by L. E. Wilson
The skin on skin contact instantly caused electric pulses to run right up her arm and straight down to her groin, where she felt a rush of wetness between her legs.
Her eyes snapped up to his, and her breathing became hindered as their gazes locked. Her heart pounded in her chest from the blood rushing through her veins.
She squeezed her thighs together to try to relieve the yearning between her legs that hadn’t totally gone away since this man had entered the bar, and was oh, so much worse now.
Really, what is wrong with me?
Nik inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring slightly, and she watched as those strange eyes of his seemed to shine even brighter. The muscles on the side of his jaw bulged out as he clenched his jaw, and his hand tightened around hers.
So. She wasn’t the only one affected by the touch. Good to know.
Chapter 6
Nik nearly groaned aloud as the scent of her arousal hit him. The thought of her wet and aching almost made him forget they were in a public place with watchful eyes. His body reacted immediately and against his will—muscles hardening as his blood sped up to match the flow of hers, and his gums ached as his fangs descended. He struggled to get himself under control as he clung to her small hand, fighting the need to pierce her soft skin, afraid to move for fear of what he might do.
But then Emma abruptly pulled her hand from his, and the spell was broken. At the loss of it he curled his own hand in on itself to try to keep the warmth of her there.
Delicately clearing her throat, she repeated, “So, Nikulas, I ask again, who are you? Where did you come from? Because I know you’re not from around here.”
Nik discreetly rubbed the heel of his other hand over his throbbing erection and tried to concentrate on the conversation. “Originally? I was born in Estonia. But my brother and I, and some others in our family, have been here quite a long time.” He paused, contemplating how much to reveal about himself. “We actually live in Seattle, Washington.”
“And what brings you all the way here to PA?” Emma asked.
Having discreetly readjusted himself in his jeans to a slightly more comfortable position, he focused again on her lovely face. “You.”
“Me?” she scoffed. “Forgive me if I have a hard time believing you. I’m just a small-town girl living a very unexciting life. How could you possibly have any interest in me?”
“Because that brother I mentioned? He’s missing too. And I think he’s with your sister, and I think you can help me when we find them.” He held up a hand as she opened her mouth to interrupt him. “Just hold on. I’ll answer your questions, but first, I need you to tell me exactly what happened the night your sister went missing. Everything. No matter how unimportant or unbelievable you think it is. You might be shocked at how little surprises me.”
He watched, fascinated, as her every thought and emotion flitted across her expressive features. Doubt, confusion, hope, and finally…joy.
“I knew it!” She slammed her hands on the table again. “I knew she wasn’t dead!” A full-on, dazzling smile broke out across her face, and Nik’s lungs stopped working altogether.
Fucking hell. That smile—all white teeth and bright eyes sparkling with elation—lit up her entire face. He found himself unable to look away, even if he’d wanted to. It was like seeing the sun again after all of his hundreds of years of darkness. This slip of a female was bringing out things in him he hadn’t felt for…a very long time.
And he didn’t like it one damn bit.
Sitting back and placing a hand over his heart, like that would help it start to beat again, he blinked a few times to break the connection and attempted to disguise his reaction to her with a cough before asking, “And how did you know that?”
Emma stopped smiling and frowned at him instead. Squinting at him suspiciously, she answered his question with a couple of her own. “How do you know she’s with your brother? And how do you know they’re still alive?”
“Because if my brother was dead, I would feel it. Like, literally. Right here.” He put his hand back over his heart. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you have a similar connection with your sister.” Nik waited for her to deny it.
She didn’t.
“Look, I know you don’t know me, and I know you have absolutely no reason to trust me. But that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.”
He leaned forward again and trapped her hazel green eyes with his so she couldn’t look away. “Emma, please. I need you to tell me what happened that night.
Looking away to watch the dancers, who had gone from slow dancing to Just Like Heaven to fast dancing to Piano Man, she gave him a lame story. “All I remember is being at the carnival with Keira. I remember walking through the field where everyone parked their cars, though it was pretty late so most people had already left. Ours was parked way out toward the tree line where the woods started. Next thing I remember, I was in the ER, and Keira was gone. They said it was a bear attack.”
She recited the words with no emotion. Sitting back in his seat, he followed her gaze over to the dancers, who were now harassing the bartender for another drink. “You’re lying.” He tried, and failed, to keep the disappointment from his voice.
Her eyes whipped back to his face. “What did you say?”
“You’re lying. I think you remember a whole lot more than you’re letting on.”
“How dare you?” she hissed at him. “Who the hell do you think you are, accusing me like that?”
Nik glanced over at the salt and pepper shakers, which had started to vibrate on the table.
“What reason would I have to lie?” she continued, completely oblivious to what she was doing. “You come waltzing in here, someone I’ve never even met, wanting me to give up all these supposed secrets you think I have, and when I don’t say what you want to hear, you accuse me of lying?!” As Emma’s voice got louder and louder, the shakers started bouncing into each other.
“I know you’re lying, Emma,” he admitted, distracted by the dancing tableware. “You totally suck at it.”
She started sputtering, and he waved a hand at her. “Don’t go puffing up at me and getting your feathers all ruffled. You do. You suck. You’re a terrible liar. First of all, you couldn’t look me in the eye when you told me that well-rehearsed crap you’ve probably been telling the authorities for years. Second, you’re getting waaaay too defensive. Only liars get so defensive. And third—” With this he leaned across the booth until his face was inches from hers. “I can hear your heart. You’d fail a polygraph miserably, Em.”
Emma frowned at him. Leaning back against the seat and putting some distance between them, she inquired sarcastically, “You can hear my heart beat?” At his nod, she said, “So you are a dog.” Then she shook her head in mock regret. “The hot ones always are.”
Instead of being offended, Nik cocked his head to the side and gave her a charming smile. “You think I’m hot?”
“I am so out of here.” Emma slammed down the remainder of her drink, grabbed her bag and stood up. “Don’t contact me again.” And with that, she turned and marched toward the door.
The salt and pepper flew at his head as she marched past. Nik caught them in mid-air, set them down, and slid out of the booth and followed her out. He pointed at old Ned and shook his head at him in warning that he’d better keep his happy ass right where it was.
Although he didn’t look thrilled about it, the old bartender decided to be smart this time.
Outside in the parking lot, Nik ordered, “Emma! Dammit, STOP!”
“Go to hell!” Keys already in hand, she beeped her car open while still a few feet away. Wrenching the door open, she started to get in. But instead of the empty space she expected between her and her seat, she slammed into over six feet of hard-ass muscle that was suddenly between her and her escape.
Emma let out a little shriek, jumped back, and hit the inside of the car door with her hip.
“Ow!” Rubbing t
he sore spot, she glared up at Nik’s unsmiling face. “How the hell did you do that? I didn’t even hear you coming…” She snapped her mouth shut. “Know what? I don’t want to know. Get out of the way, Nik.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Emma.” Putting his left hand against the door window, he caged her in. “Look, can we go back to your house?”
“What? NO! We most certainly can NOT go back to my house! I don’t even like you! Now get out of my way before I scream. I want to go home! ALONE!”
“I’m not trying to get in your pants, Emma.” His eyes roamed down over her breasts before he’d even finished the sentence, and she huffed with indignation. “Not that it hasn’t crossed my mind,” he clarified. “But trust me, if I wanted to fuck you, you’d already be flat on your back and screaming my name.”
Blood rushed to her face, and her skin flushed pink. She opened her mouth, then shut it again with an audible click.
Nik grinned, his ability to make her speechless impressing even him.
Clenching her jaw together so hard he could see the muscles jumping in her cheeks, she gave him one last, hateful look, then ducked under his arm, shoving her keys back into her bag as she stomped away again.
He closed her car door, then jogged across the pavement to catch up to her. “Emma, I’m sorry.”
She kept walking, turned left on the main road and headed toward her house.
He tried again to get her to stop and listen to him. “Really, I am sorry. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes.”
She increased her pace.
“Hey, how about we stop all this silly bickering, and go back to your house so we can talk privately? I swear I’ll behave myself.”
Nik heaved a sigh as he watched her walk away. She was proving to be more of a challenge than he’d anticipated. Somehow, he’d let himself get the impression she was but a meek little thing. Unfortunately, for her, that only piqued his interest more.
He set out after her again, the enticing sway of her hips a lure he couldn’t resist, making him hard all over again. What the hell was wrong with him? He hadn’t been this intrigued by a human female since Eliana.
Eliana.
God, he’d loved her all those years ago. But, it hadn’t been enough to keep him from killing her, had it?
Nik stopped walking again, pain washing over him at the memory.
What would Emma think of him if she knew?
Why did he even care?
Suddenly, he heard her footsteps approaching, instead of receding. Nik’s head snapped up. The sympathetic expression on her face surprised him.
Why was she looking at him like that? Did he look that pathetic? Was that pity on her face? Wtf? Embarrassed, he scrubbed at his face with his hands.
“So…” He cleared his throat before continuing. “Yeah, we should really get off this road and go talk. What do you say?” Trying to look as harmless as he could, he shoved his hands into his front pockets as he waited for her to decide what she wanted to do.
Conflicting emotions crossed her face while she decided whether or not to trust him. Little did she know she was coming with him tonight, whether she wanted to or not.
Chapter 7
Emma didn’t know what it was that made her stop and turn around, and now she wished she hadn’t. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have seen the pain and sadness diminish his usual cockiness. She wouldn’t have wondered what caused it. And she would never have felt the need to go to him, and offer what comfort she could.
A sound in the brush a few feet away whipped Emma’s head around and made her heart hammer in her chest.
What the hell am I doing?
She was walking home down a little used, back road, in the dark, surrounded by dense forest. There were no streetlights, no light of any kind. The moon wasn’t even out.
She looked left in the direction of her car, then right in the direction of her house. Finally, she looked at Nik. He was the lesser of evils, for now. Her desperate yearning for something, anything, he could tell her about her sister overshadowed her normally cautious nature.
“All right.”
“Okay?” A surprised eyebrow lifted and a genuine smile made his face even more gorgeous. “We’ll go talk?”
At her tentative nod, he glanced around.
“If you give me your keys, I can run up and get your car while you wait here, and come back and pick you up.”
“No!” Emma took a deep breath to calm herself. “I’d just rather stay with you.”
“All right.” He turned around to lead the way.
Emma followed. “I don’t like the dark is all,” she clarified.
She didn’t see the softening of his gaze, or hear his barely whispered, “I know.”
Not for the first time that evening, Emma wondered if she’d completely lost her senses. Was she so desperate, or stupid, to believe some stranger would just show up out of nowhere, after seven years, and know something about her sister neither she nor the police had found?
Yes. Yes, she was. Her sister, Keira, was really gone. Not dead, but taken. Taken by the monsters in her nightmare, for they weren’t just figments of her imagination. They were real. And they’d stolen her sister that night.
The hissing one had hurtled around Emma as she’d screamed. Throwing Keira over its shoulder, its claws had dug into the backs of her legs to hold her still. As her blood ran in rivulets down her thighs, its tongue protruded from the gaping hole of its mouth, greedily lapping up whatever it could reach. Hissing a final time at Emma, it had lurched off into the woods. The last thing she remembered was her sister screeching at her to “Run!” as the remaining monsters closed in on her.
Emma had spent three months in the hospital after her “bear attack”. During that time, she’d buried what had happened to her deep inside, until she could recall nothing of what had occurred after the monsters appeared. But her own injuries weren't important. What was important was finding her sister. With a determination she didn’t know she had, Emma spent the following year single-mindedly searching for her sister.
She’d harassed the police, local officials, anyone she could think of. Completely useless, all of them. Angry tears pricked her eyes just thinking about it. Lifting her hand, she quickly dashed them away, and concentrated on keeping up with Nik. She was so tired of crying, tired of wondering.
After that first year, the authorities had pretty much given up, and her sister’s disappearance was buried in the back of a file room with all of the other unsolved cases. But Emma wouldn’t give up. Keira was all the family she had left, and she was going to find her come hell or high water.
She just didn’t know what else to do.
She’d contacted the city and gotten the name of the company who’d put on the carnival, and the employees who’d been there that night. Hunting them down one by one, she’d spoken to all of them, questioned them repeatedly. Nothing. No one remembered seeing anything or anyone unusual. No one had even noticed them leave the carnival. It’s like Keira had disappeared into thin air.
She’d posted missing person alerts across the country every year. She’d spent hour upon hour online, trying to find evidence these creatures existed. Again, nothing. She’d exhausted all of her resources.
She didn’t know why those things had taken Keira, and she didn’t know where they’d taken her, but she believed her sister was still alive. She had to believe it. Or what else would she have left?
In spite of their two-year age difference, the sisters rarely fought. In fact, they’d always been the best of friends.
Maybe because they were each other’s only friends.
Even when they were really young, and their mom would take them to the park, they never played with the other kids. It’s not that they didn’t want to, but the other kids always kept their distance.
The girls never understood why the other kids acted so weird around them. They would lie in bed at night in the room they shared, long after they should have bee
n asleep, and whisper to each other about the “mean kids”. And how they didn’t need them anyway. They had each other.
As they got older and started school, nothing changed. They were shunned, avoided, and sometimes made fun of. They were never invited to sleepovers, or asked out on dates. They were always the last ones to be picked for teams in PE class, and only ended up on a team at all because the teachers made them.
“Special” is what Mom and Dad told them, when they asked what was different about them.
“Freaks” is what the other kids at school said about them.
They weren’t picked on, or bullied, or threatened by the other kids. If they had been, Emma would’ve felt more normal, but they weren’t any of those things. They were just ignored. The other students, and even some of the teachers, acted like they weren’t even there. It was like they were invisible, and no one else saw them. They only saw each other, and it created a bond between the two girls that nothing could break. Except death. But Nik was right. If Keira were dead, Emma would know.
And she would do whatever she needed to—even trust a complete stranger—to find her.
Chapter 8
Seattle, Washington
Shea scowled as Christian threw himself onto the oversized leather couch by the window overlooking the city. He propped his head on one end and his dirty boots on the other. The only female vampire on Luukas’ council, she was also the only one who cared about things such as clean furniture.
“Hey! Easy on my furniture, manwhore.”
His amber eyes flashed as he sat up. “Why? It’s not like you ever bring any dates home to see it.”
Shea shrugged. His barb stung a little more than it should have, though she’d be damned if she’d let him know it. “I just like my house clean.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Is Dante coming, or what? I’m really getting tired of constantly waiting on his ass. I have things to do.”
