Chapter Eighteen
Arden was avoiding her, and so was Phi. Sure, they appeared for meals, and they were present for her practicing, but when two days went by without either of them spending any sort of extra time with her, their aloofness grating on her nerves, she knew they were avoiding her. She didn’t know what she expected after pushing both of them. After all, they were supposed to be preparing for a race. She shouldn’t be thinking about the way they moved, the way Arden had kissed her, or wondering what Phi would be like in bed. She should be focused on the race and nothing else.
That was how she found herself in the garage sitting in the Porsche, alone. Arden and Phi had gone off to do their own thing, and so she’d helped herself to the garage.
The car was on, rumbling in the enclosed space. The larger engine in it made such a difference and there was nothing better than the purr of a powerful car. The garage was large enough that she didn’t have to worry about the exhaust fumes harming her. She’d checked for the vents, was pleased to find them skillfully hidden along the top edges of the garage.
Danica’s eyes were closed as she sat in the driver seat, her head tilted back as she absorbed every detail of the car. It shook gently back and forth in a way only really powerful vehicles could. The sounds of the engine, the rumble, the rise and fall of the pistons, the block shaking everything gently, the fan spinning to keep it cool, it all added up to a beast of a car that she couldn’t believe she was driving. And she’d driven some powerful cars in her life. Nothing with fairy dust in the fuel tank, but still. There was serious power at her fingertips, and she could feel it even with her eyes closed, her hands resting on the steering wheel and the stick shift.
“What are you doing?”
Phi’s voice came from her left, where he must have been standing outside her open window. She hadn’t heard him walk up but that didn’t surprise her. Both of the vampires were as quiet as mice when they moved. She could hear the confusion in his voice, but she didn’t open her eyes.
“Shh.”
“Danica—”
“Stop talking,” she grunted just loud enough to be heard over the sound of the engine.
He fell into silence, not interrupting again, but though she couldn’t hear him, Danica could still sense that he stood beside the car, watching her, studying her as if he couldn’t quite understand what went through her mind. She liked that they didn’t know what to expect with her, but they’d have to learn her quirks better soon. A team needed to know each other inside and out.
When Danica finally opened her eyes, she wasn’t surprised to see Phi standing outside the driver’s side window just as she expected. He was staring at her, his pale hair pulled back at his nape today. It should have been a crime for a man to be so beautiful, like a painting come to life. It made sense that a crown belonged on his head, that he was meant for greater things.
“I need to drive her slowly, too. Get a feel for her slow moments. Wanna go for a ride, Your Majesty?”
Phi scowled but he set down the tablet he held in his hands to the side before going around to the passenger side. When he opened the door and dropped into the bucket seat, she watched his lithe fingers begin work on the harness. “Don’t call me that,” he said finally, his eyes meeting hers for a brief moment before focusing passed the windshield. He pressed a button to open the garage door and the mechanisms began to move.
“Why?” Danica asked, genuinely curious. “It’s your title, isn’t it?”
For a moment, he didn’t answer, but then he turned and met her eyes, and there were too many emotions flashing over his gaze that she couldn’t read them. “I’m not exactly proud of my lineage,” he admitted. “I need you to win this race, Danica. No matter what it takes.”
“Why?” she asked again, but he nodded toward the open doorway.
“We can’t stay out long, and we’ll have to stick to the mountainous sections to keep from being tracked. I suggest we be back before it’s dark.”
“Phi—” she tried again but he shook his head.
“Drive, Danica.”
Sighing, Danica pressed in the clutch and dropped the car into first gear. She eased off the clutch gently, just as her father taught her as a young girl, and the Porsche moved out of the garage and faced the open road.
She hadn’t lied when she said she needed to drive the car slowly. Part of learning a car, besides driving her fast, was driving her slow. The handling was different at different speeds, so she drove the speed limit after she exited the large metal gates that could probably stop Godzilla if they wanted to. Phi didn’t speak as they drove, as the wind whipped inside the car and tugged strands of his hair loose from their hold. His eyes focused out of the windshield, but she could tell he was miles away in his head, thinking over things. For what felt like an hour, they were silent, driving along the mountain cliffs. Here, the dirt had a golden tint to it, the rocks more decoration than any of the desert plants growing in the crevices, but it was still beautiful in a savage kind of way. Just as the two vampires she’d found herself befriending were.
“When I was little,” Danica said suddenly, breaking the silence. “My dad would take me out to the racetrack, and we would just sit together in his car, listening to the rumble. Back then, he was still driving a modified Camaro on drag strips. It wasn’t long after that when he focused on NASCAR. He moved up in fame quickly, a prodigy just like they call me, a family of legends.” Danica glanced over at Phi to find his eyes already watching her, but she focused back on the road. “Once he started driving the Indy car, I didn’t get to sit in it with him as often, not when there were stricter rules, but he always made sure to sit with me before the week of races at least once, a lesson. He would tell me, ‘Dani, you’re in control of this beast when you’re behind the wheel, and if you want to control her, you have to know her inside and out’. And I took that to heart, and later, as an adult, I realized it applied to most things in life.”
“How so?” Phi asked.
“Control comes from knowing details. Once you know something inside and out, you can control it. If I want my instincts to carry me forward, I have to know every piece of this car to win the race, which is why we’re driving her at the speed limit just as I drive her fast.” Danica glanced at Phi again quickly. “But also, with this race, comes something I barely know anything about, and that’s a weakness.” She paused and bit her lip. “Two things specifically.”
“You mean us,” he murmured. There was contemplation in his voice, but Danica didn’t dare look at him again when the road began to curve dangerously. One wrong turn and they’d go right over the side of the cliff.
Danica nodded. “If I’m going to win, I need to know you and Arden as much as you’ll allow me.”
Phi sighed. “So you can control us?”
“So I can utilize your skills and strengths to control the outcome of the race,” she corrected. “So I know what we’re truly up against when you say there’s a target on our backs.”
For long moments, Phi didn’t speak, and she assumed he’d decided she didn’t need to know anything else. It would put them at a disadvantage, but she would do her best to win, at least for her kids, but it surprised her when Phi began to speak into the heavy silence.
“You know I’m a prince and my father is a king, but it’s far larger than that,” Phi began, staring out the windshield at the passing scenery. “My father is the king of the Northern Sect of vampires, the entire United States, Canada, and some of Central America. And I’m next in line for the throne as his only son.”
“Wouldn’t that mean people wouldn’t fuck with you?”
“You would think so, and if people feared me, perhaps, but I don’t believe in ruling with fear like my father does. When I reached three hundred years, I became eligible to take the throne, and tradition says my father should step down from his position and pass the mantle onto me, but my father likes his power. Can you guess what someone who likes power would decide?”
Danica grit her teeth at the question, realizing she knew people exactly like Phi’s father. No matter the species or the industry, there would always be people like that. “He wouldn’t want to give up that power.”
“Precisely, but my father isn’t a great ruler. He rules with fear, with an iron crown, and he’s running our people into the ground with his thirst for power. And now, I’m a threat to that because I’m eligible for the crown.”
Danica pulled the car over to a rest area where the view looked out over the canyons, the sun high in the sky and touching the surfaces, creating a scene that should have been a painting. “So how did that end up putting you in the Race Games? I would think a prince would be better suited for the sidelines.”
“I’ve never been someone who follows stereotypes. If I did, I would have never become friends with Arden.” When Danica opened her mouth to ask, he held up his hand. “I’ll only tell you my part in the story, and what’s at stake. If you want Arden’s, you’ll have to ask him. It’s not my story to tell.”
“Understood,” she answered, turning away from the view to meet Phi’s vibrant eyes. “So, tell me, what is it that’s at stake in this race, prince?”
He studied her face, eyes tracing over her bone structure, her lips, her eyes, until his gaze locked with hers again. “My right to the crown.”
“What?” Danica gasped.
“If I win, I get to keep my right to the throne and my father will step down, though I suspect that will be a fight of technicalities.”
“And if you lose?”
“I renounce my claim on the throne and my father stays on the throne indefinitely. But my father would never just allow me to walk away. Though I would renounce my claim, he would still see me as a threat on the loose, and therefore, he’ll do everything in his power to make sure I die in the Race Games to avoid that.”
“Your own father would want you dead?” Danica couldn’t imagine her father ever doing something like that. Paternal love was a real thing, but the story Phi spun was so far outside her norm, she didn’t understand it.
“You’re placing human traits on vampires, speed racer,” Phi said sadly. “We aren’t the same. It’s a cutthroat world, and though my mother loved me dearly, she was taken from this world far too soon by my own father. I’m not stupid enough to believe my mother died naturally. She was too soft on me, so my father took away the softness. He just didn’t plan on me befriending a young vampire that reminding me so much of my mother, I was convinced my mother sent him as a reminder.” He took Danica’s hand. “Never allow life to make you hard. Never let it stop you from reaching your full potential.”
“You’re talking about me now, aren’t you?” Danica breathed, tempted to pull her hand back but allowing his touch instead. “You think I allowed life to stop me.”
“You stopped racing. You stopped doing something that gave you life. I’ve seen the way your face lights up when you’re behind the wheel, Danica. Walking away from that had to have taken so much from you.”
Danica clenched her jaw. “You weren’t there. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand far more than you think I do,” he countered. “Would your father want you to stop racing?” He tilted his head. “If the answer is no, then ask yourself why you stopped at all.”
Flames erupting. Screaming, screaming, screaming: who was screaming? The sirens of the fire truck racing onto the track. The other cars screeching to a halt. The racer who had thrown her father off course climbing from his car and racing toward the inferno the same as her, his eyes wide in panic. In NASCAR, there were wrecks, but when deaths happened. . .
She blinked and Phi’s golden eyes came into view again. “I looked into Hell,” she whispered. “That’s why I stopped.”
Then she released the e-brake and dropped the Porsche into first gear, easing it back out onto the road and toward home.