I hadn’t heard a single sound, but when I spun around to look in a new direction for the hundredth time, I saw the woman with the high bangs. I thought her name was Leah, if my adrenaline-filled memory was working properly.
“Oh,” I said. I felt my eyes go wide and my body turn completely still.
She let out a tinkling laugh as she walked toward me with a confident sway to her steps. She tilted her head sideways, as if she was watching a somewhat interesting new animal for a few seconds before deciding if she wanted to smash it under her boot or jab it with a stick. “You know we can still see you when you don’t move, darling.” She stopped just in front of me, then made me jump when she lurched forward and said, “Boo!”
I blinked a few times, inching backwards. “What do you want?” I asked. “If it’s money, I swear I’m dirt poor. But I have some gift cards back at the apartment. I could absolutely hook you up. Maybe a free ghost tour?”
The woman kept walking toward me, forcing me in an endless backward, shuffling retreat. “Maybe I just like the way you smell when you’re scared.”
I resisted the urge to give my pits a discreet sniff. Clearly, this woman was deranged. “Okay,” I said shakily. “Well, hope you enjoyed your sniffs. I’ve got to go find my friend, though.”
“I’ll take care of him. Don’t you worry about that.”
Icy tendrils of fear slid under my skin, making it rise up in goosebumps. “That guy the earlier today,” I said quickly, still backing up. “He was your boss, right? I thought he only wanted you to follow me. So you should reconsider whatever it is you’re considering. You might piss him off.”
“Boss,” she said, showing a flash of rage at the idea. Then she hesitated as a thought seemed to occur to her. “Wait. You shouldn’t remember that.”
I nodded quickly. “I know. I’ll do like he said and not tell anyone who wasn’t there. I just thought—”
She glanced over her shoulder, then took another step closer, eating up the distance between us. There was danger in her eyes, and I was one more boo away from blasting her with pepper spray and taking my chances.
The deadly playfulness seemed to creep back into her as she tapped her full lower lip in thought. “I wonder…”
She widened her eyes, then fixed them on me and kept advancing. I felt a kind of magnetic pull, then the briefest hint of… arousal?
There was a mental sensation of sliding down toward something, like a black pit I knew there’d be no climbing out of. But before the sensation took me, a vision of a startlingly handsome man I’d never seen flashed in my mind. He was wearing half a grin and showing off the vertical line of a dimple on one cheek.
Then the sensation was gone. Leah ran her tongue across her teeth, laughing in slow confirmation of something. “One of the Undergroves bonded you, didn’t they? It’s a powerful one, too. I’ve never seen a human resist our call so easily.”
She might as well have been talking a different language. None of it made sense to me, and the only thing I was worried about was Zack. I was the reason he was mixed up in this mess, and I wished I could at least know he was okay. “Where’s my friend?”
“The tall, pretty one?”
“The last part is debatable, but yes. The tall one.”
“I’m saving him for later, I think.”
“What does that even mean?” I forgot my fear for a moment and let out the frustration in my voice. “Why are you people harassing me? What did I do?”
She ran a pink tongue over her teeth, then flicked her eyebrows up once. “You let them out.”
“Let who out?”
“The Undergroves.”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “Okay? Assuming that’s true, it doesn’t mean they care the slightest about me. So—”
I gasped. All I felt was a sort of forceful thud in my stomach. I stumbled backwards, then looked down in complete confusion at the red stain on my shirt.
Blood. Was that blood?
My blood?
I looked at Leah, then saw her fingertips were wet and red. I looked at my stomach again and fell to my knees. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Because even Bennigan isn’t always right.” She gave me a girly wave, then back stepped and disappeared into the shadows.
I flopped on my back and looked up at the sky. So this was it. Dead by… what was that? A fingertip punch? Stupid. I was surprised that it didn’t hurt more. All I felt was a sort of cold spreading from my stomach that carried numbness where it went. I wondered if that’s how it would happen. Gradual spreading cold that reached my brain and ended everything.
I found myself wishing I hadn’t let Zack tag along. What had I thought he’d accomplish against those three? I’d known there was something wrong about them, and I’d still let him come.
I heard footsteps coming toward me.
“I’m dying, okay?” I said, feeling annoyed. “You got me, so just fuck off and let me die in peace.”
“No,” A man’s voice said. A deep, resonant man’s voice that I was sure I’d never heard but immediately felt like I knew. “I don’t think I will.”
I blinked, realized how blurry my vision had gone, and rolled my head to the side. “Oh, hi,” I said weakly.
How long had I been laying here bleeding? I patted the ground by my side a few times and determined the puddle of blood was large. My expertise in hematology told me it was approximately more blood traveling out of my body than was ideal.
“Are you Bennigan?” I asked.
The blurry figure tensed, then I saw him looking around us. “No,” he said. “Bennigan is a bastard.”
“And you’re not?”
There was a pause. “Whether either of us like it or not, it appears you’re about to be bonded to me. Even if I am a bastard as well.”
“Is that like when a baby lizard thinks the first thing it sees is its mommy?” I felt like I was getting delirious. I grinned, though, finding the idea funnier than it should’ve been. “Are you saying you’re gonna be my mommy?”
I thought the man was smiling a little, but everything was getting too blurry to be sure. He pulled something shiny from his pocket and cut his palm. “Drink,” he said.
I shook my head, hearing the soft patter of his blood hitting the pavement beside me. “That woman said someone bonded me already. Sorry to break it to you, but I’m already taken.” My voice sounded distant and floaty to my own ears.
Everything was spinning now, like the world was trying to fling me off into the abyss.
I was dying.
The man hesitated. “That’s not possible. Now drink.”
Before I could react, I felt hot liquid dripping across my mouth and running down my cheeks. A little bit of it slid down my throat before I could decide to be disgusted and close my mouth. “Is that blood,” I sputtered.
“Drink,” he said more insistently. He pushed his palm to my lips and forced more of the blood into my mouth.
The little bit that had made it into me was doing strange things I could already feel. My stomach rumbled and moved like I’d just tried Zack’s diet plan for a few days. But the coldness was fading, and I was feeling less foggy.
And it tasted good. Strangely good. Like fancy red wine or some kind of sauce that was so good you’d find yourself licking up the last drops from the plate when the meal was through.
When he pulled his hand away, I found myself hungry for more of it, as insane as it was. I lifted my head and reached for his hand, but he shook his head. “No. You shouldn’t have more than you need. It wouldn’t be safe.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I thought he was implying it wouldn’t be safe for his sake, not mine.
The man looked up, and I realized two dark figures had appeared at his side.
“She’s being followed. Make sure that changes.”
“Yes, master,” one of them said sarcastically, and then both figures were gone as quickly as they’d come.
“What’s going on? Are you guys
superheroes? Are you Blood Man?” I still felt woozy, like I was halfway between drunk and dead tired.
“You’ll sleep soon. When you wake, you’ll feel better. Your wounds will be healed. And…”
“And what?” I asked. I could already feel the most powerful urge to sleep I’d ever felt rising up.
“And I’ll explain the rest when you find me.”
“Wait. Zack… Where is he.”
“We took care of him. Stop worrying and sleep.”
“You killed him? You bastard!” I reached up to grab his suit—what kind of person wore a suit at this time of the morning?
“No,” he said, gently pushing my hands back. “We sent him home and made sure he won’t remember a thing.”
My vision was finally getting clearer, and I saw how breathtaking the man was. “Wow,” I said dreamily. “You are pretty.”
His face had been a mask of serious manliness, but my comment drew out a smile. It also showed me that his canines were unusually sharp and long. He also had a cute little vampire dimple I thought I could’ve tucked a penny into.
Wait. Vampire. I’d seen enough movies to connect the dots forming rapidly in front of me. I was about to ask him point blank, but he put a hand on my cheek. There was something in the way he looked at me. Like he’d known me for years. It was the way teenage girls dreamed about being looked at and never quite found. It was a lost, hopeless look. A I will walk through fire for you look. A I will pick up my clothes and never leave a mess in the kitchen if you’d just be mine look.
I had a brief image of him waiting in the kitchen for me with an apron that said, “I Fanged The Chef”. Then I saw a little sharp toothed baby crawling on the ceiling and hissing at the cat.
Okay. Maybe I was already dead. At the very least, I was certainly delirious. That explained the vampire thing. It was just my mind playing tricks on me. Sexy, mouth-watering tricks that looked amazing in outdated, strange clothes.
He looked very serious. “Sleep, Cara. We’ll speak again soon.”
And then my world blinked out.
7
Cara
I blearily made myself a cup of coffee in the kitchen, navigating my way through the utter mess of dirty plates and half-eaten food.
I was still waking up, and I found myself picking over the fuzzy remnants of a dream I had last night. Except about two sips into my coffee I nearly dropped the cup on the ground when I remembered it wasn’t a dream.
I yanked my shirt up and touched my stomach where I could still feel an echoing memory of icy cold and the impact of a creepy girl’s fingertips.
“Nice belly button,” Zack said. “But it’s not ladylike to show it off like that.”
Parker was sitting at the breakfast table with his laptop open. He didn’t even look up before he spoke. “The belly button is the most disgusting part of the human anatomy. End of discussion. Please put that away.”
I yanked my shirt down and glared at Parker. Then I set down my cup and rushed over to hug Zack when I remembered where we’d left off last night. “Oh my God, you’re okay.”
“Uh, yeah. Those tacos were highly questionable, but it wasn’t anything a good night’s sleep couldn’t sort out.”
I pulled back, searching his face for any sign that he was messing with me. “The tacos?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “The tacos.”
“The tacos,” I repeated, nodding. “Right.”
I finished my breakfast while the rest of the guys straggled down to eat.
Mooney was dating some girl from the track team now and it led to a grossly immature bout of innuendo jokes from the rest of the guys. Parker hijacked the conversation when he decided to explain how likely it was that entire civilizations of mole people could actually live beneath us and we’d have no way to know. But nobody asked about last night.
I kept waiting for the interrogations to begin. My roommates were as overprotective as it got, and none of them even hinted that last night had been unusual. They didn’t even seem to remember the broken wall at the Mercer house or any of the fear they’d had for me just last night. In fact, the whole city seemed to have forgotten about the tantalizing Mercer House Mystery as the news had called it overnight.
Maybe I was losing my mind. In fact, I was starting to think that might be preferable to the alternative. Because either I was losing my mind, or the world was turning itself upside down right in front of me.
My suspicion of going crazy only got stronger a few hours later when I was finishing up my classes. All morning, I’d felt a growing sense of unease. It started out on the level of being cramped in an airplane seat for too long. Just a case of restless legs and the need to stretch them.
But hour by hour, the feeling of unease intensified. It turned into something almost like hunger, but for some flavor I couldn’t identify. By the time my classes were done for the day, I was done fighting it. Something almost physical was pulling me in a certain direction. I turned my body toward it and started walking. The momentary relief I felt was enough to compel me to run.
Every step closer I got felt like an immense weight off my shoulder, so I ran and ran with no idea where I was going. All I knew was that each step was like the relief of emptying my bladder after drinking a jumbo-sized coffee and trying not to leave class to pee through a two-hour lecture.
I was out of breath and sweaty when I finally stopped outside a manor house in one of the historic districts of Savannah. I found myself walking up the steps to the front door and knocking. You are absolutely losing your mind, Cara.
Except something kept replaying in my mind. I could still see the blurry impression of the man who had saved me. I could remember sensing that he knew I would come find him again.
When the door opened, I got my first full-resolution look at the man from last night. And wow, it was quite the look.
He was dressed in a severely outdated set of formal clothes. His dark hair was thick and kind of begging to have my hands run through it. He had a fascinating combination of squared off, rugged handsomeness but with such perfect skin that I couldn’t decide if he was pretty, gorgeous, beautiful, or sexy. All I knew was my breath caught because I’d never seen anyone quite like him and I’d never seen eyes like those. They were surprisingly dark, but oddly captivating and expressive.
He also had the most immaculate, thick black eyebrows that formed a perfectly roguish little swoop above his eyes. They were brows made for suggestive glances and playful, lopsided arches.
“Um,” I said. Hearing my own voice felt like getting hit with an ice-cold bucket of what the hell am I doing. “Believe it or not, I have no idea how or why I’m here.”
“You’re here,” he said breathlessly. He was watching me like a dog might watch a strip of bacon.
“For some reason.” I laughed a little, more out of discomfort than finding any real humor in the situation. Why was a man as bone-breakingly hot as this guy looking at me like he wanted to strip me naked and give me the best sex of my life? “I don’t even know your name, let alone why I came.”
“I’m Lucian Undergrove. Come in,” he said, gesturing.
But he didn’t move from the door, so when I stepped forward, I was forced to brush against his body. The simple contact of my shoulder against his firm stomach was enough to make my blood feel like it was about to boil. The man was built out of lean muscle and sharp lines.
I pressed the backs of my hands to my cheeks, feeling how incredibly flushed I was.
What the hell?
But when I looked at the man, I saw he wasn’t doing much better. He looked like he was barely holding something in.
“Don’t try anything funny,” I said, summoning some courage I didn’t quite feel. Worse, I was pretty sure I actually wanted him to try several funny things that started with the removal of clothing. “I bite,” I warned.
“Me too,” he said, the corner of his mouth twisting up sexily. His eyes were absolutely smoldering, and I thought I was
probably burning about fifty calories a minute with how much heat my body was generating around him.
“What’s happening?” I asked. I didn’t ask the real question on my mind. Why do I feel an overwhelming urge to jump your sexy bones even though I don’t know you?
His nostrils flared out with each breath he took in. “It’s the bond,” he explained. “It will be strongest at first and fade with time. Sit. It will be better if we’re not quite so close.” He took a merciful step away from me and motioned to a chair in his old-fashioned living room that was lined with deep red wallpaper, stained brown wainscoting, and plush rugs.
I felt like I needed to get farther from the man, because I was worried I was going to do something absolutely insane if I didn’t. I rushed over to the chair and sat, breathing out a brief sigh of relief once I was seated.
He moved to the other side of the room, clearly making an effort to keep his distance as he planted his hands on the back of a couch across from me.
“The less you know, the safer you will be.”
I suppressed the vivid, erotic images that were already playing like a flipbook in my mind. Sweaty, exposed skin. Moving bodies. Lips pressed together.
The fantasy version of this guy had the most impeccably firm buns I’d ever laid mental eyes on, too. My mouth was practically watering.
I blinked, then shook my head. “What did you do to me?”
“I saved your life.”
“And made me violently horny in the process?”
His smile was strained. “It will pass.”
“I need to know more than that.”
Lucian sighed. “When a human drinks the blood of… one of my kind, a bond is formed. It’s the first step of a—” he cut himself off, clearly struggling with how much he wanted to conceal from me. “The first step of a process,” he finished, choosing his words carefully. “All we need to do is control our impulses and the temptation will pass.”
I stared blankly. “I feel like you’re talking in code. Can you please just tell me in plain English?”
Kiss Kiss Fang Fang: A Sucky Vampire Romantic Comedy Page 3
