Page 23 of Hunting His Vampire Mate

There was nothing. No panic. Not even the slightest bit of discomfort. And I didn’t need to gasp for another breath right after.

No, my body didn’t need to breathe anymore, did it?

Mentally, my stomach totally lurched, and I might’ve been sick. Iwantedto be sick. But my body didn’t care about my feelings. Physically, I felt perfectly fine.

Except for the burning in my throat.

Oh, and except for the gnawing hunger boring a hole in the very center of me, like there was an endless chasm that could never be filled. It was there so abruptly that it must’ve been present all along. I had only just now noticed it because I had focused on it directly. Very, very odd. And definitely not how I had ever experienced hunger before. Usually, my body just told me—in no uncertain terms—when it needed food. I didn’t need to ask it to first.

But I didn’t need food. I needed fresh blood.

That probably had something to do with why I was tied to a wooden post in a barn. I was in a sitting position, with my legs splayed out in front of me. And while I was out, someone had wrapped a sturdy-looking nylon rope, over and over again, at least a dozen times, around my whole torso. But whoever had tied me up had gone under my arms with the rope, purposefully leaving me the use of my hands.

Strange. Why would someone go through all the trouble of tying me up, but then leave my hands free? I reached behind myself and felt the knot. It was a good knot, but not impossible for me to get undone, provided I had enough time.

The beam I was tied to was, oddly enough, not uncomfortable. Neither was the position I’d woken up in. If I had still been human, it would’ve been.

But I wasn’t human anymore.

The thought struck me like a blow. And again, I wanted to be sick. And again, my body firmly told me that it was fine. Better than fine, actually. I feltstrong.And as soon as I ate something—or, fuck no, someone—I would be back at one hundred percent.

How?

How the fuck had this happened?

I had a hard time focusing on anything at all, apart from the burning in my throat. And the empty gnawing sensation of my hunger, clawing at my insides, demanding to be sated.

I remembered the alley. The van filled with hypnotized humans. The realization that the vamp nest was way bigger and more organized than Michael and I had originally thought. Then I had killed the idiot in the waistcoat. And the murderous female vampire had jumped me. She had held me down and forced me to drink her blood. I hadn’t meant to, but I had swallowed some of it. I’d heard Michael screaming my name and the sound of shoes slapping the concrete, presumably as he ran toward me, which meant he’d followed me out of the club. And then it was all just darkness.

A new sort of fear filled me.

Was Michael okay? Or had the vampires hurt him? Were they tying me up here so that they could—what? Question me? Find out if I was working with anyone else?

And why the fuck did I feel so immobile? Nylon rope, even looped around me multiple times, should’ve been no match for vampire strength.

I gave it an experimental tug. It felt roughly as easy to tear apart as it would have if I were still human. In other words, it wasn’t going to happen. But when I pulled my hand back, I immediately saw why. My palm was shiny and metallic. Someone had coated the rope in powdered silver. No doubt they’d gotten it from my pockets, after I had used it on them.

Clever vampires.

Speaking of which, where were they? I was alone in here.

The barn was quite large and clearly hadn’t been used in years. There were a half-dozen holes in the roof overhead, plenty large enough for a person to fall through if they were dumb enough to be up there in the first place. The sky was visiblethrough them: clear and dotted with stars. That meant I was far from any sources of light pollution. We were somewhere remote, then. And there was moldering hay scattered haphazardly on the ground, dotted here and there with broken slats of wood, presumably originally part of the roof. There were surprisingly dry and intact bales of hay stacked in the corner farthest from the doors, which were hanging open like yawning jaws that wanted to devour the whole world.

I breathed in through my nose, expecting to immediately get overwhelmed by the stench of mildew. Instead, I smelled… leather. And orange. It was… well, it was awarmscent, if such a thing was even possible. Could something smellwarm?

It immediately brought back a cascade of memories from my childhood. From when my mom and dad were still together, holding hands in the front seat, on our way to our next town during the summer months—another monster for them to hunt while my older brother and I ate pizza and watched cartoons in the motel room. For an instant, it was like I was there again, with Kyle in the back seat, the warmth of the sun on my face as I drowsed, the feel of the wheels beneath us tearing up mile after mile, the pleasant scent of the leather seats mingling with the sharper smell of my brother’s orange soda as he took a swig.

I’d been safe and happy, then. I had felt like nothing could ever hurt me. And I had known with the simple certainty of a child, that I belonged to them.

Now, I blinked rapidly, trying to shove the memory away. Iwasn’tsafe. And I wasn’t happy. And my brother and my dad were both gone now. And my mother couldn’t stand to look at me for long anymore, so I had stopped trying to visit. I’d grown up to look just like my father, after all.

The scent was drifting in from outside the barn doors. When I focused on it, I could suddenly hear the sound of somethingsolid striking the earth. The scrape of metal on dirt. And then the sound of soil dropping to the ground, a moment later.

Someone was digging a hole.

One of the vampires? Perhaps getting ready to dispose of my body, once they were done with me?

But no. That wasn’t right. It wasn’t a vampire at all. Because I could hear the sharp exhalations of breath with every strike of the metal against the ground. A vampire wouldn’t have made that sound.

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