Lora Leigh - Primal

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” She looked warily at Declan, and whatever she thought of his fearsome looks made her noticeably cringe. “Where’s Dr. Reynolds?”

“He’s dead.” I said it bluntly, but it made me flash back to what happened in the examining room. I shuddered. “And so are we if we loiter around here for much longer.”

“Dead?” Her voice broke.

“I’m surprised you care. He’s the one who locked you up.”

“No—” She looked confused. “He’s paying me a lot of money to help him with his research. I need the money. My parents—I’m supporting them. I’m all they have.”

I stared at her with surprise. “You agreed to be here? Do you know what kind of experiments he was doing?”

“Reproductive studies. I know I was agreeing to be artificially inseminated. For the money I’m being paid, it’s worth it. I already agreed to give up the child when it’s born.”

I felt sick at hearing her story, knowing what she didn’t know. She might have signed up voluntarily, but it was unlikely that she knew the results—that being artificially inseminated by a vampire would likely leave her torn in at least two very bloody pieces.

“Are you pregnant right now?” I asked cautiously.

She shook her head. “We were going to officially start tomorrow.”

I let out a shaky sigh of relief. “We need to get out of here.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“You know there are vampires here, don’t you?”

“Vampires?” she repeated, frowning hard. “Are you crazy or something?”

We didn’t have time for this. “Yeah, I’m crazy. Now let’s go.” I grabbed her arm, happy that she didn’t fight against me as I pulled her out of the room.

She looked over her shoulder at Declan. “He’s scary as hell, isn’t he?”

Despite everything, that almost made me grin. “He’s an adorable puppy dog compared to what’s downstairs. Come on.”

“Just keep climbing until we get to the surface,” Declan said. When we reached the stairwell again, Declan swung open the door. Before I had the chance to go through, pale hands grabbed the front of Declan’s shirt and dragged him over the threshold. The door closed behind him with a click.

I felt as though the breath had been completely knocked out of me.

“No!” I let go of the woman and grappled for the door, pushing it open so hard it bruised my hands.

I saw Declan fly backward, down a flight of stairs, and he hit the cement wall hard at the landing before tumbling down a couple more steps. Blood streamed down his forehead.

“Declan!” I screamed.

His pain-filled gaze locked on mine, and he must have seen the terror in my eyes. “Go, Jill! Take the woman and get out of here! Now!”

The vampire—no, there were two of them—drew closer to him. Normally, I had no doubt Declan could take them. But my blood had weakened him. He could fight for a while, but it wouldn’t be long before they tore him apart.

He wanted me to leave him, to save myself and the woman. And maybe I would have done just that—in a previous life.

I glared at the woman. “Stay right here. Don’t move.”

“What are you doing?”

“Whatever I have to.”

“Leave him. Let’s just go! He said we should!”

I shook my head. “He should know by now I rarely do what I’m told.”

There wasn’t any more time to explain, to figure out a plan, to think things through. I had only a few seconds to save Declan. And I had only one weapon at hand. The same weapon I always had at hand.

Myself.

I took the stairs two at a time until I landed between the vampires. Declan was down a few more steps, and he sent a fierce look my way. I noticed his leg was twisted in an awkward position, and a chill went down my spine. He’d broken it in the fall. It would heal just like the rest of him did—quickly. But that was only if he lived.

“What the fuck are you doing, Jill?” he snapped at me.

I didn’t have time for a Q&A at the moment.

“Hey.” I tapped the vampires on their backs. In unison, they turned to me, their nostrils flaring, their lips curling back from sharp white fangs. I tried to see past the monstrous veiny exterior, the sunken cheeks, the black eyes. These were human once—a man and a woman. For all I knew they could have been husband and wife; accountant and journalist; teacher and lawyer. Whatever. I didn’t know where they came from or what their stories were. I didn’t really care.

All I knew was that they were a threat—to Declan, to me, to the woman I’d committed myself to rescuing. And I knew they were drawn to the scent of the Nightshade inside of me. Since they weren’t well fed like Lawrence was, they didn’t have his control—the control that kept him from sinking his fangs into me to get a taste of my irresistible blood.

These nameless vampires had no control. That was my hope. And, frankly, that was also my worst fear.

“Jill!” Declan’s pained cry echoed in my ears.

I staggered back a step as the vampires changed their direction and started moving toward me.

All I could do now was hope the vampires didn’t rip me apart before they tasted my blood. Declan grabbed a step and pulled himself closer, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop what was about to happen.

“Delicious, right?” I said. Fear wasn’t something I could control at the moment, so I gave in to it, wrapping myself in it like a thick blanket. “You need to drink my blood.”

“Yessss,” the female hissed. She had hair so pale blond it was almost white. I think it was a bleach job, since nobody had that color hair naturally. Her skin seemed even paler in contrast to the dark veins that branched along her jawline, and her lips were deep red, as if she’d already been drinking her fill of blood before they got to this floor. I could barely see the whites of her eyes, her irises were so large and black. She looked like some sort of angel, actually. An angel of death.

She grabbed hold of my hair, fisting it so tightly that I let out an involuntary cry of pain. The male vampire drew closer. I shuddered as he slid his hand over my stomach and pressed me back against the wall.

He sniffed along my neck. “Smells so good. Never smelled anything so fucking good in my life.”

My heart pounded so fast it made me dizzy. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Declan was trying to get to me. I shuddered with fear and disgust as I felt the male vampire slide his cold hand down between my legs and I felt his erection hard against my hip. I’d expected it, but it didn’t mean I was prepared.

For vampires, blood and sex went hand in hand. Lust for blood turned into a lust for other things. It was all I could do to not beg them to let go of me. The female had a tight hold of my hair and she wrenched my neck to the side. Her other hand grasped my chin and she nipped at my jaw, not quite hard enough to break the skin. Her fangs were as sharp as scalpels.

This was typically the part in the movies where the good guys would arrive, stakes in hand, and make mincemeat out of the monsters, saving the damsel in distress who’d been foolish enough to wander off into danger and get herself eaten. But my life wasn’t a movie. And I’d chosen this distress with full knowledge of the potential consequences. I didn’t have nightmares every night because my life was big fun.

Do it , I begged inwardly. Bite me. What the hell are you waiting for?

Maybe if they’d been kept elsewhere, fed well, this might have gone differently. Hell, it might have gone even worse. I could have first been brutally raped before they killed me. The male obviously had sex on the brain, judging by the way he was pawing me, but it wasn’t first on his list. It was likely a close second, though.