"Sorry, no can do," I said, moving toward the driver’s side door of my Porsche and pulling open the door.
"Run from me," he challenged, his voice a dark whisper of intent. "I'll just climb in my own car and follow you." He raised a pierced eyebrow at me as Ziff chirped, and I curled the edge of my lip up in a snarl.
"Please, Riot, don't make me laugh. You couldn't keep up if I was driving a damn shopping cart. You stand no chance against me and Lola." Lola was the name of my Porsche, my beautiful, beautiful Porsche with the soft ivory leather interior, the custom rims, and the meticulous gunmetal gray paint job. And shit could she run. There wasn’t a better car in the city, maybe even in the state.
"Try me, Thea. I'm done letting you run from me." Riot met my gaze stubbornly and I remembered why I'd fallen in love with him so many years ago. Asshole that he was, he challenged me. He didn't let me get away with crap and I fucking loved that about him. Once.
Now though, it was just pissing me off.
Gently, I leaned down through the driver's side door and placed Ziff on the passenger seat where he circled a couple of times before curling into a little ball on the skull and crossbones blanket I had there for him.
"Riot. I won't tell you again. Go home, butt out. I'll find Fin a little wifey and then I'll officially cut ties with the Earth. You'll never see me again." I raised my eyebrow at him, despite the sinking despair I felt at my own words. "Clear?"
"No. Not clear." His jaw visibly tightened and I could see him settling into dickhead-argumentative-Riot mode. I wasn't in the fucking mood.
"Drive safe, Ry." I gave him a sharp nod, slid into my car, and slammed the door on whatever he'd been about to say.
Gunning my engine, I peeled out of the driveway with a screech of tires that I found oddly satisfying, despite it not being very good for Lola.
"Sorry, girl," I murmured to my car, stroking a hand over the Porsche logo on the steering wheel, "I didn't mean to be so rough with you. We just needed a dramatic exit."
Ziff made a little chirping yip at me from the passenger seat, and I flicked a glance at him as I took the corner at roughly twice the legal speed limit. Not that I was concerned with following the law. Things like road rules didn't tend to apply when you worked for a supernatural guild of assassins.
"Don't give me that look, Ziff," I scolded him. "You and I both know it wasn't just a cup of coffee that Riot wanted. We're better off just… cutting ties." I said this with a heavy sigh. The last thing I wanted to do was cut ties with my former life. My former lovers.
But things were different now. Complicated.
It hadn't been a lie when I'd said nothing had happened with Mikhail. It never had. But I wasn't stupid enough to think there wasn't something there, even if it was just crazy unrequited lust on my part. Why I had to play with fire like that, I had no idea. What sort of idiotic fox lusts after the most dangerous vampire alive? Or rather, not alive, but certainly sentient.
"Ziff, I think all this ninth-tail magic is fucking with my head." I groaned in despair and gunned my engine a little harder down the straight stretch of road that would carry me through the outskirts of Denver. "They say it can make you crazy, you know that? Having too much magic before your mind has developed enough. Drives kitsune insane. That's why I need it bound by Trina, that old hag." Ziff yipped back at me, like he understood and sympathized. "Yeah, I dunno, bud. Maybe that is all bullshit. But, no one has ever met a kitsune under a hundred years old with nine tails though, so do I really want to test their bluff?"
Something in my mirror caught my eye, and I frowned, looking closer.
"Mother. Fucker." Creeping up behind me on the deserted street was a gleaming black Range Rover Sport, which I just knew was Riot. That asshole. He just couldn't leave well enough alone!
"Hold on, Ziff," I muttered to my fennec fox companion, and shifted gears as I pressed down harder on the accelerator to outrun Riot.
That bastard must have upgraded his car though, because he held pace with me far too easily. I was still pulling away from him, but not by much. There was a turn coming up soon too, and despite Lola—an '07 Porsche Carrera GT—being the last of the truly untamed supercars, she also had notoriously shit stability.
"Back off, Riot," I muttered under my breath as we hurtled toward the upcoming corner, "back the fuck off, you fucking asshole."
With no time left, I was forced to ease down gently on my brake to slow the tiniest bit, or else risk flipping my car around the bend. Riot was right there behind me though, allowing me no space to taper out my speed.
Screaming obscenities at my ex, I held one hand out to secure Ziff in his seat while I pumped my brakes as hard as I dared to without totally spinning out and losing control of Lola.
When we finally screeched to a stop on the grassy strip alongside the road, my heart was pounding and my palms were awash with sweat.
I wasn't scared, though. Not much frightened me these days, not after all I had seen. No, I was furious.
"You okay, Ziff?" I checked, and he yipped back at me happily. At least one of us enjoyed that brush with death.
Satisfied that my little friend was unharmed, I turned my rage on the fucker responsible. Slamming out of my car, I stomped across the grass toward where Ry’s Rover had stopped some hundred yards or so away from us. My nine tails flowed behind me as I moved, like some sort of superhero cloak, and I could practically feel my rage radiating down each one to the tips.
A high-speed car chase with my ex.
Now that was fun.
Riot climbed out of the car like the pussy he was—that is, all sleek and predatory and lazy, like he didn't give two shits that he'd almost just killed me. Or rather more importantly, that he'd almost killed Ziff.
"What the fuck was that all about?" I snarled, feeling my teeth get sharp. But Riot, his teeth were that much sharper as he smiled languidly back at me and stepped so close that I could tell his confidence, it was all real. His pulse was slow, his heartbeat easy and rhythmic. Meanwhile, mine was racing.
"I told you that if you ran, I would chase." He reached up to touch a strand of loose hair that'd escaped my braid, and I batted his hand away. I'd be fucked if I let my ex tangle me up in his bullshit. As we stood there, my head craned back to look up at him, he snaked his long black tail around my ankle and gave it a squeeze.
With both palms, I shoved hard against his chest. Riot was as strong as I was, probably stronger. But I surprised him enough that he did end up stumbling back, giving me some much needed space.
Ziff chirped at me from the Porsche, but I was too busy staring into Riot's gray gaze, watching as his pupils dilated into big black circles, obscuring the color of his irises. I was furious, my own pulse racing, my heart thundering out of control. I put myself into worse situations, deadlier situations all the time, but for whatever reason, I was stressed all the fuck out right now.
Because of Riot, probably.
My body was reacting to his presence in a way I refused to acknowledge.
I crossed my arms over my chest.
"If you wanted to talk to me, you should've sent an email. Trying to kill me in a car chase doesn't exactly put you into my good graces." I turned away, Riot's hand shooting out and clamping down around my shoulder.