Chapter 10 - Goldie Catches Air

That evening at dinner, Flint sat with Goldie in a booth in the most private corner of his favorite brewpub and fought the urge to pinch himself. She was adorable in a sky blue sweater set and sparkly silver skirt, and she seemed to like him back. He’d seen approval of him in her eyes and heard it in her laugh more than once that evening.

They were sharing dessert, and Goldie’s eyes were shining as she told Flint about her childhood in New Orleans. “You can’t grow up there and not know something about protecting yourself, especially in Mid-City. But Mama and Daddy had a bunch of friends in the neighborhood. We all kept an eye on each other.”

Flint tried to imagine this woman as a streetwise kid in New Orleans. “And your parents were musicians?” A bit of cream lingered on her lip and Flint fought with himself not to swipe it off with his tongue.

“Mama was a singer, Daddy played upright bass. He used to joke when they’d leave me with my grandma Tallulah for the night that I was so small he should carry me around to gigs with them, and I could sleep in the case backstage while they played. But I always ended up at Tallulah’s.”

Her eyes lit with sad lights that left Flint wondering about the story behind them. He couldn’t stop himself from wanting to know more. “And where are they now?”

Goldie’s eyes dropped to the table between them, her tone going somber and her green glow giving a little pulse of power. “They died when I was fifteen. In Katrina.”

Flint gulped. “Shit, I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say, but he wanted to let her know he understood. “We’re both orphans.”

Her face lifted, eyes wide and questioning. Flint cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, it’s been longer for me. Twenty-five years. I was nine.”

Had it really been that long? Yep. Bryce had had his twenty-fifth birthday in July and the two of them were all that was left. Crap, he didn’t want to talk about that. He spoke without thinking. “I'm heading back that way soon. Out West, where I was born. Might stay for good.” His eyes darkened and hardened when he said that.

Goldie tipped her head to one side, looking disappointed. “Why’s that?”

Flint rubbed his knuckles on the scar on his throat, not sure where he was going with this. He hadn’t told her about vampires yet, so he couldn’t tell her he was going to find a man who was really a bear who would know which vampire killed Flint’s family. “I’ve got some, uh… old debts to settle.”

One eyebrow raised. “From when you were nine?”

He tried to smile at what she clearly considered an absurd idea, but smiling did not come easy to him. “You want the truth?”

Blue eyes locked on his. Was it just his imagination, or did she look scared?

“Of course I do,” she said.

Here it was. An open invitation. He’d already waited too long to tell her, according to Carick and now Jameson. Just the truth. He couldn’t go wrong with the truth. “I know what you were doing two nights ago when you ran into my Rover. You were chasing a vampire.” He sounded serious to himself. But stupid, too.

She blinked. Leaned backwards. Pulled her sweater to criss-cross at her waist and wrapped both arms around her midsection. He panicked inside just a little bit at the thought of what he’d do if she up and left him.

“Vampires? Are you out of your mind? Is this a joke?” she hissed at him, looking around to see if anyone was listening to them.

Flint made sure not to break their gaze. There was no easy way to do this and about a million ways to fuck it up. Something he said was going to convince her, he just had to keep talking. “You’re a switch. A special kind of witch that hasn’t been seen in over a hundred years. The only weapon against the vampires to ever exist. That’s why you can’t help but chase them.”

Her feet tapped on the floor impatiently, or irritated with him, but her face was a complete blank. He didn’t give her a chance to speak. “And you glow green. All around you, this emerald green aura. I knew what you were the second I saw you.”

She went still at that, all the blood draining from her face.

He’d done it! He’d found that thing that made her open up just a little bit. She’d seen the glow. More than once, maybe. He pushed forward with more. “Right. Bright green is what you glow, sometimes, and it’s strongest when you’re hunting them.”

Goldie’s eyes were bouncing from the table between them to Flint’s face and her hands twisted in her sweater, but she wasn’t running away or calling the cops, so Flint took that as a good sign. He caught her eye, bending down to do it, and asked the question that was running through his mind on a loop. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

She leaned across the table to whisper at him and he caught another whiff of her herbal scent. Yum.

“I don’t know what to say. Obviously I’ve done some strange stuff, but… vampires?”

He looked around at the crowded pub. “Why don’t we go somewhere we can keep talking?” Goldie nodded, still looking stunned but then throwing him that shy smile he loved so much.

He paid the check and held the door for Goldie as they left, aiming towards the parking lot behind the pub. Flint wanted to keep talking, but he was worried he’d scare her off. Or that as soon as he got Goldie in the car the thing foremost on his mind would be not talking. He couldn’t afford that.

They were almost to the parking lot, passing a small, shadowed alcove that led to a courtyard dining area the pub opened up on nights busier than this one. Goldie was aiming that way, pulling him along. “Hold on, I got a rock in my shoe.”

They sat on a small stone bench near a walkway and Goldie slipped off her beaded silver flat and tipped it over, a tiny pebble tumbling out.

Flint laughed. “Forget ‘Pumpkin’, I’m going to start calling you ‘princess’ in honor of that pea. How did you even feel that?”

Goldie smiled up at him in the intimacy of darkness, her scent surging out in waves. Flint stopped laughing.

Her scent had changed tone, deepening with a spiciness that was as intoxicating as the alcohol they served inside. He breathed it in deeply, letting his eyes close.

He spoke what was in his heart, growling it into the night air. “I want to kiss you, Goldie.” He opened his eyes and pinned her with a look, moving in slowly as her scent invited him closer.

Goldie inhaled sharply, her blue eyes locking on his. “Then kiss me.”

He was halfway there already, and then he was there, brushing his lips against hers, her scent wrapping around him. In one smooth twist, she straddled him, surprising both of them. Flint grasped her thighs, firm, strong thighs that burned his hands. He squeezed her flesh and growled against her lips, wanting to reach under that sparkly skirt and make this little pumpkin in his arms burst with pleasure. But for all the power he knew was brimming inside her luscious body, she reminded him of prey at that moment, apt to startle, to break and run at any big moves on his part. He had to be a perfect gentleman. Especially after how she’d reacted to the whole vampire thing. She wanted to believe. But she didn’t. Not yet.

That meant holding her close, responding, but not moving one paw, no matter what he might think she wanted. She was in charge of all of it. Unless she made it happen, it wasn’t going to happen.

He groaned into her mouth at the effort it took to relax his hands, brushing her thighs instead of kneading them. Keep those paws off her ass until she picks one up and puts it there. Somewhere in all the kissing and the straddling, he had popped the mother of all hard-ons. Doesn’t matter. Keep still. Let her come close, then conquer her.

They kissed for what felt to his bear like hours, days, lifetimes, tongues twining and teasing. Flint was almost glad they hadn’t made it to his car, or there was no telling what would happen between them. He was strong, but not this strong. Warm, willing, killer female in his arms, one connected to him by Fate and Instinct and… other things.

Goldie tensed in Flint’s arms and pulled back, and oh no, she was lit up like a shamrock shake. Shit, for real? This could not be a coincidence.

Without speaking a word, she was off Flint’s lap and jogging back to the front of the restaurant. Flint surged up from the bench, going after her, aware of what it could look like to be chasing a disheveled woman down an alley but too concerned about Goldie to stop. Shifting was completely out of the question, but she was so fast!

He spied Goldie digging in her purse as she ran, coming up with the same nail file she’d used the night he met her. Goddammit. First order of business, he was bringing that woman a real knife. If she was going to keep getting snatched off on vampire chases she was damn well going to be well-armed.

Freakin’ Breath switches. Flint was losing ground to Goldie with every yard they covered. She burst out from between the buildings onto the main street and turned left toward where they’d first met.

The same damn limo was there.

Goldie wasn’t stopping.

Again she ran into the street. He was going to have to start carrying traffic cones with him.

A dark green pick up was coming fast at his emerald green switch.

“Goldie!” he bellowed, sprinting for her, not that he was the fastest shifter in The Cause.

Her body turned as the truck slammed on its brakes, clearly about to hit her anyway. A yelp escaped her, and she threw her hands up to protect herself from the blow, but a small green bubble flashed from her upraised hands, like a balloon of air. The truck hit the bubble and sent Goldie sailing backwards. Holy shit! Flint leapt higher than a bear should ever leap and grabbed her out of the air, pulling her into his arms, eyes wide, heart stopped.

He stepped backwards, trying to disappear into the shadows between buildings, wondering just how many people saw that, knowing he had to get them away from there, and quick, but he had to check on her first. That had been some dicey business.

“Are you okay?” He ran trembling hands over her arms and legs as he sank against the brick wall at his back, holding her to him, touching her every limb in turn. No blood, no bones broken, how in the hell had that even happened?

Goldie's lips crushed onto his, as if the whole vampire pause hadn't happened and like she’d simply hit play now that they were together again. But she was different now. So different. Shit. This was like in the street after the vampire last time, Prowl-like. Not his sweet Goldie, the one who had kissed him forever outside the pub, all small sighs and gentle brushes and tiny touches.

This Goldie was all grabby hands and push and pull and sharp teeth on his lips and cheeks and ears. Flint liked both Goldies, but he didn’t like her Prowling on him without her knowing why she was doing it. That was the kind of thing that could sour a relationship.

He held her around her waist and kissed her back, talking in short bursts whenever she stopped kissing to bite or lick.

“Goldie, that, right there, that was a vampire, that’s what happens when you see one. You chase him, you want to kill him, and then when the killing’s done you… you do this.”

She bit the lobe of his ear, hard, making him shudder, then she ground against him. “I didn’t see any vampire,” she whispered directly into his ear. Breathy. Soft. Hot. Damn.

He kept trying. She kept grinding but seemed like maybe she was listening. “The vampire was in the limo. I have to tell my… my boss. And his boss, that the vampires are in town again. Goldie there’s a whole crowd of us, The Cause of the Forest it’s called. It’s ancient. Vampires really do exist, although not quite the way the stories say. Vampires exist and witches do too. People who can turn into animals, too. So many things you have been taught are crazy lies your whole life, they’re true. Magic. You’re magic.”

She stopped grinding. “Magic?”

“What did you do out there?” he whispered. “That truck was going to run you over.”

“I don’t know… but… not magic. It doesn’t… I can’t…” She hid her head in his chest, all passion gone, only confusion remaining. He put one arm around her shoulders and held her there tightly.

“There’s someone you need to meet,” he told her, when he thought she was ready for it.