“Sounds like Lucien,” Brian said.
“Sounds like an asshole,” she retorted, and he couldn’t help but smile. “So, as you can see, I can’t get in touch with him and all of my other siblings have yet to hit maturity and are only kids.”
“So are you.”
“I’m twenty-one, and I reached full maturity last year,” she told him.
Abby paced to the other side of her dorm room and peered down on the dimly lit street as she tried to keep control of her swaying emotions. Just talking to him was causing her body to tense and her heartbeat to escalate. This could be the biggest mistake she’d ever made, but she had no other choice, and there was no going back now.
Watching the other students laugh as they strolled along the sidewalk in front of her dorm, she envied their lives of simplicity. As a born vampire, her life had never been simple; she’d had to learn at a young age to control her hunger if she were to fit in with the human world. When she’d finally gotten control of her vampire urges, she’d been allowed to go out amongst people, like her older siblings. She’d been enjoying attending school, going on dates, and having boyfriends until he had walked into her life six years ago.
Now, she’d managed to find a little peace and happiness here at college, and hated to think that she might not be returning to it. None of it would matter if she couldn’t find Vicky. She tried to shake the possibility away, but it caused tears to swim in her eyes.
“Believe me, you were not the one I would have picked to call for this,” she told him. “Ethan may not fully trust you, but some of my other siblings have started to, especially Aiden, and I’ve been told you can somehow find vampires and people who are missing or don’t wish to be found. I need you to find Vicky for me. Please.”
Her please caused his gut to clench. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose as he considered her words. “Why has she taken off?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been able to find her or get in touch with her in five days, and I’ve looked everywhere and contacted everyone I can think of. We’ve never gone more than twelve hours without speaking to each other. She’d quit school and was seeing a new guy I hadn’t really met yet, but she’d never go somewhere without at least telling me where she was going. Something is not right. She’s my other half…” Her voice hitched. “I can’t lose her. I have to find her. I’ll do whatever it takes. I don’t have much money, but I will find a way to pay you whatever you ask.”
Brian glanced at the supplies in the back of his truck. He’d been really looking forward to one month alone in the mountains, hunting for his food.
On the other end, she sniffled. He was an asshole, he knew and freely admitted it, but that sniffle tugged at his heart.
“Oh hell,” he muttered. “Where are you?”
“You’ll help?”
The ecstatic sound of her voice had him kicking himself in the ass. At the same time, he couldn’t help but smile. This girl had no idea what she’d invited into her life by asking for his help, but for some reason, he simply couldn’t refuse her.
“If something goes wrong, it will be your fault when your brothers try to kill me,” he told her.
“They’ll never know you were involved, I promise,” she vowed.
“Tell me where you are.”
* * *
Brian drove down the dark streets of the campus toward the dorm building at the end of the road. The streetlights every hundred feet or so caused splashes of light to filter over the interior of the truck. It had only taken him two hours to arrive at Abby’s college in Boston, but since hanging up the phone with her, he’d felt a driving sense of urgency to get to her and make sure she was safe.
“You’re an idiot,” he muttered. “This may end up being the thing that finally gets you killed.”
Pulling over in front of the building Abby had told him she lived in, he put the truck in park and flung the door open. Lights blazed in most of the windows; he saw a few heads bent over desks as the students worked on whatever they were learning. Some girls were dancing and laughing together in one room, while in another, a couple was having sex against the glass pane.
The sight of the writhing bodies made the corner of his mouth quirk. It had been so long since he’d had sex, he barely recalled the feel of it, but he had to admit the couple made it look like fun. Maybe, when this was over, he’d find a woman before taking off into the mountains. He could endure the guilt for a little release; he had in the past.
As he continued to look around, the one thing he didn’t see was Abby. She’d told him she would be ready and waiting for him. Worry gnawed at his gut as he glanced over the building again. Striding up the walkway to the main door, he dialed Abby’s number.
“Where are you?” he demanded when she answered the phone.
Abby tried not to get irritated by his tone, he was helping her after all, but knowing he was so close had her completely on edge. “I’m finishing packing. My roommate… Never mind, I’ll be down in five.”
“What room are you in?”
“Men aren’t supposed to be in here,” she replied.
“That hasn’t stopped one of your neighbors.”
“Usually doesn’t,” she muttered.
“Besides, Ethan will try to break my neck for being here in the first place, so it doesn’t matter where I’m supposed to be. Room number?”
The sound of her teeth grating together came through the phone before she spat out, “Thirty-five.”
She hung up before he could reply. Opening the front door, he stepped into the well-lit hall and passingly took in the landscape paintings and old pictures of how the college had changed over the years.
It was all so foreign to him. Even when he’d been human, he’d been no scholar. Instead, he’d run through the streets of Boston, an urchin, trying to get by while his parents labored to make a living to support him and his four siblings.
There was an elevator to his right, but he opted for the stairs, taking them two at a time to the third floor. Laughter and music floated from the closed doors lining the hall as he walked toward Abby’s room. The persistent beat of the human’s hearts caused his fangs to tingle. He’d planned to feed on animals once he’d made it into the mountains, but those tempting pulses reminded him it had been two days since he’d last fed.
I could always have a little snack before going. He considered it as he eyed a long-legged brunette striding down the hall toward him. The smile she gave him, and the extra sway in her hips, told him he’d have no problem getting her to agree to let him in her room. He forced his gaze away from the vein pulsing in her neck and back to the room numbers.
Feeding could wait, first he had to locate Abby and get out of this place. He stopped outside door number thirty-five and knocked on it loudly. “Hold on,” a muffled voice replied from inside.
Brian folded his arms over his chest and tapped his foot as he impatiently waited for her to answer the door. Almost a minute later, the door opened. He somehow managed to keep his jaw from dropping as his heart gave an erratic kick in his chest at the sight of the woman standing before him. Her sweet face and brilliant aura were the only things he could see as he hungrily drank her in.
One thing was for sure, Abigail was no longer a child.
Chapter Two
Abby couldn’t tear her eyes away from the massive man standing in her doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and a look of annoyance on his chiseled face. His ice-blue eyes flickered with incredulity, and something more, when they landed on her. Her breath hitched in her chest and her pulse accelerated as his gaze raked her from head to toe. Those eyes running over her body left her more turned on than all of the many attempts she’d made to forget him with other men.
She vividly remembered him from their one encounter with each other—an encounter where he’d barely acknowledged her existence while she’d been trying not to gawk at him. He’d been so large, so handsome and powerful, and soooo off-limits.
He
still is, she told herself, but she couldn’t deny she itched to run her fingers through his white-blond hair and trace the angles of his face.
When she’d first seen him all those years ago, she’d believed him to be the ultimate bad boy. The type she’d never really chased after, not even as a helpless romantic, fifteen-year-old kid. However, as the years went by, she hadn’t been able to block him from her thoughts and dreams.
She’d often speculated about what would happen if she ran into him again. She’d both dreaded and craved the answer, and now she would get it. Brian had plagued her thoughts for the last six years, but she had still tried to think of anything else she could do to find Vicky before she’d broken down and called him. Her family would kill her if they ever found out she’d done this instead of coming to them first, but she simply couldn’t involve them, not yet anyway.
She forced herself to swallow in order to wet her suddenly parched throat as her gaze involuntarily traveled over his broad shoulders. The black T-shirt he wore hugged the carved muscles of his chest and flat stomach. She had the urge to tear his shirt off in order to see what the flesh beneath looked like; she imagined it would be as sculpted as the rest of him.
Her eyes wandered lower to his tapered waist and the obvious bulge in the front of his jeans. She fought against the heat creeping up her cheeks as she tore her gaze away from his powerful thighs to look back up at him.
That face! She had to fight against rising onto her toes and pressing her mouth to his full lips in order to finally taste him. He was better in person than she remembered. The impulse to touch him was more overwhelming than anything she’d ever experienced.
Over the years, she’d tried to replace her memory of him with other men, but every guy she’d dated after encountering him had paled in comparison. Those men had left her feeling hollow and unfulfilled while they were kissing and touching her. He was the reason she’d pulled away from all them before things went too far.
The frustration and resentment she’d felt over those encounters rushed back to her now. How could they all have left her feeling so cold, when one look at him had her half on the verge of pulling her clothes off?
She’d made a mistake calling him. He shouldn’t be here; she shouldn’t be anywhere near him. He was dangerous. She’d been told he lived a brutal life, but none of that mattered when he was so tantalizingly close to her.
Those icy eyes bored into hers when she met them again. His platinum hair had been brushed back from his broad cheekbones and proud jaw. Darker blond stubble, the same color as his eyebrows, lined his jaw and made her itch to stroke it.
What steaming pile of crap had she stepped into by asking for his help? She suspected the answer to that, she had for years, but she didn’t have time to acknowledge it or the implications behind it. Vicky was out there, somewhere, and if she didn’t get to her soon, she had a feeling it would be too late.
If it wasn’t already.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to step back and gestured for him to enter her room. Unlike her mother and her older sister, Isabelle, being a neat-freak had never been her thing. She wasn’t an outright slob, but the clutter on her desk and now covering her bed would have driven Issy and her mom nuts. Looking for a distraction from him, she hurried over to her bed and finished tossing her things into her suitcase.
Brian couldn’t tear his gaze away from Abby as she rushed over to finish packing the clothes sprawled across the bed. Her full breasts swayed in her loose-fitting shirt. His swelling shaft jumped in his jeans when he realized the young vamp wasn’t wearing a bra, and she most certainly didn’t have to. More than a handful but not overly large, her breasts were pert as they stood up, her nipples puckering beneath the material rubbing against them.
He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth as he resisted the impulse to feel those enticing buds under his hands. Then he would run his fingers down the front of her flat belly before dipping them between her quivering thighs…
He broke the image off as his cock jumped in his jeans again. This hunger for her was more than just lust pulsing to life within him, he realized. This was something else entirely, as he also longed to pull her into his arms and hold her there, to cradle her against him while she eased the loneliness of his soul, and for some reason, he believed she could be the one to do it.
He hadn’t longed to hold a woman since his wife, Vivian, had been so ruthlessly torn away from him one hundred eighty-five years ago. He’d been with other women since her death, but none of them had stirred any tenderness within him. He’d simply been looking to slake the demands of his body with them before moving on.
Once done, he’d never returned to their bed. It had been nearly two centuries since Vivian had been murdered, but he still couldn’t handle the guilt of betrayal he felt after only one encounter with another woman. He had no intention of finding out how he’d feel after two encounters with the same woman.
However, Abby and her enticing scent, was all he could focus on in this tiny room as she tossed her clothes into her suitcase. He didn’t have to see her sister to know he’d been right; this was the one with the brighter soul. In all of his centuries, he’d never seen one so vivid before. It called to him almost as much as the woman herself did.
With most people and vampires, he turned his ability off. Walking around seeing souls all the time gave him a headache, but he found himself staring at hers in awe. He could feel the warmth of it brushing over his skin, and he couldn’t bring himself to tamp it down, not yet anyway. It may become a distraction later, but for now, he basked in it.
It was even stronger now than when he’d first encountered her and would have let him know she’d attained maturity without her having already told him so. She was a fully matured, extremely sensual woman, and he desired her in a way he never had another, not even his Vivian.
“I’m almost ready,” she muttered, and shoved a black lacy bra into her suitcase.
He almost leaned over and plucked it back out when she turned her head away. He much preferred her without a bra on, but he decided it was best to keep his hands to himself and to get control of his overreacting body. Byrne, he reminded himself firmly. He may get along better with the family now, but even Aiden would scream for his head if Brian added Abby to his list of one and done conquests.
“You’re fully mature now,” he murmured.
Her emerald eyes were wary when they lifted to his. In the glow of the lamp behind her, they sparkled like the gemstones they resembled. Her pale blonde hair had been cut to frame her oval face as it fell about her shoulders. Lips the color of a red rose parted, and his blood quickened when her tongue darted out to nervously lick her delectable mouth. He guessed her to be around five-six, about six inches shorter than he was.
“Yes, I told you that,” she replied, and placed a pair of jeans into her suitcase.
“You did.”
Abby glanced at him again, but she couldn’t look at him for too long. She was afraid she would stop and gawk if she did. Instead, she turned away and grabbed the last of her underwear before dumping them into the suitcase and pulling the lid up. He was three feet away from her, but she could feel the heat of his body burning against hers.
This is not going to end well, she realized.
Her hand trembled when she tugged the zipper on her suitcase closed. Her gaze fell to her nails. They’d once been long and painted, something she did herself, and one of the few things she’d managed to keep up with since starting college and focusing on her studies. Now, the blue polish on them was chipped, and she’d bitten them down to nubs in her nervous concern over her sister. Never before had she bitten her nails, but since Vicky’s disappearance, she couldn’t seem to stop.
Taking a steadying breath, she turned to face Brian. Before she could speak, the door to her room flew inward, nearly catching Brian in the side. He scowled as he stepped away from the door and the angry woman who stormed into the room.
“You’re rea
lly doing this!” the short girl with dyed black hair accused.
Abby lifted her suitcase and held it before her. “I’ll be back soon, Jasmine.” Hopefully, but she doubted her life would ever be the same again.
The young woman swung accusing brown eyes in his direction. Brian felt his upper lip curling in response to the hostility washing off her.
“You must be one fantastic lay!” she spat at him.
He lifted an eyebrow at her words. “Why yes, I am.”
Heat burned through Abby’s face as she walked across the room and grabbed hold of Brian’s elbow. “I can assure you, I wouldn’t know,” she said to Jasmine. She tried to ignore the heat of his flesh burning into hers, but it took all she had not to rub against him like a cat. “He’s going to help me find Vicky.”
“I told you I would help you,” Jasmine said.
Brian glowered back at the girl, his gaze shifting between her and Abby as he realized the real source of Jasmine’s hostility. Did Abby prefer the company of women to men? For some reason, the possibility caused unreasonable jealousy to swell through him.
There was no reason to be envious; he was simply here to help this girl before moving on. There could never be anything between them, not with her family and his history; it was impossible. Even knowing all that, he couldn’t stand the idea of this woman having had the chance to know Abby in a way he never would.
“You can’t help with this, Jasmine. We have to go now,” Abby said, and pulled him toward the door.
Brian glanced over his shoulder as he followed Abby into the hallway. Jasmine had tears in her eyes when she stepped into the doorway to watch them walk away. He didn’t argue when Abby led him to the elevator and hit the button to close the doors. Taking the suitcase from her slender hands, he held it before him as the doors slid shut.
The Vampire Awakenings Bundle: Books 1-5 Page 115