Bitten by Darkness (14 page)

She
thought of him sleeping the day away, barely breathing.
Vulnerable.
She cursed and pulled onto the highway. There was nothing she could do about it
now. And didn’t he have that cloaking-veil thing? She didn’t remember passing
through it on the way out, but maybe that was yet another one of the side
effects of sharing blood with him. She hoped so. She had to get to work before
her boss fired her. She'd been late one too many times before.

An hour
later, she pulled into the lot in front of her building. Nothing looked
different, but she felt completely weird just walking in. Everything was
different. She wasn't the same person. She sighed and strode inside,
impatiently pushing the button for the elevator. When her most hated co-worker
Bill shoved inside just as the doors were closing, she had to bite her tongue.
He'd been undermining her with her boss for six months now and the last thing
she wanted to do was share a small space with him and
make
small talk.
Asshole
, she thought.

He eyed
her speculatively then smirked. “Somebody got lucky last night.”

Sienna
rolled her eyes, wondering how the hell he could tell. “Bite me.”

“Looks
like someone already did,” Bill
said,
his tone
cutting.

She
narrowed her eyes, but didn't respond. She knew there was no mark so what the
hell was he talking about? He didn’t say anything else, luckily for him. She
wasn’t above punching him in his ugly face.

When the
doors opened, she pushed out ahead of Bill into the open office. The row of
cubicles that stretched the length of the large space depressed her.
There is way too much gray and mauve in
office building décor these days
. Sighing, she walked to her cube and
dropped her purse on her desk.

“Sienna!
I was trying to call you last night but you didn't pick up. Where were you?”
Linda walked up as soon as Sienna sat down.

“Sorry. I
had my phone off. After everything that happened, I was kind of overwhelmed.”
She rubbed her forehead tiredly. She really wished she'd checked her voicemail
at Jasper's last night. When she'd listened to them earlier, Linda had sounded
really depressed. “Is Dillon okay?”

Linda
frowned and dropped into the spare seat. “Yeah, he woke up late last night,
after you left.”

“Thank
God,” Sienna said. “He's going to be okay?”

Linda
nodded.
“Yeah.
He doesn't remember what happened, so
no one knows how he got so sick. They think maybe an ulcer. They’ve got him on
antibiotics.” She looked troubled and Sienna was about to hug her friend when
Linda's eyes widened.

“Wait,
you look different. You had sex, didn’t you?”

“What the
hell? Is it written on my forehead or something?” Sienna grumbled, sitting
back.
So much for flying under the radar.

“It was
that guy, Jasper, wasn't it?” Linda looked positively gleeful.

Sienna
didn't know whether to be upset over her friend's teasing or happy that Linda
seemed more like herself than she had been since finding the girl in the woods.
She squirmed, wondering what to say and finally
went
with a simple
yeah
.

“Wow.”
Linda sat back. “You've never even
dated
before.”

“Yes,
well. I like him.” Sienna fidgeted.

“You like
him.” Linda laughed, face bemused. “You would. He's six-four and has enough
muscles to bench press a small car. Of course you like him, you freakish
Amazon. Most women would run screaming the other way,” Linda teased.

“I’m not
most women,” Sienna said, irked. “And anyway, my mother sure as hell isn't
going to like him.”

Linda's
face abruptly sobered. “You didn't tell her yet?”

Sienna
shook her head. “Actually, she met him at the café. But there was an incident
and I don't think he endeared himself to her at all.” Sienna suppressed a
shudder as she thought about her mom's reaction when Jasper ripped the head off
of their attacker. She'd completely lost it.

“An incident?”
Linda frowned.

“Believe
me, you don't want to know,” Sienna said.

Linda
eyed her suspiciously, but didn't push it. Sienna knew her friend wasn't really
feeling well enough yet to deal with more bad news.

“When are
you planning on telling her? I mean, if you're letting him see you naked…”
Linda trailed off.

Sienna
touched the spot on her neck. If only Linda knew what she’d done, her friend
probably freak out worse than her mom, especially after what happened in the
woods. “Yeah, I know I have to tell her.
Just, not today.”

Linda
nodded sympathetically. “I understand. My dad hated John for months.”

Sienna
smirked, enjoying someone else having parental issues for once. “John is a nice
guy. What's not to like?”

“Tell
that to my dad. I caught him running a background check on him when we first
started dating,” Linda said, clearly disgusted.

Sienna
laughed. “He just wants you to be safe.”

Linda
rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, whatever.
Hey, just so you
know, Darlene was looking for you.”

Sienna
frowned, thinking of her boss.
“Already?
I gave her
those website designs last
week,
she can't have made
any changes so soon.”

Linda
shrugged. “I have no idea what she wants, but I saw Bill talking to her on
Friday.”

“Shit.
He's been bad-mouthing me for weeks. He's such an ass,” Sienna hissed. She
glanced around the office, hoping no one heard her. She was good at her job and
got along okay with most of her coworkers, but Bill had been bitching about her
to his sycophants for the last month. She hated that he'd been hired just because
he was the owner's nephew. He couldn't design a layout for a paper bag without
sealing his own head inside.

“Yeah,
well, you know that and I know that, but everyone else is afraid he's going to
tattle to the big boss man.”

“Ugh,”
Sienna said. “I don't have enough coffee to deal with this. In fact, I haven't
had any coffee at all yet.”

Linda
grimaced. “I’d avoid the stuff in the staff room, if I was you. I wouldn't be
surprised if Bill tried to poison you. He’s like a rabid dog. What the hell did
you ever do to him, anyway?”

Sienna
rubbed her eyes. “I turned him down when he asked me out. He didn’t take it
well. Let me get to work then. Hopefully I can drown my sorrows in the
eye-bleeding website colors that hair salon asked for.”

Eight
hours later, Sienna was ready to string Bill up and kill him with a thousand
paper cuts. He'd sabotaged her designs for the salon and also convinced Darlene
to toss out the ones Sienna had created for the paper company's website. She
wanted nothing more than to go home, take a bath, and go to bed, preferably
with Jasper. The memory of what they'd done together last night was all that
was keeping her from going insane. She'd texted him on his cell, but he never
replied, so she assumed he was still sleeping or hibernating or whatever.

Unfortunately,
she never got what she wanted, big surprise. As soon as she finished powering
off her computer and gathering her things, her mother showed up.

Shit
, Sienna thought, watching the older woman walk
through the cubicles. Her mother flashed
her a
look
that told her she knew exactly what her daughter was thinking and that it was
no use hiding it. Sienna sighed and braced herself.

“Sienna.
You've been avoiding me.” Her mother sat down in her chair.

Sienna
rolled her eyes. “Hello Mom, I love you too. Also, I've been busy.”

“It's
been a week, Sienna. Since when don't you call me?” Her mother narrowed her
eyes. “This is about what happened at the café, isn't it?”

“No,
actually it's about what happened after,” Sienna said, sitting down on her
desk. The edge cut into her legs, threatening to make her feet go numb.

“That man
is dangerous,” her mother said, mouth twisting into a frown.

“You
liked him when you first met him, and besides, Jasper isn't dangerous to me.”
Sienna smoothed her pants and futilely hoped her mom couldn’t tell what she’d
been up to last night. Though, for some inexplicable reason, everyone else
seemed to have no difficulty picking up on it
,.
I give it five seconds before she figures it
out
, Sienna thought, somewhat resigned.

“You're
using his first name.” Her mother tilted her head. “You've seen him again.”

Sienna
wished she were anywhere but here, having this conversation. “Yes.”

“Sienna,
you don't understand. He's not what you think.” Her mom leaned in and grabbed
her hand.

Sienna
frowned. “Mom, seriously—”

“No, you
don't know what's at stake.”

“I know
more than you think,” Sienna said, insides twisting. She thought about the look
on Jasper's face the first time they'd made love. No, her mom really didn't
understand how much Sienna knew.

“What's
that on your neck?” Her mom's voice had gone whisper-faint.

“What?
Mom, there’s nothing on my neck.” How the hell did she know? Sienna checked in
the mirror all day long. There was no mark.

“You let
him bite you?” Her mother paled. “You think I can’t tell? I can. You feel
different to me.” Her voice grew increasingly shrill.

“Will you
listen to me?” Sienna gripped her mother's hands, worried.

“Sienna,
how could you let him do that?” Her mother's face was pinched and grey, eyes
dark with memory and suddenly Sienna remembered those awful days right after
her father left, when her mother told her he didn't want them anymore.

“Mom,
Jasper is not like him. He is nothing like Dad.” Sienna wished she could push
her rock-solid belief in Jasper's inherent goodness into her mother's flesh
somehow, but she knew it was pointless. Her mother had been staggering through
her life half-whole for a long time.

Her
mother ripped her hands away from Sienna. “I don't know what he told you, but
he will leave you. They all do! They always leave, and then I'll have to pick
up the pieces.
Again.”

Sienna's
anger rose like a flood, impossible to ignore. “Why do you assume he’ll leave?
Or that you would have to pick up any pieces? He’s not like Dad. And I’m my own
person. Being with him didn't break me, mom.”

Her
mother stood up and looked away. “It happened to me.
To your
grandmother.
To her mother.
It’s been like that
for generations. We try to fill that hole in ourselves and it only ever works
for a little while, and then the man leaves because they know they’re lacking.”
She turned to Sienna and cut her hand through the air. “Why would you even
bother trying?”

Sienna
gritted her teeth. “Mom, you have no idea who Jasper is.” She tried to keep her
voice low because she knew everyone in the office was listening, though it was
probably too late.
And now everyone knows
I slept with someone last night.
Great.
She looked
around surreptitiously, not surprised to see Bill smirking at her across the
room. She glared at him.

Her
mother curled her hands into fists. “It doesn't matter who he is. He can't give
you what you need. No man can.” She turned to leave.

Sienna
caught her by her sleeve. “He already has.”

“What are
you talking about?” Her mother's eyes flicked to her neck.

“Yes.
Exactly what you think.”
Sienna didn't want to say it out
loud.

Her
mother paled even more,
then
blood rushed to her face.
“What have you done?” she hissed.

Sienna
let go, shocked by her mother's fury. “Mom, you need to calm down.”

“Don't
tell me you let him—”

“Whatever
you're about to say, I suggest you don't, Ms. Lange,” Jasper said, his voice
low and angry.

Sienna
whipped her head around.
“Jasper.”
Thank God
, she thought. “What are you
doing here? How did you know where I worked?” She hadn’t heard the elevator.
He
looks gorgeous.
She ran her eyes over his jeans and the snug, deep blue
sweater that hugged his chest. The color made his grey eyes stand out even more
than usual.

He smiled
tightly at her. “I thought I'd see if you'd like to have dinner with me. And
you left a business card behind with your work address, remember?”

She
wrinkled her forehead, wondering how the hell they could eat dinner together
since he drank blood. It wasn't something that usually appeared on the menu.

He seemed
to understand her confusion. “I ate earlier, but I'd enjoy sitting with you.”

She
smiled. “Ok.”