Free Rush of Darkness by Rhyannon Byrd Page A

body from the row of seats. He grabbed his own bag, and they exited the train a few moments later, the platform nearly empty since it was the middle of the night.
    “You can grab a taxi and head on over to the Marriott,” she told him, hiking her bag higher onto her shoulder. “I’ll meet you there in about an hour.”
    “Meet me there?” he rumbled, taking hold of her arm as he ground to a halt. “Just where the hell do you think you’re going?”
    She could have lied, but decided to give him the brutal truth. If he didn’t like it, maybe he’d save them both from this complicated mess and go back to England. “I need to eat.”
    “You told me you’d already eaten before we boarded the train in Paris.”
    Raine made sure no one was close enough to overhear them, then said, “I need blood, McConnell. Not food.”
    Surprise flickered in his gaze, before melting into a slow, glittering burn of anger. “Like hell, ” he snarled, the low words nearly carried away by the cool wind whipping down the platform. “Is this some kind of stunt meant to piss me off?”
    Sighing, she said, “I’m not jacking you around. Real food only does part of the job for me. I need blood to keep up my strength, and that fight tonight zapped more than I’d planned on losing. Plain and simple, I need more of the red stuff.”
    “You’re not going anywhere,” he muttered as he set off through the station, dragging her behind him as he headed toward the taxis.
    “You’d rather I starve?”
    He cut her a blistering glare from the corner of his eye. “You are not going off into the night to find some guy to fuck for food.”
    Well, that was certainly blunt. And while it probably didn’t make a lot of sense, she actually liked that he didn’t censor everything that came out of his mouth when he was with her, the way his friends had, always afraid they would say something to upset her. Yes, she’d had horrific, ungodly things done to her, but she wasn’t going to fall apart at the sound of a swear word. It had been part of the reason she was so itchy to get away from Harrow House.
    Pulling in a deep breath through her nose, she ran her tongue over her teeth and casually said, “For yourinformation, McConnell, I don’t have sex with my food.”
    “Just…don’t say anything.” His voice was harder than before, his grip on her arm a fraction tighter, though she could tell he was trying not to hurt her. “I hate being lied to.”
    “I’m not lying,” she argued, then kept silent as he pushed her into the back of a taxi and climbed in beside her. She stared out the window while he gave the name of the hotel to the driver through the sliding window, before slamming it shut, providing them a modicum of privacy, while the night’s darkness provided them a bit more. From the corner of her eye, she watched as he popped his jaw, a muscle pulsing hard in his temple. He looked…bleak, and she decided to give him the explanation he didn’t deserve. “I wasn’t looking for some one to feed from,” she said quietly. “I was going to find the local blood bank.”
    His head whipped toward her so fast, she was surprised he hadn’t given himself whiplash. “Is that what you’ve been doing? Breaking into blood banks?”
    With a shrug, she said, “It’s easier than it sounds. An internet connection can usually get me the information that I need, such as the name of the bank’s supervisor. Then it’s just a matter of locking into their thoughts, if I’m able to, and searching for the access codes to the alarms.”
    “Clever.” His voice was soft…and there was maybe just a tad of admiration in his tone.
    “I, uh, try to keep it simple.”
    “Simple, but still too dangerous. It stops now.”
    Her mouth flattened into a thin line of frustration. “You’re being unreasonable. And you’re also not the boss of me.”
    Wow. And wasn’t it great that she now sounded like a bratty preteen?
    “I’m not going to starve you,