“Tell me where you got those.”
“Pawn shop,” I lie through clenched teeth.
His grip tightens painfully against me and he twists his wrist, pulling my hair until I have to bite back a yelp.
“Pawn shops don’t keep blessed slayer weapons in stock,” he growls. “Not around here. They know better.”
I laugh weakly. “You’re assuming a lot of brains for people who look at the world and decide that their life’s mission is to run an overpriced junkyard and loan.”
He spins me out of his arms hard enough to slam me against the wall. I tuck my head forward and my arms back—you only get knocked out like this once before you learn how to avoid it. But it almost doesn’t matter. I hit the wall hard enough to nearly crack my tailbone, and the shock of it freezes my legs for a second.
“You’re a spy,” Rome growls as he takes two long steps across the room. “Betrayer.”
I make the mistake of looking up into his eyes. If he was only furious, maybe I would be able to ignore the shadow of guilt lurking around the edges of my fear. But there’s something else in his eyes, something that forces the guilt out of hiding, solidifying it. He’s hurt. I hurt him, after he’s been kind to me, after he put himself in harm’s way to protect me and my fellow tributes.
I drop my head, forcing my gaze away from his eyes as I shove down the shame and regret that try to rise up inside me.
It doesn’t matter. The only good vampire is a dead vampire.
Maybe they can’t help what they are, but neither can I—and I’m not about to die at the hands of a vampire, no matter how kind he can be. Especially not with Nathan still in danger.
Rome reaches out for my head, and I drop my shoulders and charge. Thankfully, the dress I chose for dinner tonight has a flowy, loose-fitting skirt, so it doesn’t impede my movements. He’s top-heavy, his broad chest and shoulders outweighing his hips and legs, and he topples under the force of my tackle.
He knows how to fight though.
He rolls with the fall, flinging me over his head as he somersaults backwards, landing on his feet while I’m still skidding across the floor.
I scramble for a blade, and he kicks it out of reach, trying to stomp on my fingers with his other foot. I leap out of the way, then swing my legs around, catching his ankles hard.
He stumbles, and I don’t let the opening go to waste. I hit his chin as it comes down, knocking him back, but it barely fazes him. He catches my leg and yanks me off the ground so I’m dangling with my head level to his crotch, my skirt dangling down around my arms and face.
With a feral snarl, I jab at him—even vampire men are vulnerable to nut shots—but he twists, making my fist connect with his hip.
I kick with my free leg instead and catch him in the temple hard enough for him to reflexively drop me. I hit the ground on my hands and toes, ready to move, but he slams down on top of me like a wrestler.
He outweighs me by a lot, and I flatten beneath him, but he moves his arms—probably reaching to snap my neck—and that gives me enough space to flip onto my back beneath him and strike for his face.
Rome jerks up out of the way, avoiding my punch by less than an inch. His large frame settles between my hips, his weight bearing down on me and pressing me into the floor. I jab again, and he catches my hand, pinning it to the floor above my head. In the same move, he pins my other wrist. His eyes blaze mere inches from mine. His entire body is covering mine now, all the way from my wrists to my hips.
My breath rattles in my chest, my throat so tight I can barely suck in enough oxygen.
He has me, and we both know it. A headbutt and a quick twist of my neck, and I’ll be finished. That’s all it will take, and I can’t figure a way to avoid it.
But he doesn’t move.
I meet his eyes again, still breathing hard. He’s conflicted, I can see it. It’s the same conflict that made me hesitate to take his head off. My heart rate ratchets up a couple notches, but it’s not from fear, although I wish it was. I can feel heat building in his groin, which is pressed hard against me. My body—betrayer, indeed—is reacting. He inhales sharply and his eyes darken. He knows. He can probably smell it on me with his enhanced senses.
Silence deepens around us, heavy with meaning, vibrating with indecision. The longer I gaze into his eyes, the deeper the silence gets.
My breath steadies as I draw his scent into my nostrils. Maybe it is Stockholm syndrome. Maybe it’s just the way he’s looking at me right now, like he wishes he’d caught me doing literally anything else. Like he cares about me enough that I actually have the power to hurt him.
Whatever it is, I can’t break our gaze.
When he does move, it’s slow and uncertain. Rather than his forehead connecting with mine in the headbutt I was expecting, it’s his lips that press against my own, soft and warm… and angry. It’s a different kind of anger, a specific kind, like when I’m reaming Nathan for being stupid and putting his life in danger.
Arching beneath his large body, I
