Page 5 of Night of the Vampire
"The name doesn't matter. You're the person I'm looking for. You have to be. Because I don't have any other options."
Warning bells clanged loudly in my head, but I couldn't piece anything together enough so that it made sense. "What's your name?" I asked him through a fog.
He touched my cheek with the fingertips of his free hand, his dark eyes roaming across my features as they followed the trail they made. "My name is Killian. And you are not what I expected."
Chapter 3
Killian
It was the right one. It had to be.
This slight woman had to be the one Jamal had told me about. I could feel the magic within her, hot and dangerous, pulsing to the notes of the slow, sexy, jazz horn playing on the ancient radio in the corner.
My first instinct was to grab her and take her back to the swamp. Drain her nearly dry if I had to until she lifted the spell from Kenya. The impulse was hard to ignore, and not just because of my concern for my friend...
From the moment I'd walked through the door, this woman's scent had knocked me over, overpowering the lingering stink of incense and the alcohol/body odor mix of unwashed customers. She filled my lungs with every breath, my body absorbing her along with the oxygen until my throat burned with thirst and my blood raced through my veins, filling me with need. With hunger. The urge to drink without restraint hadn't been this strong since I was a vampire newly born, and I very nearly pounced on her without thought.
But something stopped me. Perhaps it was the worldly innocence I perceived in her brown eyes. Perhaps it was the way she was staring at me. Not like a vampire, an enemy, as a witch would. But as a man she desired.
Something else that had rarely happened to me since I was reborn. Especially not by one of her kind.
Her eyes blinked rapidly a few times and then she frowned and purposefully pulled her arm from my grasp. I expected her to lunge for the pepper spray she had hidden behind the counter, but instead, she took two steps away from the counter...and away from me. It broke the spell between us and allowed me to breathe again without being overpowered by my animalistic urges. I relaxed slightly, but I kept a wary eye on her. Her little can of defense wouldn't stop me, but the bloody stuff was irritating.
"I'm sorry," she said again in a breathy voice. "But I don't think I can help you."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"I'm sorry," she shook her head, "what?"
"How do you know you can't help me? I haven't told you why I need you." Having met her, and sensing the power of her magic, I didn't know if I should actually tell her the truth or not. If I were the slightest bit intelligent, I would listen to Kenya and choose my coven over one lost life. It's what a leader would do. They looked to me for guidance. For protection. Saving Kenya would alleviate my own grief and loneliness, but cause more issues for all of us in the end. I should just make up some foolish excuse and leave this witch to her life.
And yet, I couldn't make myself go. "Look, I need you to come with me."
"I'm sorry, but I don't make a habit of running off with strange men."
I took a step back, giving her a little more space, and saw her shoulders relax slightly. Strange, how bringing her any level of comfort brought me a feeling of pleasure. Maybe I needed to broach the subject from a different direction. "As I said, my name is Killian. Killian Rice. And you're new to New Orleans, am I right?"
She hesitated a moment before answering me. "Yeah. Yes," she corrected. "I just moved down here a few weeks ago."
So longer than we had originally thought. I wondered if the witch coven had had time to indoctrinate her. I could sense nothing about it from her thoughts. Mostly, she was just worried I was either going to accost her or try to sell her something. But she had to be one of them. Witches were notoriously territorial. Almost as much as vampires. "Where did you move here from?"
Those intriguing little creases appeared between her brows again, and for a moment I thought she wasn't going to answer me. "New York City," she said, the frown still in place.
I barely resisted the urge to reach out and smooth the lines away. I didn't like to see her distressed, and that bothered me. "What did you do there, if you don't mind me asking?"
A shadow darkened her eyes, and like the predator I am at my core, I honed in on this weakness. "I'm an actor...was an actor," she emphasized. "On Broadway."
My surprise made me lose my train of thought, but just for a moment. "Broadway. That's quite the accomplishment." She didn't seem the type. Soft and pretty with brown eyes and long, thick dark hair that curled a bit on the ends, she easily could have just walked off the page of a Jane Austen novel.
"Actually, I hadn't quite made it there, yet. But I was...aspiring." She paused. Glanced up at me. "I did secure a main role for one show, finally, but never made it to the stage."
There. Right there. This was the cause of the shadow I'd seen. "What happened?"
Another pause, and then she narrowed her eyes, her scattered thoughts coming together as she gave herself an internal shake. To my utter disappointment, the shadows dissipated. "You're asking a lot of personal questions."
She was right. I was. I wanted to know, needed to know, more about this woman. And I wanted her to tell me freely, not steal it from her mind. But I was coming on too strong. I knew this. I was going to frighten her away.
"I'm just asking for a few moments of your time. We can go somewhere else if you'd like, and you can get to know me in a more"—I looked around the store—"public setting where you'll feel safe."
