“Nicole,” katina murmured, “come here. Walk slowly.” The female snapped her fingers at Grant, drawing his attention. “Take one of us, Grant. Nicole is human.”
Shit. This was the moon fever in action. Nicole slid a fat folder off the desk and inched toward katina.
“Shouldn’t he have planned for this?”
“He did,” katina said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Zara is his usual partner. But sometimes he gets confused. It happens to us all every once in a while. Just happens to him more. Probably on account of him being not right in the head.”
There was a blur of white streaking through the lab, and then Zara was on her back on a table. Grant’s body covered her, his fists tangled in her chestnut hair, his teeth deep in her throat.
Nicole had seen vampires feed before, but in controlled settings, like labs. Once, in Paris, she’d been at a full-moon soiree thrown by some of the wealthiest people in France, and the entertainment had included a chained male vampire feeding from a chainedfemale vampire. The ra w violence and sex set against the backdrop of the luxurious decor and the elegantly dressed crowd had been shocking. Nicole hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away. Much like now.
“Whew,” katina breathed. “I really did not want to be fed on tonight. And I definitely didn’t want to sleepwith him. Mad scientists aren’t my thing.”
Nicole’s voice was as unsteady as her legs. “So you don’t have a regular partner?” katina tugged Nicole toward the door, forcing her to look away from Grant, who had started to claw at Zara’s jeans. “There are almost twice as many females as maleshere, so a lot of us don’t have r egular partners.”
“What happens on the new moon?” Clutching the file against her chest, Nicole glanced back at the couple, who were frantically tearing at their clothes, their bodies writhing against each other. “I’d think that would cause trouble.”
“It does. Some males feed two females, but most of us have to take turns and go a month between feedings. Makes for a lot of grumpy females one day a month.” She nudged Nicole with her elbow as they walked through the cavern of halls. “Talk about your PMS. We call it VMS.”
“VMS?” katina waggled her brow. “Vampire mean streak.”
Well, that sounded less than pleasant. Most likely for everyone around the VMS vampire.
The halls were mostly empty, but a few females appeared here and there, until they reached Nicole’s room, where a new female guard had been stationed. katina took her place on the opposite side of the doorway, and Nicole entered her quarters.
Someone had been here while she was in the lab.
More neatly folded clothes had been left on the couch, and piles of food and bottles of water covered the plain but sturdy coffee table. It had to be Riker’s work.
He might have kicked her out of his place, but he’d remembered to send her the things she needed.
Despite the disaster that was last night and his disappearance today, the clothes and food made her smile as she sank onto the couch and opened the file she’d swiped from the lab.
She nibbled on broccoli spears and ranch dip as she thumbed through the pages of Grant’s notes on the cases of bloodlust he’d seen and the methods he’d used to treat them. The results were discouraging: fully percent of the vampires he’d tended to had succumbed to either the disease or the treatment. Now, with her new knowledge of the VR- enzyme’s role in bloodlust, she could see why the treatments that failed did so. What she didn’t understand was why some of
Grant’s methods had worked at all.
There were too many variables and too many unknowns. Nothing that linked the survivors stood out.
She flipped through more pages, stopping when one particular name caught her eye.
Riker.
Grant’s notes were scribbled on the page in his loopy, thick script as he described Riker being brought into his lab by four warriors, his limbs bound, his mouth gagged.
It was the day Terese had died.
The warriors who’d brought him in had outlined what had happened at the mansion, that at some point during the battle on the grounds, Riker had become uncontrollable, a killing machine who wouldn’t listen to reason. They’d had to subdue him in order to escape the VAST team that had swarmed the property.
Riker had attacked and drained several humans.
One of the warriors, Myne, had noticed the change in Riker after he’d killed an “overweight bald man who reeked of rot.”
Uncle Paul. Nicole had, on occasion, heard the household vampires say that her uncle smelled of de— caying flesh or ripe garbage. Nicole had never smelled anything, and to her knowledge, no human had. Only later, as an adult going through her family medical history, had she learned that Uncle Paul had suffered from lung cancer. He’d have died within a couple of months if he hadn’t been drained to death the day Terese died.