Inez nodded slowly. “Marguerite’s alive, then?”
“As far as I know,” he answered.
Inez stared at him silently, waiting, but when he simply stood there, the tension of the passing moments began to get to her and she asked, “So you’re here to kill me?”
He suddenly shifted one side of his long coat, revealing the sword that it had hidden. That and his answering smile made her blood run cold, and her fingers tightened on the knife behind her back.
“Why haven’t you taken control of me?” Inez asked, suddenly eager to draw out the conversation and put off whatever he had planned for her.
“I wouldn’t want you to think I was a coward, afraid of a tiny mortal female,” he said, his mocking voice laced with anger. “Uncontrolled and with that butcher knife you’re hiding behind your back, you have a fighting chance…don’t you?”
Inez jerked with surprise and realized while he hadn’t been controlling her, he must have been reading her. Either that or he’d simply been aware of what she was doing when she’d drawn the knife out. So much for the advantage of surprise.
“Are you done with your questions now? Can we get to the killing you part without your whining about cowardly behavior and so on? Or,” he added with malice, “do you need to see the size of my penis to assure yourself I have more than a tootsie roll?”
“Er…no, I’ll take your word on that,” Inez muttered, her gaze slipping around the room, scoping out where everything was and looking for anything that might help her against him.
A soft click sounded behind her and Inez suddenly recalled the electric teakettle she’d set to boil.
“Good. Let’s get to it, then, shall we?”
Inez glanced sharply back at the blond man as he withdrew the sword from his waist.
“That’s a little bit of overkill, isn’t it?” she asked, finally pulling the butcher knife from the drawer and bringing it around to her side. Much to her relief, his eyes moved to the small weapon. Taking advantage of his distraction, she reached back with her right hand to grab the teakettle.
“Perhaps,” he admitted, turning his attention back to his own much larger blade. Holding it up, he turned it this way and that, watching the kitchen light shimmer off of it. “But it’s my lucky sword and I haven’t had much luck with you so far.”#p#分页标题#e#
“Maybe it’s your approach,” Inez muttered, her fingers finding the handle of the kettle and her thumb settling on the lever that worked the lid.
“Do you think so?” he asked idly.
And then he was suddenly rushing her. Inez immediately lifted the teakettle and brought it around, her thumb pressing down on the lid as she sent the contents flying over him. She aimed for his face. The boiling liquid poured over one side of his scalp, face, and neck, bringing a startled roar of pain from his throat as he stumbled back.
Inez immediately whirled and made a run for the open back door, but he caught her from behind. Screaming in frustration, Inez twisted in his arms to face him. The moment she did, he lifted her off the ground. Her eyes widened in horror as she saw his mouth open and his fangs glide out. Realizing he meant to bite her, she instinctively stabbed out with the knife, slamming it into the unburned side of his throat.
Blood began to gush out of the wound the moment she pulled the knife free and Inez was winding up for another stab when a funny thing happened. The hunger she’d been suffering, but had managed to ignore since the bearded blond had appeared, suddenly became unignorable and roared to furious life. It became an almost living thing in her body, as if a million bees were buzzing through her veins…and then Inez felt a strange shifting in her upper teeth and something pricked her tongue, making her mouth open with surprise.
“Jesus,” the blond breathed. Freezing with her face inches from his, he stared at her mouth with amazement. “They turned you. Why didn’t I pick up on that in your thoughts?”
Inez simply stared at him, her mind gone blank. She’d had no idea. She didn’t recall being turned. The last thing she recalled was falling and bits and pieces of nightmares.
“You didn’t know,” he said with a disbelieving laugh.
It was the laugh that knocked her out of her shock. It rubbed her on the raw. Inez hated to be laughed at. She swung the knife again, ramming it once more into his throat.
The hands holding her tightened briefly in shock, and then he bellowed and threw her furiously away from him, hurling her across the kitchen. Inez slammed into the kitchen counter at the end of the room with such force she heard an ominous snapping sound from her back and then slid to the floor and simply lay there, unable to move. Her panicked mind was screaming that he’d broken her back and she was paralyzed, but Inez was having trouble believing it. She was supposed to be an immortal now. She had fangs. Surely you couldn’t break an immortal’s back?