5. Leigh

FIVE

LEIGH

L eigh was left alone after Claude raced out of the structure, her hand frozen in place. She wasn't bothered by the fact that the vampire had touched her. What was bothersome was that she actually enjoyed it.

She clenched her fist closed, the phantom sensation of his hand on hers burning like an invisible shackle. The second he'd done it, her wolf had crooned. She saw a flash in her mind of him taking her right there in the unfinished building, fucking her into near oblivion till her wolf howled on the precipice of unimaginable pleasure…

"Fuck off."

It was legitimately insane. She tried to shake off the arousal of his proximity. The chill sent blankets of goose bumps over her flesh, not from disgust but from purely crystallized magnetism.

The scent of him lingered where he stood a moment ago. A subtle sort of cologne mixing with a natural headiness that made her heart pound faster. Her inner wolf practically begged her to wash in it, cover herself in the scent. As if doing so would make Leigh finally understand.

"Okay, you're crossing a line from annoying to weird," Leigh said.

She had to let it go. She had far too much to do before even considering feeling something for a damn vampire. It was ludicrous, even for a supernatural.

Leigh continued to work, retrieving her laptop from her car and setting up the extra coffee machine she'd brought over from The Thirsty Wolfe. The air was crisp from the heavy rainfall, but she found it comforting, especially since the construction had been put on hold. She fell into her usual free floating zone of productivity, typing away in a trance as if striking piano keys.

The only sound was the brewing of the coffee machine and the rain that pattered gently. Both were equally soothing.

"Hello?"

Leigh had managed to shoot out emails to both decorators and a few hiring staff when a woman walked through the front door. She stopped mid-sentence and glowered, hovering her fingers over the keyboard as she hunched over what would soon become the jazz room bar.

"Can I help you?" Leigh said bluntly.

As she stood straight, the woman came in, holding an opened, bright coral umbrella. It was an eyesore on such a dreary day, and when the stranger shook it without hesitation, it only irked Leigh more.

"Fancy seeing someone like you here," the woman said. "What is a wolf doing in a vampire club?"

Leigh looked at her sternly. The fresh wet scent wafted in from the opened door, carrying over the distinct, cold stone fragrance that the wolf recognized immediately.

Whoever she was, she was a fucking vampire.

"This is a construction zone," Leigh barked, making her way around the bar. "It's unsafe for anyone to be here without a permit. I'm asking you kindly to leave. Now ."

When the woman was finished shaking out her umbrella, she tossed it aside haphazardly, then shook off her jacket. Blonde hair that was pulled taut hummed like static through the air, and eyes, like shards of sapphires, laboriously rose to meet Leigh's vexed stare.

"You're Leigh, I guess? The mutt they sent?"

Leigh folded her arms over her chest. It was something she did to keep herself from unraveling like a threaded doll. More so for the other person's sake than her own.

"I am. And who the fuck are you?"

The woman chuckled and stripped off her jacket. She plopped it onto the ground unceremoniously.

"I'm Kim Jezek. My husband used to run this place before he was killed. And the Southern Vampire Coven too."

Leigh didn't like the way Kim was eyeing the space. She looked like a hungry beast ready to mangle its next meal.

She wasn't really in the mood for a fight, but Leigh wasn't the type to back down. She grinded her feet into the floor and flexed her muscles in preparation.

"And what makes you think I care?" she snapped back.

The sapphire eyes landed on her. That cold stone feeling traced up her spine, but Leigh did everything she could not to show it.

"If he were still alive, it would have been my responsibility to re-open Embraced . Not some wolf."

Leigh's resolve wavered for a moment. She truly did not want to battle the woman. She was rude, but maybe there was something behind that rudeness. She had just lost her husband, after all.

So Leigh became sweeter, not because she was afraid but because she was truly exhausted. You get more flies with sugar than vinegar, right?

She dropped her hands to her sides, then thumbed back at the coffee machine that had just finished brewing.

"Do you want to talk over a mug of coffee? I find that evens things out."

The snarl that had been growing on Kim's lips faded, and she nodded. For a second, Leigh was relieved and turned her back on the vampire stranger.

It was a mistake that could have proven fatal.

Kim shrieked before she leaped onto Leigh's back, ensnaring her around the waist with her legs and obstructing her breathing with a cold forearm pressed against her throat. Leigh saw black for a moment, which promptly turned blood red.

The wolf shifter raised her arms over her head, grabbed hold of the vampire by the silk blouse she was wearing, and flipped her over her shoulders.

Those blue irises had been swallowed whole by the dead night-black of Kim's pupils as she snapped her neck back up to Leigh and hissed shrewdly. The face that had been somewhat pretty was distorted into a hideous mask. Her canine teeth had elongated and glistened under the dim bulb that swung back and forth on its chain overhead.

Leigh stumbled backward. She scrambled as Kim launched herself at her again, the same agility akin to a big cat, or a monkey of some kind, nearly landing on top of the wolf. But she was fast and intuitive, something that vengeful, bloodthirsty vampires lacked in a fight.

Leigh rolled out of the way on the gritty floor and shifted into her wolf form. Kim wasn't against taking cheap shots, and used her long talons to slash at her just as the shifting was near completion. It left a long pink mark along Leigh's snout and sent her spinning into the wall.

"Stupid, stupid mutt," Kim continued to hiss, stalking her. "What makes you think you can run this place better than one of our own? You aren't even good enough to bleed."

Leigh recovered quickly and escaped away with a jump over the bar. She knew she had to get the upper hand, and get it fast because the way Kim had chewed on that sacred word— blood —made her stomach coil into itself.

She was hungry not only for revenge but for what was running through her veins.

Kim nearly levitated over the bar, but that time, Leigh was ready. She used her strong back legs to kick the vampire in the ribs and heard crunching bone along with an anguished wail as she struck the front door.

Hopefully destroying that fucking umbrella too.

Leigh didn't waste any time. She knew that the forging of new alliances was likely going to be sullied if she killed the first vampire that walked into Embraced . But the woman was trying to kill her. There really was no other choice.

She went for her, growling, as Kim bent over, her back pressed against the wall. Leigh would slash her throat, then deal with the rest later.

But Kim was smarter than she looked.

She had been playing possum, waiting for Leigh to attack her. When the wolf tried to slash at her, she grabbed hold of her arm, then leeched herself onto her back in the same way she had initially to start the fight.

"I'm going to drain you," she said in a horrifying, raspy voice.

Leigh tried to shake her off. Kim was slippery and tight around her torso, breathing heavily and hot as she chuckled darkly into Leigh's ear. The wolf was panicking, sacrificing her own body with a bang against the wall, then the bar. But she would not fall.

Leigh roared as Kim slowly brought her mouth to her neck. She swore that she could hear the fucking fangs growing as she scraped her talons along the vampire's back, but nothing was sticking to it. It was as if her skin were smooth as marble.

Leigh began to see black and nearly gave in to the struggle when the leeching hold Kim had around her torso suddenly vanished.

Leigh fell to all fours and patted at her neck, a semi-prayer position with her head to the wooden floors, and wanted to weep when she found no sign of penetration.

She darted onto all fours again, waiting for Kim, or maybe another vampire to strike, growling with a ragged breath.

There was another vampire there. But he did not come to aid Kim in her scheme.

Standing valiantly under the swinging light was Claude. He had the same black moon eyes as Kim had when she first attacked Leigh. He was breathing heavily, his mouth hanging open, his own protracted teeth pointing up into the light like acutely serrated knives.

He stared at her. The stare was dull and dead. But something else within it enraptured her, unlike anything she had ever dreamed.

The rain hammered on the tarps. It moved with the rhythm of her heart beat.

Kim cowered the shadows. Claude reached out to grab the vampire's collar, but she swiftly avoided him and pounded through the wood of the door.

It splintered easily, and she disappeared into the storm.

When Claude turned back to her, the black moons were gone. He crouched and spoke with a compassionate tenderness.

"Are you all right?"