I made a noise in my throat and tried to cringe back from him, but there was nowhere to go.
My head pounded as I tried to roll across the bed, to get away, but I was brought up short, my arm twisted up behind me in an odd position.
Squinting against the pain, I glanced back and realized my wrist was cuffed to one of the bed posts.
“Please calm down. Please,” a low male voice said. “You’re hurt and I don’t want you to make it worse.”
Daniel Ayres. If that was even his real name.
Since I couldn’t go anywhere, I carefully turned back over, letting my head come to rest on the bag of ice.
The man, if you could call him that, sitting next to me looked…chagrined. Maybe even embarrassed.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
My only answer was to raise my eyebrows at him and jiggle the cuff on my left wrist.
“Look, I’m very sorry for this entire…” He paused, obviously looking for the right words.
“Kidnapping?” I supplied, my voice sharper than a scalpel.
“Situation.”
“But?” I asked.
“But what?”
“There’s always a ‘but’ in a moment like this. The bad guy tries to explain why he’s not really that bad. How he’s not going to hurt the woman he’s holding captive. He just needs her to do one little thing.”
He may have been very, very pretty, but he’d kidnapped me, so his physical perfection could no longer be what was making me run off at the mouth. No, it had to be the blow to the back of my head. Otherwise, I never would have had the gumption to say all that stuff to his face. Not when he had me literally chained to a bed.
He sighed and I knew I was right. There was definitely a ‘but.’
“I can’t let you leave,” he finally said. “You know that I’m…different.”
“You mean a vampire,” I said. My brain still didn’t want to believe it, but I couldn’t shake the way he’d looked at the store from my mind.
He seemed shocked at my words. “How…”
“The enormous fangs and glowing eyes were sort of a dead giveaway.”
Oh, shit, damn, and hell.Whyhad I just said that? No saying the word dead around a vampire. It might give him ideas.
Hell, who was I kidding? He probably already had lots of ideas. Including making me his midnight snack.
“So, what? You’re going to drain me dry and hide my carcass in the woods?”
Daniel drew back, disgust on his features. “For fuck’s sake, no!” he said.
“Well, you have to do something with me because holding me captive for the rest of my natural days won’t work out too well. Bernard will be coming back from spreading Bethany’s ashes soon.”
“I know,” he answered. “That’s what we’re going to wait for. I intended to just wipe your memory of what happened but there’s a…barrier around your mind. I’m pretty sure it’s a protection spell that Bernie cast. If he can lift it for me, I’ll wipe your mind and you can go about your normal life, completely unaware of vampires and werewolves.”
“There’s werewolves?”
He lifted his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose before he rubbed his forehead. I thought I heard him mumble something about being an idiot, but I couldn’t be sure because my head was pounding so hard that I thought I could hear it in my ears like an actual hammer hitting my skull.
“Look, Bernie should be back in a few days. Since he’s the only one who could have cast the spell, then he’s going to be the only one who can lift it. I’m sure he will, at least for as long as it takes me to make you forget you ever met me. I won’t hurt you. And as soon as I’m able to ensure you can’t leave town, I’ll take the cuffs off you and let you stay in Bethany’s cottage until Bernie returns. You just won’t be able to go home until your memory of…” He paused, clearing his throat. “All of this, is gone.”
