Vampire Most Wanted(35)

            Shaking that worry away, Divine eyed the key fob on the chain with other keys and then pressed the broken lock symbol twice and heard the clicking as the locks were released. She then immediately slid the keys into her pocket, debated how to open the door she had leaned the man against, and then sighed to herself. There was nothing else she could do; she hefted him over her shoulder, wincing at his cry of pain, and then used her free hand to open the back door. She leaned forward then, easing him off her shoulder and onto the SUV floor, then shifted his legs inside and followed to close the door behind them.

            There was a small refrigerator built into one corner of the back of the SUV. It was locked and she searched briefly through his keys until she found the right one and opened it, but then simply stared at the contents. Six bags of blood, almost ice-cold. Divine grimaced at the sight. Junk food for immortals. It held little in the way of nutrients, but it was what he wanted and she supposed at this point, even a small amount of nutrients were better than none.

            Shaking her head, she grabbed a bag and turned to Marcus. He was still conscious and his fangs slid out as soon as he spotted the bag in her hand so Divine popped it to his mouth, waited for it to empty, and then replaced it with another. There were six bags in the refrigerator and Marcus went through them in maybe a little more than six minutes. He began to thrash and groan even before he finished the last bag. The healing was starting and it was obviously going to be nasty.

            Divine peered at him with concern for a moment and then cursed under her breath and began to shift over the backseats to the driver’s seat, his keys still clutched in her hand. They couldn’t stay here. She had to get him the hell away from the carnies and anybody else if she didn’t want him drawing attention to them.

            That thought uppermost in her mind, she started the engine and managed to maneuver them out of the back lot and onto the road. Marcus began thrashing and shrieking in the back almost the moment she got the tires on blacktop.

            Divine ground her teeth and did her best to ignore the tortured sounds, as well as the way the vehicle rocked with his wild thrashing. She needed to concentrate. She needed to find someplace secluded enough that his screams wouldn’t be overheard.

            Marcus was suffering. His entire body felt like it was on fire, from the tips of his toes to the ends of the hairs on his head. Everything seemed to be screaming in agony. He’d taken enough damage that the six bags in the truck hadn’t been enough. He needed more.

            “Divine,” he croaked, writhing on whatever it was he lay on. He really had no idea, and didn’t care. All he cared about in this world was making the pain stop. He’d give her Bastien’s number and have her order more blood brought at once. He needed it. That was the only thing that would end this agony.

            “Divine,” he gasped, rolling his head back and around looking for her. He was in the SUV, he saw. Alone. Groaning, he curled into a ball on the vehicle floor and wept helplessly, overwhelmed by the pain thrashing him. But then he forced himself to drag himself closer to the door and reach for it. He needed blood.

            Before he could even try to open it himself, the door was pulled open from outside, revealing Divine and a young mortal woman in a nightgown. He stared blankly for a moment, overwhelmed once again, this time by the smells and sounds coming from the blank-faced mortal woman. He could actually smell and hear the blood pumping through her body, and it was beautiful, he thought briefly and then lunged at the mortal, his fangs sliding out.





            Eight

            Divine tugged the leather jacket she’d donned a little tighter around herself and shifted uncomfortably in the front seat, and then opened her eyes on a little groan and rolled her head. She had a crick in her neck from sleeping upright in the driver’s seat. Nice. That was something immortals didn’t get if they had enough blood in their system, but then she already knew she didn’t. She needed to feed.

            Suddenly aware that the moaning and groaning that had been coming from the back of the SUV for what had seemed like hours had now died off, Divine twisted in the seat to peer back at Marcus. He was sleeping soundly, lying in the back amid the flakes of burnt flesh that his body had shed as he’d healed.