I was playing the human, a performance that had saved me on previous occasions. I knew I needed to act unaware of anything but the smooth, calming limbo the creature was trying to flood through my mind, but I couldn’t help the deep tremble that shook my chest and vibrated through my body like a swift, deadly undertow.
Lips—if you could call the thin skin stretched over its massive fangs lips—kissed the skin beneath my ear. “Be calm, little one.” He spoke and the growling timbre of his voice belied the meaning behind his words.
The swift boil of my anger at being called “little one” helped douse some of my trembling. I deliberately slowed my breathing, so he would think I was under his influence.
He rubbed his cheek against my cheek. “Hmm,” he murmured on an inhale. I felt a tremble course through his body. His talons tightened just short of breaking the skin as he composed himself. “Lovely.”
The slick slide of his tongue flicked out in a hot swipe over my neck. I almost lost my nerve. I clenched my teeth to stop myself from jerking away when his mouth clamped over my carotid in a punishing, penetrating lock. Fangs pierced through my skin, and my knees gave out as he sucked a long, fiery gulp of blood.
Pleasant, soothing pleasure kneaded my body in pulses. Unlike Dominic’s bite, which could blow my mind in orgasm, and Kaden’s bite, which tore through flesh like a rabid dog gnawing its bone, this bite massaged around my body like a cloud. It wasn’t overwhelming or violent, like the other bites I’d experienced. It soothed my aches and worries. I floated in oblivious bliss, and perhaps this bite was more dangerous for its gentility because despite having kept my will, I didn’t want to pull away.
The vampire released the pressure on my neck, healed the wound with a quick, efficient lick, and stepped back from me after only one swallow. I slumped to the ground. From my prone position, I could finally see the vampire behind me. He hadn’t fed yet besides the one swallow of my own blood, but that one swallow hadn’t been enough to transform him back from his gargoyle-like form. His ears stood at attention. His nose was flat and flared, and although his canine teeth were fanged, every tooth in his mouth came to a sharpened point.
Like all the other vampires I’d seen in this form, his body was slim, nearly skeletal, and his legs, which I had to focus on not seeing, were jointed backwards. Vampires were difficult to differentiate in this form, but I noticed a slight difference in his. This vampire, unlike Dominic and any other vampire I’d known, had webbed fingers.
The vampire stared down at me, incredulous.
“You’re a night blood.”
I blew out a long breath. “What gave me away?” I asked sardonically. The jig was up the moment he’d tasted my blood.
He cocked his head, and after a suspended moment, he shot me a smile. The smile would have been reassuring if not for the rows of needle-sharp teeth.
“Humor,” he said. “It’s been a while.”
I tensed to move from my prone position. The vampire disappeared and was suddenly beside me, scooping me from the ground and carrying me in his arms deeper into the woods. He dodged between trees and flashed over logs and catapulted over what looked like a small river dividing the forest, moving at that nearly invisible speed that they could all move. The few times Dominic had carried me as he moved at that speed, I tried to focus on something central, like the freckle above his collarbone, to keep my bearings, but focusing on this vampire was more sickening than the world warping in a dizzying blur around us. Focusing on him meant staring at the rough grayness of his chest, the five-inch talons curved under my knees, and the glowing amber of his reflective, nocturnal eyes.
His focus shifted at my perusal, and our eyes met.
I stiffened in his arms. “Shouldn’t you watch where you’re going?”
“Does my gaze make you uncomfortable?” he asked, and he deliberately smiled wide enough to showcase every pointed inch of his teeth.
Of all the vampires to attack and abduct me, I’d found the comedian this time. I shouldn’t complain. Last time, I’d found the serial killer.
“It’s not you, it’s me,” I said, and the vampire snorted. “If we crash into a tree at this speed, you’d survive just fine, but I’d be dead.” I gave him a long look. “The police would have another murder to investigate, and the last thing your coven needs with a serial vampire on the loose is more attention.”
The vampire sobered. “We don’t know who’s responsible for the murders, serial vampire or not. Bex will be busy tonight finding out, but despite the murders, I think she’ll make time for you.”
I blinked. “You’re bringing me to Bex?”
“You know Bex?”
I nodded.
“That’s impossible,” he dismissed. “I know every night blood here.”
“I’m not from here.”
A slow smirk widened his lips. “That I believe.”
The wind whipped my hair around us, smacking him in the face. A deep rattle vibrated through his chest as he breathed in my scent. I watched his fangs elongate and his lips thin like a dog with its hackles raised.
He looked away, ignoring me to focus resolutely on the path in front of us.
I gaped. “You haven’t fed yet, but you’re resisting me.”
He didn’t meet my eyes this time when he spoke. “You’re not intended for me. You could be just what my Master needs to find herself again. I can’t take that from her.”
“How could I possibly do that?”
“She hasn’t found a willing night blood in years, not since Walker refused her.” The vampire spat Walker’s name like it was something vile. “She must accept what can’t be hers and be content with finding someone else, anyone else, before it tears us apart.”
I opened my mouth to correct him, to let him know that I wasn’t what Bex needed. I already had a Master, and I wasn’t willing. But it dawned on me that the only thing preventing him from feeding from me was his intention to bring me to Bex.
“What’s your name?” I asked instead.
“You may call me Rene.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Just Rene?” I needed to know his first and last name to have a hope of entrancing him.
“Knowing a vampire’s full name is earned, not given.”
Damn it. “Oh. Why is that?”
He smirked. “Asking to know my full name is tantamount to a man asking to see your breasts on a first date. I don’t know you well enough to reveal all of myself, and it’s rude to ask.”
Rene described it like a social nicety, but I suspected the real reason he wouldn’t give me his last name was survival. Knowing and saying a vampire’s full name increased my hold on its mind when I entranced it. Most night bloods couldn’t entrance vampires, but Rene didn’t know that I wasn’t like most night bloods.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Far be it for me to be rude while I’m being abducted.”
Rene laughed. “Valid point. My name is Rene Roland. What’s yours?”
“DiRocco,” I murmured, deliberately only giving him my last name and determined not to feel guilty for my deception. I was food to him, nothing but meat and blood with a sence of dry humor that he