Page 20 of Incandescence

Maya brushed a hand over her throat. “The vampire didn’t just take us to his nest and feed from us. His blood made us addicts too, and now we need something to neutralize the cravings.”

The doctor blinked. “He fed you his blood?” he murmured. Then he focused on us and said, “Why would you believe I know how to stop these cravings? I’ve learned little to nothing about vampires except in fairytales, and I know even less about their blood.”

“Yet you claim they exist!” Maya burst out.

The doctor’s face flushed. “Because I saw one of them take my daughter from her bedroom.” He swallowed convulsively. “I saw his fangs drip with my daughter’s blood after he’d pierced her throat and drank from her.” He pushed a hand over his face. “I just...stood there and watched as he jumped from the opened window with her in his arms.”

Maya’s eyes widened and I shrank a little inside. One of the vampire’s donors—my so called playthings—had been this man’s daughter.

Sophie. It was more than possible. The doctor’s article had been released nine months ago, around the time Sophie had been brought up to the nest. The same woman who’d chosen death over being a vampire’s meal.

Rest in peace, Sophie.

Maya flashed me a questioning look and I shook my head. I wasn’t one hundred percent certain and wondered if it was better the doctor was spared from the truth. I had an unshakeable gut feeling the man lived only to find his daughter.

The doctor subsided into silence and, though he looked haggard, his eyes suddenly gleamed. “You said a vampire had taken you to his lair—”

“Nest,” I corrected automatically.

The doctor inhaled sharply. “You didn’t happen to see my daughter, Nancy, did you? Tall, long blonde hair, honey-brown eyes and always smiling—”

Sophie had been Nancy. Knowing her real name and meeting her father made the woman I’d lived with for a short time more real to me, even though she’d never been deader. Made me want to quietly mourn for the woman she should have been. I shook off anguish for her and all the women who’d died in the nest, and said sharply, “No, sorry. I didn’t see her.”

The doctor pushed his glasses into place yet again and sighed resignation. “Then our conversation is over.”

I stuck a foot in the door as he went to push it shut. “Wait.” He glowered at me and I said quietly, “You’re a doctor. You must know of some way we can neutralize the addiction.”

“A blood transfusion is the only thing I’d suggest,” he said sharply. “Now get out of here before you get me killed too.”

My heart pounded with a surge of adrenaline and I moved my foot away before the door slammed shut. Maya turned to me. “Do you think he might be right?”

I nodded, deliberately toning it down. “Maybe.” All that mattered to me was that a blood transfusion might also see the vampire blood cells die off quicker, making it all but impossible for our host to find us.

But as we walked back down the path, I couldn’t help but notice that the shadows were growing longer and the sun was falling all too quickly toward the horizon. Maya followed my stare skyward, her face pinched and lips tight. Danger would be closing in soon.

The vampire wouldn’t allow us simply to walk away. We were...his.

I blew out a slow breath. “We need to figure out a place to stay. Somewhere we can hide for the night.”

“We already have one.” Maya turned to me. “The eighteenth birthday party. It will probably be crowded with people. I can’t think of a safer place.”

I wasn’t about to stand around and argue. We weren’t exactly flush with options. “How far?” I asked.

The Sydney suburbs weren’t familiar to me anymore and I had no way to gauge distances.

She bit her bottom lip and glanced skyward, adjusting her backpack as she said, “If we speed-walk we’ll get there before nightfall.”

I clasped her hand in mine, taking a small moment to savor the perfect fit, the zing of connection. I squeezed her fingers before I released hold. “Then we’d better run for it.”

The party was already in full swing when we arrived, out of breath and uncomfortably hot. But at least we’d made it a good fifteen or twenty minutes before nightfall...at least we’d made it at all.

I turned Maya toward me and cupped her chin so that she looked up at me. “We can do this,” I murmured, and pressed my lips to her silky soft mouth, kissing her with a tenderness I wouldn’t have thought I was capable of just a few days ago.

She sighed, and I flicked my tongue between her opened lips, tasting her vanilla sweetness. My dick jerked involuntarily even as she pulled back, her eyes glinting. “We can. We’re survivors.”

My lust dimmed a little as I wondered about her past. I knew so little about her. But I had no time to dwell on it. I only hoped that sometime soon, I could find out everything there was to know. Instead I nodded, and took her hand in mine before we walked through a crooked wire gate and along a path toward the opened front door.

I guided her around a couple making out, the man’s buttocks white in the growing shadows, the woman’s blouse unbuttoned and her breasts exposed. Maya looked up at me with wide eyes and I sensed her unease, along with a shiver of desire.

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