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Lawrence took a menacing step forward, and Dr. Reynolds grabbed hold of my arm.
I shrieked as he shoved me toward the vampire. Lawrence caught me, and I felt the undeniable strength in his grip. He could easily break me in half, and I wasn’t strong enough to stop him.
But strength wasn’t my built-in weapon against vampires.
Lawrence inhaled the scent of my blood, and his lips drew back from his sharp white fangs. It seemed impossible, but his already black eyes grew even darker, like shiny, soulless buttons.
Dr. Reynolds edged toward the door. “Bite her. Feed on her blood. Give in to your instincts. You can’t resist the Nightshade in Jill’s veins.”
So much for apologies and commiserating about an experiment gone wrong. He’d thrown me to the wolves without a second thought to save himself.
Son of a bitch.
“No!” I pushed at the vampire, but his grip on me only grew tighter. “You don’t want to do this. If you taste my blood, you’ll die. You’re not like Declan. You’re a full vampire. Hear me, Lawrence. Don’t do this.”
An animalistic growl rolled out from deep in the vampire’s throat. “Your scent...it’s so powerful. Too powerful.”
I knew my bones would snap if I fought him any harder. “You’re a smart guy. You know what will happen if you bite me.”
There was barely any human intelligence left in his gaze. “Maybe I want to die.”
Definitely not the answer I’d hoped for. “Lawrence, no...”
“First, though,” he continued. “I want everyone else in this cursed building to die.”
The vampire shoved me and I flew backward. My head slammed against the side of the examining table and I hit the ground hard.
Out of the corner of my eye I watched as Lawrence pulled open a drawer and drew out a silver scalpel. He then turned toward Dr. Reynolds.
“Put that down, you fool,” Reynolds snarled.
“You’re not the only one who’s kept secrets, Victor,” Lawrence’s voice was not much more than a growl. “Your wife wanted to leave you long before she was killed. She’d fallen in love with another vampire. She hated that you spent all your time here, working on ways to kill her kind. Our kind. If you hadn’t been such a damn workaholic, then maybe Clara wouldn’t have ended up on the wrong side of that hunter’s stake last month.”
Dr. Reynolds’s previously harsh expression now filled with outrage.
“Liar!” he snarled.
“She confided in me a week before her death. Said that she’d rather die than stay with you another day. I guess she got her wish.”
“Careful what you say to me next, Lawrence, or I’ll send you downstairs with the rest of the monsters so you can share their fate.” Dr. Reynolds clenched his jaw. “You ungrateful, foolish—”
I didn’t see Lawrence’s arm move, since the movement was too fast to register. All I saw was the spray of bright red blood as his blade slashed Dr. Reynold’s throat.
The doctor staggered back, slipping in his own blood, and he crashed down next to me in a sputtering, twitching heap.
“Go to hell,” Lawrence told his dying boss. “It’s where assholes like you belong.”
I fought to remain conscious, but I’d hit my head too hard to stay that way for much longer. As my vision blurred, and everything began to go dark, I registered that Declan had begun to rise slowly and shakily to his feet, feeling for the sharp silver stake at his belt.
It was like it had been in my nightmare. Everything slowed down, and the air thickened. I couldn’t seem to move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t scream.
The vampire, his face now streaked with Dr. Reynolds’ blood, turned his cold gaze toward Declan...just as my world faded completely to black.
CHAPTERTWELVE
The alarm woke me.
I found myself laying in an awkward position on the cold hard floor, staring straight into the glazed, lifeless eyes of Dr. Reynolds.
