Excerpt from Victor

by Taylor Longford

“I’m sorry, Victor, but I’m just not interested.”

“Not interested?” I echoed, more than a little surprised. I’d never met a lass who wasn’t interested in me. It didn’t seem possible. And I didn’t want it to be possible. Not now that I’d finally found someone I was interested in.

“Why not?” I challenged her with a casual smile.

She opened the car door and shrugged as she slipped into the driver’s seat. “I’m sure you’re a nice person, Victor. But you’re just not the right guy for me.”

“How do you know I’m not the right guy?” I asked mildly, closing her inside while Chaos and Torrie slid into the back seat.

“Believe me,” she answered through the open window, her voice low. “I know. I’ve gone out with guys like you before.”

That was hard to believe. I was a gargoyle, recently arrived from thirteenth century England. I leaned down until my nose was inches from her face and said, “Trust me, Sam. You’ve never met anyone like me.”

But challenging her might have been a mistake. Because she stepped on the gas and I had to move fast to get out of the way. And as the car accelerated down the driveway, the tires spitting gravel, I saw Chaos turn and give me a thumbs-up through the back window. It was nice to know he was on my side, but it didn’t do much to soothe my bruised ego.

The pack moved up around me, the girls waving at Chaos and Torrie.

“She’s not one for long goodbyes, is she?” Defiance commented, his eyes narrowing as he watched the car.

“Nay,” I agreed. I yanked on the fingers of my gloves and peeled them off my hands, slapping them against my thigh as I watched the car disappear around the bend. Several of the girls gasped and I turned my gaze in the direction of the pack, surprised to find everyone staring at me.

“Man, you’ve really got it bad don’t you?” Havoc snickered as he sauntered to my side.

“What are you talking about?” I growled.

He pointed downward and I followed his gaze.

Unfortunately, my leather work gloves had filled with venom. Shocked, I frowned down at the blue stuff splattered down the leg of my gray jeans. “But…she’s just a girl,” I told myself. Too late, I realized I’d said it out loud.
MacKenzie snickered. “Who do you think you’re kidding, Victor? She’s not just a girl. She’s the girl.”

I lifted my head slowly and searched her face. Her words sounded vaguely familiar, like I might actually have been the author of them in some previous lifetime. “What do you mean?”

MacKenzie’s brown eyes glittered with amusement as she lifted a finger and pointed at me. “You’re in love, Victor.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I scoffed. “I hardly know Samantha.”

One of her dark eyebrows lifted as she eyed the bright blue stains on my jeans. “Yeah, well, Valor hardly knew me when he started having leakage issues.”

“You’re in love,” Valor agreed, and rubbed a hand over his mouth to hide his smile.

Havoc elbowed me. “Suck it up, big guy.”

MacKenzie gazed thoughtfully down the driveway. “Now the question is…what are you gonna do about it?”

“What can I do about it?” I muttered after a few seconds of dark reflection. “She doesn’t like me.”

“That’s…hard to believe,” Elaina said slowly.

“I know, right? What’s wrong with me?” I asked, lifting my hands from my sides as I searched the faces of my pack.

Elaina shook her head. “She’s gotta be nuts.”

“Crazy,” Whitney agreed.

“Stark barking mad,” MacKenzie added. “Even if she is Torrie’s sister.”