If she’d been a man, he wouldn’t have hesitated, but his upbringing never left him despite the monster inside of him begging him to be set loose. Alec didn’t like to hurt women.
He heard her when she approached the room. The steady but slightly too fast beat of her heart. She was scared. Good, she had sense. The air moved through her lungs as she breathed, keeping her going. She put a hand on her hip, and he wondered if one of them pained her. They creaked slightly, not something he’d expect for a woman of her age.
Had she been injured?
Why did he care?
She wore Lauren’s clothes, a choice he’d possibly made too hastily. He didn’t need memories of the time Edward had lost control and killed his mother. Or, rather, started the process of her dying—giving her just enough of his vampire blood to make her blood toxic but not change her. She hadn’t wanted to follow her son into the eternal night. There had been nothing any of them could do but see to it she was comfortable while she died.
That had fallen to him.
“Hello,” she said. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a blue shirt with shoulder pads, Essence looked very different than the wet bedraggled in mess she’d been when she arrived. Either way, she was gorgeous.
“Good evening.” The sooner he got her out of here, the sooner he could get back to his nighttime. She didn’t belong there or anywhere near his world. It was time to get Essence far away from him.
She held up her briefcase. “I bet you know how to do this already. You must have been doing this for what, fifteen years?”
He did look like he was in his early thirties. That was the age he’d been when he died. When he’d risen from his coffin, he had stayed as he’d been the day he’d been killed. His hair had been too long—a decision he’d made in order to fuel the fire between himself and his father at the time. Now, he would forever look like the disobedient son he’d once been.
“Yes, about fifteen years.” She wouldn’t believe the truth and, if she did, she’d run for her life. He needed to get the papers signed.
She nodded once before she placed the case on the table. The same yellow tabs that were always on the outside of the stack of papers presented themselves, waiting for his signature. He grabbed his pen and got to the task, flipping through the papers. The first years with any new name was a problem—he always had to be his own son. Dying and being reborn as the next male in his family proved harder the more information that was presented on the so-called Internet. The worldwide web made things harder on vampires in a universe that was already pretty difficult.
“You missed one.” She pressed against him, leaning forward to flip one of the pages back. Her scent, which he determinedly had not thought about, wafted toward him. Vanilla. His blood boiled, and the monster roared. He wanted to taste. He wanted blood. He wanted her.
Alec reared back, his fangs dropping despite his best efforts. He knew what else had happened, too. His eyes were red and the vampire face, the monster within, surged to life ready to have her. It had been too damned long since he had fed. This was all his fault.
Essence ran backwards, a silent scream sounding from her, hitting his ears before she ever made a sound a human could hear. Her terror produced a song before her body ever did.
With his fangs bared and his monster riding him hard, there wasn’t much he could do to stop the inevitable. She ran, he chased. Essence Welch, who had come to bring him his papers, was now his meal for the night.
He should have left her in the rain.
She slipped on the bottom step, falling forward, and her blonde hair floated behind her like angel wings. In two seconds, she was out cold on the pavement. He sighed. Really, this was no fun. The prey was supposed to run.
You decide when you eat. Not the monster. You have to drink blood to live, you don’t have to be what he wants you to be.
Benyamin’s voice slowed his advance. He wanted to drink her blood, but he’d long ago learned how little what he desired mattered. Duty determined what kind of existence the rest of his days would be. If he couldn’t control himself better than this, he should seek the sun and be done with it.
Alec travelled the brief distance to her side, still not sure what he would do when he touched her. She wasn’t dead, her heart still beat, but she might be soon. Head injuries were so troublesome for the living. He flipped her over. The hit wasn’t bad, but her lack of consciousness did not seem a good sign for her future.
Blood dripped down the side of her cheek. It dripped and flowed. He groaned. Blood. The fluid of life and the mother’s milk to a vampire. He’d never wanted anything as much as he craved Essence Welch’s blood.
There had to be a compromise, some way to satisfy the beast and not drain this woman dry. He touched the side of her face, coating his index finger with her blood. Like a man possessed, he brought it to his mouth. It was so sweet, he shivered from the sensation.