Chapter One
It wasn’t being shot that was the problem. Or the fact that someone had apparently decided to beat the crap out of me beforehand. Or afterward. Or, considering the way I felt, possibly both.
I wasn’t sure, as I couldn’t seem to remember the fight that had left me bloody and bruised, with a bullet hole in my right thigh and another in my left shoulder. I couldn’t seem to remember much of anything else, either, including who the hell I was. But that still wasn’t the problem.
No, the problem was that I’d woken up next to a vampire.
One who was maddeningly hard to kill.
“If you would but listen to me for a moment,” he said, as I slammed his pretty red head against the concrete floor for the sixth freaking time.
“Okay,” I panted, wondering what the hell his skull was made of. Granite? “Let’s chat.”
Of course, that would be difficult since I’d just changed tactics, grabbing his throat and squeezing for all I was worth.
I wasn’t trying to choke him to death. That doesn’t work with creatures who don’t breathe, and the bastard’s neck was too muscular for me to close my hands around anyway. But most vamps have instincts left over from their human days, and they don’t like being grabbed there. It distracts them, messes up their concentration, makes them panic.
At least, I really hoped it did, since otherwise I was screwed.
He didn’t have fangs in me yet, but he didn’t need them. Because Hollywood had gotten it wrong. Even plain old vamps could leech blood molecules through the skin using a simple touch. As a master, this one could probably do it without even that, just by being in my vicinity, assuming he could concentrate. Which, judging by the bulging eyes, was probably not the case.
But then he got a leg over mine and flipped us.
Okay, then, I thought grimly. It looked like the choking thing wasn’t providing enough of a distraction. Fortunately, he’d left me a hand free.
So I used it to break his nose.
“Damn it!” He actually looked surprised. “Stop fighting me!”
“Sure thing,” I grunted, struggling for a foothold. “I’ll just lie here and let you drain me.”
“I’m not draining you!”
“Then why do I feel like shit?”
He stared down at me, exasperation and what looked weirdly like concern shimmering in liquid blue eyes. “Because you took two bullets in the last hour?”
Oh, yeah.
For a second, dizziness and an odd sense of familiarity combined to mess with my head. I stared up at the stranger, trying to place him. It should have been easy; he wasn’t exactly the sort of guy you forgot.
The hair was actually more auburn than red, and there was an absurd amount of it for a man, flowing over his shoulders and my hands. It should have made him look girlie, but somehow it didn’t. Maybe because it framed a strong, aristocratic face—high cheekbones, sensuous lips, hard jawline—that managed to be arresting even covered in blood from the broken nose. A nose that was already twitching back into place, like the smear of red was sinking back into the pale perfection of his skin, leaving him looking as if he’d never been injured at all and—
Damn it!
This is how they operate, I told myself harshly. They drain you until your brain doesn’t work so well, then turn on the innocence or beauty or charm, confusing the hell out of you until you black out and they finish the job. Only that so wasn’t happening this time.
Of course, that would be a lot easier to manage if I had a stake. Or a knife. Or anything remotely weapon-like, because hand-to-hand against this bastard was starting to look like a gesture in—
I paused, noticing the shackle dangling off my right wrist.
Oh, goodie.
“I’m trying to help you,” he rasped, somehow getting a hand under the chain before it decapitated him.
“Sure you are.” I grunted, really putting my back into it. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re my boyfriend, come to get me out of this.”
He burst out laughing, since clearly he was off his head.
Or maybe that was me, because now I was hearing voices.
“Status.” The word rang in my ear as clearly as if someone were looking over my shoulder. My head whipped around, but the only occupants of the iron-barred cage I’d woken up in were me, the vamp and a desiccated rat.
“I have…ugh…located her.”
“Estimated extraction time?”
“That is…still being determined.”
“There is a problem?”
The vamp’s hand flailed out and grabbed one of the cage bars. I smashed my foot—the one in the steel-toed Cat—down on it. He cursed and let go. “Yes, well…a few.”
“Show me.”
And suddenly things went from weird to super-ultra-weird as a picture flashed through my head as vivid as a movie. It was upside down and jiggling, but the best I could tell it showed some chick wearing a blood-splattered tank and a crazed expression. Her short dark hair was spiky with sweat, her face was livid with bruises and her weird golden eyes were slitted with effort as she—
Oh. I guessed that was me.
Wow, I look like shit, I thought, right before I noticed something else. I looped the slack of the chain around the bar behind me for leverage and—
Oh, yeah. That worked better.
“What the hell is she doing?” That was someone new, a crabby voice with an English accent.
“With respect, Lord Marlowe,” the vamp snapped, “what does it look like?”
“And she is trying to remove your head because…?”
“She doesn’t recognize me. I believe drugs may have been involved. She—”
“Drugs hav