Page 17 of Hunting His Vampire Mate

I stuck my hands in my pockets, which were filled with powdered silver.

Then, plastering a confused expression onto my face, I turned to face him. Not only was he wearing a waistcoat, he was also pale as hell, with his black hair slicked back from his face. Seriously, all the guy was missing was a widow’s peak and a cape, maybe a dab of blood on his mouth.

“Can I help you?”

The vamp already had his fangs out, though. Cocky bastard. “Sure can,” he replied, looking me dead in the eye. “You want to do whatever I say.”

I felt the power wash over me, causing goosebumps to break out on my forearms and on the black of my neck. Vamp hypnosis works mainly through the power of speech, but from what Michael and I have been able to gather, eye contact seems to help too. If I’d been an everyday sort of guy, getting a full dose of uninterrupted eye contact and hypnotic power carried on his words, I would have been immediately under his spell.

But the power wasn’t able to actually work on me. Courtesy of the hideous kiln-fired clay talisman I wore—Michael had one just like it—the compulsive spell just washed over and away from me, like water bouncing off a duck.

Still, he didn’t need to know that just yet.

I made my face as blank as I could manage. “Yeah, okay,” I replied, letting my eyes focus on the point just beyond his shoulder. “I should do whatever you say.”

Inwardly, I rolled my eyes at that. It felt so cheesy. But he seemed to buy it well enough, so there was that.

“You’re damn right you should,” he told me, smirking. He added, “Oh, right. Yeah, you don’t want to run.”

“No,” I agreed softly, still not quite looking directly at him. It was true. I definitely didn’t want to go anywhere. My urge to punch him in the face, however, was increasing with each passing moment. “I won’t run.”

“Good boy,” he replied, giving me a once-over, his gaze lingering on my body a moment longer than it should have. I fought the urge to shudder. He added, sounding mostly like he was talking to himself, “It’s a shame, really. A handsome thing like you—they’ll tear you apart.” He paused, cocking his head to the side as he studied me. “Maybe I ought to talk to the others. See if we can keep you for a while. Or maybe for longer than that.”

Now, there was a fun and exciting idea. Spend an eternity with a murderous vampire who thought fussy waist coasts were appropriate clubwear? Gee, how tempting.

“How ‘bout it, handsome? Would you like to stay young and handsome forever?”

My gaze slid from the point over his left shoulder to meet his directly. “I don’t know. Do I?”

Unease flickered across his expression for an instant. Then, an instant later, he let out a bray of laughter. “Oh, hell. I’m athick one tonight, aren’t I? You see, I just told you that you have to do whatever I say! And now you’re all kinds of confused, ain’t you? You need me to tell you what you want, don’t you, boy?”

Well, he wasn’t wrong about being thick. He truly wasn’t very bright. Or very experienced at being a vampire, clearly.

“I’m not sure I understand,” I told him dreamily. “But I feel a little wobbly. Maybe I had too much to drink.”

He frowned, his brow furrowing with concentration. “You can stand just fine, boy. Don’t ruin our nice chat by talking out of turn, or I’ll change my mind.”

“What if I need you to hold me?” I said sweetly.

He actually took a step forward, preening a little. Then he froze, just outside of arm’s reach, as my words seemed to register for him.

“Show me your hands,” he said, losing his smile.

“Happy to,” I replied, yanking my hands out of my pockets and clapping them to the sides of his head. An explosion of powdered silver cascaded down the front of his fussy waistcoat.

The vamp staggered back, staring at me with a mix of outrage and confusion on his face. Clearly, it had never crossed his mind that one of his victims could ever fight back. “What the fuck?”

I flashed him my sweetest smile, pulling a wooden stake from my coat pocket. It was made from ironwood, one of the hardest woods in the world. “It wouldn’t have worked out anyhow.”

I didn’t wait for him to reply. Instead, I turned my back to him and went for the female.

Unlike her friend, she clearlywasn’tdumb. She took one look at me and zipped a good ten feet away, around the other side of the van, before I could douse her with powdered silver.

I turned to face waistcoat. He glared at me, murder written all over his face. “Fuck it,” he told me. “I’ll tear you apart myself.”

Then he took a very human-speed step forward and stopped abruptly. His eyes widened.

“What the hell?” he muttered, his voice rising, like he quite didn’t understand what was going on. “What did you do to me?”

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