Blood Wager (Blood Destiny 1)

"Lissa, do not regret that, I beg you." Gavin's hands moved to cup my face, bringing my gaze back to his. And then he leaned down to kiss me. I remember shivering from the intense pleasure of his mouth upon mine, but I have no idea what happened next because I fainted.

I woke later, buckled up in the passenger seat of the SUV while Gavin drove toward the beach house. "What happened?" I felt a little woozy.

"You fainted, little girl. I am driving you home now."

"Wow. I'm sorry." I rubbed my forehead.

"It was probably too soon and after a long night," Gavin said. "You are still recovering from your ordeal. We will not repeat this."

What was he saying? That we weren't ever going out again? I thought he'd had a good time. Maybe he didn't like his dates fainting on him or something, which brought me back to reality. This was Gavin we were talking about. Hot and cold Gavin. No surprise. I should have seen it coming. I didn't speak to him the rest of the way home.

* * *

Gavin cursed himself. Never. Never again. He'd drank from her. He couldn't deny the scent of her any longer and he'd held her tightly against him while her body shivered and convulsed in climax. He'd been forced to place compulsion when she woke after fainting. Sweet little Lissa. He was going to kill her at Wlodek's command when all was said and done and he was treating her like this. He hated himself at that moment.

* * *

"Whitney and Sam are coming to Dallas for the full moon. They'll run with my Pack," Winkler informed me. The full moon was on the sixteenth of April, and here it was the thirteenth. "We'll leave tomorrow and fly up. I have some business to take care of while I'm there anyway."

"Are we staying there or coming back here?" Gavin asked.

"We'll be coming back, so pack light."

We'd tentatively agreed that I would go back on duty the nineteenth. According to Winkler, we'd be back in Corpus Christi by then. Gavin had barely spoken two words to me after we'd come back from our date. All sorts of doubts gnawed at me, driving me crazy with worry. What had I done? I couldn't put my finger on any single thing, so I'd come to the conclusion that he hadn't enjoyed himself at all. Well, better to find out now, I guess. I was reading later while Gavin was out on patrol, when my cell phone rang. Thinking Winkler wanted something, I answered without checking the ID. "Hello?" I said.

"You're a hard woman to find." Somehow, Tony had found my cell phone number.

"What makes you say that?" I asked, mentally gulping. The man had tracked me down.

"When you didn't call me back, I had to try to find you."

"You know, I'm not even going to ask how you did that," I said. "I'm sure it involves aliens and a time machine."

"Now it's my turn to ask how you knew that," he laughed. "Lissa, I really want to see you again. I promise I'll leave the aliens at home."

After my failed experiment with Gavin, I thought seeing Tony again might be fun. "I might have the eighteenth open," I said. "That's a Saturday night. I'll be in Dallas until then."

"Work taking you there?"

"In a way."

"How about meeting me at the bookstore at eight?"

"Sounds good." I was going to suggest meeting there myself.

"See you there and please don't be late. I'll get an anxiety attack if you're not there on time."

"You get anxiety attacks?"

"Where you're concerned. Why do you think I tracked you down? I couldn't stand it anymore."

"You know, I may bring a therapist with me. I think you need help."

"I just need to see you. That'll do the trick, I promise."

"All right. Don't have an aneurysm. I'll do my best to be there on time."

"I'm crossing aneurysm off my to-do list," Tony chuckled.

"See that you do," I said, and hung up.

The flight from Corpus Christi to Dallas didn't take very long and there were four security guards waiting at the airport when we arrived, herding us around and loading us into even more SUVs. Winkler must have gotten a substantial quantity discount on those things. The wall around the house had been fixed after the blast that knocked part of it down in early February, and painted to match the rest already. Gavin and I were in the same vehicle as Davis but it was Davis who was sitting next to me.

"You gonna make us dinner, or cookies?" He sounded wistful as we made the trip from the airport. Smiling at him, I shrugged a little at his question. I hadn't had that many conversations with Davis since I'd come back from North Dakota and I sort of missed those a little.

"I'll think about it," I said.

Gavin and I had the second story guesthouse again, but we weren't speaking to each other much. Whatever I'd done, it had been a doozy, or maybe he just didn't appreciate his dates passing out on him. I still couldn't explain that. I also had no plans to tell him that I had a date with Tony on Saturday night. If he wanted to play twenty questions when I got back, I might consider telling him to f**k off.

Whitney and Sam were already at the house when we arrived and Whitney ran out the front door of Winkler's mansion to hug me. Sam was a little slower to arrive, but he hugged me too and said his dad wanted to send some sort of thank you. He just didn't know how to go about it.

"Tell him that seeing you alive is the best thanks I could have," I told Sam, patting his shoulder. "Tell him he's welcome."

I also baked cookies for the people in the house that night. Oatmeal and chocolate chip, and both kinds were gone in two blinks. Gavin went straight to the guesthouse and didn't join the others. He wasn't expected to work until the following evening, so I figured he was reading or watching television. Whitney wanted to show off the ring Sam bought for her and talk about the problems they faced, going to different schools and not seeing much of each other. I just told her it was a temporary thing, that summer was coming up and neither one of them was going to be in school forever.

Winkler slipped silently behind me, wrapped his arms around my shoulders and kissed my cheek lightly while I put cookies out to cool. We would have to have a talk, Winkler and I. A werewolf-vampire relationship just seemed doomed from the start. There was also the matter of a bit of blackmail between us. And after getting poisoned by werewolf saliva and nearly dying over it, having a relationship with one of them didn't seem like a good idea. Plus, he was able to reproduce. I wasn't. He probably needed to find a nice female werewolf somewhere and settle down to have puppies. At least I hadn't seen him go off to a bar to pick up a floozy lately. That brought up a question.