on an exclusive basis,” he said. I stared at him. “I am your sire, and we’ve made love.”

“I’m familiar with your résumé,” I said, shushing him with another furtive look at Zeb. “This is not a good time for this.”

“I doubt we’ll ever find a good time,” he muttered, thrusting his arm against my mouth. “Now, drink, before Missy figures out what we’re doing.” With nothing else I to say, I chomped on his wrist. Gabriel yelped, prompting a smile against his skin. Unusual for me, I knew, but I could hear Missy and Dick’s argument winding down. Gabriel winced as I drew huge mouthfuls of his blood.

Zeb watched, coming closer and closer. “Is it going to be a Popeye thing? She eats her spinach and has the strength of twenty squinty sailors?”

“How have you survived this long without someone hurting you?” Gabriel asked as I finished feeding. I wiped a drip from my chin and offered Zeb a red-tinged grin. He recoiled, clearly grossed out.

Gabriel pulled a handkerchief from nowhere and dabbed at my mouth.

“I love it when he does that,” Zeb said, looking Gabe over for hidden pockets.

“Why can’t I be a cool sleight-of-hand guy?”

“You’ve got a huge man crush on him, don’t you?” I said, shaking my head.

Zeb measured “this much” sexual confusion with his fingers.

The sudden drop in volume signaled that Missy had finally noticed us.

“Gabriel, I do believe what you just did could be considered cheating,” Missy said, her voice teasing and pouting.

“Do not attempt to explain the ancient codes to me,” he growled.

Missy ignored the chill in Gabriel’s tone. “Then I can count on you to mind your own business and let us girls sort this out.”

“You can count on me to keep this farce as close to the codes as possible. And if by some misfortune you happen to kill my bloodmate, I will make you wish for dawn.”

Bloodmate? What was that, exactly? It sounded like something I didn’t necessarily want to be. But the term seemed to have an effect on Missy. The supreme Tony Robbinsbred confidence melted away for a second before she flashed a guileless grin. “I’ll just let you two say your good-byes.”

“She’s really good at that intimidating smack-talk stuff,” I said, watching her flounce away. “Any advice?”

“Keep your hands up,” Gabriel said. “Protect your neck and chest at all times. And don’t try any of those fancy women’s self-defense tactics. She probably took the same classes when she was alive, and she’ll be expecting them.”

Before I could retort, Gabriel crushed me close and gave me a bloodless, friendly smack on the lips. He smiled. “For luck.”

“Idiot,” I said, before grinning broadly and crushing his mouth to mine.

“We need to pick new pet names for each other,” he muttered as I hefted myself up from the ground.

Honestly, how did someone who never once got into a fight in school end up getting into so many of them as an adult? Missy was standing in the middle of the yard, in a worn circle of dirt. I felt like that first anonymous fighter who gets killed off in the Jean-Claude Van Damme cage-fighter movies. Missy smiled, and I circled.

“I guess we’re going to get to have that little catfight after all,” Missy said, rolling her shoulders.

“I’m not worried. If you kill me, my dead great-aunt will fix it so you spend eternity looking for your car keys,” I said.

I felt the power of Gabriel’s blood coursing through me, warming me, giving me that drunk driver’s confidence that maybe I could make it home. The burns on my arms had finally healed over. And the wound in my shoulder was a shiny, slightly sore memory.