Night Play (Dark-Hunter 5)

Chapter 7

Bride pushed the salad around on her plate as she tried not to stare at Vane.

There was something so compelling about him. It was also disconcerting to be around someone so lean and muscular. At least with Taylor, he'd been skinnier than her, but he didn't work out, and had love handles of his own.

There wasn't an ounce of excess on Vane's entire body. Her face flamed as she remembered just how great that man looked naked.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Fine."

"Why aren't you eating?"

She shrugged. "I guess I'm not hungry after all."

He took the fork from her hand and twirled the spaghetti around the tines, then held it up for her.

"I'm not a baby, Vane."

"I know." His hot look scorched her. "Eat for me, Bride," he said in a low, commanding tone. "I don't want you to go hungry. There's nothing good about starving."

From the tone of his voice, she could tell he spoke from experience. "You've been hungry?"

"Take a bite and I'll answer."

"I'm not a child."

"Believe me, I know." He wagged the fork for her.

She shook her head at his serious play, then opened her mouth.

He carefully placed the fork inside so that she could close her mouth around it before he slid the fork back out.

Bride chewed while he twirled the fork in her pasta. "Yes, I've gone hungry.

My parents weren't nurturing or caring like yours. As soon as a male is old enough, they throw him out and he either learns to to survive or he dies."

Vane's heart twisted as he remembered his youth. The pain and constant hunger. He'd almost died more times than he could count that first year on his own.

Until he hit puberty, he'd been a wolf cub. Virtually overnight, he had become human. His magical powers had been new to him and he'd been stuck in human form when he needed to be a wolf.

Unused to being human, he couldn't track or kill prey. He'd been blitzed with unfamiliar feelings and emotions that wolves didn't have. Worst of all, his senses were dulled in human form. Humans might see better in daylight, but they couldn't hear as clearly, move as quickly, or smell their enemies around them. They didn't have the physical strength to fight bare-handed against other predators and animals for food and protection.

Nor could they kill as easily. They were consumed by guilt, horrified by bloodshed.

But like Darwin had written, it was survival of the fittest, and so Vane had learned how to survive. Eventually. He'd learned to take his blows and bites without surrendering to the agony of his wounds.

At the end of the first year of his adulthood, he had returned to his pack angry and controlled. A human who knew what it meant to be a wolf. A human who was determined to control the part of himself that he loathed.

He'd also returned home with more power than any of them had dared dream.

Still, he wouldn't have made it had Fang not saved him. In the beginning, it had been Fang who had killed for both of them so that they could eat. Fang who protected him and watched over his human state while Vane had to relearn even the simplest of tasks. When others would have abandoned him, Fang had stayed by his side.

That was why he would always protect his brother, no matter the cost.

"It must have been hard," Bride said, bringing him back to the present.

Back to her.

Vane fed her another bite. "You get used to it."

She looked at him as if she understood the sentiment. "It's amazing what you can get used to, isn't it?"

"How do you mean?"

"Just that sometimes we let other people treat us wrongly because we want to be loved and accepted so badly that we'd do anything for it. It hurts when you know that no matter how much you try, how much you want it, they can't love or accept you as you are. Then you hate all that time you wasted trying to please them and wonder what about you is so awful that they couldn't at least pretend to love you."

He saw red at her words and the hurt that glimmered in her amber eyes.

"Taylor is an idiot."

Bride widened her eyes at the deep, growling intensity of his voice.

Vane set the fork aside and placed his hand on her cheek. He studied her face and stroked her skin with his fingers. "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and there is nothing about you I would ever seek to change."

It felt so good to hear him say that, but she didn't delude herself for a minute. She'd always been the chubby little girl who didn't want to wear a bathing suit in public. The one who pretended to have her period at parties so that no one would mock her for her weight.

How many times had she watched the skinny little putas come into her shop, to try on the slinky dresses she sold but could never wear?

Just once in her life, she wished she could wear one of Tabitha's more outrageous outfits and not watch a guy's eyes drift immediately away from her as he sought out someone more desirable.

"You keep talking like that, Vane, and I might be forced to keep you."

"You keep looking at me like that, and I just might let you."

She shivered at his words. "You're too good to be real. There's this voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me I need to run before it's too late. You're a serial killer, aren't you?"

He blinked, then frowned. "What?"

"You're like that guy in The Silence of the Lambs. You know, the one who is making a woman suit who's being charming so that he can seduce and kidnap a woman for her skin."

He actually looked aghast at her words, even offended. Which meant he was either innocent or a great actor.

"You're going to throw me naked into a pit and make me drench myself in baby lotion, aren't you?"

He did laugh at that. "You live in New Orleans, where they can't even dig a grave. So tell me where I'm going to find this pit?"

"It's an aboveground pit."

"Hardly secretive."

"But possible," she insisted.

He shook his head. "You don't give up, do you?"

"Look, I'm a realist and I just had my heart ripped out. I don't want to be involved with anyone right now. You've been so kind to me and I don't know why.

It's just that things like this don't happen in real life. Prince Charming doesn't come to the rescue all the time. Most of the time, he's too busy with perfect freakin' Cinderella and her teeny-tiny perfect feet to even notice the rest of us."

She could tell he was irritated at her.

Sighing, he reached for a glass.