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  Reyna winced at the mention of Penelope and Beckham alone together. The worst of it all was that she knew it was true. Beckham hadn’t even seen her leave when he started drinking from Penelope. He wouldn’t be looking for her, and Rowland clearly enjoyed watching the realization come over her.

  “But no worry.” Rowland ran his hand down her arm. She felt sick to her stomach. “I plan to keep you occupied on my own.”

  Reyna dashed to the other side of the bed and tried to run to the door. But before she had even made it past the bed, Rowland grabbed her arm. She cried out as he held her in a bruising grasp before throwing her back against the foot of the bed.

  He laughed. “You will not leave. I’ve ensured it.” His hand brushed her dark hair out of her face like a caress. She gritted her teeth. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Don’t tell me that you haven’t imagined this moment. I know I have.”

  “I’ve never thought about you in that way,” she growled.

  “You would think of him that way, but not me?” he asked in disgust. “He has no interest in you but as a passing fancy. I find your will entertaining. A thing worth breaking like a prized stallion. Back home in France, we used to pay a pretty penny for a broken horse. I will see it done to you too. Starting tonight.”

  Reyna screamed as he lunged for her. She darted out from under his arm and dashed toward the door again. She reached it and started grappling with the lock. But she wasn’t fast enough. Rowland’s hand clamped down on her hair and wrenched her backward. She yelled as some of her hair was pulled from the root, and her twist unraveled from its pins. As he dragged her by her hair across the room, she lost her footing and he just dug in deeper to yank her along.

  He threw her back on the bed and crawled on top of her. Tears streamed down her face from the pain in her scalp and the terror of what was to come.

  “Look at the way you tremble and cry and taste,” he said, bending down and licking her tears off of her cheek. “Oh, I plan to savor your taste.”

  His hands fell to her corset, and he ripped it open from top to bottom, revealing her breasts to him.

  “Please, no,” she cried. “Please, please, no. No, no, no, no, no.”

  “Oh yes, you will be a delicacy.” Rowland bent down and kissed her on the lips. She recoiled from his touch and refused to yield. “How I love this game, but I was told not to play with my food.”

  Her head was jerked back, exposing her throat. His fangs bore down toward her. She felt the touch of his mouth on her neck. She knew then that it was over. This would be her first vampire bite…and probably her last.

  Then time slowed. The door to the room burst open. Rowland lifted his head to see who dared disturb his private room, and Reyna caught a glimpse of Beckham looming in the doorway. He was a murderous shadow in all black. His face a storm cloud ready to release.

  “Let her go, Rowland,” Beckham barked.

  Rowland laughed dangerously…on the edge of madness. But he made no move to release Reyna.

  “She is mine,” Beckham growled.

  “Then come take her from me,” he challenged.

  Beckham took one deadly step forward, and Rowland moved to puncture her neck. Reyna screamed, but before Rowland’s fangs reached her, he was yanked off of Reyna and hurled across the room. His back hit the wall, and he landed in a crouch on the ground.

  “You would fight me over her?” Rowland asked.

  “You leave me no choice.”

  Rowland seemed to come to the same conclusion. Neither of them waited, they launched themselves at each other, moving so fast, they were a blur. Reyna had thought Beckham’s fight with the rogue vampire in the alley had been too fast to follow, but this was something well beyond that. Rowland and Beckham were both excellent fighters. They were on equal footing. Both deadly and terrifying, with pasts that spoke for themselves and had earned them the highest positions at Visage. She didn’t stand a chance of keeping up with the fight. Punches were thrown and blocked, bodies thrown against walls that shuddered and released plaster from the ceiling, and furniture broke into pieces at their assault. It was like a synchronized dance except lethal.

  Reyna tried to stay out of the way of what was happening. She crouched in a corner, hugging her tattered corset to her chest. Neither of them slowed down as their attacks turned more and more brutal. Finally, everything seemed to slow down to the one moment when Beckham landed a perfectly executed hit to Rowland’s temple, and he dropped like a ton of bricks. Whatever Beckham had done had left Rowland completely immobilized.

  Reyna knew he wasn’t dead…that Beckham wouldn’t want to kill him, but in that moment, she kind of hoped for it.

  “What is going on in here?” someone called, entering the destroyed room.

  Reyna hadn’t even noticed that they had drawn a crowd. She held her corset tighter to her and curled deeper into her corner. She just wanted to leave. She wanted to forget this night had ever happened. Beckham adjusted his suit and faced the man, who was pushing everyone else out of earshot.

  “Nothing. It’s been settled,” Beckham said.

  “You know the rules, Mr. Anderson. No fighting of any kind.”

  “I’m well aware of the rules. Mr. Batiste was taking possession of my property without my permission. I was within my rights to…stop him.”

  The man glowered at him. “Fine, but we must ask you to leave, as you have made quite a spectacle of yourself.”

  “No one in, no one out,” he reminded them.

  “We must protect our own. We’ll take you out the back way.”

  Beckham still looked murderous, and the man seemed ready to relent at any minute. But rules were rules apparently and Beckham had just broken one of the cardinal ones to save her. Finally, he nodded his head.

  Beckham turned to address her, and he seemed to realize she was mostly naked and shaking. “Oh Reyna.”

  He walked across the room and helped her to her feet. She glared at him, but couldn’t seem to stop herself from shaking at what she had witnessed. Beckham shrugged out of his jacket and quickly threw it around her shoulders. The jacket smelled like him, and she pulled it tight around her. He placed his hand on her lower back, but she stepped away from his touch. He might have fought for her…saved her, but that didn’t make up for all the other bullshit.

  She was done. She was so done. Beckham Anderson had no right to her body or her mind any longer.

  “Reyna,” he said, his voice straining.

  She shot him an ugly glare and then teetered across the room. She made it only about halfway to the door before her legs gave out and she started to fall forward. Beckham was at her side in an instant, holding her up. She tried to wrench away, but the adrenaline was wearing off. She felt ragged and exhausted, humiliated and exposed, and angry. She felt so angry. But her body wasn’t listening to her. Her legs were not working.

  Shock.

  She was in shock.

  When she didn’t move another step, Beckham scooped her up into his arms and carried her out of the room. She didn’t even have the words to argue with him. To shout at him and tell him to leave her alone. To tell him how much better her life had been without him in it.

  The man who had forced Beckham to leave directed them down a hallway to where another door was located. It wasn’t quite as large as the Vault door, but still looked sturdy.

  “I’ll have to lock up behind you.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll have my driver pick us up from our location,” Beckham said.

  Then he carried Reyna through the door and out into a long open tunnel completely devoid of any- and everything. The club door slammed behind them, sealing itself shut, and casting them into utter darkness.

  Chapter 28

  Once the door closed behind them, Beckham eased her back onto her unsteady feet. She stumbled a bit and clutched onto the w
all to right herself. Even if she had been about to pass out all over again, she wouldn’t have wanted to stay in Beckham’s arms. The wall was cool to her touch and she tried to use the sturdy feel of it to bring her back to herself. Images flashed before her eyes—fangs sinking into flesh, leering eyes, a ripped corset, shuddering walls. She closed her eyes and tried to force away her panic.

  She was out of there.

  No one could hurt her.

  Except the man before her, who from the start had promised to break her.

  Reyna peeled her eyes back open and let them adjust to the darkness. Beckham was standing before her but his eyes were cast down the tunnel contemplatively, which was when she noticed that the tunnel wasn’t as dark as anticipated. It was dimly lit from the roof at random intervals.

  Beckham pulled his phone out of his pocket. That damn phone. The screen lit up his face, where fear lingered despite the fact that they were out of the club. Reyna didn’t know what Beckham could fear.

  “Fuck!” he cursed. “No signal.”

  Reyna groaned. Great. Just great. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Finally, something we can both agree on,” Beckham said stubbornly.

  Reyna rolled her eyes and then glared at him. “How dare you even say that shit to me right now,” she spat, her voice cold and hard. “If you hadn’t wanted me to come…if you had really wanted Penelope all along, then this is your fault.”

  “I told you not to come. You insisted and boxed me into a corner.”

  She shook her head. “No one bullies you. I’m your employee, remember? You tell me what to do.”

  “Yeah, and right now I’m telling you to stop talking.”

  “No,” she said, straightening. “I’m not finished. This entire thing was bullshit and I’m over it. I cannot believe you drank from Penelope. I mean, how fucking dare you!”

  “Reyna,” he said, his voice lethal.

  “How could you do it?” she asked, almost desperate. “How could you drink from her? After the rooftop…and everything else. How?”

  He ground his teeth and then looked away. “It’s complicated.”

  “No, it’s not. You won’t drink from me, but you’ll drink from her? That’s not complicated. That’s bullshit.”

  “We need to leave. We’ll talk about this later.”

  “No, we’ll talk about it now. And we’ll start with this—I don’t want you to ever touch me again,” she growled. “Not ever. You’re a liar, a cheat, and a coward.”

  His eyes were steely as he stood taller and flashed his fangs at her. She tried not to show fear, but when he wanted to appear menacing, he was damn good at it. “I have been called many things before, Little One, but I am no coward.”

  Reyna held her ground. “A coward is a man torn between two women and leading them both on. So, I’ll make the decision easy for you. I will not be in the middle anymore. I want to go home.”

  “Yeah, we’re about to leave. We’ll talk about this more when we get there. We have to walk until we get a signal.”

  “No,” Reyna spat. “I mean I want to go home, to my brothers, to the Warehouse District.”

  “What?” Beckham’s head snapped over to her, and he stared long and hard.

  “You heard me. I’m done. I want to go home,” she told him more forcefully. “I want to get away from this world, this horrible awful world!”

  He clenched his jaw, breathed out harshly, and looked away from her. “We’ll talk about this when you calm down.”

  “I’m not going to change my mind.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “I’ve already made my choice.”

  “Right now, I just don’t give a damn, Reyna. We’re locked out of the club in a dark abandoned tunnel after I ruined a very important business relationship for you! So forgive me if I don’t want to hear about you wanting to leave and go back home right now. You’ve proven to be more trouble than you’re worth,” he said, gesturing wildly in his anger, “and I just want to get out of here. We can decide about you later.” His eyes were hard. “So, let’s go.”

  He started down the tunnel, and with no other choice, she followed. Her numbness turned into full-on sickness at Beckham’s words. She knew that she had just told him she wanted to leave, but she hadn’t expected that reaction. Why did she even want him to fight for her to stay? It wasn’t enough that he beat Rowland up for touching her, that was just protecting his interests. This was him not caring one way or another whether she stayed or left. In fact, he had even said she was too much trouble. All while refusing to explain what the hell was happening between him and Penelope. And she couldn’t stand it any longer.

  Reyna stumbled along in her heeled boots. Her feet were sore and it was cold in the tunnel, but she didn’t complain. She refused to let him see her pain.

  “Do you smell that?” Beckham asked, turning his head up to the ceiling.

  Reyna breathed in deeply. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “Fuck. No. Not yet.”

  Beckham picked up the pace, and she had to take long awkward strides to keep up.

  “Beckham, slow down. I can’t keep up with you, and I don’t know where I’m going.”

  “We have to hurry, Reyna.”

  She jogged after him in her boots, but he was flat-out running now. There was no chance of her catching up with him. “Beckham!” she yelled breathlessly.

  She lost sight of him in the dark and her voice raised an octave in panic. “Becks!” she called again.

  He reappeared a minute later, winded and almost delirious. “She’s not there. She’s not there!”

  Reyna bent over at the waist with her hands on her knees, gulping in air. “Who? Where?”

  “Penny! She’s still inside. Fuck! No. Fuck! This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said, pacing in front of her as he rambled on to himself.

  “You’re not making any sense. What’s going on?” Reyna reached out, grabbed him, and shook him with as much force as she could muster. He looked into her eyes, but he appeared wild and lost. Not at all like the cool, confident Beckham she knew. “Snap out of it and tell me what’s wrong.”

  “She wasn’t supposed to get stuck inside.”

  “Why is she stuck? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “I have to fix this,” he said, his eyes suddenly alight.

  Beckham picked Reyna up as if she were a rag doll, against her protests, and ran until they reached the front door. She had no idea what was going on. Beckham seemed frantic and he was freaking her out. When they reached a group of people—human drivers mostly, but also one female vampire, and her escort—gathered outside of the door, Beckham planted Reyna on her feet and pushed through the throng. A group of people banged uselessly on the door. Reyna’s eyes darted down to the bottom of the door and saw smoke curling out of the entrance.

  Her heart stuttered to a halt as she realized what Beckham had smelled.

  Smoke.

  Fire.

  “Oh my God,” Reyna said. Her hand flew to her mouth.

  Now that she smelled it, she started coughing at the intrusion in her lungs. The horrid realization took over that everyone was trapped inside the building with no way to get out. No wonder Beckham had been panicking about Penelope. As much as she was envious and detested Penelope, that didn’t mean Reyna wanted her to die.

  She watched as Beckham took charge of the group. He still looked crazed, but less so with a solution in mind.

  “You over there. Call 911. Get an ambulance and fire truck here now.”

  The driver wavered in place. “But they can’t know about this place. We’re under orders.”

  Beckham looked at him as if he were an idiot. “If they don’t, a lot of people will die. What’s more important to you? Now call! Hurry!”

 
The man nodded and reached for his phone. Reyna feared that the fire department wouldn’t get here fast enough to save the people inside. Smoke inhalation couldn’t kill the vampires, but the flames surely could.

  Beckham sent the vampire woman and her escort to the entrance they had just vacated, to try to breach the door. She didn’t know why people weren’t already getting out that way or through the front entrance. Both had locks on the inside. Beckham sent a group of drivers to the brothel sleeping quarters. He left the largest group at the entrance to try to ram through the near-impenetrable door while Beckham took off toward the last exit he was aware of.

  Reyna ran after him as fast as she could. She reached him as he was banging against a side exit much like the one they had left through.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said when he saw her.

  “I’m not leaving you.” With his wild and crazed demeanor, she said it as a reassurance, but what she meant was she had nowhere else to go.

  He didn’t say anything else after that and after a few minutes of work, he managed to pry the hinges off of the door. Smoke poured out from the hole he had made in the top. She could hear screams on the other side.

  “Whatever happens, Reyna, stay here.”

  “What are you doing to do?” she demanded, her eyes wide with fear and already itching from the smoke.

  “I have to get through to Penny.”

  “How?” she demanded, her mouth agape. “Go walk into the flames? They could kill you! Be reasonable.”

  “Penny is in there, and I won’t leave her there to die,” he said, wrenching the door open farther. She could see his hands were blistered and bleeding from the exertion. For it to do that to a vampire, the heat must be outstanding. “If that’s unreasonable, then fine, but she wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight. I won’t let her die because of me.”

  Finally, the door came off the hinges to a loud clattering. Vampires and humans streamed out of the hole, bloodied and coughing, trying to expel the toxins from their lungs.