Мишель Роуэн - Tall, Dark & Fangsome

“Wasn’t planning on it.” I looked at her throat. Well, now that she mentioned it… I bet her blood would be very sweet and tasty…

No, not going to happen. I was still in control and I had to stay that way if I was going to get out of here. Wherever here was.

I shakily got up from the floor and walked over to the faint outline of a door but there was no handle. I scanned the interior of the small room we were in. The walls were made of stone—smooth and cold to the touch. There was something chiseled into the wall. Names and dates.

“I’m thinking this might be a crypt,” Amy said. “In a cemetery somewhere. Isn’t that totally cool?”

My stomach sank. “Yeah, real cool. What time is it?”

She glanced at her wrist. “Ten to twelve.”

Ten minutes.

I’m super excited! my nightwalker said. Aren’t you? So close to our moment of destiny.

Tick-tock.

My cheery inner darkness inched forward. I didn’t want her to take over at the moment, especially not with such a helpless victim nearby.

I slammed my fist against the door. “Gideon! Where are you?”

Amy sighed contentedly. “Maybe Quinn will rescue us. A lot of vampire hunters are so gorgeous, aren’t they? Who knew? Have I mentioned how excited I am that you two are together again?”

I rubbed my temples. “That was just a cover. Gideon made me break up with Thierry so

Quinn and I acted like we were still together to throw him off. Didn’t work very well.”

She frowned. “So, you’re still with Thierry?”

“Yes. Or, at least, I think so. He has some issues with my siring Gideon. Plus, the last time

I saw him he was unconscious on the floor. I actually had to step over him to come and try to save your butt.” I glanced around the crypt. “And so far, that hasn’t worked out so well either.”

She huffed. “You could do better than Thierry, you know.”

I hissed out an exasperated breath. “I don’t have time for a Thierry debate, thanks so much. I’m supposed to sire Gideon in less than ten minutes. It’s kind of weighing heavy on my mind right now.”

“I think you’d even be better off with Gideon than Thierry.”

“Because everyone knows you have such fabulous taste in men that you can judge something like that. Now would you mind being quiet for a minute? I need to think.”

She made an annoyed sound. “Oh, what else is new? It’s all about you. Martyr Sarah, what a big surprise. You’ve been such a total drag since you got vamped, you know that?”

The darkness was eating away at my control. “Since you’re currently drugged I’m going to let that slide.”

She rolled her eyes. “I think you’re jealous of me.”

“Of you?”

“I’ve adapted to vampire life a billion times better than you. And I have a man who loves me no matter what. All you’ve got is that sullen, miserable—although admittedly really hot—old stick in the mud.”

She gasped when I grabbed her throat and slammed her up against the wall. “You know what? I don’t really care what you think. He’s the man I want to spend the rest of eternity with.” I paused, frowning. “Unless he has to kill me, of course. But in the meantime, you can take your opinion and shove it where the bats don’t fly. Got it?”

“Y-yes.” She wheezed her agreement. “Please… don’t… hurt… me.”

I frowned. Hurt her? Then I realized I’d raised her a foot off the ground and was holding her by only her throat against the wall.

The door scraped open behind us.

“Put her down, Sarah,” Gideon said.

My eyes widened and I immediately lowered her. A glance over my shoulder confirmed that Gideon, with the scarf still wrapped around most of his face, stood in the doorway with Steven at his side.

“I need to get out of here!” Amy walked toward Gideon. “I’m so not feeling very groovy anymore.”

“I’m going to need you to stay put. Why don’t you have a little nap again?” Gideon shot her with a tranq dart.

“Oh, poop.” She pulled the dart out, then stumbled to the floor, where she promptly fell asleep.

“That wasn’t necessary.” I heard the growl in my voice.

“I’m afraid it was,” Gideon replied. He was studying me intently. “Your control is very shaky, isn’t it?”

“Are you afraid I’m going to kill you by mistake instead of just siring you?”

“I’d be a fool not to consider that possibility.”

“What if I lose control completely? Turn totally 100 percent nightwalker on you? Can’t control me very well then, can you?”

“Such control is highly overrated,” Gideon said. “What makes you unsteady now and unable to maintain your composure is the fact that you’re fighting it. Your two sides are battling and weary from the fight.”

“Good versus evil,” Steven said, nodding.

“I’m a much bigger supporter of the shades of gray theory, myself.” Gideon’s green-eyed gaze swept over me. “Everyone has both good and evil inside them all the time. It all depends which is more dominant. But even someone you may think is completely evil has some good in them—like me, for example. And someone you feel is good—perhaps like your master vampire lover—has a great deal of darkness as well.”

“Well aware of that little factoid.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“So you accept Thierry’s inner conflict, but you won’t accept that I might be the same?”

“I think actions speak much louder than words.”

“My actions have spoken very loudly. I saved your life. I gave you your gold chain—”

“Which you destroyed.”

“You don’t need it,” he said firmly.

“That’s very debatable. You threaten my friends and family to get what you want.”

“And I have apologized for that. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“You’re a vampire hunter.”

“I can’t deny that. And yet here we are. Standing on one side of the bridge that will take me over to my new life.”

“That’s funny, I thought we were in a cemetery.”

His eyes crinkled with a hidden smile, then shadowed over with pain. He staggered forward. “I think it’s nearly time.”

I looked at Steven. “Thought your job was to summon me, or whatever. Why are you still here?”

Wizard-boy looked completely miserable. “I have some other stuff to do as well. Mr.

Chase was very specific.”

“I need Steven’s help during the ritual to help pass the strength of your special blood to me. It isn’t a simple siring. It is a healing as well. Plus, I needed him for another reason.”

“What?” I asked warily.

Gideon approached me. He looked very weary as he raised his scarred left hand and stroked my cheek. “It’s better if you don’t struggle against it. Let your darkness take over.

You’re more powerful as a nightwalker. More useful to me. It makes everything so much simpler.”

Hell, yes, my nightwalker agreed wholeheartedly from inside me. I like the way this guy thinks.

I pushed his hand away. “Not going to happen.”

He didn’t move away from me. In fact, he got a little closer. He was totally tempting fate.

I could reach up right now and tear out his throat and end this once and for all if I wanted to.

Trouble was, I didn’t want to.

My nightwalker swirled and shifted inside me, growing larger and harder to control. The thick poison of my curse churned under my skin. It reached toward Gideon—it liked him.

A lot.

My nightwalker desired Gideon Chase, big-time. She was attracted to his darkness as much as, if not more, than she was attracted to Thierry’s—the darkness she liked to pull out and play with whenever she got the chance. Only with Gideon she didn’t have to seduce it out of him.