LITMIR.BIZ

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of blood leaked down his cheeks.

      His teeth ripped across her neck, but she didn’t scream. Didn’t have the strength to scream anymore.

      Her finger jerked on the trigger, firing again, again, again—

      But he didn’t stop. Didn’t stop biting her, drinking from her, killing her.

      So this is what death feels like.

      Darkness surrounded her. Complete, suffocating darkness.

      “What the hell do you think got a hold of her?” A man’s voice, shaken.

      “Dunno.” A woman, she sounded like she truly didn’t give a shit.

      Her body was lifted. Pushed. A door slammed.

      Silence.

      Two more doors slammed.

      An engine started.

      “Did you see the blood?” The man’s voice again. “That whole freaking alley was covered with her blood.”

      “Um.” The woman.

      “Had to be an animal, right? I mean, nothing else could have done that to her throat.”

      Maya frowned. Her throat didn’t hurt anymore. In fact, nothing hurt. But she still felt cold.

      And it was so dark.

      What had happened to the moonlight?

      A crackle of static, then a hard voice blasted, “Second ambulance en route. Got a body three streets over—a shooting victim…”

      Shooting victim. The vamp? She hoped she’d killed his ass. Maybe he’d crawled away and died.

      But what the hell had happened to her?

      She tried to move, tried to lift her hands, but something surrounded her, trapped her.

      A growl of frustration and fear rumbled in her throat.

      “Did you hear that?” The guy’s voice was nearly a shriek.

      Maya winced.

      “No, I didn’t hear a damn thing.” But the woman’s heart was suddenly beating faster.

      How the hell can I hear her heart?

      “Let’s just hurry up and drop her ass off at the morgue, okay?” Mr. Shrill and Scared. “I swear, I-I think I saw the bag move.”

      The morgue. The bag.

      Shit. Suddenly, Maya knew exactly what was happening. Those idiots had tagged her, had thought she was dead. She’d even thought so, too, for a time. She’d thought for certain she felt the icy touch of death.

      But she was still alive. She’d fought, and she was still alive. Still—“I’m alive!” Her voice emerged as a scream.

      The squeal of brakes followed her cry. The vehicle swerved, fishtailed, then screeched to a stop.

      Maya squirmed, fighting the darkness that surrounded her. Her nails caught a thick, hard fabric, dug in, ripped, slashed.

      “Jesus Christ!” A jerk of a zipper. Then light, bright, blinding light spilled onto her. She blinked against the light and against the sudden, sharp stab of pain in her eyes.

      Then she saw the man. Young, with sandy blond hair and dark, wire-framed glasses. He was thin, lanky. The woman stood looking just over his shoulder. Her red hair flared around her and her green eyes were so wide they seemed to swallow her face.

      “Y-you y-you…” The chick’s mouth opened and closed like a fish’s. Her pulse beat madly in her throat. The thudding filled Maya’s ears, made her mouth water.

      She shoved out of the bag, a damn body bag, and leapt from the back of the ambulance. She wound up soaring ten feet into the air and then she came back down to the ground with a thud.

      The woman screamed. Maya glanced back just in time to see the redhead’s eyes roll back into her head as she fainted.

      The man’s face turned completely white as the color bleached from his skin. “Wh-what are you?”

      As his heartbeat filled her ears, that tempting, wonderful beat, her canines lengthened, burned.

      And Maya realized she hadn’t survived her attack.

      No, she hadn’t survived it at all…

      Chapter 1

      Five years later…

      Adam Brody kept his eyes on his prey as she moved down the street. Her hair, dark, midnight black, gleamed in the moonlight, skimming just past her shoulders. Her body, slender but strong, moved fluidly as she ran through the night.

      He had been watching her for days now. Watching as she prowled the streets at night. Watching as she fed. As she fought. Even as she killed.

      Maya Black.

      There had been whispers about her for years. Tales of the vampire who hunted her own kind.

      The vampire who fought demons, shifters, vamps—any damn thing that got in her way.

      There was a price on her head. But for five years, no one had been able to collect that bounty.

      Because Maya was one tough bitch to stake.

      She approached a ramshackle building, a building with boarded windows and red gang tags shining on the exterior walls. Her hand lifted, banged on the door.

      A man wrenched open the metal door. He took one look at Maya and stepped back, letting her inside.

      Adam caught the scent of blood on the wind.

      His body stiffened as understanding dawned. She’d just gone into a feeding room. One of the safe houses for vamps. A place to drink, to fuck, to do whatever the hell the vamps wanted with the humans who were unlucky enough to be inside. Often, the humans stumbled into the feeding room by mistake. They thought they’d just gone into a new bar, a trendy, secret spot. Then the vamps got then. Once the vamps took their blood, it was over for the humans. A vamp could link with his victim. It was so easy to slip into a human’s mind after the bite.

      The bitten humans never thought about turning on the vamps, or revealing the feeding rooms to the authorities. They were too addicted to the vampire’s power, and too under the vamp’s control.

      Not that revealing a feeding room to the authorities would do much good, anyway. The cops had learned long ago how to hide the supernatural activities from the larger society. And the vamps…they were so good at blending in—hiding in plain sight.

      So they took their blood and they fucked, and they didn’t care how many humans they hurt.

      He’d wondered when Maya would feed again. It had been two days since he’d watched her drink from a man. Two days since she’d pushed a young dumbass up against a wall and locked those red lips of hers onto his neck and shoved those sharp teeth into his throat. Even from fifty yards away, he’d heard the man’s cry of ecstasy as Maya fed.

      He’d expected Maya to drain the man dry. To slash his throat and leave him dead on the street. But she’d lowered the guy onto the curb, whispered to him, and walked away.

      She’d left her prey alive.

      Damn odd for a vampire.

      Of course, the same night she’d cut the head off a level-five demon who’d made the mistake of jumping her.

      He sauntered slowly down the street, keeping his gaze on the feeding room, but listening intently for every sound on the block.

      Adam had never thought that he’d willingly offer himself up as food for a fucking parasite, but it looked like this might be the only way he could get close to Maya. And he needed to get close to her, for now.

      She kept her prey alive.

      So,

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