Мишель Роуэн - Tall, Dark & Fangsome

Vampires die in one of two ways. Those over a hundred years old turn to goo. Those under a hundred leave a corpse behind. According to my recent research it seemed to have something to do with human lifetimes. If vamps lived beyond what would naturally have been their allotted years, then their bodies disintegrated when they were killed. The stains were nearly impossible to remove from carpeting or clothing. Believe me, I’d tried.

“Oh, it was a rumor,” I agreed. “But I’ve had a few changes in my life recently that have altered a few things. I’m not quite as helpless as I might look.”

“All I see is a disgusting black-eyed monster who needs to die.”

“Sticks and stones, cue ball.”

“I’m going to kill you.” He raised the stake.

“Drop it,” I said very firmly, holding eye contact with him.

He dropped the weapon and then looked down at it with confusion. “What the hell?”

One of my abilities as a nightwalker was mind control over weak-minded humans. Amy called it my “thrall.” I could tell with a glance that this guy might have lots of muscles on the surface, but cotton balls between his temples. The thrall didn’t work on everybody, but it was a neat trick when it did.

“Why are you taunting her?” Shaggy whimpered. “We gotta get out of here, man. Now!”

Instead of taking his friend’s wise advice, Baldy lunged at me. I easily grabbed him by his throat and he gasped for breath as I dug my fingernails in on either side of his Adam’s apple.

My vision narrowed and some more of my nightwalker’s darkness bled through into my conscious mind.

Kill him, it suggested in a helpful manner.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you,” I said evenly.

The hunter replied with a gurgle. His face was turning purple.

It would be so easy to squash this pathetic excuse for a human as if he were no more than an annoying insect.

The unexpectedly dark, murderous thought made me falter a bit and loosen my hold on him. I wasn’t a killer. I hadn’t planned on doing anything but scaring the crap out of these two—although, I hoped, not literally—before I sent them scurrying away.

“Let him go!” Shaggy pleaded, obviously convinced I was about to tear his friend’s throat out with a flick of my wrist. “Don’t kill him. Please!”

“Why not?” I grappled for control of myself and knew it was my nightwalker’s fault. She really wanted to kill this guy. After all, hunters didn’t care who they killed. Would it really be that big a loss?

Shaggy was crying openly now. “Because… because I love him! I love you, Mark! I’m sorry I never told you. I’ve been waiting for the right moment, but it never happened. I can’t lose you. Not now. Not like this!”

There was complete silence in the alley for a long moment.

And then, “I love… you… too, Cal.”

I raised an eyebrow. Wasn’t expecting that. I loosened my grip on Baldy’s throat a little more.

Vampire hunters in love. Terrific.

“You… you love me?” Cal sounded surprised. “Since when?”

“Since we… first met… at Clancy’s.” He gasped for breath. “Remember the eighteen beers… we drank… that night? The game of pool? Comparing our… kill counts?”

Cal’s expression turned wistful. “Like it was only yesterday.” He looked pleadingly at me.

“Please, let him go. We’ll leave this city forever. We promise, don’t we, Mark?”

Mark struggled to nod. “Yeah, we promise.”

I eyed him skeptically. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “Maybe we could go to Los Angeles, or something. Open a little Oceanside bar. It’s always been a dream of mine.”

Their eyes met. “That sounds really nice,” Cal agreed.

After another moment, I released Mark. The red imprint of my hand on his throat was oddly satisfying.

“Fine,” my voice was shaky. “Go. I won’t try to stop you. But I swear, if I see you in town after tonight, then all bets are off.”

The two hunters embraced and then ran out of the alley together.

What the hell was this? I thought. A freaking romance novel?

I felt a warm hand on my arm. It was the fledgling.

“Thank you! That was so amazing. You’re so strong and brave.”

I cleared my throat. “It’s a work in progress, but thanks.” I opened my purse and reached inside to retrieve my chain with trembling fingers, knowing I had to get it back on ASAP.

Every moment it was off my neck was a risk—as evidenced by my nearly killing the hunter.

And he would have totally deserved it, my inner nightwalker reminded me.

Exactly.

I frowned at the thought.

I paused to look at the fledgling. “You need to be more careful out here all alone, you know. It’s dangerous.”

“My sire—” Her voice hitched and she covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

“He… he doesn’t want me anymore. I wanted to be with him forever but now I’m all alone.”

“It’ll get better.”

She shook her head. “Maybe the hunters should have killed me. They almost did.” She reached up to her forehead, which had a small gash on it, and pulled her hand away to inspect the blood. “They whacked me pretty hard.”

A sensation of warmth and wooziness moved through me.

“Well…” I braced my shoulder against the wall to steady myself. “You need to be more careful. It’s too bad your sire was a jerk, but it happens. Find some new friends to help you out—”

“Like you?” she asked hopefully.

My head felt very cloudy. “Like me, or there are… there are lots of other helpful vamps in the city.” I swallowed hard. “It’s really warm out tonight, isn’t it?”

“It’s February.”

“Hot for February.”

The fledgling looked at me strangely. “Are you feeling all right?”

My purse dropped to the ground as the warmth continued to course through me. “I’m just fine.”

She squinted at me. “Your black eyes are a bit freaky.”

The slight cloudiness in my mind turned to thick fog.

“Black eyes are a warning sign. Even the nicest vampires are dangerous when their eyes turn black. Consider that your first lesson in survival.”

Something in the tone of my voice made her take a quick step away from me. She was trembling again.

“Uh…” She gulped. “So I think I’m going to, like, leave now.”

She gave me a look that could only be described as fearful and then nervously began to walk around me. I reached out and grabbed her by the throat much as I’d done before with the hunter. She made a scared, strangled sound.

The blood flowed from her forehead like honey. So warm, so alive… so tempting. My vision narrowed more than it already had.

“P-please…” she stuttered. “Please d-don’t hurt me.”

Why did she think I was going to hurt her?

Because you are going to hurt her, the nightwalker inside me said.

It was as if I could see myself, but from miles away. The rational me was far away now and I was yelling and frantically waving my arms, scared for the girl, scared for myself. My chain had been off for too long. My nightwalker had taken control now—and she was very hungry.

I pushed the fledgling up against the wall, focused only on one thing—the gentle pulse at the side of her throat. I felt my fangs elongate. Normally a vampire’s fangs were small and barely noticeable—sharper than a human’s canines, but nothing that would raise any alarms if you didn’t know what you were looking at.

But a hungry vampire… well, that was a different story. Whether at her core she was a good vamp or a bad vamp, the hunger that raced through her body turned her fangs into the perfect weapon meant to sink into soft, warm skin to get what she desired most.