Page 63 of Dancing With Demons

Terror lanced through my anger and sickness.

“But the Elder isn’t here to save you now.”

I tried to get up and tipped over, landing hard on my back. My spinning vision made out four—five—ten?—sallow faces and glowing eyes as they crowded in, hovering above me. I could barely see, but I knew we weren’t in the vampire wing. That place was pitch black—not a trace of light or fire anywhere—and since my abductors weren’t going to turn the lights on for little old me, I had to be somewhere else.

Somewhere Elder Radu won’t hear my screams for help.

The truth of that single thought stopped the nausea, stopped the heaving, stopped the dizziness, stopped everything. My body sank into a still and peaceful reverence... as if preparing for death.

Taking a slow, steadying breath, I gazed at their drooling mouths and darkening eyes. There were six of them—all different heights, sizes, and ethnicities, but all sharing the same expression. I wouldn’t waste anybody’s time by asking why they brought me here, but the fact that my limbs were still intact and they weren’t feeding on me in a ravenous frenzy meant the rational part of their brains was still operating.

For the second time that day, I may be able to defuse a violent situation before it blew up.

“Okay, okay,” I rasped. With steady vision came the recognition. I was in the library where we caught the shade, lying on the carpet of the new Sins lounge area. “I understand that you’re hungry—”

Loud, hair-raising hissing hit the air.

“—but think this through,” I rushed out. “Living humans don’t make trips down to hell for the fun of it. I’m the only one who has come down here in three hundred years, and after you kill me, there won’t be another one. You’ll just go back to starving.”

One—just one of them stopped hissing. For the barest second, his predator black eyes blinked harmless white.

It’s working.

“That’s why you should keep me alive,” I cried. “I’m going to live for another sixty, possibly even seventy years. Wouldn’t you rather have fresh, flowing blood for seventy years instead of a one-time fix?”

Two more stopped hissing. Eyes changing, they blinked as if coming to their senses.

“I can safely donate a pint of blood every month,” I continued. “It’s yours. All you have to do is—”

“Wait? A pint?” one of the white-eyed ones asked. “That’s fucking it? Screw that! You’ve got ten times the amount in you right now”—his eyes flashed black—“and it’s mine.”

“Noooo!”

Half a dozen pairs of fangs pierced my skin—

—and then they were gone.

“Naughty, naughty.” Radu threw the guy who spoke into the air, and beheaded him on the way down.

That was the last thing I saw.

Rushing, twisting, blurry shapes flashed all around me, telling of a battle happening too fast for me to see. By the time his head rolled to my feet... four more hit the floor.

“Hi, honey!” Santino beamed at me from the top of the stacks. “Do you see, my love? I told you we’d meet again soon!” He shook a bug-eyed, disembodied head at me. “Who knew it’d be because these little shits finally went through with their plan?”

A single word penetrated. “Finally?” I cried, bolting upright. “Did you just say finally? Are you telling me you knew they were planning to kidnap and eat me!”

“I did! Isn’t it great?” He jumped off and landed beside me. I shrieked when he scooped me off my feet. “I overheard their little plot to break our most sacred rule and defy an Elder, but I couldn’t act until they actually defied me.” Radu tsked at me. “Vampires aren’t barbarians, honey. We don’t go around killing each other just because one wants to break a rule. They have to attempt to do it first.

“I mean, after all...” Eyes flashing black, he licked his lips. “We all want to swallow you whole, honey girl. You can’t blame a man for having good taste.”

“Yes, I can!” I kicked out of his arms, stumbling away. “And I can also...” I sighed. “Thank a man for saving my life. So thank you for stopping them, even though you’re the one who told all of hell that I’m a mortal, so when you think about it, all you did was save me from the danger you put me in. It’s like tossing me overboard into shark-infested waters, and then rowing up in your dinghy and wanting to play the hero for fishing me out.

“So I guess what I really want to say to you now is”—I flashed him twin middle fingers—“screw you, jerk.”

Radu howled, doubling over and gasping on the air he didn’t have in his lungs. “I missed you too, honey.”

“Did you hear a word I just—?”