Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
She hoped Elijah thought her strange mood was about whatever was pulsing between them. In fact, she counted on it.
They found a national chain inn in the middle of the city that allowed twenty-four-hour check-in. Using his magic to make them unrecognizable, Elijah secured them a room.
As soon as the hotel door closed behind them, Echo announced, “I’m going for a walk.”
They’d left Yorkshire at ten o’clock in the evening because the sun didn’t set until then in Stirling. It was one thirty in the morning when they arrived in the Scottish city. Sunrise was at four thirty, so Echo only had a few hours before she needed to be back at the hotel.
Hopefully, it was enough time to get what she needed.
“Shouldn’t we stay together?” Elijah asked. “Grab a meal?”
Echo couldn’t look at him. “You grab something. I just need … some alone time. Sorry. But we’ve kind of been in each other’s pockets for days.”
She winced at the hurt and confusion she sensed in him but walked out of the room before he could make her feel guiltier.
Echo followed her senses as she left the hotel. Within five minutes of walking toward the city center, she heard the dull pounding of dance music with her hypersensitive ears. It led her to a nondescript building that didn’t look like much. But there were young men and women coming in and out of the door where a burly bouncer checked IDs. The girls were dressed for nightclubbing, and the music thrumming from beyond the door told Echo she’d found what she was looking for.
More guilt rode her shoulders but her need was too great.
Echo knotted her T-shirt so it revealed the taut skin of her stomach and easily tore the neckline to reveal her cleavage. Pushing the waist of her jeans down and shoving up the sleeves of her cropped leather jacket, she put an extra swing in her hips as she strode toward the club.
She approached the bouncer and released the hold she had on her own supernatural energy. While she couldn’t mind-fuck anyone unless they were hooked on her bite (something she’d never done and never would do), she could give into her otherworldly energy. And amp up the sexy.
Eyes hooded, she dared him to stop her from entering the club with a sexy smirk.
The bouncer stared at her hungrily. “Enjoy.”
She didn’t respond, just confidently strutted by him and inside.
Like the predator she was, she prowled through the sweaty bodies of the club goers. The scent of arousal, perfume, cologne, sweat, and alcohol was a cloying mix and one of the reasons she avoided places like this when she could.
Beams of colored light bounced across the walls and faces of the dancers. The music was overly loud in her ears, but she had an internal switch that could filter it out. So much so she could hear the shouted conversations at booths and tables, and the murmured sexy talk between lovers on the dance floor.
She searched the club as she moved through it, unused to this kind of hunting.
Then she saw him.
Tall, blond hair tied in a knot on top of his head. Scruffy beard. He sipped on a beer as he stood with friends, looking out of place among the dancing clubbers in his motorcycle boots and tattoos.
He wasn’t Elijah.
Didn’t exude Elijah’s confidence and sex appeal.
But he’d do.
As she grew closer, she realized he was young. Perhaps only twenty, twenty-one. The beard made him look older.
His brown (not green) eyes widened ever so slightly as she stopped before him and his friend.
“Buy me a drink?” she asked bluntly.
His eyebrows rose as his gaze dipped down her body and back up. “Uh, aye. Sure. Aye, of course.” He pressed a hand to the small of her back, his fingers grazing bare skin as they turned toward the bar.
She smelled his sudden arousal and glanced over her shoulder to see him looking at her ass with hunger.
So, he was an ass man.
Echo could work with that.
“What are you drinking?” the blond asked loudly in her ear.
Too loud for her senses.
She masked her flinch. “Whatever you’re drinking.”
“Is that an American accent?”
“It is.” She smiled invitingly.
She waited until he’d ordered two more drinks and handed one to her. “Is there a quiet corner in here?”
“Uh … no’ really, but this way will do!” He reached for her hand.
Echo noted the look he exchanged with his friend as they passed. The I’m the man look and the responding nod of Go get yourself some.
She tried not to let her guilt stop her from doing what she needed to do.
It wasn’t like she was going to hurt the guy.
Just … take a little bit of blood to tide her over.
“I’m Johnny!” he told her after pulling her into the darkest corner of the club.