Gunshots echoed in the back of his mind and he ground his back teeth together. “Yes.”
Roksana hummed lightly, her attention dancing across his shoulders and back to his face. Taking his measure. “I lied to you before. Temnota moya means my darkness.”
An invisible fist buried in his gut. This girl could see deeper than…anyone. Anyone he’d ever met. She’d called him that name back in the casino, meaning her judgment of him had been immediate. Did he hate that she saw so much? Or was he relieved to finally be seen? To seemingly be understood when some days he barely understood himself? The answer was unclear, but he wanted more. He wanted to get trapped in her awareness. “You’re a quick study.” He curled a hand beneath her knee, using his grip to tug her chair closer, once again, but the skin-to-skin contact elevated the move, made them both breathe a little faster. “You think I’m dark, Roksana?”
A wrinkle formed between her light brows and she seemed to be peering inside of him. “I’ve been raised to recognize darkness. Yours is more complicated than most.” She settled her martini glass on the bar. “There is some light in you, too.”
This was the craziest conversation he’d ever had, especially with someone he’d just met, but somehow, it made more sense than any discussion in his memory. As if some barrier that always existed between most people…had dropped between them. This was real. “What about you, havoc wreaker? Are you made up of darkness or light?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to find out, so I run.”
His muscles tightened, ready to defend. “From what?”
Instead of giving him a straight answer, she smiled softly, picking up a straw full of her drink and dropping it into her mouth. “I bet you run from nothing.”
“Not anymore,” he found himself saying. “But I have.”
“How so?”
“I could have easily been one of those causalities in the raid. I ran from the life that would have put me there.” He hadn’t spoken about his life growing up on the streets of Los Angeles in more than a decade. Yet Roksana’s very presence seemed to pull the honesty straight out of his deepest recesses. “People say running is an easy way out, but it can be the hardest, depending on the situation.”
Roksana’s eyes widened. “Yes.”
“If you’re in danger, Roksana, I want to know about it.”
Only a slight hesitation on her end, but he didn’t like it. “I’m not. You can relax.” She reached out, flattening a hand in the center of his chest—and a jolt went through him, like a sensual electrocution. “Nichego sebe,” she breathed. “Is all that thunder for me?”
The pressure in his dick grew unbearable. “Yes.”
A twinkle jumped in her blue eyes and she started to say something, but the color drained from her face and she went very still.
Elias nearly had a heart attack on the spot, the organ leaping into his mouth. “Roksana.” He searched the immediate area, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m getting a tingle.”
He raised an eyebrow.
Spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “Okay, I’m getting two tingles, but one of them is bad.” She slipped off her stool and wedged herself between his thighs, wringing her hands against his chest. “Something is here, but I can’t see it.”
A sense of purpose swooped into Elias and hardened into cement, so quickly the breath was knocked out of him. Roksana was literally leaning into him for protection, her blonde head tucking beneath his chin, and he’d never experienced a more overwhelming sense of duty. Not even at his job. Never. His arms moved without an order from his brain. They wrapped around her and hauled her close, an urge rising up within him to shout at everyone nearby to back off.
What the hell was going on here?
This wasn’t just mental or sexual. It was chemical.
And he couldn’t stop it. Didn’t want to.
“Oh.” Her breath fanned his neck, her body relaxing. “It’s okay. I know where the bad tingle was coming from.”
“Where?” he nearly growled.
She went up on her toes and whispered against his ear. “Vampire.”
A shiver laced through his spine. Surely he’d heard her wrong. “What?”
Roksana nodded. “Don’t look now, but he’s sitting at the very corner of the bar. There’s a white feather in his hat.” Chewing on her bottom lip, she played with the collar of his shirt. “Okay, now you look.”
Positive she was making a joke, or trying to distract him from what really bothered her, Elias turned his head slightly and spotted the man in question. He looked normal enough—whatever passed for normal in Vegas. He’d ordered a whiskey, but didn’t touch it. Just sat there, unnaturally still, the bar in a continuous state of movement around him.
His head ticked quickly in an odd blur, his eyes landing on Elias.