Page 81 of Lucien

So Jamie screamed as loud as he fucking could.

The vampire grimaced at the noise, a snarl escaping its lips, and before Jamie could catch a breath, the creature was on him.

Oh holy fucking fuck, that hurt. It allhurt.

Jamie’s arm was on fire, he was pretty sure. He wasn’t positive how that worked—he couldn’t see any flames—but it felt like what he imagined burning alive probably felt like.

Who knew vampire bites could hurt this badly?

Jamie had managed to twist at the last moment, and the feral vampire had latched on to his raised right bicep instead of his neck. Small mercies he wasn’t at Jamie’s jugular—that shit probably wasn’t survivable—but holy fuck the tearing at Jamie’s upper arm hurt like a bitch.

He screamed again—a hoarse, pathetic sound. He couldn’t help it. He’d like to tell himself it was intentional—to bring Jay back sooner—but really Jamie was just in too much pain to keep his mouth shut.

Should he be grateful the magical bite arousal thing wasn’t happening? It would have been beyond weird to be turned on right now, when he was most likely about to lose his life to becoming vampire food, but also it would be really, super fucking cool to not hurt this bad.

The feral vamp gave a weird guttural growl and released Jamie’s bicep, but before Jamie could breathe a sigh of relief, it was latched back onto his forearm.

“Fuck!”

What if it tore his radial artery with its fucking teeth? Jamie kicked with his legs. He writhed as best he could. He tried with every bit of muscle strength to shake his arm enough to dislodge those goddamn fangs, but the fucking beast wouldn’t budge.

He had a flashback to the body he and Luc had found in the pool house. The way it had been torn apart, massive wounds all over. It had looked like it had been mauled by an animal. Eaten alive.

Tears were flowing before Jamie could help it, his cheeks growing wet even as he continued to struggle. He really, really didn’t want to die this way. Would it be too pathetic to plead for mercy with a creature that couldn’t understand the concept?

Before he could decide, a loud roar washed over them, easily covering the sounds of the feral vampire’s growls and Jamie’s pathetic whimpers.

Jamie couldn’t see anything around him, the vampire’s beefy arm held over his face to keep him still. So he had a strange, surreal moment where he thought maybe the mountain lion had shown up after all.

Good kitty, he thought deliriously.

Except no. Mountain lion cries were high-pitched, like a woman’s wail. This was more like—like a lion’s roar, maybe.

Jamie had yet another delirious thought.Are there lions in the Arizona desert?

And then the pressure holding Jamie to the ground let up as the feral vampire was knocked off him.

Jamie sat up as best he could using his good arm, bleary eyes peering at the blurry rush of movement in front of him. He didn’t need to see all that clearly to know who had come to save him.

Luc had arrived.

Relief rushed through Jamie in a wave, leaving him shaking with the force of it. But it was replaced almost immediately with the cold tendrils of dread.

No, no, no.Luc couldn’t be here. That was the whole fuckingpoint.

His vampire may look like he was winning the fight—he had the feral fucker in a chokehold—but it wouldn’t last. Jamie had seen it. He’dseenit.

Jamie was shouting before he could stop himself, his voice hoarse from his earlier screams. “Luc, no! Get out of here! You need to leave!”

Luc looked up from where he was snarling down at the vampire in his hold, the rage in his face startling in its intensity.

“I-I’ve seen something, Luc. You need to get out of here.”

Luc growled again, this time at Jamie, who swallowed hard and pleaded his case. “The others will be here soon. They can help me. I need you togo.”

Jamie knew somewhere in the deep recesses of his brain that what he was saying was patently ridiculous. He and Luc both knew he stood absolutely zero chance against the feral vampire for more than a few minutes.

But in that moment, Jamie didn’t care if he survived. He couldn’t stand by and watch Luc get killed. He didn’t want to see his monster taken down. Jamie would take the pain for him instead. He could handle it; he knew he could.

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