Page 10 of Blood Submission

Chapter6

Laney awoke again,this time to the sound of the shower running. She sat up, pushing her damp hair out of her face and pulling her nightshirt out from where it was stuck under her breasts. She was disoriented at first as she tried to see through the minimal light and the cloud of steam that filled the smallroom.

The vampire’s clothes were lying in a pile on the floor in front of her. She couldn’t see him through the curtain, but she could hear him splashing around under the spray. Her eyes immediately went to the closed bathroom door. Hesitating only for a brief second, she got to her feet as quietly as she could and crept over to it. Laney was right next to the shower curtain now, and if she wanted, she could pull it back just enough to peek at the vampire while he bathed himself.

For an insane moment, she was tempted.

Laney frowned at her wayward mind, wondering where the hell that thought had come from. Shaking it off, she wrapped her hand around the knob, and very slowly and quietly began to twist it to the right.

“I wouldn’t do that, little mouse,” came a gravelly voice from behind the curtain.

Throwing caution to the wind, Laney immediately yanked the door open and ran out into the other room, praying it was still daylight. A few steps from the bathroom, she pulled up short, arms pinwheeling like a cartoon character. The sun had set, and the only illumination came from the flickering streetlamp outside. However, it wasn’t the lack of sunshine that had interrupted her escape, but rather the chaos that greeted her sudden exit from the bathroom.

The dog from earlier jumped down off the couch where it had been sleeping, leaped over Sasha’s body, and charged her. Laney stood absolutely still as the dog barked at her, trying to decide what would be worse: a bite from a dog or a vampire. Fraidy Cat took that opportunity to stroll over to her with his tail straight up in the air and weave in and out of her legs in greeting.

The water shut off behind her, spurring Laney into action. Deciding a dog bite was definitely the lesser of two evils, she scooped up her cat and ran toward the front door, the dog nipping at her heels the entire way. She was still wearing nothing but her nightshirt, but she had no time to grab something to cover herself with. Not if she wanted any chance at all of escaping. She felt surprisingly energetic, considering she’d spent the last twenty-four hours providing meal after meal for the leech in her bathroom and napping on the floor.

Or rather, on the vampire.

As if the mere thought of him had conjured him out of thin air, he suddenly appeared before her, dripping wet and wearing nothing but her lavender towel wrapped around his narrow waist. Laney had no time to stop the forward motion of her body. She slammed right into him, squishing Fraidy Cat, who yowled in protest, between their bodies.

She immediately regained her balance and tried to go around him, hanging on for dear life to the fat cat squirming in her embrace. One muscular arm flashed out and caught her around the front of her shoulders. Wrapping it around her, the vampire spun her around and pulled her back against his body. The water from his chest and stomach quickly soaked through the back of her thin shirt.

“Where are you going?” he asked in herear.

To her surprise, he didn’t sound angry. As a matter of fact, he sounded genuinely curious and rather amused. The dog continued to bark at their feet, but the vampire made a shushing sound, and the mongrel immediately sat down and cocked its head to stare up at him with worshipful browneyes.

Laney gave up the battle to hang on to Fraidy and opened her arms. He landed on his feet, gave her a glare over his shoulder, and went over to touch noses with the dog before sitting down next to it. His topaz eyes held less worship and more disdain as he looked up ather.

“What the hell is going on here?” she whispered. Laney wasn’t sure if she was asking herself or Fraidy.

“They seem to like each other,” the vampire whispered loudly in response.

Laney felt her face heat as fear was replaced with anger at the blasé tone in his voice. She felt like she’d been thrown into an episode of The Twilight Zone, made even more terrifying because it was real, and he was…amused? The vampire chuckled when she dug her nails into his arm and tugged, trying to get him to loosen his grip on her, but she might as well have been trying to remove the steel safety bar of a roller coaster after it was in motion.

Then the bar suddenly released her, much as she had done to thecat.

For the second—or third—time since she’d met him, Laney landed in a heap on the floor at the feet of the vampire. Jumping up, she spun around to face him, and almost stepped on the cat, eliciting an unhappy hiss from her pet. Fraidy stayed right where he was next to his new friend, however, not deigning to actually move. But he did bat at her leg to let her know he was there.

Laney, on the other hand, felt the need to move far, far away, and put as much distance between herself and the large male in front of her as she could.

For that’s what he was. Male. Completely and utterlymale.

The monster that had attacked her the night before was nearly gone, and in its place was something that looked like it had just stepped off the cover of Iron Man Magazine—the sadistic, scary vampire issue. The lavender towel that was wrapped tightly around his waist split up one powerful thigh and barely concealed the bulge at the front of his hips. An eight pack of muscle rippled up his abdomen to a wide chest topped with shoulders that looked like they could easily handle the weight of the world and then some. But the thing that drew Laney’s eyes the most was the black ink of the tribal tattoos that covered the entire left half of his body, from his temple all the way down to where they disappeared beneath the towel, only to reappear again on his left leg. She hadn’t noticed them the night before. Or maybe she had and it just hadn’t comprehended. Maybe because he’d been wearing clothes, and she’d been more concerned about the fangs coming at her. They weren’t anything like the other tats she’d seen of that sort. These seemed to have a pattern to them, almost like they were symbols from some type of language or something.

“Are you going to run, little mouse? Or are you just going to stand there and squeak atme?”

Laney’s attention snapped back up to his face. Eyes like black holes met hers with an unflinching stillness. No, she corrected herself. It wasn’t the color of them that reminded her of space, it was the utter lack of any type of warmth. There was no soul behind those eyes. And that menacing tattoo twisting up the side of his throat, decorating the edge of his left cheek and temple where it flared out to partially cover his shaved head, only added to his sinisterlook.

“Are you going to kill me?” Surprisingly, her voice barely shook at all, in spite of the terror running through her veins.

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in his voice, not one ounce of remorse on his ruggedly handsome face. “But not today, little mouse.” He gave her an ominous smile.

“Why not today?” she asked in a flash of sudden boldness. Or maybe it was stupidity. “Why not just get it over with?” What are you doing, Laney? Shutup!

“Because today I need you to drive me home. Do you have acar?”

Okay. Not what she had been expecting him to say. But no way, no how, was she taking this guy anywhere. Lie, Laney. Lie. And she tried to. But Laney felt the pull of his control on her mind, trying to force the truth out of her. Gritting her teeth, she fought against it. Her head felt heavy, like it was bolted to her neck, but somehow she managed to shake it back and forth. “No,” she toldhim.

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