Blood Lust (18 page)

“I know you won’t do it again.” He tried to make eye contact to let her see his sincerity, but she didn’t even trust him that far. He sighed.

Several minutes passed before she returned the cross to her pocket.

Once inside the penthouse, Charlotte took her bags to the guest room to unpack. They’d only been there a few moments when Anthony realized something felt off. The dog was hiding; normally he ran out to greet them.

Linus stepped out of the kitchen, two other vampires in tow. Both, Anthony recognized. One was his bodyguard, Slade. The other was Linus’s lover, and––Anthony scented the air––claimed mate now. Well, wasn’t Callie just the little social climber?

She must be betting Linus would win the tournament. The little bitch wanted to be queen. She’d always said she was headed for big things.

“What are you doing in my home?” he practically growled.

“I just came by to see if you’d decided on a vampire mate yet. In the unlikely event that you win, you’ll need to claim someone to reign as your queen. The coven won’t fully accept a bachelor. It would create too many political problems.”

“I’m touched you care so much,” Anthony said, making sure to convey how much he wasn’t.

Charlotte picked that moment to come out of the bedroom.

“This must be your pet,” Linus said.

Charlotte looked like she was about to object. But she made the mistake of meeting Anthony’s eyes for just the barest moment in her uncertainty. It was enough. He gripped her mind with the full thrust of his power. “Yes. She is.” Then to Charlotte, “Come here, my pet.”

He slipped a suggestion into her mind, and she put a little extra sway in her hips as she glided across the floor toward him. She was going to be royally pissed when this was over. It would get him nowhere in the trust department, but the stakes were far too high to give her the illusion of independence right now. He trailed his fingers through her hair and she sighed and rubbed against him like a contented cat.

Callie moved to sit in the overstuffed leather chair, her long legs draping gracefully over the arm. Linus remained standing while Slade stood just off to the side and a few paces closer to Anthony than his boss.

“Pretty,” Callie said. “I’ll bet she tastes divine or you wouldn’t keep her.” She licked her lips, making her intentions clear.

“Yes,” Linus agreed, placing a hand on his mate’s shoulder, “How about sharing with a few weary travelers? Holing up in hotels for days away from our homeland has been quite exhausting. We’d like to . . . play.”

Anthony gritted his teeth, trying to rein in his temper. Three against one were not good odds. Especially when at least one of them was his equal or better in a fight.

“I would prefer you didn’t. I don’t share what’s mine.” Like hell he was letting them play with her. That could go to several bad places. He worked to maintain a mask of calm.

“Now that’s just rude. You know we share pets. There is no claim on them,” Linus said, the picture of reason.

Anthony couldn’t deal with the issue at hand and maintain a grip on Charlotte’s mind, especially when he hadn’t drunk from her in a couple of days. His control snapped.

He didn’t have time to be impressed with her ability to break his hold so quickly because things were escalating too fast. He gripped her wrist hard, warning her. He wanted to slip into her mind to see how much she’d been able to process, what she knew about what was going on around her, but there was no time.

A moment later, he was pushed away from her while Linus backed up several feet as if he’d come across a rattlesnake. She held the cross out, putting every ounce of her faith behind it. Her eyes were determined, though they carefully avoided the eyes of any vampire in the room. She threw a disgusted look Anthony’s way for what he’d just done to her.

“LEAVE,” she shouted to the interlopers. Despite her lack of eye contact, she was putting on a rather impressive show of being in control.

“How did you get into my apartment in the first place?” Anthony asked. For the moment things seemed under control, or at least as under control as they were likely to get.

“I got a key from the front desk. They aren’t as stringent about their policies here as they used to be,” Linus said. “There was a time they only employed guardians both day and night. Now they’re letting humans run the night shift, and well, you know about the weakness of humans.”

Anthony held his breath as he watched Linus. He knew he was trying to bait Charlotte into looking at him. The other vampire shrugged, as if giving up that plan, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a gleaming revolver.

“I used to just count on my fangs to help me out in a crisis, but I’ve since embraced weapon technology. It allows for greater reach.” He pointed the barrel of the gun at Charlotte; a gruesome grin painted his face. “Now, be a good girl and drop the cross or I’ll have to pull the trigger. Blood is all the same to me. I’ll get it either way.”

Charlotte’s hand started to shake. Anthony saw her new plan unfurling, to rush the vampire with the cross. He shook his head.

“No, Charlotte, that’ll never work.”

“Be a good pet now, and drop the cross. Kick it across the room where it can’t get in our way.”

Callie had taken her legs off the arm of the chair and was leaning forward now, a look of feral amusement on her face. Slade remained in place, his expression and stance ever stoic, waiting to jump into the fray if needed.

Tears began to track down Charlotte’s face, and her hand started to shake more noticeably. She turned to Anthony, desperation and anger warring in her eyes.

“I hate you,” she said. She dropped the cross and kicked it across the room.

As soon as she’d done it, Anthony was on her, his fangs in her throat, drinking. He nicked his tongue and sealed her wound with his blood. It happened too quickly for Linus to react. Anthony turned to the other vampire and raised an eyebrow, having found the one way to best him at his own game. Vampires didn’t claim humans. Didn’t mean they couldn’t. They just didn’t. He’d worry about how he’d fucked up his life later. For now he was the victor.

“Well, she’s mine now,” he said, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth and sucking the remains off his finger.

He released Charlotte and she fell to the floor, a horrible shrieking scream tearing out of her throat.

It had happened too fast. She’d been holding the cross, knowing whatever was about to occur it wasn’t going to be quick, and she likely wouldn’t survive it. Anthony’s warning against her thoughts had scared her sufficiently to do what Linus had said. Why the fuck did he have to be in her head?

The room was loud, too loud. Then she realized the noise was coming from her own mouth. She couldn’t stop the screaming. There was too much in her head now. Memories crashed over her in waves, trying to fit together with the past two days of nothing. Her normal memories sat as a blurry background that barely felt real, playing second to the night Anthony had bitten her.

All she could remember, all she could think about, was the pain. She finally managed to stop screaming, her throat raw as she wondered if she’d ever get sound from it again. Her forehead rested on the floor, and she sobbed quietly.

She was dimly aware of voices carrying on in the background. Linus was laughing, that horrible vampire laugh that sounded like he’d spent centuries making it just creepy enough to give everyone he met nightmares.

“Well, guess you showed me,” he said.

Charlee listened more closely now, not bothering to move. She heard the sound of high heels clicking over the hardwood floor toward her, and she cringed.

There was a protective growl. She didn’t have to guess who that was.

“You touch her, and Linus is out of the tournament,” Anthony said.

“She’s not a vampire; she doesn’t count,” the vampiress whined as if a toy had been taken away. Charlee realized with revulsion that it had been. God, she hated vampires.

“She’s mine. You touch her, and I kill you. I’ll be well within my rights.”

Heavier footfalls moved to where Callie’s had stopped.

“Don’t, Callie. The elders won’t be happy. However . . . unusual it is. I hope you realize what you just did, Anthony. If you win, the coven will never support you. They’ll never accept a human queen. You may have done me a favor. And if I win, you know this claim won’t stop me. Well, goodnight then.”

When the vampires had filed out of the penthouse, Charlee wiped her eyes. She couldn’t stand to be alone in the same room with him. She’d been about as close to love as a woman can get to a man she’s not dating or sleeping with. Her diary hadn’t done the situation justice.

“Oh, bite me,” she said.

“Some day, definitely.” He smiled at her, a world of sexual promise in his gaze that caught her off guard for a moment. Then she bounced back.

“Have you had all your shots? I’d hate to get rabies.”

He put his hand over his heart in mock offense. “You wound me.”

“Yeah, I’m dangerous that way.”

“Not half so dangerous as me I’d wager.”

She laughed. “Just because you’ve got that coat that makes you look like a comic book villain, don’t think that makes you bad. Fashion rarely frightens me.”

“We’ll see.”

Her heart dropped into her stomach at the way he said ‘we’ll see’.

‘Do it, ask me out,’ her mind screamed at him. ‘Let’s take this beyond the bookstore . . . out there. You know we’d be great together.’ She wasn’t sure how long she could keep the banter up before she just threw herself at him.

Her former feelings for him battled against the current reality. A reality so scary she was glad vamps wiped memories. She wouldn’t be able to handle being a human in a vampire world, knowing what lurked in the night.

“Charlotte.”

She felt him moving closer to her and scooted away. “Don’t. Don’t touch me.”

“Just tell me what happened.”

She looked up sharply. Something had changed. He couldn’t read her thoughts now. She felt as if she’d just won the battle but lost the war.

“What did you do?” she asked.

His response was calm, matter-of-fact. “I claimed you. Now tell me what happened. I can’t read it straight out of your head anymore, but I can make you talk.”

He sat Indian-style next to her, and she looked into his eyes, letting him have the full force of her loathing. Finally, she spoke.

“I thought I was going to die . . . ”

“Charlotte, I wouldn’t . . . ”

“ . . . From the pain.”

He was confused, or he was pretending to be. She wasn’t sure which.

“It’s not supposed to hurt. It was fast, but I was in control. I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

“No . . . not tonight, the first time. I thought I was going to die from the pain that night.” That night was playing over and over in her mind. She’d been so surprised to see Anthony on her back porch.

She’d half expected him to kiss her or ask her out, but then she got a closer look. There was blood on his face, and he looked . . . frenzied, angry. The rest she tried not to think about. She could still feel him tearing into her throat and hear her own soft pleading. Then his tongue was sealing the wound shut, and for one brief moment she felt the kind of bliss women only felt in fairy tales. Then he’d made her forget.

If it was possible, even more color drained from his face. “Charlotte, I’m so sorry. That night, there were drugs. I was out of my mind, I . . . Wait . . . you remember?”

“Everything. Did you know I had feelings for you?”

Anthony sighed. “Yes.”

“But you didn’t do anything about it.”

He gesticulated wildly around him. “Well, look how well this is turning out.”

“Just take out the memories of you and take me back home. After Linus is gone, I mean.”

“I can’t do that now. What I did, claiming you, I can’t undo it.”

He moved closer and cradled her in his arms. He might not be able to read her mind anymore, but he seemed able to do all the other vampire things, including touching her emotions, manipulating them.

She felt indescribably happy, calm, warm, safe, loved in his arms. And though she knew these weren’t the normal things she felt about him now, his skin pressed against hers made her forget the part of her brain that couldn’t cope with the way reality had shifted.

He rocked her like a small child. Then he slipped a finger underneath her chin, raising her face to his, and kissed her. His tongue invaded her mouth with smooth expertise, and if she’d felt a thousand happy thoughts before, it was more now as arousal joined the mix. She wasn’t sure if it was real or if he was using the vampire mojo.

A moan slipped past her lips as she remembered all the times she’d thought about this moment. It felt like a dream. Only she knew she wouldn’t have imagined it this way, with a bite mark on her neck. His hands had slipped beneath her shirt, and she felt him fumbling with her bra. A part of her wanted to let it happen, feel his cool, soothing touch against her skin and forget the horrors of the past few days.

Then the thought stole into her mind: He’d erase those memories if you wanted him to.