Blood Lust (A Paranormal Romance: Preternaturals Book 1) Read online

  “I got a key from the front desk. They aren’t as stringent about their policies here as they used to be,” Linus said. “There was a time they only employed guardians both day and night. Now they’re letting humans run the night shift, and well, you know about the weakness of humans.”

  Anthony held his breath as he watched Linus. He knew he was trying to bait Charlotte into looking at him. The other vampire shrugged, as if giving up that plan, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a gleaming revolver.

  “I used to just count on my fangs to help me out in a crisis, but I’ve since embraced weapon technology. It allows for greater reach.” He pointed the barrel of the gun at Charlotte; a gruesome grin painted his face. “Now, be a good girl and drop the cross or I’ll have to pull the trigger. Blood is all the same to me. I’ll get it either way.”

  Charlotte’s hand started to shake. Anthony saw her new plan unfurling, to rush the vampire with the cross. He shook his head.

  “No, Charlotte, that’ll never work.”

  “Be a good pet now, and drop the cross. Kick it across the room where it can’t get in our way.”

  Callie had taken her legs off the arm of the chair and was leaning forward now, a look of feral amusement on her face. Slade remained in place, his expression and stance ever stoic, waiting to jump into the fray if needed.

  Tears began to track down Charlotte’s face, and her hand started to shake more noticeably. She turned to Anthony, desperation and anger warring in her eyes.

  “I hate you,” she said. She dropped the cross and kicked it across the room.

  As soon as she’d done it, Anthony was on her, his fangs in her throat, drinking. He nicked his tongue and sealed her wound with his blood. It happened too quickly for Linus to react. Anthony turned to the other vampire and raised an eyebrow, having found the one way to best him at his own game. Vampires didn’t claim humans. Didn’t mean they couldn’t. They just didn’t. He’d worry about how he’d fucked up his life later. For now he was the victor.

  “Well, she’s mine now,” he said, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth and sucking the remains off his finger.

  He released Charlotte and she fell to the floor, a horrible shrieking scream tearing out of her throat.

  Chapter Ten

  It had happened too fast. She’d been holding the cross, knowing whatever was about to occur it wasn’t going to be quick, and she likely wouldn’t survive it. Anthony’s warning against her thoughts had scared her sufficiently to do what Linus had said. Why the fuck did he have to be in her head?

  The room was loud, too loud. Then she realized the noise was coming from her own mouth. She couldn’t stop the screaming. There was too much in her head now. Memories crashed over her in waves, trying to fit together with the past two days of nothing. Her normal memories sat as a blurry background that barely felt real, playing second to the night Anthony had bitten her.

  All she could remember, all she could think about, was the pain. She finally managed to stop screaming, her throat raw as she wondered if she’d ever get sound from it again. Her forehead rested on the floor, and she sobbed quietly.

  She was dimly aware of voices carrying on in the background. Linus was laughing, that horrible vampire laugh that sounded like he’d spent centuries making it just creepy enough to give everyone he met nightmares.

  “Well, guess you showed me,” he said.

  Charlee listened more closely now, not bothering to move. She heard the sound of high heels clicking over the hardwood floor toward her, and she cringed.

  There was a protective growl. She didn’t have to guess who that was.

  “You touch her, and Linus is out of the tournament,” Anthony said.

  “She’s not a vampire; she doesn’t count,” the vampiress whined as if a toy had been taken away. Charlee realized with revulsion that it had been. God, she hated vampires.

  “She’s mine. You touch her, and I kill you. I’ll be well within my rights.”

  Heavier footfalls moved to where Callie’s had stopped.

  “Don’t, Callie. The elders won’t be happy. However . . . unusual it is. I hope you realize what you just did, Anthony. If you win, the coven will never support you. They’ll never accept a human queen. You may have done me a favor. And if I win, you know this claim won’t stop me. Well, goodnight then.”

  When the vampires had filed out of the penthouse, Charlee wiped her eyes. She couldn’t stand to be alone in the same room with him. She’d been about as close to love as a woman can get to a man she’s not dating or sleeping with. Her diary hadn’t done the situation justice.

  “Oh, bite me,” she said.

  “Some day, definitely.” He smiled at her, a world of sexual promise in his gaze that caught her off guard for a moment. Then she bounced back.

  “Have you had all your shots? I’d hate to get rabies.”

  He put his hand over his heart in mock offense. “You wound me.”

  “Yeah, I’m dangerous that way.”

  “Not half so dangerous as me I’d wager.”

  She laughed. “Just because you’ve got that coat that makes you look like a comic book villain, don’t think that makes you bad. Fashion rarely frightens me.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Her heart dropped into her stomach at the way he said ‘we’ll see’.

  ‘Do it, ask me out,’ her mind screamed at him. ‘Let’s take this beyond the bookstore . . . out there. You know we’d be great together.’ She wasn’t sure how long she could keep the banter up before she just threw herself at him.

  Her former feelings for him battled against the current reality. A reality so scary she was glad vamps wiped memories. She wouldn’t be able to handle being a human in a vampire world, knowing what lurked in the night.

  “Charlotte.”

  She felt him moving closer to her and scooted away. “Don’t. Don’t touch me.”

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  She looked up sharply. Something had changed. He couldn’t read her thoughts now. She felt as if she’d just won the battle but lost the war.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  His response was calm, matter-of-fact. “I claimed you. Now tell me what happened. I can’t read it straight out of your head anymore, but I can make you talk.”

  He sat Indian-style next to her, and she looked into his eyes, letting him have the full force of her loathing. Finally, she spoke.

  “I thought I was going to die . . . ”

  “Charlotte, I wouldn’t . . . ”

  “ . . . From the pain.”

  He was confused, or he was pretending to be. She wasn’t sure which.

  “It’s not supposed to hurt. It was fast, but I was in control. I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

  “No . . . not tonight, the first time. I thought I was going to die from the pain that night.” That night was playing over and over in her mind. She’d been so surprised to see Anthony on her back porch.

  She’d half expected him to kiss her or ask her out, but then she got a closer look. There was blood on his face, and he looked . . . frenzied, angry. The rest she tried not to think about. She could still feel him tearing into her throat and hear her own soft pleading. Then his tongue was sealing the wound shut, and for one brief moment she felt the kind of bliss women only felt in fairy tales. Then he’d made her forget.

  If it was possible, even more color drained from his face. “Charlotte, I’m so sorry. That night, there were drugs. I was out of my mind, I . . . Wait . . . you remember?”

  “Everything. Did you know I had feelings for you?”

  Anthony sighed. “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t do anything about it.”

  He gesticulated wildly around him. “Well, look how well this is turning out.”

  “Just take out the memories of you and take me back home. After Linus is gone, I mean.”

  “I can’t do that now. What I did, claiming you, I can’t undo it.”


  He moved closer and cradled her in his arms. He might not be able to read her mind anymore, but he seemed able to do all the other vampire things, including touching her emotions, manipulating them.

  She felt indescribably happy, calm, warm, safe, loved in his arms. And though she knew these weren’t the normal things she felt about him now, his skin pressed against hers made her forget the part of her brain that couldn’t cope with the way reality had shifted.

  He rocked her like a small child. Then he slipped a finger underneath her chin, raising her face to his, and kissed her. His tongue invaded her mouth with smooth expertise, and if she’d felt a thousand happy thoughts before, it was more now as arousal joined the mix. She wasn’t sure if it was real or if he was using the vampire mojo.

  A moan slipped past her lips as she remembered all the times she’d thought about this moment. It felt like a dream. Only she knew she wouldn’t have imagined it this way, with a bite mark on her neck. His hands had slipped beneath her shirt, and she felt him fumbling with her bra. A part of her wanted to let it happen, feel his cool, soothing touch against her skin and forget the horrors of the past few days.

  Then the thought stole into her mind: He’d erase those memories if you wanted him to.

  She pulled away from him and bolted off the floor as if she’d been stung. Her lips were swollen from his kisses. Her hands moved back to reconnect her bra strap. She wanted to look into his eyes to see what was there. Lust? Anger? Hunger? Or would he just look like the predatory animal he was? But she didn’t. She didn’t trust him not to enthrall her.

  She could understand why he’d done what he’d done with Linus. It had been for her safety. But this world was too new for her, her life too fragile to carelessly put it into the hands of someone like him.

  “Charlotte?”

  He moved toward her, his hand reaching for her shoulder.

  She sidestepped him. It was practically choreographed.

  “Stop playing with my emotions.” She was proud her voice had come out steady, calm, as if he hadn’t just done some weird vampire thing. Some weird vampire thing he’d failed to explain to her. “If you enthrall me, I’ll never trust you again.”

  She chanced looking into his eyes and saw pain.

  “I can’t read your mind now; it’s not as easy to know the right thing to do where you’re concerned. I was trying to take some of your pain away. If you’ll let me, I can make this better.”

  She assumed he expected her to go running back into his arms, easily forgiving his indiscretion with the biting and pain and fear and almost death. Since it was an accident, all was easily forgiven? She knew he never would have done it in his right mind. Right?

  He hadn’t meant for it to happen. Not the amnesia or Linus or the bite he’d yet to explain. It didn’t change that it had happened.

  “I could erase it. I could replace the memories with something more . . . palatable.”

  Hadn’t she just thought the same thing? The temptation had been there for a moment. But she couldn’t stand the idea of living a fake life.

  “No! Don’t mess with my mind.” She held her hands out in front of her, as if she could ward him away. Her eyes drifted to the cross still on the other side of the room. She wanted to line the guest room with crosses to keep him out. He could mess with her mind with the best intentions. The little place inside her that hated him grew a tiny bit more.

  He held his hands up, placating. “All right. I won’t. I just wanted to fix what I did.”

  “Too late.” A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, and she swiped it away. She wasn’t going to start that again. There were more important things to deal with. “What do you mean you claimed me? What were they talking about before they left?”

  He crossed to the overstuffed chair Callie had been lounging in moments before, putting some much needed distance between them.

  “Vampires being immortal do not often mate. Some do, some swear by it. But eternity is a long time, and few want to be tied down in that way. When two vampires decide that’s what they want, there is a bite and mingling of blood that bonds them for eternity. It’s taken very seriously because once blood is mixed, it can’t be unmixed, anymore than you can unmake a vampire.”

  Charlee had moved to the couch. Her fingernails dug into the soft leather as he spoke. “And this means what for me?” Was she stuck with him until she died? A man she almost loved but definitely hated, who she’d never forgive.

  “I don’t know exactly. It’s a vampire mating ritual. Vampires don’t generally claim humans.”

  “So let me get this straight. You took my memory, then you returned that but took my life instead?”

  He didn’t respond. What could he say? She almost felt bad for making him feel worse. Almost. His hands began shaking.

  “Anthony?”

  “What?” He looked down.

  “What’s happening?”

  “It’s the bagged blood. My body’s rejecting it.”

  For the first time since the claiming, Charlee could feel the invisible link, like a strong multi-strand twine that stretched between them, and it was pulling her to him. She would have been angry, but Anthony wasn’t pulling on her mind; it was the link calling out to her to help him. And the part of her that had almost loved him responded.

  Before she had time to think about what she’d done, she was sitting on his lap. His fangs grazed her neck, and she tensed.

  “Shhhh,” he whispered. “This won’t hurt.”

  She didn’t really believe him. But he was right, it didn’t hurt. Inexplicably she never felt his fangs slide into the column of her throat. He growled softly, the sound reverberating against her skin, causing her body to respond in places far more interesting.

  One of his hands had slipped under her shirt. She was about to protest, but he wasn’t undressing her. Instead, his cool fingers rubbed soothingly over her back. From the angle she was seated on his lap, she could feel the effect her blood was having on him as his erection pressed against the side of her hip.

  It wasn’t as if a similar reaction wasn’t taking place in her body. Still, she resented him. She tensed as he sealed the wound with his tongue. It was a vastly different experience from the first time, or the second time. This time had been . . . Oh hell, in any other set of circumstances she’d be on her back for him by now. But she couldn’t pretend the events of the past several days hadn’t happened.

  He pulled away to look into her eyes and she averted her gaze, afraid that in his current state the temptation would be too great to bring her mind in line with her body’s desires.

  He sighed deeply. “You’re never going to trust or forgive me, are you?”

  She remained silent. It was a small relief that he couldn’t read her thoughts anymore, that she’d regained some measure of privacy from him. No, she couldn’t see herself trusting or forgiving him. And that knowledge frightened her more than if she could. Because either way she was stuck with him now, and there was no happy future unless she could forgive him.

  There would be no other men. Somehow she couldn’t picture Anthony being okay with that. Her entire life had closed off, and there was nowhere to run. So no, she couldn’t forgive him for that. Not ever.

  “Charlotte, if I could undo the chain of events that led us here, I swear to you I would. We’re never going to have that easy way between us again, are we?”

  “I don’t think so, no.” Those days were gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  Anthony stood in Charlotte’s doorway, barred from entry as she slept blissfully unaware of his presence. At the first opportunity, she’d grabbed the cross and slipped the silver chain around her neck. Then she’d had the nerve to break one of his kitchen chairs.

  At first he’d thought her intent was to attempt to stake him, but she’d taken some duct tape and lashed two strips of wood together into a makeshift cross. Then she’d found a way to prop it up in her doorway. He hadn’t protested because it was wha
t she needed to feel safe, and it hurt too much that he’d done enough damage to warrant this reaction.

  Although a cross would burn him no matter what, it didn’t have the repellent force that nearly drove him to the other end of a room, except with extreme faith behind it. Charlotte had that kind of faith. Another thing he admired about her.

  He’d been sure the moment she reached unconsciousness the cross would go back to being nothing more annoying than a hot kitchen stove. He’d been mistaken. Her breathing had regulated in sleep, yet the cross guarded her more savagely than a large protective dog.

  He found he was more relieved than angry about that. She’d come to him in her own time, and until then, the claim plus her faith would keep her safe from others of his kind. He made his way down to the lobby and gave stern instructions using a blend of suggestion and threats regarding who got keys to his penthouse.

  By the time he exited the lobby, he was sure he smelled the acrid scent of urine on the terrified night clerk. Good. The message got through. He didn’t care who they said they were or on what authority they were demanding a key, no one was to be given access to the penthouse floor or his suite. The place had gone downhill in the last fifty years. Replacing the guardians at night with humans merely to cut costs was poor management.

  He could work up no guilt over his behavior with the clerk. This was his mate’s life on the line. Dammit. His mate.

  He’d never planned nor intended to take a mate, vampire or otherwise. The fact that he’d now taken a human was an extra layer of complication for his bid for coven leader. Linus was right. The coven wouldn’t be happy about it. They viewed humans as lesser beings, not only because they were food, but because they showed such poor loyalty and displayed such consistent weakness.

  He’d absently started moving toward the park. Paul was waiting for him when he got there, his legs splayed out as he sat on a manual merry-go-round. He spun a little to one side then the other, causing the metal to creak as the disc turned.

  “Took you long enough,” he groused. “Where the hell have you been the past couple of days?”