Page 54 of Cooper’s Passion

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Anita’s heart thundered out of control. What had she gotten herself into? When she’d seen Cooper transforming into a vampire before her eyes, she’d reacted out of instinct, protecting herself in a way her mother hadn’t been able to so many years ago. Helen Diaz had fallen prey to a vampire, but Anita was determined not to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She’d seen only one way to stop Cooper from attacking her: to shoot him. When he hadn’t gone down after the first shot, she’d shot him a second time, but then he’d managed to wrestle the gun from her and overpowered her.

And just as she’d freed herself from him when he seemed to weaken due to his gunshot wounds, a beautiful woman in tight pants and a leather jacket had appeared. When she’d called him sweetheart and baby, Anita had assumed that she was Cooper’s girlfriend—which would have added another lie to the mountain of lies he’d already dished up. But it was even worse: the woman was his mother, though she looked barely a couple of years older than Cooper. And as if that wasn’t enough, she was a vampire too, and clearly a tigress bent on protecting her cub. Anita had never been as afraid as when the woman had glared at her, bloody murder in her eyes, her fangs extended as if she was ready to rip her throat out.

Yet Cooper had stopped her from inflicting bodily harm by announcing to his mother that he loved her. How could he love her? She’d just shot him twice. Besides, how could a creature who drank human blood love anybody? And she’d seen him drink blood. He’d asked his mother for it, and she’d given him a bottle. Was that what they did? Drain humans and fill their blood in bottles for them to consume whenever they needed it? It would certainly explain Janet’s exsanguinated body, and also those of the other women who’d been killed in the same way.

“Fine. We’ll talk about that later,” Cooper’s mother said with an annoyed look at her. “We’ve gotta go, before we draw attention to ourselves.”

She helped Cooper up, and Anita rose with him, his hand still wrapped around her wrist.

“You can let go of her arm,” Cooper’s mother said to Cooper. Then she lashed a glare at Anita. “You won’t run away, will you?”

The threat was clear. One move in the wrong direction, and the woman would take her down like a pack of coyotes took down a doe.

“No, I won’t run,” Anita assured her, and Cooper finally let go of her wrist.

Cooper motioned to the SUV, and moments later they were inside it, Cooper on the passenger seat, his mother driving. Anita was sitting in the back. She didn’t even try to escape, too intimidated by the black-haired beauty. It was clear from whom Cooper got his looks.

Nobody spoke during the car ride, but she could hear Cooper’s pained breathing, evidence that she’d punctured his lung with one of her bullets. How would they explain this to the hospital staff? In cases with gunshot wounds, they were obligated to call the police. And then the shit would hit the fan. Nobody would believe her that she’d acted in self-defense, because now that they were in the car, neither Cooper nor his mother showed any sign that they were vampires. They looked one hundred percent human.

When the car turned into a short driveway in front of a cottage near Coit Tower—which she could see on top of the hill—she was stunned, and for some reason, she had to make her concern known.

“He needs to go to a hospital.” Anita leaned forward in the gap between the two front seats. “They have to take out the bullets, or he’s gonna die.” Why did she even care? Cooper was a vampire, or vampire hybrid, like he’d claimed. She shouldn’t care what happened to him, but for some reason she did. How was that for hypocrisy?

Cooper turned his head to look at his mother. “See? She does care about me.” His voice was weak, but he smiled.

“Could’ve fooled me.” His mother’s dry remark fit her skeptical facial expression.

“Mom, you fell in love with a vampire hunter,” Cooper said. “And it all turned out okay in the end.”

“Hmm.”

It appeared that Cooper knew how to handle his mother. However, that didn’t diminish the fear Anita felt every time Cooper’s mother looked at her. Reluctantly, she got out of the car and followed the two to the pretty cottage that reminded her of a fairy tale. But she wasn’t living in a fairy tale. By all accounts, she was entering the lion’s den or, more aptly, the vampire’s lair. She braced herself, expecting the interior to be furnished like a gothic crypt. But the interior was more Town & Country and less Nosferatu.

Inside the house, a dog barked excitedly, and a moment later, an excited golden retriever jumped up at Cooper.

“Lestat!” Cooper’s mother admonished. “Down!”

Had she really called him Lestat like the vampire from Anne Rice’s books?

“Into the kitchen. Sit down there, sweetheart.”

With his mother’s help, Cooper sat down on a kitchen chair.

“Make yourself useful and help him take his jacket off. What’s your name?”

“A-Anita,” she stuttered.

“I’m Yvette,” she introduced herself as she turned to the kitchen counter and opened a drawer.

Meanwhile, Anita approached Cooper, hesitating when she saw that his face was distorted by pain. She’d done this to him. Hesitantly, she put her shaking hands on his windbreaker, when he turned his face fully to her and looked into her eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna bite,” he said, his voice still breathy.

As gently as she could, Anita freed him of his jacket, then went for the buttons of his shirt, when Yvette stepped next to her.

“It’s ruined anyway,” Yvette said and ripped the shirt into pieces to take it off Cooper without him having to move his shoulder.