LITMIR.BIZ

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hadn’t put there or even noticed up until now. “How observant am I?” she asked. “Could have been a serial killer squatting back there for all I noticed.”

      “No room for a whole serial killer,” Max observed.

      “Hey!” Lou tapped on the roof of the little car. “You two getting out or what?”

      Grinning, Max opened her door and got out of the car.

      Stormy did, too, but her legs felt oddly weak and her muscles, shaky. As if she’d worked out to the point of muscle fatigue. Only she hadn’t.

      When it had happened before, the weakness had soon passed. But it had never been this clear or this powerful before, nor had it ever left her this shaken. She’d asked her doctor about it after the first attack, but though he had run a battery of tests, nothing abnormal had shown up.

      Whatever it was, Stormy was convinced it wasn’t physical. It didn’t feel physical. She couldn’t describe why, exactly, or what it did feel like.

      They walked into the diner, Max watching her every move.

       3

      “Here they are, my lord.”

      He stepped through the open doors into his parlor. It had been weeks since he’d fed. He’d learned to do without for long periods, and Fieldner had been whining that no woman had passed through Endover in all that time.

      But tonight, tonight, he would feed his body and, more important, his soul with the memory of his beloved.

      He looked at the female Fieldner had brought to him. Mocha skin, brown eyes, hair like mink that curled to her shoulders. Beautiful. She stood trembling and wide-eyed at his approach. “You needn’t be afraid,” he said, staring deeply into her eyes, working to ease her mind with the power of his own.

      He frowned and moved closer, and when she backed away, he said two words. “Be still.” And he waved his hand to direct his power more fully.

      She didn’t move again. Just stood there, still afraid. He could hear her heart fluttering as madly as the wings of a trapped dove.

      No matter. He would calm her soon enough. He moved nearer, and when he was right in front of her, he touched her chin with one hand and studied her face.

      Anger flooded him, though he was careful to keep his voice gentle. “How old are you, child?”

      “S-s-seventeen.”

      He lowered his hand and turned away from her, disappointment washing through him as his hunger stabbed more deeply. Free from the hold of his mind, the girl stumbled backward as if suddenly released from a powerful grip.

      “A child?” His eyes sought out those of his servant. Fieldner stood in the shadows, cowering now. “You’ve brought me a child, Fieldner?”

      The man cringed into himself but didn’t back away. “Seventeen is hardly a child. And I brought two of them, master.”

      “Two?” He turned again, noticing the second girl. Caucasian, blond and apparently unconscious on the chaise. He moved to her side, bending over her, touching her, his long fingers sending messages to his keen mind. Then he shot another look at Fieldner. “You’ve drugged her?”

      “B-both of us,” the other girl said.

      He shot her a look, turned to face the girl again. “What is your name, child?”

      “D-Delia. Delia Beck. She’s Janie.” Her lip trembled. “Is she going to be all right?”

      “Yes, I promise you she’s fine. Don’t be afraid, Delia Beck. You have nothing to fear from me.” He took a moment to ease her mind, reaching out to it with his own until she relaxed visibly. “Sit there with your friend,” he told her. “While I deal with this.”

      She went to the chaise and sat upon it, taking her friend’s hand in her own, speaking softly to her.

      He walked across the room to Fieldner, who started babbling at his approach. “I—I had to drug them. I did! There are two of them, and they would have fought me. I didn’t want to have to hurt one of them. You got angry the last time I hurt one of them.”

      “And what good did you think it would do to bring me tainted blood, you idiot?” He looked back at the girls.

      The one called Delia was staring at him as if she couldn’t look away, her heart still racing, though she wasn’t as afraid as she had been. She was mesmerized and terrified all at once. The other one, Janie, moaned, shifting restlessly on the chaise.

      “I cannot feed on tainted blood,” he said to Fieldner. “And I will not feed on children.”

      “I’m sorry, master.”

      “The damage is done. There’s nothing for it but to keep it from getting worse. They will be missed, surely.”

      “No! They were traveling alone.”

      That, at least, was a point in his favor. “Good. I’ll command them to forget and send them on their way. But I need sustenance, Fieldner. And I won’t take it from them.”

      “The emergency stores, sir?”

      “I don’t think so.”

      Bowing his head, the drone—who was also the police chief of Endover—moved across the room to the hardwood bar, a modern contrivance but one he liked. Fieldner removed a velvet case and set it on top. Opening the lid, he extracted a beautiful cut-crystal wineglass and then a jeweled, razor-sharp dagger.

      “I apologize for the girls, sir. But there is something else. Something you should know before I proceed.”

      “You wouldn’t be trying to stall, would you, Fieldner?”

      “No, master.” He held his wrist over the wineglass and, clasping the dagger in his other hand, laid the blade against his own skin. He would do as commanded. But his blood would be gamey. Male blood always was. And the blood of a man as weak-minded as Fieldner would lack spark and power.

      The vampire sighed. “Go on, then. Tell me what it is I should know.”

      “That one. The dark one,” the chief said with a nod of his head toward Delia. “She managed to make a call on her cell phone.”

      He lifted his brows. “And how did she manage that?” he asked.

      “Cowering in the back of my car. I didn’t realize what she was doing.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple swelling and receding like a wave. “Her brother is in town.”

      The girl gasped. “Jason?”

      Fieldner sent her a quelling look. “You shouldn’t ought to have made that phone call, girl. What happens to him now will be on your shoulders.”

      The vampire felt her panic returning, and glanced again at the child. “No harm will befall your brother, Delia. Trust me.”

      “But what about him?” she cried. She pointed a finger at Fieldner. “He kept us locked up in the bottom of some lighthouse for hours! It was dark and we—”

      “Calm,” the vampire said. He drew the word out, aiming more power at the girl. Teenagers—God, but their minds were so much more difficult to control than those of adults. “Relax, child. Everything is fine.”

      She gulped back a sob and sat on the chaise once more.

      Turning to Fieldner again, he said, “Perhaps you’d better begin at the beginning.”

      The other man nodded. “The two girls were passing through town. Stopped at the old visitor center. While they were looking for rest rooms, I pulled a couple of the plug wires, so their car wouldn’t start. Then I offered them a ride to the nearest diner, where they could wait for a tow truck to arrive. They trusted me.”

      Of

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