“I’ll be right there,” she called out.
“No, Nicole—” Roland’s strangled voice broke off, and a sudden lump of foreboding plummeted to her belly.
She rounded the corner, skidding to a shocked halt. The lump leaped into her throat, strangling her, cutting off her scream before it even started.
A black-haired male who was clearly a vampire— with gleaming metal fangs—was holding Roland against his chest, one massive arm wrapped around
Roland’s neck. Roland’s eyes were wild, his struggles almost comically futile.
But that wasn’t what stopped her cold. No, what froze her all the way to her marrow was the monster standing beside him.
Funny how Boris wasn’t the monster who came alive in her scariest night terrors. No, the title of Nightmare king belonged to the male looming like a death sentence in front of her, a gorgeous sandy-haired vampire in worn, bloodstained jeans and a loaded weapons harness beneath a long leather coat. A male named
Riker who, twenty years ago, had killed Terese.
His own mate.
The murder in his cool silver gaze said he was about to do the same to Nicole.
A cold rush of fear coursed through her, destroying two decades of therapy in a matter of heartbeats.
“Fucking animals,” Roland rasped. “Slavery is too good for your filthy kind.”
The dagger-fanged vampire grinned, and Nicole watched in horror as, with a jerk of his head and a spray of blood, the vampire ripped out Roland’s throat with his teeth.
Oh, dear Lord, please, no. Not again. A soundless cry escaped from her lips as she wheeled around. Terror made her clumsy, and she slammed her hip into a spindly Elizabethan table, sending a priceless Tang bowl filled with Nicole’s origami flowers crashing to the floor. She made it four steps before a heavy body hit her like a truck and sent her sprawling on the floor.
The jarring impact expelled the air from her lungs in an agonizing burst.
“Don’t bite her!” The male voice boomed, and the vampire on top of her, his teeth shredding her turtleneck, cursed.
“Aw, come on, Riker.” The memory of being not bitten but chewed made Nicole tremble violently as fangs scraped across the scars Boris had left on her throat. “I wasn’t going to kill her. Just taste.”
“Not now.” Riker barked something that sounded like “She’s mine,” and the male on top of her cursed again.
“You got a reprieve, human.” Ginsu-Fang’s softly spoken words against the shell of her ear were more menacing at a whisper than if he’d snarled. “Temporary reprieve.”
With agonizing slowness, he pushed off her. Before she could even think about trying to run again, a hand clamped down on her wrist and yanked her to her feet. Nicole tried to wrench away, but with just one hand, Riker managed to hold her still.
“Give me the vampire named Neriya, and I’ll let you live.”
Neriya?
Riker swung his powerful body into hers and shook her hard enough to rattle her teeth. “Did you hear me? Give me the female.”
Ginsu-Fang slipped silently to the window, but
Nicole kept her attention on the vampire holding her tightly. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she croaked.
Riker’s silver eyes, which gave him away as a turned vampire instead of a rare born one, flashed like razor blades. “Daedalus captured her two weeks ago. I want her . Now.”
His voice, warped with rage, turned her insides to liquid. Despite what he’d said, there was no doubt he was going to kill her regardless. None at all.
But Nicole still had no idea what he was talking about. “I don’t know where she is.” Her voice was shaking as much as she was. “How do you even know Daedalus has her?”
“It doesn’t matter how we know.” His fury blistered the very air around them, and she braced for a blow. Instead, he growled, “Find her.”
“Find her?” she echoed. How was she supposed to do that? As far as she knew, all vampires brought in from the wild were tagged with new designations, so#p#分页标题#e#
Neriya’s name wouldn’t be on file. Tracking her down was going to take time, which was something Nicole doubted she had much of.
“Yes,” he said slowly, as if she were a child. “Find her.”
“Why? Who is she? Your new mate? Are you going to kill her?” Nicole blurted before she could stop her runaway mouth. She had a terrible habit of saying dumb things when she was afraid or nervous.
Riker blinked as if taken aback, but he recovered quickly, his face shuttering. “Why the fuck would I want to rescue a vampire just to kill her? And why do you keep asking questions? I told you what to do. Do it.”
Bluff. “I’ll need to go to my office. I’ll have access to computer files there.”