Dead Sexy. Amanda Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ here that he maintained his primary lair. It was true that he kept an apartment in the park complex, but he hadn’t survived as long as he had by letting others know where he slept. Only fools permitted others, especially humans, to know their resting place, and Santiago had never been a fool.

      He ghosted along the dark streets, his senses alert, the hunger that burned within him rousing at the tantalizing scent of prey. Anticipation hummed through him as his fangs lengthened.

      He took the woman unawares. She was young to be working the streets. Her body was thin beneath the short skirt and low-cut spandex top. Her breath smelled of drugs and alcohol.

      Lowering his head to her neck, he wondered briefly what had compelled her to embrace such a wretched existence, but all thought of her past was washed away as the warm red tide of her blood flowed over his tongue.

      For a moment, he considered taking it all. Seeing the dead man in the Park had aroused old instincts, but he thrust the urge aside. Mortals lived such a short life span, it didn’t seem right to rob them of the few years they had, though he thought this woman might welcome death. She had no family, no one who cared for her and no one for whom she cared. She hated her existence. She hated her life, but she lacked the energy and courage needed to break away from her old life and build a new one.

      It was sad, he thought, but it was not his problem.

      He closed the wounds in her throat, erased his memory from her mind, and sent her on her way.

      The little streetwalker had been sweet, he mused, continuing on toward his resting place, sweet and satisfying, yet he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to taste Miss Regan Delaney and he knew, in that moment, that the hunger she had stirred within him would never be satisfied until he had tasted her.

      It was near dawn when he reached his destination. His dwelling place was in the basement of an old, abandoned chemical plant. He had bought the building for a pittance years ago. The first three floors remained as they had been when the previous occupant moved out. Dirt, debris, empty boxes, and crates littered the floors and shelves, along with a number of old beer cans, newspapers, and desiccated insects. Derelicts and drunks occasionally crawled inside the building to spend the night or sleep off a hangover, thereby relieving Santiago of the need to hunt.

      A wave of his hand opened a heavy iron door in the lower basement. Closing it behind him, he flicked a switch on the wall, filling the room with soft light.

      Soon after he bought the property, he had hired a contractor to transform the basement into a comfortable home. Once the remodeling had been completed, he had destroyed all the paperwork and then erased all memory of himself and the job from the minds of anyone who had been involved, from the boss of the company to the woman who answered the phone.

      He glanced around the living area, pleased as always by his surroundings. A large painting above the mantel depicted the sun rising behind a snow-covered mountain. A pair of smaller paintings, one of a sunrise, the other of a sunset, adorned another wall. Beyond that, his tastes were expensive but simple. The rugs and walls were a pale gray, the fireplace was of faded red brick, the tables were carved of ebony, the sofa and chair were of butter-soft black leather. A small glass-topped coffee table contained the few things he cared enough about to keep—a fine gold chain that had belonged to Marishka, a small silver-backed mirror that had belonged to his mother, a black leather riding crop that had belonged to his father, a gold pocket watch to remind him that he now had all the time in the world. A Satellite Screen took up one entire wall.

      The bedroom where he kept his clothing was a light blue-gray and contained a king-sized bed with a wrought-iron headboard, a black leather chair, an ebony dresser, and a pair of matching nightstands. A small bathroom was adjacent to the bedroom. Santiago had never courted the Dark Sleep in the bed, though he rested there on occasion.

      His lair, located behind a hidden panel in the bedroom closet, was done in the same shade of gray as the living room and contained little aside from a sleek black casket lined in black silk and a tall, free-standing, wrought-iron candelabra.

      A prickling across his skin told him the sun was rising. Once, the sun had ruled his life. At its rising, he had been trapped in the death-like sleep of his kind, weak and helpless until the setting of the sun. But no more.

      Bemused by the quirk of fate that had altered his destiny, he readied himself to take his rest, his mind turning once again to the Delaney woman. She had looked as innocent as a child, lying in her bed with her hair spread around her shoulders. Even now, his hand twitched with the urge to run his fingers through the thick golden strands.

      Regan. He was still thinking of her when he sank into oblivion.

      Chapter 3

      The ringing of the phone beside her bed roused Regan from a deep, dreamless sleep. Picking it up, she muttered a groggy, “Hello?”

      It was Michael Flynn. “Reggie,” he said tersely, “we’ve got another one.”

      Instantly wide awake, Regan sat up and glanced at the clock. It was a quarter after nine in the morning. “Where?”

      “About three meters from where we found the last one. How soon can you get here?”

      “Give me twenty minutes.”

      Rising, she went into the bathroom, splashed cold water on her face, and brushed her teeth. After pulling her nightshirt over her head, she dressed quickly in a pair of old blue jeans that she had washed so often they were almost white, a long-sleeved sweatshirt with the words Who Wants to Live Forever? emblazoned across the front in bright pink letters, and a pair of old sneakers. She grabbed her gun from under her pillow and dropped it into her handbag, then went into the kitchen. She quickly downed a small glass of grapefruit juice, grabbed her handbag from the counter, and left her apartment.

      Looking at dead bodies was a heck of a way to start the day.

      Outside, the sky was thick with lowering gray clouds and the promise of rain before the day was out.

      Flynn was waiting for her at the scene, his handsome face solemn. No one else was there, so she figured he must have called her before he notified anyone else.

      The body lay on the dew-damp grass in a loose-limbed sprawl that couldn’t be imitated by the living.

      Regan’s stomach clenched. This one was a woman in her mid-twenties. Regan surveyed the body without touching it, noting the opening in the chest where the heart had been extracted, the gaping hole where the liver had been, and the fact that there was virtually no blood to be seen. And no telltale puncture wounds on her neck. Of course, whatever marks had been there had been destroyed when her throat was ripped out.

      “Same M.O. as the other one, right?” Flynn asked.

      Regan nodded. “Identical, as near as I can tell.”

      “Two bodies in two days,” Flynn remarked with a shake of his head. “I’m afraid we’ve got a serial killer on our hands.”

      Regan blew out a sigh. She was sorely afraid he was right. Though Flynn didn’t know it, the death toll was five and not two. And while she hadn’t seen the three bodies that Santiago had told her about, he had told her they looked the same as the one from last night. Even though she had no way of knowing if the killings were related, she had a feeling in her gut that they were. She should have questioned Santiago further about the other killings, she thought, and made a mental note to call his СКАЧАТЬ