Page 118 of The Monster and the Last Blood Match

The silence stretched. He wanted to say so much more. Wanted her reassurance that he was making the right choices even as he felt all the roads closing to him.

“Call me later,” she said. “I want to hear all about it.”

“Maybe I’ll come to you.”

It sounded inviting, but it meant somewhere they couldn’t be overheard discussing Elle.

“Looking forward to it.”

Beckham hung up, more resigned than ever about what was coming. He would meet this Reyna. He’d stash her in the penthouse. He didn’t need a reason to not drink from her. She was his employee. He could do what he wanted.

With that, his driver pulled to the side entrance of the hospital. He stepped out of the car and through the back door. Hospital employees cowered when they saw him. He gave off that impression. A waft of fear that lingered as he past. It was what had made him a lord. It was what had made them worship him.

He reached the door and knocked twice, straightening to his considerable height, which took up much of the doorframe.

The door opened, and Dr. Washington stood in the frame. He nodded his head at the doctor.

“Reyna, allow me to introduce you to your Sponsor. This is Beckham Anderson, senior vice president of Visage Incorporated.”

Washington moved out of the way, and the woman stepped off of the hospital bed. He stilled under her dark gaze. She was, on all counts, nothing special. Under a layer of grime, she wore plain jeans and a T-shirt, tennis shoes, and had a baseball cap in her pocket.

No one should have noticed her. And yet, he could do nothing else.

He just stared at her. The pale, angular face that carved out her cheekbones and cut her jawline to a razor’s edge. Her lips a full pink pout with a notch in the middle of her bottom lip. Her dark hair was long and lush, falling like a curtain down her back even in a high ponytail. He had no idea what it would look like around her shoulders after a long and thorough wash.

But it was her eyes that first captivated him. A brown so depthless that he felt instantly lost in them. As if they were not a mirror but a portal to another world. She trapped him in that gaze and let him burrow down deep, falling into an alternate timeline where they did not meet like this as Sponsor and subject but as man and woman. As two people on the streets who found each other.

That wasn’t reality. She wasn’t a portal. Nor a siren.

She was just a woman.

Albeit possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

When neither of them said anything, Dr. Washington cleared his throat and continued. “Mr. Anderson, your new subject, Miss Reyna Carpenter.”

He still didn’t respond. Their staring contest was prolonged, and he couldn’t look away. Felt it in his bones that all those other problems he’d been worried about on his way over here meant nothing.

Because it hardly mattered that both of his bosses wanted this or that he couldn’t drink from this woman. All that mattered was that he was beyond fucked.

Her scent, her poise, her lifted defiant chin.

As if she wasn’t scared of him. As if she could stand there and act as if he did not frighten her, when everyone else in the hospital had recoiled at the sight of him.

No, the worst part was that he wanted her.

Hewantedher.

“Well,” Dr. Washington said uncomfortably, “what do you think?”

He was soooo fucked.

Beckham broke her gaze to turn to the doctor. He had to remain himself. No one could know. They’d put her with someone else. They’d find another way.

He could never have her.

Hewouldnever have her.

“Yes. Fine,” he forced out. “She’ll do. I have a car waiting and a meeting to attend. Get her ready to leave immediately.”

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