Melly stepped across the threshold to give her a hug.
When she would have pulled back, Justine’s grip turned to iron. “I’m truly sorry, my love,” Justine said in her ear. “Your mother and I have known each other for a long time, and I really enjoy you. But things haven’t gone so well for me lately, and you’re much too valuable a piece of leverage for me to ignore right now.”
Struggle as she might Melly couldn’t break Justine’s hold. The Vampyre was too old, too Powerful.
Taking her by the chin, Justine forced Melly to look into her gaze. Melly couldn’t look away.
The world went black.
Turn the page for a sneak peek at Thea Harrison’s next novel of the Elder Races
MIDNIGHT’S KISS
Coming soon from Berkley Sensation
Come on, Melly, will you wake up already?” someone demanded. An impatient woman, with a familiar voice. “Hell’s bells, I didn’t realize I compelled you to go down that hard. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”
Melly had been having the strangest dream.
The first part had been awesome. She dreamed she was skiing, whipping along the downhill slope so fast she could hear the wind whistle in her ears. Gods, she loved that rush.
Something snagged her left ski, and she lost all control. The world flipped as she tumbled head over heels. Ow. Ow. Ow.
Then with the sneaky suddenness that dreams could sometimes have, the scene shifted and she landed in a sprawl in her Malibu living room. Through the open archway that led to her bedroom, she saw Julian lying in her bed.
The tangled sheets had fallen around his hips. She knew from memory every muscled bulge and hollow of his broad, scarred chest. Her heart started to pound as she stared at him. It’d been so long since they’d been together, so very long.
Could it be possible for skin to feel hungry? Her skin ached for the sensation of his rough, callused fingers.
His white flecked dark hair tousled, he watched her with wolflike eyes. “Pick up your damn phone will you?” he snapped.
He was such a killjoy. Furiously, she threw her phone at him, and he blurred to catch it. As she watched, Julian crushed the phone in one hand.
“Okay,” the director said. (Who was directing this film? Squinting, she tried to look past the bright set lights.) “We need just one more thing before we call it a wrap. Come on, Melly—give us one of your awesome screams. Wake up and don’t hold back, just let ’er rip.”
Obligingly, she tried to open her mouth to belt out a good one, but she still had her skiing helmet on with the chin guard, and somebody had added a mouthpiece to it that was actually kind of making it hard to breathe. She struggled, trying to get her hands free so she could tear off the mouthpiece, but somebody had put her in a straitjacket . . .
That couldn’t be right. They finished the film with the straitjacket years ago.
What the hell?
Her eyes popped open.
Someone, a Vampyre male, was carrying her over his shoulder, fireman style. Her head bobbed upside down. She had pinned her long, curling hair into a loose chignon, and it had slipped sideways over one ear. Strong, bobbing beams of light illuminated a rough stony hallway.
Not a hallway. A tunnel.
She was gagged, and her wrists and ankles tied.
Panic struck. She erupted into wild struggles.
She almost managed to flip out of the strange male’s hold, but swearing, he hoisted her into a more secure position and wrapped his arms around her thighs.
Someone bent over her and smacked her over the ear so hard her head rang. “Behave.”
Craning her neck, she stared up at a beautiful, young-looking woman with auburn hair. A very familiar woman, and a very old Vampyre, one of the most Powerful in the Nightkind demesne. Justine.
The wrongness of the situation rocketed around Melly’s mind. She had gone skiing, and had just returned to her Malibu home to get ready for her next shoot, when Justine had shown up on her doorstep. After that—nothing.
While she couldn’t talk physically, she could telepathically. Justine, she said tensely. What the fuck are you doing?
Justine petted her head then removed the gag. “There, there,” said the Vampyre. “Everything will probably be okay.”
Everything will probably be okay?
“What are you talking about!” Her head ached, and she struggled to think past it.
There was no way Melly could have been prepared for this, none.
When Melly went out in public, she was usually attended by a guard or two, but her Malibu home was in a gated community with a good security system. Other actors and celebrities lived in the community, and normally, Melly felt perfectly safe there. Normally, she would never have imagined someone like Justine would kidnap her.
Justine had been on friendly terms with Melly’s mother, Tatiana, the Light Fae Queen, for a very long time, and she had made friendly overtures to Melly for years.