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“Hey.” I tapped the vampires on their backs. In unison, they turned to me, their nostrils flaring, their lips curling back from sharp white fangs. I tried to see past the monstrous veiny exterior, the sunken cheeks, the black eyes. These were human once—a man and a woman. For all I knew they could have been husband and wife; accountant and journalist; teacher and lawyer. Whatever. I didn’t know where they came from or what their stories were. I didn’t really care.
All I knew was that they were a threat—to Declan, to me, to the woman I’d committed myself to rescuing. And I knew they were drawn to the scent of the Nightshade inside of me. Since they weren’t well fed like Lawrence was, they didn’t have his control—the control that kept him from sinking his fangs into me to get a taste of my irresistible blood.
These nameless vampires had no control. That was my hope. And, frankly, that was also my worst fear.
“Jill!” Declan’s pained cry echoed in my ears.
I staggered back a step as the vampires changed their direction and started moving toward me.
NINE
All I could do now was hope the vampires didn’t rip me apart before they tasted my blood. Declan grabbed a step and pulled himself closer, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop what was about to happen.
“Delicious, right?” I said. Fear wasn’t something I could control at the moment, so I gave in to it, wrapping myself in it like a thick blanket. “You need to drink my blood.”
“Yessss,” the female hissed. She had hair so pale blond it was almost white. I think it was a bleach job, since nobody had that color hair naturally. Her skin seemed even paler in contrast to the dark veins that branched along her jawline, and her lips were deep red, as if she’d already been drinking her fill of blood before they got to this floor. I could barely see the whites of her eyes, her irises were so large and black. She looked like some sort of angel, actually. An angel of death.
She grabbed hold of my hair, fisting it so tightly that I let out an involuntary cry of pain. The male vampire drew closer. I shuddered as he slid his hand over my stomach and pressed me back against the wall.
He sniffed along my neck. “Smells so good. Never smelled anything so fucking good in my life.”
My heart pounded so fast it made me dizzy. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Declan was trying to get to me. I shuddered with fear and disgust as I felt the male vampire slide his cold hand down between my legs and I felt his erection hard against my hip. I’d expected it, but it didn’t mean I was prepared.
For vampires, blood and sex went hand in hand. Lust for blood turned into a lust for other things. It was all I could do to not beg them to let go of me. The female had a tight hold of my hair and she wrenched my neck to the side. Her other hand grasped my chin and she nipped at my jaw, not quite hard enough to break the skin. Her fangs were as sharp as scalpels.
This was typically the part in the movies where the good guys would arrive, stakes in hand, and make mincemeat out of the monsters, saving the damsel in distress who’d been foolish enough to wander off into danger and get herself eaten. But my life wasn’t a movie. And I’d chosen this distress with full knowledge of the potential consequences. I didn’t have nightmares every night because my life was big fun.
Do it, I begged inwardly. Bite me. What the hell are you waiting for?
Maybe if they’d been kept elsewhere, fed well, this might have gone differently. Hell, it might have gone even worse. I could have first been brutally raped before they killed me. The male obviously had sex on the brain, judging by the way he was pawing me, but it wasn’t first on his list. It was likely a close second, though.
I thought I had braced myself, but the pain was always a horrible shock. And they weren’t taking turns. The female was at my throat, her razor-sharp fangs slicing into my flesh. The male was at my wrist and I winced, feeling hot tears splash down my cheeks as he pierced my skin so deeply I was sure he’d hit bone. It hurt like hell, but I couldn’t move or struggle anymore. Something about a vampire’s bite rendered the victim paralyzed while they were fed on. I could feel everything, see and smell everything. But I couldn’t try to protect myself or fight back, which made it even more dangerous.
I looked past the woman’s pale blond hair and met Declan’s horrified gaze. Strange—I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen so much emotion on his face. His serum shouldn’t allow it, even in a situation like this. Maybe it was only an illusion.
It felt like forever that they fed on me, but I knew it was only a few seconds.
The female gasped first, pulling back from me and touching the dark red blood on her lips. The male was next, his eyes wide, his brow furrowed.
She gasped. “What is this?”
I glared at her as the feeling came back to my limbs and I was able to speak again. “It’s heartburn, bitch.”
She opened her mouth to scream, and I could see the fire coming up from deep inside of her. Before she could make another sound, she exploded in a fiery, smelly, ashy cloud. I tried to pull back from it so I wouldn’t be burned, but I was already up against the wall. All I could do was wave at the scattering ashes.
The other vampire turned his stunned gaze to mine, mouth dark with my blood. I saw fury in his eyes. The female meant something to him and now she was gon
e forever. He grabbed my throat, hard enough to crush me, but his hands had already begun to crumble. His growl of anger turned into a scream of pain as the fire consumed him. A moment later there was nothing left of either of them. I brought my hand to my throat, which was tender, raw, and bleeding. The phantom stench of burnt flesh hung in the air, and I wiped the fine coating of ash off the front of my tank top and arms.
So close. He would have killed me if he’d had more time. Luckily for me, he hadn’t.
Declan was on his feet now, favoring his left leg. He pulled himself up the remaining stairs and grabbed my shoulders. I expected him to yell at me for being so careless, for nearly getting myself killed. He roughly pushed my face to the side and took my wrist in hand so he could inspect the bite wounds.
“Damn it, Jill.” He held my face between his hands. “Are you okay?”
I smiled genuinely, so happy I was still alive, that he was still alive. When I’d seen the vampire grab him when he opened the door, I’d thought that was it. We were living on borrowed time anyway. I’d thought our meter had just expired.
I nodded. “I’ll live.”
