“You could just leave me here. I won’t tell anyone.” Slim fingers curled inward, small hands becoming fists. Now he had his leman’s entire attention, a pleasant sensation indeed. “I’ll never talk about the demimonde again. Or about you.”
“We are well past that point, little Leila.”It was too late the moment I caught your scent. Still, he decided, more details could wait until they were en route. “Will you cooperate, or shall I use thequietus? Choose.”
“The… you mean knock me out?” She leaned back slightly, rocking on sock-clad heels. The wine-red skirt swayed softly, and he was very conscious of her bareness under the material. “Don’t do that. Please. I’ll…” His prize trailed off uncertainly, biting her lower lip in a most fetching manner.
If it were not so imperative to move, he might well carry her to the bedroom again. Each moment was a fresh marvel, a new clarity. Very soon he could apply another bite; exquisitely sensitive, she was ripe for the Gift.
Yet his unease intensified still further, sharpening into outright warning. He did not like the feeling of a watch set upon his movements, even if it sprang from mere paranoia. “Then we will go.”
“Can I get my boots?” A flicker of hope on her sweet face, gone in a flash—he had become too calcified to notice the quicksilver shifting of mortal moods, but now saw so much more clearly. Interacting with dogsbodies or catspaws had held progressively less savor even if he forced himself to it for the sake of retaining some faint flexibility; he wondered what else he had missed.
He considered her request. Preferable to keep her but lightly shod, to forestall attempts at flight… and yet. He indicated the door to the bedroom and drifted in her wake. She did glance longingly at the curtained window, but all in all, she was remarkably obedient.
For now.
CHAPTER 9
No way topeek between the curtains in either the pink bedroom or the suite’s outer room, since the vampire kept a watchful eye as if afraid she might try to take a header through some hotel glass.
He might not have been wrong, Layla silently conceded. In the end, the idea that they might not be very far up and she’d only be embarrassed—or worse, not quickly put out of what might end up being bone-broken misery—stopped her.
But still, she considered the notion. Her brain was struggling through mud, even if the devouring, terrible fear had left her alone for a few short moments. Maybe she was just too exhausted to feel afraid anymore, or maybe the strange, secret lassitude after getting railed to within an inch of her life was responsible.
Try not to think about that.There was so much else to focus on, she just couldn’t figure out what to prioritize.
The hallway was carpeted in pale blue, bright with recessed lighting, far cleaner than most houses, and utterly deserted. She found out they were on the twentieth floor as soon as they arrived at the chilly, polished steel elevator; Layla tried not togape, but this was the nicest place she’d ever been in. And how on earth had he managed to get a dress that fit her? The label saidKisbain; it was a brand she’d never even dare to touch in a department store, and it moved heavy-silken against her shrinking skin.
What else was in that big ol’ suitcase he hefted as if it weighed nothing?
She couldn’t even pinch herself to provoke a bit of clear thinking. She had to make do with flinching as tenderness in a few internal bodily sections reminded her of… ofthat.
What he’d done. Whatshehad done, her own body turned traitor—or had it? The vampire acted like he’d already forgotten holding her down on the bed, and she had to look away from her tangle-haired reflection in the elevator’s brushed-steel wall.
It wasn’t like in movies, or in books. It wasn’t even like the porn Ben was constantly watching, though she was pretty sure a lot of people thought sex should follow those weird scripted patterns, right down to waxing hair away in several places. Nothing in high school abstinence-and-disease classes had ever covered this, either.
Was the bite beforehand part of some vampire kink? Did this guy want to turn her into a bloodsucking monster? Why her instead of, say, Steve-o, who was probably far better material?
Layla winced again as the elevator slowed its soundless plunge, her stomach flipping uneasily. Looked like they were heading to a parking level.
How did the biter pay for all this? Many of the monsters were rich, money accumulating around creatures who lived a long time and were capable of hypnotizing humans into henchfolkorturning them into plain old regular-ass employees. Once a biter hit a certain age, they seemed to accumulate those hangers-on, plus they switched identities almost at will, and their victims—food or merely inconvenient bystanders, not to mention anyoneso foolish as to ask persistently awkward questions—vanished into crime statistics for the year.
People went missing everywhere, all the time, all over the world. Most were never found. A certain percentage had to be demimonde casualties, swept under the rug or never found. Some folk might even just walk away from their normal lives, start over somewhere else.
God knew she’d vanished out of her own life. Not that anyone had been left to care or look for her, no sir, not with both Meemaw and Suze gone. Dan, of course, had pulled his own vanishing act right next to her.
Now he’s really a statistic. She suppressed another flinch, wondering if anyone would find the… the remains of her crew back at base.Think about something useful.
What were her chances of escape? Of even surviving? How the great blue northernfuckhad he gotten a dress in her precise size? It was a far more expensive version of the black one she’d worn for lookout duty, and she couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad sign. Was it red because he was going to make her bleed on the fabric?
Oh, Jesus-please-us, what a gruesome thought.
He carried the suitcase easily, but she thought it pretty likely he’d drop it in a heartbeat if she tried to take off. He was just so goddamnfast.
And she didn’t even have a clue what time it was, though it had to be after dark if the biter was moving around. Assuming she’d only slept a single day, it had been less than twenty-four hours, her entire squad was dead—except maybe Pete, if the vampire wasn’t lying—and she’d been…
Well, she was no longer a virgin, at least. Now she had to worry about vampire STDs. Or did she?
A funny slipsliding sensation filled her skull.I quit, Dan said, and then the entire world veered off course, descending into thisinsanity. And that horrible revelation—I never wanted to marry her, she said she was pregnant.
