I shook my head to clear it, the effects of the liquor and drugs already making my mind muddy.
“Here. I’m here.”
Accompanied by the chinking of chains, a small, wizened creature, about three feet high, emerged from the mound of material. He looked old, grizzled, with a scrawny neck and a tuft of white hair that reminded me of those big-eyed troll dolls. His eyes were huge, too, much too large for his face.
“Let me go.” The creature held up his hands, and at first, the only thing I could see was just how disproportionately large his hands were compared to the rest of his body. Then, he shook his wrists and I saw the manacles, big, iron ones, that bit into his flesh.
“What are you?” I whispered, unable to believe my eyes and quite convinced Don laced that drink or syringe with something hallucinogenic.
“A bog troll,” he replied. “And I’ll grant you a wish, anything you please, if you help me.”
“A troll? Trolls don’t grant wishes.” Man, twenty minutes? I was already tripping.
“And how many trolls have you met?” the wizened creature challenged.
I snorted, pointed at him, and then blew imaginary smoke from my finger as if it were a gun. “You got me there.” I chuckled. I felt strangely relaxed.
“Please,” the bog troll whispered.
“Sure, I’ll let you go.” I met him halfway, expecting him to vanish, but he didn’t. He sure felt solid, as did his manacles. “Yeah, these aren’t budging,” I said, giving them a yank. “You need a key.”
The bog troll wilted.
“It’s ok,” I patted him on the head. “You’ll vanish soon enough and then you’ll be free.” I smiled at my own cleverness and then frowned. God, I was losing control. Jeremy. I had to focus but it was… So. Freaking. Hard.
The doorknob jiggled, signaling Don’s return.
“Tell the Count I’m here,” the troll hissed and then scurried back into the clothes pile.
“Sure thing,” I agreed. I was feeling pretty good. Relaxed. I could still outwit Don. I just had to drive home, pick up Jeremy and skedaddle to Canada. Easy Peasy.
Don appeared out of nowhere. “Here are your keys.”
I winced. “No need to shout,” I grumbled as I grabbed them.
Then, I was in the driver’s seat, wondering how I’d suddenly transported there.
“Does it matter?” I asked myself and then giggled.
I had to get home. For some reason. Oh, yeah. Jeremy.
“Right,” I said, scowling in determination, but then, I caught sight of my reflection in the rearview mirror. My pupils looked weird. So large. Kinda like that trippin’ troll.
“Better start driving,” Don’s voice boomed through the window. “Shit, Kass. Don’t pass out.”
I saluted—with a middle finger—and then backed out of the driveway.
I don’t remember much of the drive back to the mansion. It was dark and the oncoming headlights bounced around like beach balls. Several times, I swerved off the road.
Each time, Don appeared in my window, yelling at me to focus and get back. He kept shouting numbers at me. I floored the gas pedal, just to get away from him.
Then, I was pulling into the Count’s driveway, or nearly, anyway. I saw the oncoming car at the last second and veered to the right, straight into the ditch.
My head smacked hard against the steering wheel as the car came to an abrupt stop.
The pain cleared the fog from my mind and gave me a moment of clarity.
Jeremy. I had to find him.
The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth as I opened the door and fell out of my car.
“Shit, bitch,” Don was yelling at me. “Can’t you do anything right?”
My nose throbbed in tandem with the punch Don had delivered to my jaw. I was a freaking mess.
“Jeremy,” I whimpered.
“Well, you missed the fun,” Don spat. He hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “That was him. In your dad’s car. By now, they’re halfway back home.”
“No!” I gasped.
The terror in my voice made Don smile. “Oh, it’ll get a lot worse for you, baby doll.”
I clamped my mouth shut. He was pure evil. And evil had a lot of tricks.
“So, I have your attention now?” he asked.
He did, but he wouldn’t for long. I felt a blackness rising up inside me. It was cold, like I imagined death would be.
He folded his arms and peered down at me, obviously getting off on tormenting me. “I'm saving Jeremy for last, for when I really need to punish you. In the meantime, you’ll do what I say. You see, I’ve taken your precious brother away. Legally.” He waved his phone in my face. “I’m turning your ass in for driving under the influence. Got the videos to prove it. When they arrive, they'll arrest you on the spot. Your dad will be all too happy to file a restraining order against you, and he'll have no problem getting one, not with the blood alcohol that you’ll clock. Not to mention the drugs and kidnapping.”
“No,” I choked.
“They’ll never give you custody after this. You’ve lost him now. And if you fail to get me that chest and the contents of that safe, you’ll lose him for real. Permanently.”
He kept talking, but the darkness rose to swallow me and I couldn’t battle them both. All I could think about was Jeremy and the fact he was gone.
I ran down the driveway, screaming his name.
14
I don’t know how, but suddenly, I was bursting into the mansion. I couldn’t seem to stand up straight. The ground rolled in a constant motion beneath my feet.
“Miss Kassandra?”
Leonard’s long, narrow face floated before me, and as I watched, his nose grew longer and longer, until it had to be at least six feet long.
I frowned.
Something was wrong. Really wrong. But I couldn’t remember what, or how. In fact, I couldn’t remember anything.
Then, suddenly, the Count stood before me, looking like a sculpted Greek god in a half-unbuttoned shirt.
“Why just half undone?” I giggled, swaggering toward him. “Just take it all off. No silly fig leaves for you.” I said, poking my finger into his muscled chest for emphasis.
The Count’s dark eyes latched onto mine, and the more I stared into them, the more I began to feel the pain, taste the blood.
“What happened?” he asked, his deep baritone sounding so strangely far away.
What had happened? A jumble of thoughts crowded into my brain at that. Images of Don. A troll? My car in a ditch. Don’s fist punching me in the jaw. All that alcohol…
Then, the blackness running beneath it all reared its ugly head once more, and suddenly I was tired. Just so. Damn. Tired. I was battling something, but I was too exhausted to figure it out anymore.
It was time to close my eyes.
“Kass,” the Count’s voice vibrated beneath my breasts.
Hmmm. I must have fallen? I didn’t care. Not anymore.
“Don’t go to sleep.” This time, it was Leonard ordering me around. I liked him, but he wasn't compelling enough to keep me awake.
And anyway, I couldn’t open my eyes. They were too heavy. Just like it was too heavy to move my lungs to breathe.
I began to float, then. Or was it the Count running with me? I decided to go with that. It was much more exciting.
The next thing I knew, I lay on a bed. Candles surrounded me in a beautiful symphony of flickering light. The silk sheets felt so soft against my skin.
A body lay behind me, hard and strong. Warm lips suckled my neck, lips that pulled at my flesh in time with my beating heart. Lips that, with each passing second, drew me back from the blackness and into the candlelit realm surrounding me.
A different kind of haziness washed over me, a sensual one, and I moaned, arching back against chiseled chest and powerful thighs that cradled me.
The lips moved up the column of my throat and then over to nip the lobe of my ear.
“Like
an instrument,” the Count whispered.
I didn’t think. I just reacted. I leaned back, pressing myself against him, wanting to feel every inch of his body connecting with mine. Safety. Lust. Understanding. I felt it all in his skin as it melded against mine. I didn’t know how I’d gotten there, but I didn’t care. I was there, where I belonged, and that was all that mattered.
He buried his nose against my skin and breathed deeply of my scent. “There’s still more,” he whispered.
As his palm outlined the curve of my hip, his mouth returned to my neck. I felt his teeth grazing my flesh, and a nip, like two needles, breaking the skin, and as he began to suck, I gasped in pleasure.
Never had I felt such heat running through me, pulsing with the need building in my core. I needed him. All of him.
Yet even as I began to writhe, pushing myself against his hardening flesh, images paraded through my head.
A dreamlike creature with troll hair.
My car in a ditch.
Don.
Hell, why would I want to think of Don now? I frowned and shoved him back into the recesses of my mind. But he wouldn’t stay there.
The strange fuzziness in my thoughts began to clear.
I opened my eyes again. This time, I recognized my surroundings.
I was in the Count’s room.
Naked.
On his bed.
God, he felt naked, too.
How had I ended up here? How freaking unfair to have forgotten such a thing?
But really, did it matter with the way his hot mouth pulled at the tender flesh at the side of my neck? I shuddered in pleasure with every sweep of his tongue.
I shifted beneath him, turning a little, enough to see his dark hair against my skin and the way the candlelight played over his rippling muscles. How erotic. I had to touch him. Feel him.
I slid my hand down, but the moment I touched his flesh, he lifted his head, surprised.
I froze, staring at his mouth.
His teeth were sharpened into a razor point and stained with my something red.
I reached for my own neck, feeling the sticky trail of blood, and suddenly all the pieces finally clicked together, completing the puzzle that had been the Count.
He doesn't eat.
He drinks only that strange, red wine.
He sleeps during the day and shuns the daylight within his home.
He has no heartbeat and doesn't show up on film.
And he has fangs and drinks blood.
I resisted the word that came to mind, knowing how insane it sounded, even to me.
But I couldn't deny what I was seeing with my own eyes, feeling with my own body.
I could blame the liquor and the drugs… that would make the most sense.
But I could feel the toxins leaving my body. My head was clearing. That's not how hallucinations worked for me.
That left me with one conclusion.
The Count was… a vampire?
And I was his meal.
15
My heart beat in my chest so loudly I couldn't hear the Count speak for a moment. His mouth moved, but the only sound I could hear was the panicked thumping.
"Why are we naked?" I looked around, trying to piece together the holes in my memory. A desperate fear teased the edges of my mind, but I couldn't remember why or what happened.
Our clothes lay in a folded pile on the iron-banded trunk at the end of the Count’s massive four-poster bed. As I scurried off the satin sheets to reach for my shirt, a lock of wet hair flopped into my eyes.
"And why are we both soaking wet?" I asked, my gaze catching on the damp hollow in the mattress in the shape of our bodies.
The Count swung his feet off the bed. As he joined me at the trunk to shrug into his own shirt, I saw my blood, still staining his crimson lips.
"And what the actual hell?” I jabbered, fumbling with my jeans. God, it was like someone had duct taped the pant legs together. My body buzzed, and my mind leapt from one thought to another, but none of it made sense. “You’re a vampire?"
The Count just stood there smirking. "Which question would you like an answer to first?" he asked softly, his voice sending shivers of pleasure through my traitorous body.
"I don't know," I shouted, my voice far too loud compared to his. "Just, tell me what the hell is going on."
Panic seized me, causing my heart to race, my vision to narrow, and my palms to sweat.
The Count searched my face and then with a frown, pulled me into his arms. “You’re safe,” he murmured into my hair, rubbing his hands up and down my back. "You're safe now."
I melted further into his chest, luxuriating in the feel of him even as I mourned the clothes that now created a wall between us. The memory of his body pressed against mine, skin to skin, melting me from the inside out. Part of me wanted to undress us both and crawl right back into bed together, staying there forever. But the rest of me knew I couldn't do that. I had to know what had happened.
Still, I stayed there in his embrace, tears stinging my eyes until I calmed enough to ask, "What happened?"
He brushed a stray lock of wet hair back from my face. "You showed up last night pumped full of drugs. You would have died from an overdose. I had to suck the poison out to save you."
Don. He’d kidnapped me. Kept me prisoner. Drugged me.
The car that almost hit me. My father. "Oh my God, Jeremy! My dad took him!" I attempted to pull away from the Count, but he held me closer still.
"Your brother is safe. I did not let that man take him. Leonard has been keeping an eye on him while I tended to you."
"Jeremy’s here?" I asked, tears falling down my cheeks. "Safe?"
The Count nodded. "I swear it. I will not let harm come to him.” He paused and then whispered, “Or you."
I froze, stunned by the longing and desire in his voice. Desire…for me? Emotion threatened to choke me, then the rest of what he’d said sank in. Overdose. “You saved my life?”
"Yes."
"But why were we naked? And wet?" I asked, not that I minded waking up naked with him, but if we were gonna get that sexy and shit, it would’ve been nice to remember it.
"You vomited all over both of us. I removed our clothing and put you in the shower to clean you up and help you gain some clarity. The latter goal failed, as you were too far gone, so I took you to bed to remove the drugs from your system.” As he finished buttoning the last button of his crisp white shirt, he added, “Leonard cleaned our clothes, returned them, and here we are."
"I vomited on you?" Even as I asked the question a flash of a scene paralyzed me. Him carrying me in his arms up the stairs. Me trying to flirt, then puking all over us both.
He hadn't flinched or shown any negative reaction. He’d just continued up the stairs, gently undressed me, and rinsed me off.
Nothing untoward had happened, which was good… cuz I wanted to be of sound mind and body for any untoward action I was going to get with the Count.
Oh shit.
The vampire.
My boss was a vampire.
"You're a vampire."
A smile crooked the corner of his mouth. "Yes."
"So that's a thing. A real thing?" I’d seen his fangs. And they weren’t the kind you could fake. But still, I had to ask.
"Yes."
"And Leonard?"
"Is not a vampire."
"But he's not human, is he?"
"No, not human, strictly speaking."
"So… you've killed people?"
He didn’t hesitate. "Yes."
That was it. Just yes. No justification or apology. No trying to convince me he sparkled in the sun and only killed bad people. Just ‘yes.’
"Are you going to hurt me or Jeremy?" I asked, biting my lower lip.
Again, he didn’t hesitate. "I would kill to protect either of you."
"You say that now, but will you swear it? No matter what I tell you, do you swear you won't harm me or my brother?” I a
sked. Because I had to tell him everything. There could be no more lies between us.
He narrowed his eyes at me but nodded sharply. "I swear it."
I exhaled a breath I didn't realize I was holding in. "Then sit. I have a story to tell you."
He pulled me with him to the velvet tufted loveseat in front of the fire. If only I could just sit there with him. If only I didn’t have to confess what I’d been up to. I knew by telling him the truth I was going to lose him. I just prayed I would survive it.
It took every shred of strength I possessed to face him, to begin. "I wasn't honest with you when I took this job," I confessed.
He raised an eyebrow but said nothing, waiting for me to continue.
"I was sent here to rob you." The words came out of my mouth like barbed explosives, landing between us and destroying anything that might have been growing there.
But I didn't hold back.
Didn't sugar coat it.
Didn't try to make myself look better than I am to him, just like I’m not making myself look better than I am to you.
He was as still as death while I spoke. Only when I got to the part about what Don did to me did he stiffen, his body tensed and readied itself like a panther on the prowl.
"Oh, and Don had a bog troll trapped in the house with me. I nearly forgot about all that with everything else that's happened," I added as an afterthought, and then I clamped my mouth shut to prevent myself from rambling any further. I was on the verge of babbling now, waiting for him to say something. Anything.
He remained silent for a very long time. The only sound in the room coming from the fire as the logs burned themselves down. I held my breath, worry and fear gnawing at me.
Then the Count stood abruptly and strode to a nearby chair to grab his black cloak draped over the back. When he reached the door, he turned to face me. "Don't leave the mansion."
And then he was gone.
I ran out of the room to stop him, to ask him what he was doing, to find out where we stood after all this, but he wasn’t there. Just like before, he seemed to simply vanish and reappear out of thin air.
I ground my teeth in frustration, then dashed up the stairs to find Jeremy. I needed to see with my own two eyes that he was safe.
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