the feeling wasn’t mutual. He’d taken my rejection hard, especially when I showed very nonrejection behavior whenever he entered the orbit and I couldn’t control my hunger quite so well. Most people respected your personal space. Colin wasn’t one of them.
He swept his gaze over the short, black skirt and silver tank top I’d chosen to wear so I’d fit in with Kelly and Sabrina and the rest of the Saturday night crowd.
“You’ve kept a low profile this week,” he said. “Are you specifically avoiding me, or just generally being a bitch to everyone?”
I winced at his sharp words, but then I smelled the alcohol on his breath. So much for this being a booze-free club. Some kids tried to sneak it in, anyway. Colin was becoming well-known for drinking too much and getting into trouble. When he dated Carly over the summer, he’d made a bunch of vodka-fueled bad choices, including cheating on her at a pool party.
“Nice,” I said drily. “And maybe when you sober up, you won’t be such an ass.”
This earned me a humorless snort as he drained whatever was in his plastic cup. His gaze slid down the front of me again as if he was having trouble keeping his attention on my face. My cheeks grew warm at his blatant gaze.
“Who was that guy you were talking to?”
I blinked. “None of your business.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“Again, none of your business.”
He was being very confrontational tonight, which made me sad. Colin was actually a really nice guy, despite some of the more epic mistakes he’d made in the past. And I knew I’d hurt him last week, so I wouldn’t hold this particular discussion against him in the future. This time, anyway.
Walk away, I told myself. But my feet refused to move. I fought my rising hunger with every ounce of strength I had. The more I fought, the colder I got until goose bumps broke out over my bare arms and I shivered, despite the club being at least eighty degrees. The cold was a side effect of not having a soul.
Colin leaned closer, which only made things worse. I didn’t smell the vodka on his breath anymore; what I smelled was warm, tempting and entirely edible. Less so than Bishop, but still more than anyone else in this club right now.
“Heard from Carly?” he asked.
That woke me up like a glass of cold water thrown in my face.
Colin, like almost everyone else, believed Carly had run away with a secret boyfriend and was off having a misguided, but romantic adventure.
“No,” I said softly. My eyes began to burn.
He snorted again. It was an unpleasant, mocking sound. “Look at you, all misty over Carly taking off with some guy. Feeling abandoned by your BFF? Poor Sam. Boo hoo.”
I gave him a careful look. “I know I hurt you—”
“Hurt me?” he scoffed. “Please. I’m over it.”
“Yeah, sure you are.” I studied him, uncertain how to deal with this problem. “Look, Colin, I’m sorry. Really. But it’s for the best. You don’t need to be near me right now. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you backed off before my friend gets back.”
“Jealous, is he?”
I’d had more than enough of this conversation and I needed him to step away from me now. “Leave me alone, Colin. I don’t like you. At all. Get it through your head, okay?”
I forced myself to look at the dance floor again.
“You’re such a liar.” His words slurred together, heavy with enough underlying pain to make me flinch. “Everything that comes out of your mouth is a damn lie. You liked me. I know you did. I saw it in your eyes. You think you can just walk away from something like that? That I’d let you?”
Let me? “I think you need to go—”
But before I could say another word, Colin grabbed hold of me and crushed his mouth against mine.
Chapter 2
No!
I tried to pull away from him, to shove against his chest as hard as I could.
But it was too late. The hunger that had swirled around me the entire time I’d been at Crave, which had intensified to an impossible to ignore level when Bishop was close to me, that waited patiently while Colin blurted out what was on his mind—
It spilled over.
The pounding dance music muted. The sparkling lights faded. The club disappeared. My rational thinking ceased. And my hunger took over.
This wasn’t a kiss with a drunk boy who liked me and was mad I didn’t like him in return. This was about feeding—that part of me that was missing a soul and was constantly trying to devour everyone else’s.
It was what I feared the most. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But that was exactly what I was doing.
Feeding on Colin was so natural for me. In this mindless state, it was the most natural thing in the world—neither good nor bad. And with every bit of his soul I devoured, delicious warmth spread through me, chasing the horrible, endless cold away. My thoughts about hurting him vanished. I would feed until I was satisfied, and since I’d barely ever fed before, that would take a long time.
Someone grabbed my upper arm and painfully wrenched me away from Colin. Colin staggered back and dropped down into a nearby booth. Thin, black lines branched around his mouth and his skin was sickly pale. His eyes were glazed. His chest moved rapidly as he gasped for breath.
Haven’t taken it all. Just a piece...
The grip on my arm tightened and I turned to see that it was Kraven now in front of me, shaking his head.
“Honestly,” he said. “Can’t let you out of our sight for a minute, can we?”
“Let go of me!” I was working on instinct only, still possessed by the hunger. I stared at Colin. “I need more.”
“You need more?” Kraven grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him instead of Colin. “Try this.”
He kissed me hard, releasing my arm to slide his hands into my long hair. I automatically tried to feed, but there was nothing there. Regular demons like Kraven didn’t have souls. This was the proof. With no soul to feed from, this was just a kiss.
And yet, strangely enough, it still seemed to satisfy me. I wasn’t feeding, but my hunger began to ease a fraction at a time.
But then the kiss stopped. Abruptly.
“What the hell are you doing to her?” Bishop snarled.
He grabbed hold of Kraven and wrenched him away from me, slamming the demon hard against the wall.
Bishop’s eyes blazed bright blue. They did that sometimes. He’d told me it was a bit of celestial energy that rose up when he got emotional. Based on the current neon brightness, he was very emotional.
My head continued to clear, although not as rapidly as I’d have liked it to. I staggered back from them and landed in the booth across from the slowly recovering Colin. A quick sweep of the club showed that nobody was paying us any attention.
Neat trick that demons and angels had—they could cloak an area to gain a little privacy when problems arose.
Kraven shoved Bishop back from him. “Sorry, but your little girlfriend was in need of some help.”
“That was you helping?”
“Worked, didn’t it?”
I sent a look at Colin. My mind had now cleared completely and my control was back. Guilt and horror slammed through me at what I’d done. The black lines around Colin’s mouth had faded completely, but his eyes were still glazed. A gray’s