Insatiable

Well, think again, Mr. Wulf.”

“Yeah,” Jon said, looking skeptical. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s nothing

really weak-willed about my sister. I don’t think anyone could make her their slave. Except a

love slave, maybe.”

The minute Jon said the words love slave, Alaric got a strange look on his face.

He rose to his feet.

“Lift up your skirt,” he said to Meena.

She craned her neck to look up at him from where she sat on the couch. “I beg your

pardon?” she said with a disbelieving laugh.

“Lift up your skirt,” he said again in a commanding voice.

So she hadn’t misheard him. “Uh,” she said. She glanced over at Jon, who gave her an

uncomprehending shrug. “No. I’m not going to do that.”

Then, more suddenly than she would have thought possible, he’d grabbed her by the arm

and yanked her to her feet. Jack Bauer, woken by the shriek she let out, looked up at this

sudden burst of violence. Jon jumped to his own feet, his expression alarmed.

“Hey, now!” he cried.

“Stop that!” Meena yelled as Alaric Wulf reached down and began tugging up the skirt

of her slip. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“The femoral artery,” Alaric was saying. He was practically dangling her in the air by

one arm as he pulled up her slip with the other. “I forgot. The sexual ones always go for the

femoral artery.”

“Hey,” Jon said, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t think my sister likes you doing that—”

“I’m not doing this because I like it, you fool. I have to see if she’s been bitten.” Alaric

threw Meena back down on the couch, where she landed with her legs spread slightly apart, the

slip hiked up so high above midthigh that he was able to point and say triumphantly, “There!”

while holding her down with his free hand.

Meena, furious, looked down her torso to see what he was raving about. At the most, she

expected to see a love bite. She was willing to admit that, if she considered it objectively,

things might have gotten a little out of hand with Lucien last night, it was true. A lot of what

had happened in his bed, if she was completely truthful, was a blur.

But she never expected to see that .

It was a bite. There was no denying it. It wasn’t at all unlike the ones she’d seen on the

dead girls in the photos Alaric had left on the coffee table. In fact, it was exactly like those.

Except not as big or as bruised.

“Oh, my God,” Meena said with a gasp.

Meena quickly closed her legs, mortified, pulling down the skirt to her slip. Now both

her brother and this rude stranger had seen her in her sexiest black panties.

“No wonder he sent you a tote,” Jon said in a stunned voice.

“The inside of the upper thigh,” Alaric said. He’d let go of her. “I should have looked

there from the start. The femoral artery is often used for catheters and stents in hospitals, due

to its easy access to the heart. But bites there generally go undetected.” The look Alaric gave

her was inscrutable, halfway between curiosity and disbelief. “Don’t you remember him biting

you?”

“I…I…,” Meena stammered. “I remember him saying he’d only bite me if I gave him

permission,” she said, feeling confused. And very cold.

“And?” Jon was still on his feet, towering over both Meena and the man who’d lowered

himself onto the cushions beside her. “Did you?”

Meena blinked up at him. This couldn’t be happening to her. Lucien had bitten her? The

man who’d protected her from the bats outside St. George’s Cathedral? The man who’d given

her his coat at Mary Lou’s? He’d bitten her?

And what’s more…she was under the distinct impression she’d liked it.

“I said yes,” she murmured to her lap. She could feel her cheeks turning scarlet. “Oh, my

God. I think I said yes.”

In the silence that followed, Jack Bauer gave a sneeze. He jumped to his feet, yawned,

then stretched delicately. Then he walked over to the couch, leapt up onto it, gave Alaric Wulf

a cursory sniff, then curled up into Meena’s lap, rolling over onto his back to have his belly

scratched.

“I don’t understand this,” Jon said, beginning to pace the room. “If these…these

vampires are roaming around all over the place, just hiding in the general populace, feeding off

innocent women like my sister, why do people like you keep it such a big secret? Shouldn’t

there be public service announcements so girls like Meena don’t get themselves into this

situation? Huh?”

Meena stared at her brother. Jon had always been slow to anger.

But once he got there, he was almost impossible to calm again.

“You think it would be better if things were like they were back in the seventeen and

eighteen hundreds,” Alaric Wulf asked mildly, “when thousands of innocent human beings

were falsely accused of vampirism and murdered by their neighbors because people like you,

who were upset because their sister had been bitten, pointed fingers at the wrong people? No. I

don’t think so. Better for them to think such things don’t exist and for professionals like myself

quietly to take care of the problem.”

“Okay,” Jon said, still pacing. “Fine. Then how do we do this? Holy water? Wooden

stakes? You got any extra? Because I am totally coming with you. I want to pound a stake into

this guy’s chest. Let’s go. I’m ready. Come on.”

Alaric stayed where he was, sitting beside Meena. “No,” he said calmly.

“I mean it,” Jon said. “I’m not scared. Prince of darkness? Doesn’t scare me. Nobody

bites my sister and then sends her a tote and gets away with it. Come on. Let’s go. Meena, tell

us where the guy is staying. We’re wasting time here.”

Meena, rubbing Jack’s stomach, glanced from Jon to Alaric and back again. She wasn’t

quite sure what she was going to do. There was a sudden roaring sound in her ears. It felt as if

the bottom of her stomach had dropped out.

No. Not her stomach.

Her soul.

“He already said you’re not going, Jon,” she said, reminding her brother.

“I’m totally going,” Jon said. “Just tell us where he is.”

“No,” Meena said, her fingers tightening on Jack Bauer’s silky fur.

Alaric, taking up so much space on her couch, turned toward her. “Meena,” he said. “I

know that this man, the prince, told you things that maybe made you feel…things for him.

Feelings of love or even pity. But despite what he might have told you, he’s a bad man who

does bad things.”

“I don’t believe that,” Meena said. “You just told me yourself Lucien didn’t murder

those girls.”

A muscle in Alaric’s jaw twitched. His already small mouth seemed to shrink even

smaller in frustration.

“What is he even doing here if he didn’t kill them?” she demanded. “Tell me. He’s here

to find the person who did it, isn’t he?”

“Ye-es,” Alaric said slowly. “But that doesn’t make him a good man. He’s not even a

man. He’s a monster. Look what he did to you. And you did not even know it. What he is…it’s

a dead thing. It’s not natural. And he’s created others like himself…That’s what the Dracul are.

His minions. And they’ve gone on to create their own minions. You see how it never ends?

And it is one of those others that’s killing those girls. That’s why my colleagues and I have to

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