fierce, so vicious, I cry out.
Why am I reacting like this? I’m not a vampire. I’m not a newling. I’m a human with tendencies. I may have taken on some of the traits of vampires when Victorian and Valerian bit me, but I’m not like them. This sensation, or whatever it is, scares the hell out of me. Yet something pulls at me. Unfamiliar. Desperate. Horrifying.
My eyes fix on a human; I don’t see male or female. I smell only the warm blood coursing through their veins. As I breathe in, I can taste it on my tongue. I want it. Need it. Will do anything to get it.
I lunge.
In reality, my body begins seizing. I shake, shudder, convulse. Slowly, the screams fade; the metallic scent weakens. My need is still strong though, and I struggle to bring the scent of blood back. In the darkness, I can no longer see the humans; the club has disappeared. I’m on my back on a firm yet soft surface. I now smell pine, fresh cut grass. Slowly, I open my eyes.
The sounds and smells around me bring me back to the present. I’m no longer in Victorian’s Jag. I’m lying on the ground next to a parking lot; cars and semitrucks whiz by on the highway, unevenly, at various speeds. A can dispenses through a soft-drink machine. Laughter echoes in the distance. A stereo system blasts Twisted Sister, one speaker blown in the back. My vision clears as I fixate on what’s before me. Victorian is straddling me. He has my arms pinned above my head. Holding me still. My eyes scan past him. We’re at an interstate rest stop. Concrete buildings with restrooms and drink machines.
I find my voice, and I struggle against him. “What are you doing?”
Victorian studies me. His grip on me tightens and he frowns. “You don’t remember?”
For a second, my brain races. I don’t remember, and I don’t lie still enough to try to make myself remember. I buck—hard. Victorian’s grip breaks, I leap up, and take off. My legs are weak, though, and no sooner do I make it ten feet than I’m down again. Struggling, I manage to find my footing and take off. Slices of light from several tall lamps illuminate the side of the concrete building of the rest area; I avoid it and run straight for the shadows and the trees beyond. My body jerks, and my knees give out. Once more, I force myself up and try to run. Strength floods my body so intensely, I can feel it, as though strength itself is a liquid and someone has poured it straight into me. With arms and legs pumping, I fly through the darkness. Speed is one of my tendencies, and I’m fast as hell. I don’t care who sees me. It’s not like there are a lot of people out at the rest stop at two a.m. In seconds I’m sifting through dense pines, and because I’m still wearing the same gauzy skirt, tank, and Vans I had on at Tunnel 9 hours before, brambles grab my bare legs and scratch the holy hell out of them. I don’t care. I have to get away. Ease the craving now gnawing at my insides—
I jerk to a sudden stop. Confusion webs through my mind, and my memories race wildly. Craving? I crave only Krystal burgers and Krispy Kremes. Sugar. Greasy food. Those are my cravings. So what the hell is—
A body rushes mine and I am once again flung to the ground. Without looking I know it’s Victorian. Sharp pine needles and cones littering the wood dig into my skin as his weight presses against me. My face is smashed into the damp leaves and moss.
Quickly, my hands are tethered together.
“Sorry, love,” Victorian apologizes. He binds my ankles together, too. “You can’t imagine how I hate this, but somehow”—he helps me stand, then looks at me—“you broke free of my suggestion.” His head cocks to the side as he studies me, and the moonlight shooting a slender beam through the trees glances off his face. “Intriguing. I’ve never met another who can break free of my suggestion.”
Rage fills behind my eyes, pounds in my chest. “Well, now you have. So now what? What are you gonna do now, Vic? Throw me over your shoulder like a sack of dog food and haul me to the car?”
The slightest of smiles tips his sensual lips upward. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” In one move, Victorian bends his knees, and in the next instant, over his shoulder I go. He keeps his hands secured around my calves. God only knows my skirt is probably up around my waist, booty to the wind. We move out of the woods and start across the lawn of the rest stop, past the concrete picnic tables and restrooms. No one is around. Only a few semitrucks, their drivers more than likely sleeping. It wouldn’t do any good for me to scream; Victorian would simply suggest to anyone who heard that I was really okay, and they’d believe. So I keep quiet.
Until I hear the lock click and the Jag’s trunk open.
“No way,” I say, my voice only a little uneven, unsure. “Victorian, do not put me in there.”
He puts me in there. Lays me gently on a soft, down comforter. Had he expected to have to use his trunk to contain me? Warm brown eyes look down at me with obvious regret. Almost makes me forget what he is. “I apologize. I truly hate this. But for you to break free from my suggestion?” He shook his head. “You’re stronger than I thought—than you even think you are. You’re a danger to yourself, Riley. I can’t let anything happen to you.” His stare bores into mine. “I couldn’t live with it.” The trunk starts to close.
“Wait!” I say frantically. He waits. “Where are you taking me?”
Lowering his hand, Vic grazes my jaw with his knuckles. “Somewhere safe. Somewhere I can help you.”
Without another word, he closes me in. The moment he does, I hear another voice rise.
“What the fuck are you doing, man?” a deep voice says, full of shock and anger. “I saw you put that woman in there.”
“Perhaps you’d be better off minding your own business,” Victorian warns evenly, gentlemanly.
A heavy thump hits the back of the car. “Perhaps you’d be better off shutting the fuck up and opening the motherfucking trunk,” the stranger says. “Now.”
Silence.
I have a bad feeling. Why isn’t Victorian using his suggestive powers to make the man walk away?
“What the fuck—”
The only noise I hear is a choked gurgle.
The car door slams, and in seconds, the purr of the Jag’s engine rumbles around me. I know without having seen what just happened. Victorian fed. In his defense, he tried to warn the guy. In the guy’s defense, he was trying to save me. It’s all so messed up. Victorian shifts gears and roars up the interstate. We’re on the move. To where, I have no clue.
The one question I have right now is where the hell did a centuries-old vampire get friggin’ tie-wraps? I jerk my ankles and wrists—no go. That thick, hard plastic won’t budge even a fraction. In fact, they tighten. So I relax and try to forget I’m in the back of a trunk, bound. And that back at the rest stop, a man lay dead in the parking lot, his blood drained. I close my eyes, the sound of the road and the Jag’s engine a respite. Everything seems so messed up now.
I think of the one thing in my life that calms me right now: Eligius Dupre. An ancient vampire from Paris, he and the Dupre family have been Savannah’s guardians since the 1700s. After making a pact with Preacher’s Gullah ancestors, who inhabited the isles off Georgia’s coast, they became the city’s protectors from rogue vampires.
Never did I think I’d fall for a creature of the night. Or that he’d fall for me. I’m not cutting myself down, but seriously. I’m not everyone’s type. I’m taller than most women. My back and arms are covered in wicked dragon tattoos, along with a dark angel wing inked at the corner of my left eye. I have pink highlights. And my past is far from stellar. As a teen, I got into everything a kid could. Drugs. Gangs. Ditching school. Luckily, with the help of Preacher and his wife, Estelle, I cleaned up my act. Went to school, became a successful tattoo artist with a shop in the historic district called Inksomnia. Still, I’m damaged goods. Eli overlooked my past, though, and only sees
Eli is different. Actually, his whole family is different. They’re…real. They love one another, like humans. I can’t put it any other way. I’ve grown to care for Eli’s papa, Gilles Dupre; his mom, Elise; his brothers, Seraphin and Jean-Luc; and his baby sister, Josephine. In all honesty, they helped save my life.
As I drift between sleep and awareness, a vision of Eli crowds my mind; his face, his jaw, his eyes. Ebony hair against alabaster skin. Blue eyes so clear, it almost hurts to look at them. Protective nearly to a fault, Eli is always conscious of my surroundings and cautious of any outsiders. The way he touches me; his lips against my skin. The sex is incredible. Mind-blowing doesn’t fully describe it. More than the sex, though, is how he makes me feel. If Jerry Maguire hadn’t said it first, I’d tell Eli, “You complete me” and sincerely mean it. Yet I can’t admit even to myself, much less to him, that I love him. How screwed up is that? The last words Eli spoke to me as Victorian drove me away from Tunnel 9 resonate inside my memory.
I believe Eli. But how will he know where we are headed? The look on his face as I drove off with Victorian had been one of anguish—betrayal—then determination. All in about five seconds. It’s not in Eli’s nature to give up.
