Page 21 of Taste of Forever
“Yeah I’d say eighty percent, roughly.” The bartender leaned back, grinning wryly as they returned the money to the drawer. “I’ll let you enjoy your drink and check on you in a bit. Just flag me down if you want to start a tab or close out right away.”
I appreciated the peace to sit with the new information I’d learned. It seemed I wasn’t the first human to randomly stumble upon Sanguine, nor would I be the last.
The prepper community I’d run into my first time seemed like they’d been here for several generations. A couple hundred years or so. I wondered if their ancestors had been occultists or something, searching for a supernatural world. Or if they had been like me, and stumbled their way into Sanguine completely by accident.
After sipping my drink for a few minutes, a commotion drew my attention toward the VIP loft. The women were raising their voices, shouting and arguing loud enough to be heard over the music. They appeared to huddle around something, packing in tightly with their backs facing me. The couch where the two men sat was now completely hidden from view.
All at once, something made the women draw back with a collective gasp. A man surged to his feet, his head and shoulders visible above the crowd closing in on him once again. My muscles locked with tension at the sight of his face. Even from a distance, I could tell he wasn’t human.
The sight of him stopped my breath. He was definitely a vampire. Even taking that into account, he was…something else.
His eyes were on the lighter side of the red spectrum, a bit more magenta than true red. He was tall, with bone structure that looked straight out of an illustration or a Greek statue because it was too beautiful to be real. His hair was a pale ash blond, cut close to his scalp with longer, messy waves on top.
I couldn’t stop staring, and not only because he was beautiful to look at. My instincts prickled on high alert, and I didn’t want to take my eyes off of what was surely a predator.
There was something feral about him, an untamed wildness in his gaze. A sharpness to his features that indicated hunger and struggle. He wasn’t gaunt by any means, but this vampire almost looked more animal than human.
Whatever he hungered for didn’t seem to be in the beautiful women surrounding him. His lips peeled back in a snarl, exposing long, white fangs. I could almost hear the growl rumbling in his throat. A feminine hand reached out to him, looking like it was going to caress his jaw or neck, but he smacked the hand away like it was a fly buzzing around his head.
The effect rippled throughout the crowd of women. Some drew back in fear while others made their way closer to the vampire, willing to take their chances. The more they crowded him, the more agitated he seemed to become. His friend, a darker-haired vampire stepped in, spreading his arms to create space as he tried to placate the women.
Then the feral vampire looked up.
Magenta eyes locked onto mine with laser focus and an intensity I couldn’t escape. He stared at me like the women surrounding him didn’t exist.
I knew then that the predator had sighted his prey. He’d found what would curb his hunger. That gaze showed no intention of letting me go.
Deep, hindbrain instincts told me to run. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to move. I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if this beautiful, dangerous creature captured me.
The vampire pushed his way past the crowd of fawning women as if they were curtains in a doorway. He gripped the railing at the edge of the loft, large hands and broad shoulders bunched with tension as he stared down at me.
He only stared for a few seconds before he vaultedoverthe railing, the movement as quick and fluid as an Olympic athlete. Before I could make a sound or react in any way, he landed lightly on his feet.
Red eyes ablaze and a fanged smirk on his mouth, he started toward me.
Chapter 6
Laith
After two weeks of my glass slipper prince bullshit, I felt like I was losing my Temkra-loving mind.
Women came to Pulse Point every single night, swearing they had been at the blood bank that night and were sure they were the one I was looking for.
Their faces blurred in my mind, all meaningless and a waste of time. My body rejected the wrong blood with every cell and never failed to let me know. I was fatigued, sluggish, yet couldn’t sleep restfully. My fangs throbbed with a constant ache. My stomach cramped and roiled with every wrong mouthful of blood I choked down.
I hated this. Hated every minute of it. Hated the fakeness of the women trying to get a cushy life as a mate to someone in the ruling clan. Hated being the asshole who said, “No, I’m sorry. It’s not you,” hundreds of times.
Some women actually had the gall to argue with me.
“Taste my blood,” one said, thrusting her wrist insistently toward my face. “Taste me and you’ll remember. You’ll see.”
“You don’t have a tattoo on your arm,” I said. It was gentler than telling her she just didn’t smell right. None of them did.
“That wasn’t a real tattoo. I put on a temporary one for a party.”
“Okay. What was it again?”
She paused for a bit too long. “A rose.”
