Sunglasses at Night (Claws Clause 3)

“Let me walk you home. You seem to attract corpses too easily for me to feel good letting you go alone.”

“Do I attract you?”

Did that really just pop out of her mouth?

From the way he went motionless, she realized it had. Oops.

The real Tabby wasn’t shy. She never had been. She always went for what she wanted as soon as she realized she wanted it. And, God help her, there was something about this Nightwalker that she wanted.

At the very least, she didn’t want to leave it at this. Over the last two months, she’d thought of her blondie more than a few times. If pressed, she might actually admit that, when her uncle mentioned a long-term gig in Grayson, she all but jumped at the chance to come back to the city. This Nightwalker? He might’ve had something to do with it, too.

Maybe.

Just a little.

Which was why, instead of using one of her favored krav maga techniques as self-defense against him—because, despite what Boone told her, not every hunt ended in a kill—she nodded and said, “I don’t live too far from here. Maybe ten blocks away? I’m not so sure. I just moved into town. I’m sure I can make it on my own, but if you insist...”

His brow furrowed, confused. But all he said was, “I insist,” before gesturing for her to take the lead back out of the alleyway.

Hmm. Maybe he was more predictable than she thought.

He kept his distance, proving that he might have an insane amount of control over his thirst, but he wasn’t infallible. He purposely chose to keep her upwind so that he didn’t have her blood teasing him.

Interesting, Tabby thought.

Interesting she liked.

She let him lead her about a block away from where he found her before she stopped suddenly. “Hang on.”

“Is something wrong?”

She made a display of checking her back pocket, purposely keeping her hip turned away from him so that he didn’t start asking inconvenient questions about Venice. “I think I dropped my phone back there. Stay here. I’ll go and get it.”

Something warned her that she wouldn’t have much time. While the Nightwalker stayed where she left him, she doubted he’d linger for long. She jogged away from him, turning it into a flat-out sprint once she ducked into the alley a

gain.

As she ran, she was already grabbing the sturdy glass vial of slayer dust she kept stowed in her pocket at all times. Tearing the lid off, there wasn’t any time for finesse. She just dumped all of it on top of the headless vamp’s separated halves. Beneath the moonlight, the bald bastard’s remains started to glitter, started to shimmer, and finally dissolve into a small pile of ash littered with the orange dust.

She began the countdown in her head. By the time she hit ten, he was halfway gone. At twenty, there was nothing left.

“Tabitha?”

Before the Nightwalker could appear in the mouth of the alleyway again and see what she was doing, she kicked her sneaker through the pile. She knew that the sun would’ve handled clean up for her—courtesy of its ash-blasting power when it came to the Nightwalkers—but that wasn’t how slayers took care of it.

Even if she wasn't the one who made the kill.

Her uncle would expect nothing less.

“Coming!”

“This your place?” Adam asked, wincing when his voice came out more hoarse than he would’ve liked.

The thirst that had started earlier that night when he was at the D.P.R. had only gotten worse. The chemical swill he picked up at Bloodbucks barely an hour ago had done shit for him. Add that to the cut near Tabitha’s elbow that had only just started to clot over and he couldn’t believe he’d agreed to come up to this woman’s apartment.

What made it even worse was how she seemed to change while they took the walk over. At first, she seemed so small. So frightened. He had to resist the urge to tug her close, to slip his arm over her shoulder and promise her that he’d never let anyone else try to hurt her. He didn’t quite lose the inexplicable attraction he felt toward Tabitha, but it gentled into this undeniable need to protect her.

But then… it was the strangest thing. The further they went from the alley, the more she seemed to shake off her nerves and her fear. She straightened instead of cowering, moving forward with a powerful stride and a cheeky smile back at him when he stopped and watched her go.