Original Sin (The Order of Vampires 1)

What did she say? Shit? Fuck? Hell if she could remember. “Damn it, Adam.” She shoved him. “You don’t scare me.”

“I don’t want to scare you! I want to marry you, but you’ll have none of that!”

She shoved off the car and yelled in his face, “I’m pretty sure sacrificing my life to save yours trumps marriage!”

“You think—”

They both stilled as a door opened and a patron stumbled out of the bar. Adam put a finger to his mouth and gave her a stern look not to make a sound.

She scowled but for once in her life obeyed. Her bare legs were exposed to the world and this was not the time or place to discuss such important matters.

Keeping his voice at a whisper, he hissed, “We’ll discuss it when we get home.”

“Fine,” she snapped through gritted teeth.

“Get in the car.” He wouldn’t move until she was safely inside and covered.

“You get in the car.”

He jerked open the car door and hardened his stare. “Do not tempt me, woman.”

Her eyes flared as a wave of fury flowed from her, hot and volcanic. “Or what?”

He gritted his teeth. “You’re infuriating. You do not obey, even when it’s for your own good. Do you want that man to see you in nothing but my shirt? Perhaps you’d like to shout more profanities and draw even more attention to yourself!”

She rose on her toes, putting her nose to his. “If I’m so fucking difficult, why don’t you beg someone else to save your life? I’m not a goddamn dog who obeys!”

He wanted to throttle her. His palm itched to redden her hide for speaking such filth to him. Her English ways were a tragic comparison to the female grace he’d seen growing up.

He shoved back from the car, giving her space. “Do as you please. I’ll not waste my time defending the modesty of a female who sees my concern as a punishment. And I’ll not have a wife who speaks to me with such disrespect.”

He rounded the car, without glancing back, and climbed inside. Ridiculous. Foolish, stubborn English woman...

This was not the end of the conversation, but he was through listening to her insults. She could be soft as a flower and cutting as a razor.

At this point, an eternity together might be the death of him anyway. And while he saw the greatness of her sacrifice, he could not fathom how anyone would expect him to bond with a female who refused his name. It was unheard of. And what of their children? Should they all be bastards, flinging profanities, in the image of their mother?

She returned to the driver seat and he glared out the window. Her heavy breathing matched his own, paced and full of anger. She stretched behind the seat, digging around for something.

“Could we please just be on our way?”

“I need music,” she snapped and shoved something into the consol.

Noise drummed from the front of the car. His eyes widened as a sense of impending doom accompanied the tune, beating taps raised his heartbeat as something zinged in the air. Noise—not music.

She backed out of the parking space with a sharp jerk of the wheel and shift the car forward as a voice belted the words, “Killing in the name of.”

She turned a knob, the explosion of drums and angered lyrics deafening. His body shifted as she yanked the car onto the main road and sped into traffic.

His nails gripped the door as the car gathered speed. The voice screamed angrily. Swearing and banging and raging in a volcanic eruption of noise that blew from every angle of the car until he covered his ears and stared at her in horror.

She couldn’t possibly think this was music.

She clung to the wheel in a white knuckled grip, her eyes unblinking as she wove through traffic, forking onto an open highway and pushing the car to a speed he worried might cause an explosion or lose a tire.

As she sped past other cars, he saw her teeth were clenched. She wore a wild look in her eyes. The Elders failed to prepare him for an episode like this. He had no idea what was happening.

The voice raged in a collision of noise, screaming again and again, “Fuck you I won’t do what they tell me!”

Her volatile emotions bounced from indignant to apologetic to boiling. Ricocheting in a tornado of female fury he had no shelter from.

And then ... silence.

The song ended and he panted. His fingers unclenching from the door and upholstery as he blinked at her.

Her emotions cooled to a simmering hiss as she blew out a calm breath and slowed the car to a reasonable speed. Her muscles relaxed into the seat and she sat back.

Adam stared, unblinking, as if he’d just witnessed some sort of exorcism. If this was the so-called music she hoped to play at the farm, he’d have to dig a hole in the deepest part of the woods and bury her radio.