Chapter 20
Jade
Tracey was still laying in bed even after the sun had gone down. I knocked on her door before I opened it. She had the blankets pulled up over her head. “Hey, do you wanna go have some margs?”
She peeked out and all I could make out was her mess of curls. “No, I wanna go home.”
“Okay, I have my things packed already. Do you want me to pack your stuff?”
She shook her head. There were clothes strewn about the entire room in hectic disarray. “I’ll get up and do it. I was missing a shoe yesterday. I don’t want to subject you to my irresponsibility.”
I sat down on the corner of the bed and tapped her foot with my hand. Was this what I had been like? “You’ll have a pretty badass scar.”
She pulled the blanket down farther but I still couldn’t see her neck. “You think so?”
I nodded.
Her eyes flicked down to my scars on my arms. “I’ll wear them proudly if you do.”
I hummed. “Okay, then maybe we can come to an agreement on that.”
“I did it all to bother Knox,” she whispered after a few minutes. My hand tightened around her ankle. “He just always gets under my skin. I should have known trying to get back at him would only bite me in the ass. Do you know what my parents are going to do to me when they find out?”
“They aren’t going to do anything to you because you were assaulted. It was against your will.”
Tracey sat up in the bed and the blankets pooled around her middle. She wore a white sports bra and a bandage over her neck. “It wasn’t at first. I wanted him to. I wanted Knox to see the marks. But then he pulled deeper and I felt myself drift. I had to fight him off.” She tucked the blanket back around her shoulders a tear slipped free from her eye. “No matter how hard I scrub my body, I can still smell him. The wounds won’t heal because of the venom in his teeth.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “They don’t need to know that part, all they need to know is that you were attacked. Okay?”
She nodded. “Do you think they’ll catch him?”
I licked my lips. “I do. You should have seen how angry Knox was. It was kind of terrifying. It reminded me of that day when I first met him. Not a pretty memory or sight. He’s gonna make that vampire scared shitless before he kills him.”
Tracey nodded. “Can we leave in the morning?”
“Of course.”
Rafe was waiting for me in the kitchen. Surprisingly, there was no blood on him. I tilted my head in question. “Did you get him?”
He nodded. “Yeah, this wasn’t his first offense either. He had a few bodies under his bed.”
My shoulders slumped. “He messed with the wrong girl last night.”
Rafe took a step forward and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. His fingers lingered on my neck as he swallowed. “All I wanted to do today was touch you.”
I leaned into him. “Too bad all of this has to come to an end.”
He frowned. “We have a few more days on our rental.”
I shook my head. “Tracey wants to go home tomorrow.”
“You girls attract danger like magnets.” He pressed a kiss to my hairline. “I’ll let the guys know. They’ll be packed and ready to leave. Is there anything I can do for you tonight?”
My body reacted on its own and continued to lean into him. When his lips captured mine it took me completely by surprise. I sighed into the kiss and savored the feeling of his hands on me. I hadn’t realized just how much I had missed this. We had plenty of time to be alone and kiss back at home but didn’t take advantage of it nearly enough. When he pulled away my lips turned down into a frown.
“I have to pack too, ya know,” he bopped my nose with his finger and my pout deepened. “I’ll drive tomorrow so you and Tracey can rest. How does that sound?”
It sounded too good to be true like everything that went along with being mates, but I couldn’t deny that I didn’t like it. I liked it a lot.
