Page 42 of Resurrecting His Soul
“You don’t call humans monsters for killing animals to eat. Humans are our food source, and there is no shame in taking what we need.”
He shook his head. “But you do not take just what you need, neither did I. Feeding is one thing, but terrorizing entire populations for fun and taking far more than necessary in blood is shameful, and that made us monsters. We don’t have to be. For a long time I told myself that was all I could be, and I made sure you believed that same thing. But it is not true. It never was. I was embracing someone else’s vision of me, of vampires. I don’t want to do that anymore. Lisandra helped me see that at my core I am not evil.”
For several minutes Melina just stared at him. It felt like she was trying to take him in fully. Gauge his words for honesty. Maybe she was trying to find a chink. A place that was beginning to rust in his armor where she could push through until it created a hole where the Ricardo she’d known before Lisandra was hiding. There was no chink or rust for her to find and push herself through. Finally, she put a hand on his knee and he had to brace himself to keep from snatching it away, but he refrained. He hated that he needed her for anything, but she was the fastest way to find Lisandra.
“I think you are delusional. That skank has you so whipped you can’t see beyond what’s between her legs.”
The hand she had on his knee was the first thing he broke, then he snapped her arm back behind her back and shoved her face into the wood floor and he heard the crack when her nose broke.
“Ahh!” she screamed. She tried to buck back, but he was too strong. In their world, she was still a young vampire, and she didn’t hold a chance of overpowering him. “Get off me!”
He grabbed her hair and snatched her head to the side, then bent down over her to look her in the face so she could see the fury in his eyes. “This game you’re playing is over. Take me to Lisandra or I’m going to paint this house with your blood. The choice is yours, but I suggest you make it fast or I’m making it for you.”
“I told you I don’t…”
Her words were cut off when he jumped up, pulling her with him, and threw her across the house into the fireplace. The brick mantel crushed under the power of the impact made by her body. Before she could right herself, he was on her again. He yanked her from the pile of bricks and pierced her throat with his fangs, fast and hard, not caring if he ripped her throat out while he sucked down her blood. He would drain every drop. She wanted him to be a monster again, and she was about to get her wish.
Her arms flailed in her attempts to push him away. “Ricardo, please!”
Her pleas only drove him to bite harder. She would pay for what she’d done.
She clawed at his face and arms to no avail, and he could feel her body grow weaker with every drop of blood he took from her. “Please,” she said. “I’ll take you.”
Her voice was so quiet, so weak, that he barely heard her, but he did, and the moment she said them he let her go and stepped back. “This better not be an attempt to fool me.”
With her hand wrapped around her throat, covering her wound, she shook her head slowly.
“Good. We will go back to my house first. You need to feed so you can heal. I don’t want you weak and passing out before we find Lisandra and Allison.”
Without giving her a chance to respond, he grabbed her hand and ran for his house. He was going to get Lisandra back, and he didn’t want to waste any more time. Once Allison and her were safe, he would make sure Jameson and Melina would never have a chance to hurt them or anyone else ever again.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
Melina
As much as Melina hated to drink stale blood from a bag, she needed to feed. Ricardo had almost drained her completely and done some real damage to her body. If she had any chance of escaping him and surviving once he had his precious pet back, she was going to need all of her strength. When Ricardo stepped out of the room and left her on her own, she was surprised, but glad. She needed time to warn Jameson they were coming so he could finish Lisandra and that human of hers off before Ricardo ruined their fun. She was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them and she knew Ricardo wasn’t planning to let her and Jameson live if he got Lisandra back. And she’d be damned if she was going to let them have their happily ever after.
While he was out of the room, she made sure her phone was on silent and sent a quick text to Jameson.
Kill them both now. Ricardo is on his way there now.
Once the text was sent, she shoved her phone back in her pocket. It would probably be the last thing she ever saw, but she couldn’t wait to see his face when he laid eyes on Lisandra’s corpse. A second later, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. When she checked the caller ID, it was a number she didn’t recognize.
“Hello,” she answered.
“I really don’t like plans getting changed at the last minute.”
When Jameson’s voice came through the phone, she pulled it away and looked at the screen again. No. It wasn’t the number he’d been using. She had kept that number saved under Roxy, the name of her first pet back in her human life.
She brought the phone back to her ear. “Be quiet,” she whispered as harshly as she could manage, trying not to be overheard by Ricardo. “Are you stupid or something?”
“Excuse me?” Jameson got even louder.
Her eyes grew wide, and she huffed, clenching her teeth and her fist so hard she felt the phone start to protest in her hand before she reined herself in so it wouldn’t wind up becoming nothing more than a handful of shattered glass and circuitry.
Slowly, she brought the phone back to her ear. “You are dumb. Just do as you’re told and don’t call again.”
He was talking when she hit the red end button on the screen, but she didn’t care to hear what he had to say. At first, changing him and bringing him back to Ricardo’s was worth the hassle of hunting him down. The look of pure terror that she’d seen on Lisandra’s face when she froze the minute he spoke was better than any reaction she could have imagined. Unfortunately, he was beginning to talk to her the way she imagined he was used to addressing Lisandra, and probably any other woman in his life. He didn’t strike her as a man who would have been faithful even if he had been set on not allowing Lisandra to leave him. She had seen the anger wanting to claw its way out of him as soon as she had mentioned knowing where he could find Lisandra when she first met him. He’d been very eager to make the change, give up his life for one of immortality and enhanced strength and senses, especially if it meant he could use his new abilities to get Lisandra back in his grip.
