Page 23 of Fanged Temptation

My betrayal would crush both of us.

When Maxine said nothing more I looked away, clearing my throat and rising from the thin foam mattress.

“I’ll be back there. If you need me.” I hiked a thumb over my shoulder, toward the bedroom at the back of the boat. “You can leave the lights on. I don’t mind.”

When we were young, she had been afraid of the dark. So much so, that for her fourteenth birthday I’d bought her a nightlight. It was probably silly to assume that she’d carried that fear with her into her adult years, but from the way her eyes slid to the windows and the inky darkness beyond, I suspected it was true.

"Thank you, Leah," she murmured, her voice so soft I might have imagined it over the gentle creaking of the boat.

With a final nod I slipped away, tiptoeing to my bedroom, and shut the door – then pulled out my cell phone.

A single message from an unsaved number flickered on screen:Have you found her?

I sank back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The boat swayed gently, lulling me into a state of near peace, but my mind was far from quiet. Maxine trusted me, or at least, she trusted me enough to seek refuge here. And yet, here I was, holding onto a secret that could shatter that trust into irreparable pieces.

I closed my eyes and drifted back to that fateful day, four months ago, when I’d finally met Maxine’s family.

They turned up out of the blue, on the doorstep of the home I shared with my grandfather in San Francisco. There were two of them, a cold, cruel looking woman and a young man at her side. Even before they revealed themselves, flashing pointed fangs like needles and elongated claws, I knew there was something not quite human about them.

They were too still, too perfectly beautiful in the most boring sense. The woman’s face could have been sculpted from marble, perfectly symmetrical with high cheekbones and pursed lips. Her eyes were a deep brown, like freshly-turned earth, and the man at her side was the same.

I knewwhothey were too. Maxine shared little similarity with the pair on my doorstep, but the family resemblance was there.

They had stepped inside, backed me into the corridor, and scraped long, glinting talons across the faded wallpaper. I could still vividly recall the way the woman said my name – “Leah, I presume?” – like I was little more than a speck of dust, an ant to be crushed under her boot.

I remembered the terror that had ripped through me, followed by a ferocious anger when they explained why they were there, what they wanted from me. And what would happen if I failed to do it. It was because of them that I had packed my bags, lied to my grandfather, and set off for New York City to track down the woman I used to know.

The girl who had left me behind with no explanation. Who had left me at the mercy of her terrifying vampire family.

I knew now that Maxine was a vampire, a secret she hadn't shared herself, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Her family wanted me to find her, to coax her back into a life she clearly wanted no part of. They painted her as the prodigal daughter, necessary back home to help run their sprawlingbusiness as her father's health declined – I had no idea vampires could even fall sick in the first place.

Her mother and her brother spoke of her with a cold disdain, calling her ungrateful and stubborn, words laced with an entitlement that made my skin crawl.

I understood why she ran; her family was the epitome of high-society snobbery, with a ruthlessness that came out as casual as discussing the weather. But despite my distaste for her family's tactics, I was in a bind. They were powerful,inhuman, and I wasn't in a position to defy them – not without consequences I wasn't ready to face.

I turned over, trying to find comfort in the cramped confines of my bed, while the guilt gnawed at me from the inside-out. Maxine was here because she believed she was safe. And I was tangled in a web of deception, wondering how long I could keep up the act.

I lifted my cell, stared at the screen, and typed a short message back:I’ve found her.

The response was immediate, setting the screen aglow and spearing through my heart:Do what must be done.

11

Maxine

Keeping away from Leyore coven activities was a top priority, obviously. However, there’s only so many options a poor vampire woman has to get her hands on some fresh bloodwithouthorrifying her unsuspecting roommate. And so, while Leah was out fraternizing with sea urchins or something to that extent, I made my way to the nearest underground blood bar to get my fix.

The place was cleverly disguised to look like an abandoned convenience store, the ‘for sale’ sign peeling from the smudged glass windows and empty shelves collecting dust within. I hovered under a streetlamp outside the back entrance, the bulb flickering to life as the sun sank below the sprawling buildings, and knocked twice on the aluminum door.

The sound echoed around the empty street and I danced on my toes, nervous out in the open. I glanced over my shoulder, scanning for anything out of the ordinary, but the street was deserted.

In the few short days that I’d spent holed up on Leah’s boat, nothing unusual had occurred. No men in unflattering hats watching me from the sidewalk and no ominous woman hanging around either. It had been so peaceful in fact, floating out there in the bay, that I began to wonder if I’d overreacted and there was no reason to be hiding at all.

But something in my gut told me I wasn’t out of the woods yet. And even if it had all been in my head and there was no one after me, I was rather enjoying my time with Leah.

Myrtle, the creaking houseboat, had a certain charm. It was a little dusty and could certainly do with some interior decorating, but there was something rather cozy about the small space. And there was something quite pleasant about waking up to the scent of fresh coffee and Leah’s bright red bedhead the first thing I saw in the mornings.

She would stomp through the living room at the crack of dawn and bang cupboard doors in the kitchen, rousing me with a cup of coffee and a shake of her head while I whinged and moaned about the early hour. Then she would go off to work – and I would rub my eyes, sip my coffee, then promptly roll over and go back to sleep until the cawing of gulls woke me a few hours later.

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