Suddenly, a huge foot came down on the ring. Too petrified to move, Nicole could only gasp when massive hands ripped her from her hiding place and hurled her against the supply-shed wall. She crumpled to the ground, pain tearing through her back, her hips, and her right leg. She tried to scramble to her feet, but her body wasn’t working right.
Trembling, choking on a sob, she looked down at her thigh and the bloody end of bone protruding through mangled flesh. Her princess dress was grass— and bloodstained now. Even through her unimaginable agony and terror, her mind could form only one thought with any semblance of clarity: she would be in so much trouble for ruining her clothes.
“I’ve been looking for you, Nicole.”
Through a haze of anguish and tears, she glanced up at the vampire looming over her. “B-Boris?” She cried out as her family’s chef lifted her and once again slammed her against the shed, this time pinning her there. “Where’s my daddy? I want my mommy. Mommy! ”
“Call for her all you want,” Boris said. “She’s not coming.” He touched her cheek with his finger, and a stab of icy terror shot straight to her heart. “I’ve fed you since you were old enough to eat solid foods, you spoiled little human. Now it’s time for you to feed me.”
He took a deep breath, like he was smelling her. “I’ve always heard that children taste better than adults.
Sweeter. Purer. Now I get to find out for myself.” He grinned. “It’s going to hurt, since I have no fangs.”
Nicole tried to fight. Tried to kick, hit, scream. But Boris was strong, and she was a petrified eight-year-old girl with a broken leg. His dull teeth sank into her skin. Grinding, crushing sounds accompanied a storm of agony as he chewed into her throat. Liquid warmth streamed down her neck, and when she tried to scream, only a gurgling noise came out of her mouth.
Why was he doing this? Why would someone who had baked her cookies for after-school snacks and strawberry cakes for her birthdays want to hurt her so badly?
You can domesticate animals, but you can never trust them or know for sure that they won’t bite. You can’t override instinct, her father once said. Vampires are animals that must always be harnessed. Remember that, Nicole.
She hadn’t believed him. But as her body went mercifully numb and her struggles weakened, she recalled what her father had said when she’d argued that their household vampires, like Boris and Terese, were kind and loyal.
Even cute, fluffy pet bunnies can bite.
Darkness closed in, and in the last second before she lost consciousness, Nicole wondered if bunny bites hurt as badly as vampire bites.
Chapter 1
“Go fuck yourself.”
Hunter, MoonBound clan’s leader, leaned back in his chair and gave Riker an expectant look.
“Go fuck yourself . . . ?” He made a come on gesture with his fi ngers. “Finish the sentence.”
Riker rolled his eyes. “Go fuck yourself . . . sir.”
Nodding his dark head in satisfaction, Hunter kicked his boots up onto the scarred oak conference table. “Better.” He laced his fi ngers together over his abs, his deeply tanned skin making his white T-shirt seem even brighter. “Now, as I was saying before being told to do something anatomically impossible, if we can storm the Martin residence with enough of our warriors, we can take hostages. The humans will be forced to give Neriya back to us.”
Another warrior seated at the table, Baddon, fl ipped a pen toward the ceiling. “Why don’t we get ShadowSpawn to pony up some muscle to help?”
Without looking, he snatched the pen out of the air.
“It’s their female we’re trying to rescue.”
“I already tried,” Hunter said grimly. “They insist that because Neriya was taken by the humans while in our care, we’re responsible for getting her back, or they’ll declare war on the eve of the new moon.” katina, the clan’s only senior-level female warrior, hissed. “That goes against every vampire custom and protocol there is. No one declares war so close to moon fever.” She braced her elbows on the table and leaned forward, as if ready to launch herself at anyone who dared argue with her. She’d certainly done it before.
That table had seen a number of brawls over the years.#p#分页标题#e#
A few dents even belonged to Riker. “You know they wouldn’t do it on the eve of the full moon, when the males need to feed.”
“No clan would risk that,” Baddon said. “But females mean little to ShadowSpawn except as breeders.
They don’t give a shit if the females miss a new-moon feeding.”
“Fuck ’em,” katina spat. “Let them come. Our warriors are well trained and powerful. We’ll give them the fight of their lives.”