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A vampire would smell my fear. He’d hear my heartbeat.
But I still had to try. I would never give up without a fight.
Even if this wasn’t the one I’d been waiting for, I was ready to go down swinging. The only good vamp was a dead vamp, as far as I was concerned.
With each step I took bringing me closer to the office and the makeshift weapon within, my fear began to dissipate and adrenaline fueled me forward.
In the week following my father’s death, while I prepared for life without him, making all the necessary arrangements to bury him and step into his role, I discovered a letter.
Though he’d been detailed about the specifics of his agreement, his ‘blood bond’ as he’d called it, Dad had been vague about who my adversary was.
A vampire named Eli, though that was the only bit of personal information he’d given me about the monster that would come for me.
Apparently, Eli had saved my life, and the blood bond had been made because of that favor.
But he hadn’t saved my mother’s life.
And, twenty years later, he refused to save my father’s.
Eli made me an orphan, and in doing so, created his own worst enemy.
I knew enough about vamps now to know that all he’d had to do was offer my father some of his blood and the cancer would have cleared his system in a matter of hours. So, though my father had supplied the bloodsucker with animal blood for decades to keep up his lifestyle or whatever the fuck that was about, Eli had turned his back on Dad in his greatest time of need.
And that was all I needed to know about the man. No, the monster.
It was unforgivable.
I would repay his cruelty in kind.
When I reached the office door, I slipped my hand slowly around the knob. Swallowing hard, I closed my eyes and braced myself for the sound of the knob twisting in the silence—
A hand snaked around my neck, cold and unforgiving.
I gasped, but the sound was quickly cut off with my breath as the fingers tightened around my throat.
Panic seized my chest, my heart racing as it beat against my ribs. I raised my hands and scratched at the cold grip, but my struggle was futile. I was gravely unmatched. Tears sprang to life in my eyes as I struggled, trailing down my cheeks.
A whimper crept up my throat, but even that sound couldn’t slip past the intruder’s vise hold on my windpipe.
He lifted me off my feet until just the toes of my sneakers shuffled back and forth against the floor, but then he hauled me backwards to his body, my back pressed against his hard chest, and his fingers loosened enough that I could suck in a deep breath.
With that breath, a familiar scent hit my nose.
Then Vinny’s voice in my ear broke the silence. “How can I trust that you’re safe if you insist upon being so careless?”
Fingers still scrambling against his hand, I gulped air into my lungs.
“Stop scratching me, Jacqueline.”
I froze, then curled my hands around his wrist and gripped him tightly.
“Good girl,” he murmured, and the feather-soft kiss of his breath sent a shiver down my spine.
Vinny chuckled. “Such a weakness for praise.”
I scowled, though with his head positioned over my shoulder the way it was, he likely couldn’t see my expression.
“Tell me what you did wrong.”
