Be Mine Forever. Rosemary Laurey

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ in the face again, and, holding her eyes with his, lowered his mouth on her neck.

      She never stopped struggling. All the better. The rise in her blood pressure sped the flow of luscious blood, and her fear only added piquancy. He drank deep. Finished, he paused long enough to lick the punctures to seal them. He’d leave no evidence.

      She was weaker now and lay quiescent, looking at him with pure, undiluted, scrumptious fear.

      Usually he left this memory with his victims, to return in nightmares during dark, lonely nights, but not this time. Casting a glamour over her, he reached into her memory, stripping it. “You remember nothing of this, Elizabeth. Nothing at all.” He cupped his hands on her head, forcing his will on hers. “Do what I tell you. Forget!” Her mind gave way, accepting his compulsion.

      Her eyes went blank. Had he taken too much? Screw it! His survival, and the success of his plans, was what mattered. He rolled her off the table to the floor and reached for Heather. He hadn’t intend to feed off her as well, but what the heck? He had a long flight back to Oregon and her neck was available. He drank hard and fast, sealed the wound with a lick, and dug into her mind, erasing her memories. “Heather, you’ll remember nothing. Absolutely nothing. Understand?” He compelled her as he had Elizabeth, and her mind, too, collapsed under his superior will.

      Heather gave him the same glazed look. He dropped her to the floor and stood up. He had the grandfather of all erections from the power and thrill of imposing his will on two puny females. He walked out, leaving the door open to give the impression of a robbery. Taking the keys Heather had dropped on the floor, Laran drove away in her car, abandoning it, unlocked, with the keys in the ignition. With a bit of luck some delinquent teenager would find it and leave an abundance of incriminating fingerprints.

      He jogged the block or so to his rental car and, with the satisfaction of a job well done, drove back to the airport.

      The cold brought Elizabeth to her senses. Her head ached. She had no idea of her name, what had happened, or where she was. She crawled over to the other woman muttering on the floor.

      She sat up and stared at Elizabeth. “Who are you?”

      “I don’t know. Do you?”

      She shook her head slowly, as if it hurt to move. “I thought you might.” She looked around. “Where are we?”

      Heather tried, but thinking caused a dull ache inside her skull. This place was familiar…it was just…Through the aching fog of her fragmented reason, she grasped a stray memory. “It’s a house. Someone lives here.”

      Elizabeth looked around. “Who?”

      “Hell if I know.”

      “What if they come back?”

      An exchange of sheer terror crossed between them.

      “We mustn’t be here!” Elizabeth said, pulling herself to her feet. “If they come back, maybe they’ll do it again.”

      “Do what?”

      “I don’t know, but it was hideous. Wasn’t it?”

      Heather nodded. Caught in the horror, neither of them could remember. “We’ve got to get away!”

      They clasped hands, and, seeing the still-open door, headed outside. In the empty carport they exchanged another frightened glance. “Where?” Elizabeth asked.

      Heather didn’t try to answer. She pulled Elizabeth’s hand and ran.

      They fled the miasma of horror that enveloped the house. Past streets and shops Heather had once known, they ran on, down dark alleys, skirting yards and leaping walls. As the miles passed, they fatigued and slowed but never stopped, driven by the need to put distance between themselves and the forgotten terror behind. Hours later, they collapsed in a corner of a park. They had no idea where it was, or why they were there, but the sense of menace was gone, and they slept huddled together.

      Hours, days, passed. They had no idea how long. A homeless man approached them but retreated fast when they snarled. No one else ever came near. Until…

      A middle-aged man, strolling through the park, paused and then walked past them a couple of times. They were drawn to the quiet power emanating from him. He looked around the park and back at them. “Where is your controller?” he asked. “Tell him this is my territory.” They stared, not understanding. “Who controls you?” he repeated.

      “We don’t know,” Heather said.

      “Who are we?” Elizabeth asked.

      As the man looked at them, they both longed for the safety his presence offered. “Wait here. I will come back for you.”

      They waited, unable to judge time. When he returned, he offered his hand. Elizabeth stared, but Heather remembered what the gesture meant and offered hers. Elizabeth copied.

      “I’m Mr. Roman,” he said. They sensed he was as different from the mortals around as the security he offered was from their remembered horror. “Call me Vlad. I have a taxi waiting. You will be safe now. I give you my word.”

      Chapter 3

      Havering, Yorkshire. The following February.

      “Are you sure?” Stella Corvus, née Schwartz, looked up from dropping teaspoons of cookie batter on a baking sheet.

      Angela smiled. Stella had to be the only vampire in the country, maybe on the planet, who baked cookies on a regular basis. Come to that, she was probably the only one with a kid. “No, I’m not sure, but I’ve got to do something. Tom won’t share anything he’s discovered—if there is anything to share. I feel I’m at the same point as when Vlad found us in the park.”

      “You’re a good bit beyond that.”

      “I know. I’ll be eternally grateful to you and the rest of the colony. You given me a home, clothes, sanity, a job when I needed one. But I can’t stand this anonymity much longer. I want to be more than a name I picked out of the phone book. I look in the mirror and have no idea who I’m staring at.”

      “At least you can look in the mirror! Ghouls have that over vampires. I live in dread, I’m going around with my hair on end and smudged lipstick.”

      Angela chuckled. Stella seldom wore lipstick, and her new, cropped hairstyle always looked sleek. “Please understand, Stella. I need to know who I am. I’m falling in love with Tom. What if I’m married? Have a lover somewhere looking for me?” She sighed. “I used to worry I’d abandoned children or babies, but Justin reassured me there.”

      “Yup, it’s handy having a doctor in the house.”

      “You’ve got a good man there, or rather a good vampire. I keep thinking, perhaps Tom and I…” She sighed.

      “That’s why you left him?”

      “I left him because I got sick of Tom Kyd telling me he’d take care of everything. He followed up leads. He decided if they were red herrings. He studied the old lore books in the library. He declared what was fact and what was fable. He drove me bonkers!”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ