by Amy Faye
"You can stop," he groaned above her. "I'm going to—"
Sarah didn't stop. Her tongue moved in time with the bobbing of her head, sucking hard, until she felt him jerk once, twice, harder than before. She knew what was happening only a half-second before he came, the salty, bitter taste filling her mouth. She swallowed.
She leaned back until she was sitting on the ground. She'd calmed down, now, she realized. Something about the way that Jason had seemed to enjoy what she'd done for him so much had set her back onto her feet. Now that she was looking around, there was something strange about this place.
It had seemed abandoned, at first. Yet, now that she was looking, most of the trash had been moved off to one side, the floors cleaned. Was this where Jason and Isaiah had been staying when they were in the city? The mattresses, laying in the opposite corner, seemed to confirm.
She looked back up at James, who seemed to finally be regaining his composure. "I think we're even, now," she said.
He smiled, a feral grin that showed off his teeth. Halfway a smile, but halfway a threat, she realized. It set her on edge. He was inhumanly attractive. She'd known that the moment she saw him. Those powerfully blue eyes seemed to see right through her.
1
Sarah Lincoln was coming home from a long day at work, so she didn't notice the men who were approaching her until they were already too close for her to do anything about what happened next.
They were shambling slowly, like they were tired from a long workout, or had been drinking, which wasn't all that strange because she took a back alley from the train station and it wasn't unusual to find people who didn't want to get the cops called on them for public drunkenness.
What was unusual was the way they grabbed her, almost in unison. They weren't fast, even as their hands balled up her jacket and started to shove against the wall. She might have been able to outrun them. But their grip was too tight, and as she looked past she could see two more coming up.
A voice shouted in the darkness. "Get back!" The shambling things didn't get back, though. They didn't even look as if they'd heard whoever it was. Then they started to lean into her, their hot, disgusting breath on her neck.
Sarah didn't question what the two men who ran up were doing. It was obvious from the outset that they'd come to rescue her. When she saw a flash of steel, though, a shock went up her spine. Jesus Christ, was that a knife?
His arm wrapped around the ghoul's neck and pulled back. She didn't have to see his hand to know that he'd just driven the knife in to the hilt. Whatever the things that were threatening her were, she knew, they weren't human.
They looked human, wore clothes. She'd mistaken them for men, but something about the way they moved, about the way that their eyes seemed not to focus, set them apart from any human that Sarah had ever known.
"Are you hurt?"
It took a long moment for the question to register in Sarah's mind, like he'd spoken a foreign language she had learned in high school. She was too afraid, and too caught up in her panic.
What brought her out, helped her regain her control, wasn't the soothing way that he asked, wasn't the violent dispatch of the monstrous creatures that had attacked her, nor the way that the second man continued on to dispatch the other two as easily as they had the first.
It was his eyes. They were tired eyes, the sort of eyes of most of the regulars at the library. The deep blue color, almost unnaturally blue. The sort of blue eyes that she only saw on film stars. The way he looked at her was strange, until she registered what she was seeing.
Desire.
She hadn't seen the look on many men's faces, not since high school when she'd known boys who would look at any girl like that. Sarah's breath came out shaky and she played back the last moments in her head, finally heard the question he asked.
"I don't think so," she answered.
Was that the right thing to say? She didn't feel any pain, but she wasn't sure that she felt anything at all. That was until his hands moved and touched her skin. Then she knew that she could feel, that she was intensely sensitive.
His skin burned against hers, lighting a fire inside her. Sarah couldn't help but lean into that touch, to want to feel more of it. She had thought that she didn't feel anything for men. As if it was never going to happen for her. The fact that she was never going to want to try sex again was something she'd accepted a long time ago.
But now she wasn't so sure.
"Are you sure? Not a scratch, nothing?"
It was the second man's voice, low and powerful. Sarah felt her knees go weak. The intensity of his gaze her made her stomach do a flip. He studied her neck with his eyes, his hands making a quick path up and down her clothing like a police officer doing a pat-down.
He spoke more to his partner than to her. "I think we got here just in time."
"Are you going to be alright?" The first one, with his powerfully blue eyes, looked at her, ignoring the comment of his friend.
"You saved my life," Sarah cried, the weight of what had happened finally dawning on her. It was too much for her to think about all at once. How was she going to be alright? What the hell had attacked her? How was any of this possible?
"Do you need us to walk you home? We need to talk."
Sarah couldn't speak. It was all too much. She nodded her head and tried to gulp down a breath.
The second man, the man whose intensity had overwhelmed her so completely, turned the moment her head started to move. He stalked ahead, and she watched the way that his hips moved as he walked. Even in heavy autumn clothing he looked she could see the way that he moved, could see how naturally and how comfortably every step was.
He looked as if he were more in tune with his body than she would ever be, Sarah thought. The way that he slunk up to corners, peered around them, his body tensed up like a snake coiling to strike. The easy movement from left to right of his head, never surprised. She and his partner took up the rear, his arm around her shoulders.
She didn't even know their names, she realized, as they turned and finally came out near the front door of her apartment. She walked past the doorman, never thinking about how the three of them might look to an outsider. She wasn't thinking about much of anything except getting back to her apartment. Where it was safe.
As soon as she got back, all of this would be a bad dream. All of it, she hoped, except for these two.
Sarah's mind barely registered when they got into her apartment and laid her down on the sofa. The dark-haired one paced back and forth, something clearly upsetting him. The one with blue eyes, on the other hand, after all his interest in whether or not she was alright, seemed ready to go immediately.
"Introductions," said the dark-haired, intense man after a long moment of thought. "My name is Isaiah, this is my partner, Jason. Do you know what just happened to you?"
"Those men, they tried to attack me. I could've been… or worse."
"Those weren't men," Jason corrected immediately. "And not just because 'real men don't attack women.'" He seemed to silently laugh at his own crude joke.
"Those were ghouls. The soul of a vampire—"
"Wait, what?" Sarah sat up. "Vampire? You're pulling my leg. Is someone going to pop out with a camera? Did Lana put you up to this?"
"It's not a joke, miss Lincoln. I'm afraid it's very serious. You were attacked by the servants of a vampire tonight, who intended to bring you, sedated, to his lair, where he would then brutally murder you for his own pleasure and drink your blood"
"That's very dramatic," she said, still half-teasing. It sounded like he was serious, but what Isaiah said was insane. Eventually, she knew, shed figure out what the real game was and then she'd understand whether or not he was serious. Until then, she just had to humor him.
Isaiah crouched down before her. Now that he was this close, it was a wonder that she'd ever laughed at him. He didn't look like the sort of man that women laughed at. He was handsome, to say the least, but more than that,
she was immediately reminded of how his gaze seemed to pierce straight through her.
As if he could see inside her, could see the fear, and see how she doubted him.
"It is dramatic," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "It's dramatic and unpleasant and my associate and I have seen more than one woman like yourself end up dead by the end of the night when they ignored our advice."
"They probably deserved it, though, to be fair," piped up the other. "They didn't listen to the experts, they ignored the signs… You look like a smart girl, though. I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself. Let's go, Isaiah. She doesn't want us here, it's not our place to stay and force her to believe us."
He shot that same intense stare at Jason. The smaller man scowled back, clearly frustrated by something.
"So you and your friend hunt… monsters?"
"Vampires. We're very specialized. It's too easy to get in over your head when you start going after anything you can find. Much easier to know what you're up against."
"And… do you? Know what you're up against?"
"We know who's after you, and we know that you don't want to have someone like that taking a special interest," he said softly.
"Do you know a Victor Reagan?" Jason's voice was lower, now.
"The guy from TV?"
"Not exactly." Jason moved behind the couch, and Sarah was acutely aware of how close the two of them were. How it made her body feel. "He controls half the channels on the air right now. Along with two other men, the three of them make up almost any news or entertainment you can get in the city. Or most other cities, for that matter."
"What does he want with me, though? Couldn't he have anyone he wanted come to him, with an engraved invitation?"
"What does any man want with a woman?" Jason's voice was closer, now, and she could feel his breath against her neck.
Sarah shivered. She didn't want to lean away from him, though it came naturally to her. She wanted… it didn't matter what she wanted.
"Okay, so let's pretend I believe you. What's next?"
"Well, we have to eat, of course." The joke was inappropriate, Sarah thought. All this talk of vampires, and now talk of… 'eating?' "We have a usual feel, about a thousand dollars."
Sarah's eyes widened. She didn't care who saw. She turned around to face him, looking for a sign that Jason was kidding when he'd thrown out the number. For once, his face seemed serious, past the emotions and past the jokes.
"I don't have—"
"No, they usually don't. Of course, we don't usually help people who can't afford the help. Do we, Isaiah?"
The question was pointed and, Sarah realized, angry. Why would he go out of his way for her? That was… absolutely crazy, she thought.
Isaiah's lips pursed together and he looked up at Jason with those hot-coal eyes. If he'd looked at her like that, Sarah might have caught on fire.
"If we're not getting paid for this gig, I'm leaving," said the voice behind her. She and Isaiah watched Jason walk away. When he got to the door, Isaiah started to rise, as well.
"If he goes…" He started towards the door. "I guess I go."
"Wait," she said, the words catching in her throat. "What if I could pay you both back somehow?"
"Like what? I don't take loans. The business doesn't see us coming back to the same place that often, after all. It's dangerous to stay in one place too long. The wrong sort of people catch on to what you're doing. And I don't need to have any books shelved."
She got up and wrapped her arms around his thick chest. He was big, she realized. He seemed proportional, and she'd only seen him standing relatively far away, but this close, the two of them together, he must have been a foot and a half taller than her.
"I could pay you with… you know. I could show you both a good time."
Isaiah turned, his hands on her shoulders, his eyes staring into hers. It was hard not to look away. Whatever it was that drove him, whatever it was that made him the person he was, he had more of it than anyone she'd ever known.
His eyes were already burning into her, looking deep inside. What did he see? His lips pursed, and then he leaned in and claimed a kiss from her lips before she had a chance to react.
His kiss was like a drug, sending her mind into overdrive.
"Fine," he growled as he pulled away. "I'll take the job."
Sarah pressed her body into him, feeling his hard muscles through his clothes, feeling it press back against her own soft form. She pushed back against him when his hand came up to squeeze her ass.
"Don't you need to go talk to Jason?"
He kissed her again in response, his hands not resting as he explored her body. Sarah's skin lit up in her mind, sending sharp signals of pleasure wherever he touched.
She was just paying for his services. Paying for the safety that only he could provide, the only way that she knew how. She wouldn't admit that it was pleasure, that she wanted it as much as he.
His kiss grazed her neck, a soft brush, and then it was gone, and his mouth had moved lower, kissing her exposed collar bone, kissing down the low neck of her shirt. He exposed one of her breasts and claimed it in his mouth, the heat and the sharp, electric pleasure mixing and merging and driving Sarah mad.
This was nothing like the last time she'd been with a man. He had left her bored and she'd let herself believe that it was no better than spending quality time with a dirty book and a vibrator.
This was something more, something that got deep into her mind and twisted her core, tying knots in her stomach that she wanted nothing more than to let him undo.
"I…" He let out a long breath and stepped back. "Now isn't the right time. We've got—"
He stopped when they heard footsteps coming up to the door, pounding the ground hard, like someone running. The door burst open a split-second later.
"We've got trouble." Jason looked more serious than she'd ever seen him. Whatever 'trouble' meant, she didn't want to have to find out if it scared a monster hunter this much.
She only heard the sirens a moment later, only registered their meaning a moment after that. What did the police want with her apartment? It was only when a loudspeaker came on instructing her to come out with her both her hands visible that she realized. They were here for her.
Why were the police here for her? She hadn't done anything wrong. Even with the strange men that they'd left behind in the alley, she hadn't done anything. It had all been the two men in the room with her now. A voice pulled her out of her stupor. A voice she didn't recognize until later.
"You have one chance to escape, Miss Lincoln. You can come with me, and your friends here will be spared, or you can resist, and they'll both be dead before they hit the ground."
She turned to face the speaker. He was in her bedroom, stepping out of the deep shadows and into the main room where the overhead light provided dim illumination. A well-dressed man, a man who looked as if he came from not-inconsiderable wealth.
How had he gotten in? There was no ground access to the fire escape outside her window, and he wasn't wearing a policeman's uniform.
"Come with me, and I promise, everything will be fine."
She heard the words come out of his mouth and realized with a jolt that he was right. There was nothing that she could do, but if she went with him—surely Isaiah and Jason had been wrong. Whatever the situation was, he certainly wasn't a vampire. He wasn't going to hurt her.
The hand around her arm, yanking her away, brought her suddenly to the realization that she'd already started moving towards him. Jason's hand was tight, like a vice, and he pulled her along behind. The well-dressed mystery man moved to follow with surprising speed, but Isaiah took a long step and stood in his way.
"You'll leave her be," he growled. Was that a note of… protectiveness?
Sarah's heart fluttered. Why was he risking his neck for her? Why, when the man had promised not to hurt her if she came quietly? When he'd promised that Isaiah and his partner could get aw
ay safely before their identities were revealed?
The knife flashed again in Isaiah's hand, his hand moving as quick as thought towards the mystery man's chest. The other man's hand shot up and grabbed the blade, twisting it out of Isaiah's hand before he could do anything to stop it.
"Now, that could hurt someone."
The smell of cooked meat, like sizzling bacon, filled the room, just enough that Sarah noticed it before Jason kicked through the door and pulled her along with him. They wouldn't have much of a head start, she thought. Not if Isaiah didn't hold the other man off for a very long time.
Now that she was out of the room, into the cold night, she realized what had just happened. That, she realized, wasn't any normal man. He wasn't a ghoul, either.
That had been Victor Reagan. She'd seen him on TV once, years ago. He'd looked no different then than he did now.
He was a vampire, she knew with a startling certainty. He'd been faster than anyone she'd ever seen, and from the way that he'd torn the knife from Isaiah's hand she knew he must have been very strong.
He was built to hunt and eat humans, an apex predator that was supposed to be nearly unkillable.
And she and Jason had just left Isaiah alone with him to die.
2
"He's a big boy, he can take care of himself."
Jason's voice was hard and icy, as if he didn't have any feelings at all about the partner they'd both left behind. Once they'd hit the ground, he'd thrown Sarah over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and she was still trying to wriggle out of his grasp. She only stopped when he finally put her down in a large room that looked for all the world like an abandoned warehouse.
He was breathing hard, but that didn't stop him from grabbing her before she could make it to the door when she immediately bolted. He turned her over easily and his hand came down in a hard slap on Sarah's bottom. The sting sent a shock through her entire body, leaving behind a pleasant buzz between her thighs.