Wildfire

Chapter 13

13. Rescue

The inside of Crawler was unlike any club I had ever seen. Silvery light pulsed through the dimly lit interior, flashing along walls that were engraved with black and silver coiled designs of thousands of cobwebs, woven together like one intricate web. The designs seemed to writhe, like moving entities. Eight tall, shimmering arches led into long, dark hallways that teemed with people, like tentacles on an octopus. In the centre of the building, a cylindrical platform appeared to float somewhere high above my head, illuminated a dark, shiny purple.

I didn't recognize the music playing. A dark, edgy looking band had taken over the platform, and an eerily attractive singer crooned words into the microphone in a rough, sexy voice. Beneath them, bodies swayed and writhed together on the dance floor with the fluidity of water.

But the strangest part was the atmosphere. The air felt charged, alive with static electricity, and the pulse of the bass line had a dark, hypnotic quality to it that I'd never heard in a live song before.

Magic, I realized as I stepped into the dark club.

An hand touched my waist and I flinched, my heart jolting in my chest as I swung around. My eyes collided with Diego's, and a frisson of energy pulsed through me. My skin was too prickly, too electric in here. It was almost like being trapped in a stuffy, sweaty room with barely an oxygen; even though my lungs were clear, the sensation was similar. Like claustrophobia, or something.

He was staring down at me, his eyes more brown than gold tonight in the dim lighting, and standing this close to him, he seemed so much taller than I remembered. His height wasn't exactly intimidating, but I still felt uncomfortable standing in his shadow, my skin alive with nervous tension.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" he hissed. His voice was calm – almost – but there was an undercurrent of thunder that sent a thrill of something akin to fear through my body. I wanted to back away, but the tentative touch of his hand on my waist suddenly became a restraint. The subtle flex of his fingers was loaded with restrained power, and I was acutely aware of how he probably had more strength in his pinkie finger than I did in my entire body.

His whole body radiated power, and as my eyes flitted about nervously, I realized that I wasn't the only one who had noticed. People close to us were staring openly; one female with long, pure-white hair and matching, iris-free eyes even crooked her finger at him enticingly.

I shivered in response, a bolt of horror jolting through me. She was so blatantly inhuman that it terrified the hell out of me – but a part of me also catalogued her shapely, feminine curves. The kind of things that my biology teacher had told us that males of any species were designed by evolution to notice. Did Diego find her attractive?

My eyes swerved back toward him, and I realized he hadn't even noticed her yet. Because he was glaring at me.

My foggy brain eventually caught up with his words, and a fresh wave of apprehension crashed through me.

Lexie!

"No." I tried to pull out of his hold but his second hand clamped down on my other hip, his fingers spanning half width of my waist. It made me feel... small. My stomach fluttered nervously, a warm sensation flooding my body. My chest was a hair's breadth from his, so close that when he inhaled, we almost touched. I swallowed uneasily. "Lexie –"

"- can wait," Diego interrupted. His lips compressed into a thin line, and a second later, I felt myself being spun. My back hit the cold, cobwebbed wall with a quiet thump and I felt the breath whoosh out of my lungs. My heart rate started to pick up as Diego loomed over me – but this time, I couldn't blame fear. Despite all of my misgivings, despite every warning I'd ever had drilled into my head – my body reacted to his in a way that I'd never reacted to anybody before.