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1
Mila
I’d been running so long that when they finally caught me, I almost welcomed it.
Almost.
I slipped around a burly shopper in neon-green board shorts to examine the avocados. But as I reached for one, a man’s hand lashed out, ensnaring my wrist.
I twisted and tried to jerk away, but he squeezed so tight I gasped in pain. I stopped fighting, and with my other hand, slid the switchblade from my back pocket.
Cool lips touched my ear. “I wouldn’t, if I were you,cher. Security would be very interested in what you have in that backpack.”
I stilled, heart thumping. Ahead of us, the man in the board shorts rattled down the aisle with his loaded cart, oblivious. In the next aisle over, a woman with a flat Midwest accent asked where the wine was.
I lifted my chin. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“No?” He started to unzip my backpack.
Busted in the produce aisle for three chocolate bars, a can of sardines, a hunk of cheddar and a bag of peaches.
“Stop it!” I hissed and tried again to twist away, but he clamped powerful fingers on my arms, controlling me easily.
“Then you’ll come with me.”
His hands were cool, inhumanly strong. A vampire, with a touch of New Orleans in his voice.
I licked my lips. A vampire can hear your pounding heart, turn your fear against you. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. “What’s this about?”
Like I didn’t know. Syndicate vampires had been hunting me for three years. But if I could throw him off guard, I might still be able to escape.
“You’ll see.” The vampire turned me to face him. He was blond and startlingly beautiful, with dark brows and a lean, sculpted face.
My gaze went to the black wolf tattoo on the side of his neck. An enforcer.
The blood chunked to ice in my veins.
A woman trailed by a curly-haired kid in a dance leotard turned into our aisle.
The blond vampire’s mouth curved in a predatory smile. “Say you’ll come, Camila. Or that pretty lady with the little girl in the tutu”—he jerked his chin at the woman and the kid—”will be food for me and my colleague.”
Bile filled my throat. One thing I’d learned in three years on the run was that vampires tended to underestimate humans. I hunched my shoulders, made my tone sullen. “I’ll come.”For now.
The vampire’s hum of satisfaction raised fine hairs all over my body.
He removed my backpack and dropped it on the floor. “You won’t need that.”
A peach fell out and rolled across the aisle. I stifled a moan.
Insane, right? To be worried about fruit when you’re being kidnapped. But I’d lusted after those peaches like a teenager craves the one boy she can’t have, my shrunken stomach grinding at the sight of the sweet, juicy fruit.
The enforcer put an arm around my shoulder and walked me out of the store. His scent was dark and earthy, like the deepest part of a forest. I swallowed hard. I didn’t want this man close to me—he made my skin crawl—but that familiar forest aroma made my insides knot with yearning.
As he urged me out the sliding doors, I furtively palmed the switchblade again. Dusk spread like a great, malevolent bat over the parking lot. The humid July air pressed on my skin, gluing my thick, wavy hair to my nape.
My gaze locked on the limo with tinted windows idling at the curb. God, I’d been stupid to let myself get caught out this close to dusk, but it had been weeks since I’d seen one of the undead.
My captor hooked a finger into the waistband of my too-loose shorts. I’d lost weight, the last few months.
