Мишель Роуэн - Stakes & Stilettos

I'd prefer to keep it that way.

At the moment, his concern for me was mixed with a healthy dose of… primal hunger.

Terrific.

If I hadn't been dealing with the big piece of wood sticking out of my chest I'd have been a little more concerned for my neck.

"It's fine," he said, although it sounded as if he was speaking to himself instead of me. His black gaze tracked from my wound to my eyes. His forehead was deeply creased. "I won't lose control."

George came to my side and held my hand. He stroked back the hair that had fallen across my forehead.

"Just hold on, Sarah," he said. "Think happy thoughts. Really, it's no big deal."

George had been staked before, and I'd been there to witness his reaction to having the stake removed. Therefore I knew it was a big deal and he was a big fat liar.

"Just g-get it out of me," I said through clenched teeth.

Thierry's hands were shaking slightly as he gripped the end of the stake.

"Be brave, my love." And then he pulled the stake from my chest.

I screamed. I tended to do that when my insides felt as though they were being torn from my body and set on fire. The stake clattered to the ground, and Thierry pressed his palms against the wound to stop the bleeding.

"Knife," he growled at George.

George disengaged his probably broken hand from my crushing grip and hurried to

Thierry's desk to grab the knife he kept in the top drawer. He brought it over and handed it to Thierry.

"Compress the wound," Thierry said, and George, who was very good at following orders in tense situations, did as requested.

Then Thierry drew the knife across his left forearm to draw his own blood and held it against my mouth.

Master vampire blood. Filled with power and strength—like a well-aged liquor that made a regular vamp's blood seem as potent as Kool-Aid. This was the reason Josh wanted me to sire him. Because the strength of Thierry's blood, of Nicolai's, was inside me.

No. It didn't make any sense. I didn't feel any different. He'd been wrong. He'd made a horrible mistake and then that bastard had staked me.

Hell, maybe I should have said yes. Instead of dealing with a stake wound I'd have two grand in my pocket.

I shut off my racing thoughts and drank.

Blood. Yeah, it was disgusting—at least in theory. As a human I thought that the very idea of drinking blood was completely and utterly nasty, not to mention unhygienic. In reality it was not so black and white or right or wrong.

I was all about the shades of gray now. And Thierry, even in a horrific situation like this, tasted really, really good to me. I knew doing this would help me to heal faster and even help to lessen the pain. My eyes locked onto his and he stared down at me, his eyes still fully black and filled with something that looked a whole lot like lust. With his free hand he stroked the hair off my face.

"Sarah…" he said softly. "That should be enough."

"Okay," I managed, finally and reluctantly letting go of Thierry's arm.

"I need a drink!" George exhaled shakily. "And it's not just because I've been clutching your breasts for five minutes."

"Don't get any ideas, Georgie." I laughed a little at that and it hurt. "Ow."

"Don't worry," he said. "You're still not my gender preference."

Thierry stood up from the side of the sofa and rolled down his shirt sleeve but not before

I'd caught a glimpse of the knife wound that had already begun to heal. "Sarah, George will help to clean you up. I have an extra shirt you can wear on a hanger behind the door."

"Me?" George pointed at his chest. "You want me to clean—"

Thierry turned his still-black gaze away from me and walked quickly out of the room.

George looked down at me. "Feel like a sponge bath, you sexy little thing?"

After George cleaned and patched me up, I fell asleep and had one of those prophetic dreams. At least I think it was one now that I was paying more attention to that sort of thing.

The man with the black scarf wrapped around his face walked toward me. Other than the scarf obliterating his features, he wore a very nice black tuxedo. The background flickered as though changing channels on the television from day, to night, to the inside of a gray factory, to a wall of flames.

"Red Devil?" I said out loud. "What does that even mean? Do you have another name?

Should I just call you Red, maybe?"

"Yes, Red as blood." He held a gloved hand up to the side of my face. "We're so close now, Sarah. Soon you'll know your true destiny. It is to help me."

I blinked. "Well, I am currently looking for a new job. How much does this helping you thing pay?"

"Every moment you exist, Sarah, you are helping me."

"With what?"

"I can't tell you yet." He shook his head. "What do you want more than anything else in the world? Right now, right at this very moment?"

I thought about it, hard. I looked down at my chest, at the bandage that was there to cover the stake wound. "I want to be normal."

"You can't be normal anymore. You're a vampire."

"I know that. But I can be as normal as possible. I want my friends to be safe. I want to be happy."

"With Thierry."

"Yes."

"That can never happen."

I frowned at him. "Tell me who you are. I'm not really in the mood for riddles or games. It's been a rough night."

"This isn't a game." He attempted to put his arms around me in an odd, stifling hug, but he was pulled back before he touched me. Thierry stood behind him.

"Sarah," Thierry said. "Is he trying to make you do something you don't want to do? You can tell me."

I opened my mouth but found I couldn't reply to him.

Thierry took a step closer to me, but the Red Devil grabbed him, turned him around, and then sank a wooden stake into his chest. I let out a horrified scream.

Thierry met my gaze. "Why did you help him, Sarah?"

I shook my head. "I… I didn't mean to. I love you, Thierry!"

He whispered something that I couldn't hear and then he disintegrated before my eyes.

"No!" I cried.

My dreams about Thierry—prophetic or not—always seemed to end with him getting staked. But it hadn't happened in real life. It wouldn't happen. I wouldn't let it.

It was just a dream.

I would be normal. I would be happy.

I would.

"Ow," was my first word upon waking up. There was a cool cloth pressed to my forehead.

George blinked down at me.

"Morning, sunshine," he said to me, and then, "She's awake."

"Good." Thierry was back in the room, his eyes now returned to their normal silvery shade of gray. His arms were crossed and he frowned deeply. "How are you feeling, Sarah?"

"Like I should be checking my spleen for splinters."

"Can you sit up?"

"I don't know."

His right hand was on my shoulder, the other on my back, and he supported me as I slowly brought myself up to a sitting position. It hurt, but not as much as I would have thought it would. He sat beside me so I could lean against him.

"Yes, sitting I can apparently manage," I said.

Thierry reached over to undo the top buttons on his spare black shirt, which I now wore, and he peeled the bandage away from my chest. My bra and camisole were ruined and had been thrown into the garbage.

"You're already starting to heal." His warm fingers stroked softly over my bare left breast.

I sucked in a quick breath. My chest ached from my wound, but it didn't stop the rest of my body from tightening with desire at his touch. "Good to know."

He didn't remove his hand. We stared into each other's eyes.

George cleared his throat. "Uh… should I leave the two of you alone?"

"In a moment." Thierry moved his hand away so he could replace the bandage. "Sarah, I went outside to see if I could find Heather and her boyfriend."