Sweet Last Drop. Melody Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ you watch where you’re going?”

      “Does my gaze make you uncomfortable?” he asked, and he deliberately smiled wide enough to showcase every pointed inch of his teeth.

      Of all the vampires to attack and abduct me, I’d found the comedian this time. I shouldn’t complain. Last time, I’d found the serial killer.

      “It’s not you, it’s me,” I said, and the vampire snorted. “If we crash into a tree at this speed, you’d survive just fine, but I’d be dead.” I gave him a long look. “The police would have another murder to investigate, and the last thing your coven needs with a serial vampire on the loose is more attention.”

      The vampire sobered. “We don’t know who’s responsible for the murders, serial vampire or not. Bex will be busy tonight finding out, but despite the murders, I think she’ll make time for you.”

      I blinked. “You’re bringing me to Bex?”

      “You know Bex?”

      I nodded.

      “That’s impossible,” he dismissed. “I know every night blood here.”

      “I’m not from here.”

      A slow smirk widened his lips. “That I believe.”

      The wind whipped my hair around us, smacking him in the face. A deep rattle vibrated through his chest as he breathed in my scent. I watched his fangs elongate and his lips thin like a dog with its hackles raised.

      He looked away, ignoring me to focus resolutely on the path in front of us.

      I gaped. “You haven’t fed yet, but you’re resisting me.”

      He didn’t meet my eyes this time when he spoke. “You’re not intended for me. You could be just what my Master needs to find herself again. I can’t take that from her.”

      “How could I possibly do that?”

      “She hasn’t found a willing night blood in years, not since Walker refused her.” The vampire spat Walker’s name like it was something vile. “She must accept what can’t be hers and be content with finding someone else, anyone else, before it tears us apart.”

      I opened my mouth to correct him, to let him know that I wasn’t what Bex needed. I already had a Master, and I wasn’t willing. But it dawned on me that the only thing preventing him from feeding from me was his intention to bring me to Bex.

      “What’s your name?” I asked instead.

      “You may call me Rene.”

      I raised my eyebrows. “Just Rene?” I needed to know his first and last name to have a hope of entrancing him.

      “Knowing a vampire’s full name is earned, not given.”

      Damn it. “Oh. Why is that?”

      He smirked. “Asking to know my full name is tantamount to a man asking to see your breasts on a first date. I don’t know you well enough to reveal all of myself, and it’s rude to ask.”

      Rene described it like a social nicety, but I suspected the real reason he wouldn’t give me his last name was survival. Knowing and saying a vampire’s full name increased my hold on its mind when I entranced it. Most night bloods couldn’t entrance vampires, but Rene didn’t know that I wasn’t like most night bloods.

      “Sorry,” I muttered. “Far be it for me to be rude while I’m being abducted.”

      Rene laughed. “Valid point. My name is Rene Roland. What’s yours?”

      “DiRocco,” I murmured, deliberately only giving him my last name and determined not to feel guilty for my deception. I was food to him, nothing but meat and blood with a sence of dry humor that he apparently appreciated, but this piece of meat was not being eaten. Not tonight. “Most people call me DiRocco.”

      “It’s lovely to meet you, DiRocco. My apologies that our paths couldn’t cross under more favorable circumstances.”

      I couldn’t imagine a favorable circumstance in which we could have met, but I kept my lips sealed and simply nodded, not trusting my smart mouth to remain polite.

      We stopped in front of an overgrown cave imbedded on a hillside. Vines spread over the embankment and grew along the edges of the cave’s mouth, blurring exactly where the ground ended and the cave began. Rene set me on my feet, but between the thick, impenetrable darkness of the deep woods and my fear of the coming confrontation with Bex, I could already feel the confines of the cave’s walls closing in around me. I leaned fractionally over its edge, peeking into the abyss. Even as my eyes adjusted, they couldn’t penetrate through to the cave’s bottom. Assuming the cave had a bottom.

      Rene pulled me back. “We’re waiting here. Many of our newest coven members still haven’t fed.”

      “Is this the entrance to your coven?” I asked, surprised.

      Rene nodded. “I don’t want the first human they lay eyes on after waking from their day rest to be a night blood. They wouldn’t be able to resist drinking from you, and once they started, they might not stop. Your blood is like—”

      “Like cinnamon and spice and everything nice,” I said, drolly. “Or so I’m told.”

      He smirked. “Yes, it is.”

      “I appreciate your concern, but if you didn’t want me in harm’s way, why bring me to a coven full of unfed vampires?”

      “It’s not you I’m worried about. You would survive, but they wouldn’t.”

      I frowned. “I would survive, and they wouldn’t?”

      “Bex would never tolerate another vampire in her coven draining a night blood.”

      I stared at Rene, incredulous. “Bex would kill a vampire for attacking me?”

      “Of course. Night bloods are potential vampires, and the only vampire who can transform a night blood is Bex. An attack against a night blood is considered an attack against Bex herself.”

      I nodded. His logic made a strange sort of sense, more sense than how Dominic ruled his coven, and I wondered at the difference. Maybe Bex was more powerful and therefore better able to control her vampires. Maybe Dominic only seemed less powerful because his Leveling was approaching in two weeks. Or maybe Dominic was not as effective a Master—all possibilities worth considering, but I knew better than to utter them aloud, especially the last. Even 300 miles away, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dominic overheard me. I’d regret it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

      “What have you brought home, Rene? I thought I taught you better than to play with your food?”

      Bex materialized in front of us. It must have been a trick of the darkness and her own speed and stealth because actually materializing from nothing was impossible, even for a vampire. Then again, so much lately that should be impossible was real; I couldn’t really question what may or may not be possible. I only questioned what occurred: I was alone with Rene one moment, and the next, Bex was in front of СКАЧАТЬ