Page 21 of The Biting Bargain

Something snapped.

Something horrible and animalistic.

Something I can't control.

I knew exactly what it was. Couldn't believe it. Just managed to tear myself away from her, backing off and saving myself in the back room of the suite. Barricading the door from the inside. Still shifting, I disappeared through the servants' entrance. Before anyone could witness me, one of the most powerful vampires in Europe, turn into a fucking werewolf.

I need to find out why.

"Very well, sir," Aidan says, almost cheerfully again. "We'll take care of everything. Stay where you are."

I sigh, hanging up.

Not that I had anywhere else to go right now.

ChapterNine

Polly

"This will probably sting a little."

I nod wanly as the improbably handsome doctor with hazel curls and an overambitious smile stabs a needle into my arm.

My mind is still fuzzy. One moment Balzar DiMartino’s henchman is yelling at me. Then there’s that growling shadow, a primordial beast, fangs bared. There’s screaming and that feeling like being hit by a truck. Then everything goes black for a while, and at some point I must have gotten here.

Wherever the hell here is.

I’m sitting on a plush sofa. My left arm is covered in bandages, a spot above my right eye is throbbing, and the handsome doctor is smiling even more warmly as the white plastic tube that curls away from my arm is filling with a red liquid.

I need a second to realize that said liquid is my own blood. Nausea curls in my stomach.

"What hospital is this again?" I squeak.

"No hospital" The doctor beams like a golden retriever. "This is the medical laboratory facility in Monsieur Renard's private metropolitan residence. You have nothing to worry about, we are prepared for any kind of medical emergency."

His words dance limbo in my head, that's how much sense they make. Medical what? Laboratory? Monsieur who? Apparently I hit my head harder than I thought.

The floorboards creak under the doctor's sneakers as he turns to a massive antique period desk. Which is stacked with either an apparatus for distilling semi-illegal spirits or a very advanced chemistry set, complete with Erlenmeyer flasks and coiling glass tubes filled with bubbling substances.

The rest of the room is just as old-fashioned. Black velvet curtains cover the large windows, wooden tables with curved legs, Tiffany lamps, elaborate seating. The sofa I'm sitting on is made of velvet, I notice. On a small table next to me, several antique knick-knacks are lined up. A golden barometer, a golden sextant, an elaborate little grandfather clock — also made of gold, of course, what else? — industriously ticking and swinging its tiny pendulum. And there’s piles of books and folios stacking the shelves to the high ceiling.

I feel like I've traveled back in time and landed in a Victorian mansion whose owner has gone completely steampunk.

The only thing standing out and not looking as one would have imagined the future to look in 1899 is the state of the art laptop on which Doctor Golden-Retriever is now typing.

I’m so dizzy that I'm only now noticing thathe'sthere, too.

Vincent.

My breath catches in my throat.

I have been obsessing over what happened for the last three days, wondering if he is all right. Now he's leaning a little ways away from me against another desk, wearing fitted black pants, a pressed white shirt, and a matching vest that accentuates his torso in an outrageously exciting way. He is staring at me through the black lenses of his shades.

No, scratch that. He's scowling. And obviously super pissed.

He crosses his arms in front of his chest, fabric tightening around his massive arms, and I involuntarily shift back in my seat.

"Thank you very much, I'll take this with me." The ever-smiling doctor clamps the cannula off my arm and grabs the vial filled with my blood. "I’ll be right back."

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