After his father had been killed in a coal-mining accident, his family had been forced to live off whatever they could grow on their small plot of land. Not nearly enough for the brood of six. At times food had been so scarce that he would make a thin soup from whatever greens he could gather in the woods so that he could leave what little food they had for his mother and younger siblings.
Until he had found a way to earn some money. He considered now that starving might have been better.
Shoving those painful recollections away, Blake scoped out the occupants of the bar, needing to satisfy the hunger that the inexpensive beef’s blood had failed to quench.
As his gaze swept over the dance floor, he noticed the attractive blonde moving to the hard beats of the music spewing from the Blood Bank’s stereo system. Foley, the owner of the Blood Bank, was too cheap to hire live musicians.
When she turned in his direction as she danced, her gaze briefly skimmed across his.
He thought he detected a glimmer of interest there and so he rose, added a bit of swagger to his walk as he approached the dance floor. He weaved through the crowd of dancers until he was just an arm’s length from the blonde.
No doubt remained about her interest, since she shot a knowing grin his way. He joined her in the dance, her luscious young body plastered to his, her sweet, firm buttocks caressing his front. Even as he did so, he knew the attractive chit could only fulfill one need—his thirst for blood.
Satisfaction of an emotional kind had eluded him for too long, and as for the physical…
His recent interlude with a vampire elder had taught him a thing or two about physical satisfaction. Despite how good it had been with the beautiful and powerful Stacia, it had occurred to him too quickly in the relationship that there was something lacking.
Something he hadn’t experienced since…
He drove thoughts of her away as the young woman eased up onto her toes, slipped an arm around his neck and drew his head near. She whispered into his ear, “Would you like to go somewhere more private?”
She inclined her head in the direction of the Blood Bank’s back rooms and he knew just what she wanted—a quick tryst and maybe even some painful play with the toys Foley kept in the rooms for his more daring clientele.
He smiled, slipped his hand into hers and quickly strode toward the private rooms, intending to fulfill the young woman’s needs and his own.
But even as he did so, memories sprang up of the last young blonde he had taken into that area. Of the joy and pain that tryst had brought.
He cursed beneath his breath as all desire fled.
He had been reduced to a stalker guy, Blake thought as he hid in the shadows of the alley behind Otro Mundo, waiting for her to emerge.
He had been visiting that spot for nearly two months now, ever since the human wannabes had opened their posh restaurant.
He refused to admit that inside of him lurked a little of the wannabe, especially as he rubbed his full belly. The blonde earlier that evening had been a splendid dining experience, but he still needed more.
Far more than what he would find in the fancy-ass restaurant Diego and Ryder had opened. A part of him resented them—his two kind-of-friends. “Kind-of-friends” because he was only included in their circle when they needed something.
Nothing new. He had been an outsider most of his life. He should have been used to being on the fringe, and yet it gnawed at his gut, as did their philosophy of striving to maintain their humanity rather than giving in to their demons.
As he stood behind the restaurant, he reminded himself that he was a vampire and damned proud of it. He had no need of humanity with all the attendant emotions, especially love.
Love only complicated the whole undead-demon gig.
He told himself that over and over again, until she emerged from the back door of the restaurant and sat on the first step of the landing leading down into the alley.
Meghan’s blond hair glistened beneath the light of a bright new moon. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if to ward off the chill of the early spring night. Not that vamps like them really felt the cold. The gesture was probably a lingering human habit.
Meghan had been a vamp for only about four years now. Actually three years, eleven months and ten days, but who was counting? Blake realized that besides Meghan, he would be the one to know.
He had turned her, after all.
Because of that, the connection between them told him that she was deeply troubled. Her hands had been shaking as she had wrapped them around the flesh of her upper arms, and from within her, disquiet radiated out to him, beating against his vampire senses, strumming the bond between a sire and the one he had turned.
Meghan picked up her head and stared his way, finally registering his presence. The unease that had bathed her soul moments earlier vanished and was replaced by her typical anger toward him. He had wondered more than once if she could ever forgive him for siring her, but her continued rage made him doubt that anything other than discord was possible between them.
Straightening from where he was leaning against the brick wall, he jerked on his black leather jacket and told himself to stop pining after the young chit.
The forever-young chit, thanks to him.
Guilt tore into him before he firmly shoved it aside.
For one and half centuries he had survived alone, and there was no reason he couldn’t do the same for the next one and half centuries.
As he stepped away from the shadows, the chains on his jacket scraped across the rough brick, the noise loud in the otherwise quiet night.
Meghan rose from the stoop as he made himself visible, her body tense and seemingly poised for flight. But he wasn’t about to let her run away.
Blake stood at the mouth of the service alley for the restaurant, resplendent in all his punk glory. His black leather jacket strained against the broad width of his shoulders. Beneath the jacket, a black shirt encased the lean muscles of his upper body while wickedly tight jeans hugged the perfection of his long muscled legs.
He wasn’t tall, but he had amazing legs. Come to think of it, most of him was fairly magnificent, which was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place.
She had fallen for the sexy, dimpled grin and the crystalline blue gaze. Not to mention all that perfectly defined muscle.
Plus, he had made her laugh with his insolent charm and self-confidence. That had been her ultimate downfall—that he could make her laugh. If she had learned one thing from her parents, it was that laughter lasted long after the passion of youth had fled.
But not even Blake could make her laugh tonight, Meghan thought, as she looked up to the window of the private dining room that held the grisly remains of the two dead vampires.
Smeared blood marred what had once been the pristine glass of the window. In her mind flashed the sight of their bodies writhing together and the sound of the sick sucking noises they had made before death forever stilled them.
Blake tracked her gaze and as he noted the sight, worry slipped into his normally cocky features. He took a step toward her but then stopped, clearly unsure of his reception, as well he should be.
She’d had more than a taste of Blake and was sure she didn’t want yet another.
For all his charm, he wasn’t trustworthy.
She