Jarvis wasn’t fooled.
He’d had the dance club under surveillance for hours. Long enough to stiffen his shoulders and dim his sight. Still, when the waif exited, followed soon after by a gorilla in jeans, he had known. He’d seen this set up before. Little Miss Victim luring a big bad predator to his turn-about-is-fair-play demise. He wasn’t impressed. A killer was a killer. It didn’t matter who they chose to kill—or feed upon—as the case may be.
Winters wanted to wait until she moved on before opening the squeaky door of his ancient Ford Fairlane. It took longer than he expected. His hand was frozen on the door handle as she leaned back against the brick wall for a long moment. At more than a hundred yards away, he couldn’t see the expression on her face. He didn’t need to. He’d seen that satiated look countless times before. Her body would be in an unresponsive swoon. Her face would be slack, way past satisfied. The kind of look every man dreamed his lover would have after a tumble in bed…except, of course, for the fangs.
Finally, she staggered around the corpse at her feet and made her way out of the alley and down the dark street. Too many busted streetlights made her tiny figure seem hunched and grotesque as it stumbled in and out of shadows. A fitting aura for a monster.
Jarvis tightened his fingers and wrenched the handle harder than even the stubborn forty-year-old mechanism warranted. The rusty shriek was followed by a thud as he headed after his prey. He hadn’t been able to see her face, but he knew what it had looked like. Pure, drunken ecstasy. She would die happy.
***
The woman who was once Holly Spinnaker pulled her feet away from the unconscious man and shuddered against the warm zing arching through her flesh. She wasn’t ready to let go, but dying had to be preferable to this mini-death, this loathing of the “life” she now led.
She wiped her hands on the hips of her jeans as she slid along the wall and away from the would-be rapist without so much as tapping him with the toe of her sneaker. The awkwardness of the maneuver caused one elbow to knock and drag against rough brick, but she didn’t care. She was as tainted as she needed to be. His blood was in her for God’s sake. She wouldn’t touch him again.
She stumbled when she was finally in the clear. The blood had gone straight to her head like too many glasses of sparkling champagne on New Year’s Eve. The memory of that cool, bubbly sweetness mocked her. She pushed it away, but she knew the analogy would stay with her. When she finally made it home and her bed spun beneath her, she would think of it. When she woke tomorrow night with a head-thumping, soul-splitting hangover, the sick analogy would be there to haunt her.
She didn’t know she might not live to see tomorrow. She was too new. Too inexperienced. As she made her way across town, dizzy and weaving, she didn’t notice a man following her. She didn’t realize she’d been zeroed in on as prey for the second time that night.
The voice mail light was blinking when she finally managed to get the key in the lock and open the door to her loft. She walked by the phone, straight to the kitchen where she doused her hands with orange antibacterial dishwashing liquid and scrubbed her face and hair and arms and hands in a disinfecting frenzy. Suds-filled water splattered the floor and the countertop and dripped into her eyes.
She pushed her hair back and stood dripping and shivering and quaking in the dim shadows of a home that had seen happier times.
The light still blinked. It beckoned her and she moved away from the sink toward it. Habit, despair, longing—all propelled her forward. Her shoes left damp footprints all along the deep rose-colored carpet that was actually a pale shade of mauve when the sun gleamed through the bank of high windows above her. She hadn’t seen that bright pastel hue in over a month.
With a cold, damp finger, she reached for the button. Even in the dark she found its worn rubber pad. Habit or, heaven forbid, her coordination and night vision were better, aided by the fresh blood in her veins.
A slightly breathless voice filled the room at high volume as it filled her heart with pain.
“Holly? You there? Pick up… Well, guess I didn’t catch you. Hope you have fun at the concert—”
“But not too much fun,” a different voice interrupted her mother’s, deep and male, full of humor and fatherly concern.
“John, stop it,” her mother protested with a laugh.
Holly could imagine the loving push Elizabeth Spinnaker would have given her husband. She could close her eyes and see the playful way her parents had always interacted with each other.
“Listen, Holly…call me tomorrow and tell me all about it.”
“And don’t let Jayne talk you into anything stupid.” Another interruption from her dad was followed by a less playful admonition from her mother. Then, the last words of the last normal message she would ever receive from her parents echoed through the dark empty room. “We’ll see you next week for Christmas.” That from her mother. “Be careful.” That from her father. And then, they were gone.
She didn’t replay the four following messages. She didn’t want to hear their concern as it grew into terror when they realized their only daughters had disappeared without a trace. Instead, she pressed the button to replay the normal message. Again and again and again. She knew it would wear out one night, but she stood shivering and compulsively torturing herself with one replay after another.
***
Jarvis listened from a dark corner. It wasn’t smart, but he listened. Better to have made the kill quickly after slipping through the unlocked window. Every one of them had been human at one time. It was the nature of the beast. You took that knowledge and you buried it or you couldn’t do the job. He should have attacked during her odd dishwashing-liquid ablutions. It would have been quick, easy and painless…for him anyway. Vampires didn’t go quick, easy or painless, but it was better to catch them by surprise. It saved a lot of wear and tear on his part.
He had watched, mesmerized by her frenzied washing. Then, he’d been caught off-guard by the sound of disembodied voices floating up from the answering machine. Her parents? For the whole long year from hell he’d managed to avoid empathy. Now it punched him right in the gut, leaving him nauseated and slightly out of breath.
She was a waif. That hadn’t been an act. He could finally see her in the greenish glow from the machine that held her transfixed. He could see the runway-model quality to her hollow cheeks and the bones of her delicate wrists. Less than half an hour ago she’d dropped a man who weighed a good fifty pounds more than he did. He stiffened as his brain gave his heart that much-needed reminder.
She was pitiful. And her compulsive washing and repetitive playing of the message on the machine made her seem desperately human. But she wasn’t. She was a monster. And she had to die.
A powerful attraction is the last thing these arch enemies need. Or is it?
The Trouble with Curses
© 2008 Anara Bella
Selena Tremayne is different. For one thing, how many vampires do you know faint at the sight of blood? Despite the problems her “differences” cause, she’s grateful. It means she’s not an all-out-evil killing machine. It also means she can’t afford to let anyone get too close. And a guy like Rafe, delicious as he is, is to be avoided at all costs.
Rafe Hunter is a vampire slayer, an odd job thrust upon him by dint of birth. And with his augmented abilities, no one else does it better. Those abilities run into a major short-circuit, however, when he meets Selena. The mysterious beauty clouds his every instinct—something he can ill afford in his line of work. Because of her, his quarry has somehow slipped out of his grasp. Twice.
Coincidences are piling up, and he can’t help but wonder if simple lust is the culprit. Or if it’s something deeper—with dangerous repercussions that extend beyond anything either of them imagined…
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Trouble with Curses:
“Okay, Rafe. I know you’re back there. You may as well show yourself.”
Nothing.
&nbs
p; “I have no intention of letting you find out where I live, so you have nothing to gain by following me. I’ll wander around all over town all night long before I’ll show you where I live.”
A dark shadow separated itself from the wall. “How did you know I was here?”
His rich, deep voice shivered down her spine in its usual intoxicating way. “I have a sixth sense about these things.”
“Has to be something like that because I’m damned good at what I do. No one’s ever caught me tailing them before.”
She threw him a quizzical look. “You do this often, do you?”
He chuckled. “Actually, I do. I’m a private investigator.”
Well, that explained it. If she hadn’t felt him behind her, she wouldn’t have known. “Just my luck.”
“I didn’t intend for you to ever find out I’d followed you home tonight. I was just going to make sure you got in safely and leave.”
That would have been great except he’d still have found out where she lived. “That’s really nice, but I already told you that I’m fine. I don’t need you checking up on me.”
She heard rather than saw him shrug. One of the perks of having amazing hearing.
“Sorry. My father always taught me that you took care of a lady. Made sure she got home safe and sound.”
“But I wasn’t your date, so I’m not your responsibility.”
“Doesn’t matter. Look, Selena, whether you like it or not I like you, and I want to get to know you a helluvalot better. I won’t give up on you anytime soon, it’s just not my way so you may as well give in and give me a chance.”
“And I have no say in the matter?”
“Yes and no.”
Despite herself she laughed. “Meaning?”
“You’ve already decided. Your heart and body have already said yes. It’s only your mind that refuses to give in.”
“Unfortunately for you, it’s my mind that’s got the deciding vote.” The second the words passed her lips she wished them back. She’d as much as admitted to what he said.
He shook his head. Stepping closer, he reached out and cupped her cheek. “No, it doesn’t. This is the real deciding factor.”
She felt his sweet breath on her face just moments before his lips gently brushed across her own. They were feather-light and warm, at first coaxing, then growing more insistent as her response became evident.
She knew she should push him away, but she couldn’t seem to make herself do it. She’d been fantasizing about kissing Rafe from the moment she’d first heard his voice trickle over her senses. Now that it was happening, the last thing she wanted to do was stop him.
Her hands developed a mind of their own. Happily, they explored everything they could reach, from his hard biceps to his strong neck and finally ended up clutching his tight ass for everything she was worth.
She was right in her initial assessment—he was most definitely sex-on-legs. And right now, with his erection nestled between their bodies, she wanted nothing more than to traverse the very path that led to what felt like his very impressive sex.
She moaned into his mouth and ground her hips against him, feeling him return the exquisite pressure. Their tongues danced along each other, questing, exploring, enticing. Her breath caught. Blood pounded in her ears, all but igniting in her veins. She tried to tell herself it was just a kiss, nothing more, but who was she kidding? She’d never felt anything that came close to this kiss before.
Everything about him struck a chord with everything she was, and everything she wanted for herself, but was too afraid to take.
With an answering groan, his mouth started eating at hers, their tongues now melding together.
Tasting.
Needing.
Wanting.
h Lord, how she wanted. She wanted it all with this guy. Sex without a doubt, but the terrifying thing was she wanted more than that. She could deal with just the physical. In fact, Anne was probably right that all she needed was a good, long night of hot and heavy sex.
But with Rafe, she found herself dreaming of the happily-ever-after, and there was no happily-ever-after for her. There couldn’t be because of what she was.
Pushing him away with a determination she didn’t even know she possessed, she stepped back. Did she have the same stunned expression on her face he did? With disgust, she realized she must.
Neither said anything. They couldn’t. Both of them were breathing so hard you’d have thought they’d been running for their lives. Then again, maybe they had. Rafe, because he was chasing after her. Her, because she was striving to get away from his magnetic attraction.
The whole thing was ridiculous.
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Damn her voice’s quavery betrayal.
He reached out and skimmed his thumb across her lips. “Because I can’t.”
She shook off his touch and his hand dropped away. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can give you.”
Selena threw her hands up in frustration. “What am I going to do with you?”
An utterly wicked chuckle erupted from him. “I can think of a few things.”
“I’ll just bet you can.” So could she, although she’d never let him know it.
Despite her resistance, he pulled her into his arms and held her close. “Stop fighting this, Selena. At least give us a chance.”
It felt so good to be held in his arms. She felt warm, secure and cherished. She nuzzled into his shoulder and inhaled his comforting scent.
How was it was possible to feel so comfortable with a man and yet be so turned on you wanted to screw him senseless at the same time? It didn’t make sense.
She sighed and snuggled in closer. “You need to go away.”
His arms tightened, drawing her even closer. “Whatever you say. Just as soon as I see you home.”
“You’re not going to give in on this, are you?”
He kissed her forehead. “Nope.”
“Bastard.”
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