Page 55 of Dragon's Temptation

Colter clenched his jaw. I was right, and he knew it.

“I’ll be fine. It won’t take long, will it?”

Colter shook his head. He was reluctant to leave me, and that was sweet of him, but we were alone, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t been training for the past while. I was sure I could handle myself for as long as he was away with the machine.

“If anything happens, run,” Colter said. “Don’t be brave. Don’t fight. Just run.”

“I’ll be fine,” I urged.

Colter didn’t want to leave me, but we didn’t have much choice, and time was running out. People would start arriving, and soon, our window would close.

“Go,” I said. “Hurry!”

Colter growled low at the back of his throat before he twisted his ring, and in a flash, he was gone with the machine. I stood alone in the middle of the lab, rubbing my arms, aware that I was completely vulnerable now.

“You’re alone,” I told myself. “It’s fine. Nothing will happen when you’re alone. No one can do anything when—”

The lab door opened, and three men walked in with lab coats and clipboards. They were in deep conversation, but they stopped talking when they saw me and froze in their tracks.

“Liv?” one of them asked.

“Hi, Darryl,” I said, trying to act like it was normal that I was here.

Were any of them vampires? I didn’t know how to tell, but now that I knew vampires were real, and I’d worked with them under my nose all this time, I had no idea what was real and what wasn’t anymore.

“What are you doing here?” He glanced at the table where the machine had stood. “Where’s the machine?”

I looked at the table. “That’s… what I’m here to find out.”

They all frowned and looked at each other. Did they know what I was? Were they just human? Had Jerry said anything to anyone?

The guys came closer, and I fought the urge to cower away from them. I lifted my hand to the pendant around my neck.

Darryl came another step closer. I locked eyes with him, and he stared at me. He couldn’t be a monster, could he? He was just a man. He was just Darryl, the guy I’d worked with countless times. He was—

His eyes turned black when he came closer still, and his gaze slid from my eyes to my neck.

Shit.

“Darryl, what’s wrong?” I asked, trying to get him to focus on my eyes. If I could keep him talking, keep him in touch with the human side, and not the monster that was peeking through, I could buy myself some time.

“What do you mean?” he asked and swallowed hard. He made the strange sucking motion with his mouth I’d seen Jerry do.

“Talk to me about the machine,” I said.

The other two guys stayed away from us. Maybe they were just human, and it was only Darryl I had to contend with.

“The machine isn’t supposed to leave the lab,” Darryl said. He looked like he struggled to concentrate, not knowing where to look—my eyes or my neck.

“No, it’s not,” I said. “Who took it?” If I could keep him talking, I could figure out a way to fight back when he finally attacked. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when. He was on the verge of losing control, and I knew for a fact he wanted my blood.

“No one can take it with the spell,” he said.

The other two looked at each other, frowning.

They were definitely human, and they knew nothing about the spell. Darryl, on the other hand, was a vampire. I had no doubt about that now, even though he had yet to show his fangs.

Darryl attacked suddenly, moving so fast, I could barely see him. It felt like the world slowed down and nothing existed but me and him. His teeth were bared, his fangs so long, I couldn’t imagine how he would close his mouth.

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