Bound by Night (The Moonbound Clan Vampires) (20 page)

“Whew,” Katina breathed. “I really did not want to be fed on tonight. And I definitely didn’t want to sleep with him. Mad scientists aren’t my thing.”

Nicole’s voice was as unsteady as her legs. “So you don’t have a regular partner?”

Katina tugged Nicole toward the door, forcing her to look away from Grant, who had started to claw at Zara’s jeans. “There are almost twice as many females as males here, so a lot of us don’t have regular partners.”

“What happens on the new moon?” Clutching the file against her chest, Nicole glanced back at the couple, who were frantically tearing at their clothes, their bodies writhing against each other. “I’d think that would cause trouble.”

“It does. Some males feed two females, but most of us have to take turns and go a month between feedings. Makes for a lot of grumpy females one day a month.” She nudged Nicole with her elbow as they walked through the cavern of halls. “Talk about your PMS. We call it VMS.”

“VMS?”

Katina waggled her brow. “Vampire mean streak.”

Well, that sounded less than pleasant. Most likely for everyone around the VMS vampire.

The halls were mostly empty, but a few females appeared here and there, until they reached Nicole’s room, where a new female guard had been stationed. Katina took her place on the opposite side of the doorway, and Nicole entered her quarters.

Someone had been here while she was in the lab. More neatly folded clothes had been left on the couch, and piles of food and bottles of water covered the plain but sturdy coffee table. It had to be Riker’s work.

He might have kicked her out of his place, but he’d remembered to send her the things she needed. Despite the disaster that was last night and his disappearance today, the clothes and food made her smile as she sank onto the couch and opened the file she’d swiped from the lab.

She nibbled on broccoli spears and ranch dip as she thumbed through the pages of Grant’s notes on the cases of bloodlust he’d seen and the methods he’d used to treat them. The results were discouraging: fully 70 percent of the vampires he’d tended to had succumbed to either the disease or the treatment. Now, with her new knowledge of the VR-2 enzyme’s role in bloodlust, she could see why the treatments that failed did so. What she didn’t understand was why some of Grant’s methods had worked at all.

There were too many variables and too many unknowns. Nothing that linked the survivors stood out.

She flipped through more pages, stopping when one particular name caught her eye.

Riker.

Grant’s notes were scribbled on the page in his loopy, thick script as he described Riker being brought into his lab by four warriors, his limbs bound, his mouth gagged.

It was the day Terese had died.

The warriors who’d brought him in had outlined what had happened at the mansion, that at some point during the battle on the grounds, Riker had become uncontrollable, a killing machine who wouldn’t listen to reason. They’d had to subdue him in order to escape the VAST team that had swarmed the property.

Riker had attacked and drained several humans. One of the warriors, Myne, had noticed the change in Riker after he’d killed an “overweight bald man who reeked of rot.”

Uncle Paul
. Nicole had, on occasion, heard the household vampires say that her uncle smelled of decaying flesh or ripe garbage. Nicole had never smelled anything, and to her knowledge, no human had. Only later, as an adult going through her family medical history, had she learned that Uncle Paul had suffered from lung cancer. He’d have died within a couple of months if he hadn’t been drained to death the day Terese died.

She inhaled sharply.
Cancer
.

In the lab, she and Grant had injected a human protein associated with cancer development into normal vampire cells, and then they’d introduced the VR-2 enzyme, resulting in massive, almost instant growth. They’d theorized that the growth inhibited a vampire’s ability to process the enzyme, causing madness and bloodlust.

What if the common denominator was cancer in the humans vampires fed on? And if that was the case, she could develop a serum to counter the protein and force the cells to shrink.

So excited about the possibilities that she was practically hyperventilating, she leaped from the couch. She had to tell Grant. No, he was busy.
Riker!
He’d want to know, especially since he’d almost died of bloodlust.

Without thinking, she darted out of the room and was instantly flanked by the two female security goons.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Katina called out.

“I have to see Riker.”

The two females didn’t say anything, merely let Nicole jog down the hall to Riker’s quarters. She tapped on the door. A sharp, high-pitched bark came from inside. “Come in.”

She pushed open the door. And came to a shocked halt.

Riker had a sleek, fiery-haired female pinned to the wall, his teeth buried in her throat. Both were fully clothed, but the female was riding him as if she were naked, panting, whimpering in ecstasy. And that was when Nicole realized that the female had been the one Nicole heard tell her to “Come in.” Except that hadn’t been what she said.

I’m coming
.

Inexplicable hurt and anger pierced Nicole in the heart, as sharp as one of Riker’s cruel-edged blades. A choked squeak escaped her, and Riker’s head whipped
around. His eyes glowed an intense, bright blue, and his fangs, twice their normal size, dripped with blood. A low, pumping growl bubbled up from deep in his chest as he held her, utterly frozen, with his gaze.

The room shrank. Closed in on her the way the prey room had.

She had to get out of here. Mind overloaded with erotic images of Riker with the sultry female, Nicole stumbled backward through the doorway.

Then she ran like hell to her room.

T
HE PREY WAS
on the run.

His heart pounding like he’d been giving chase for hours, Riker tore himself away from Benet and started for the door.

“Wait.” Benet’s breathy command stopped him, but he didn’t turn around. “I’m here. I’m willing. I’ve been willing for years. But you want the human?”

Riker clenched his teeth as he tried to force out a lie, but the
no
wouldn’t come. The soft tap of Benet’s feet drew close, and then her satin lips were on his ear.

“This is the first time since Terese’s death that you’ve shown interest in a female.” She dragged her mouth to his throat, to the spot she always fed from. “Go,” she whispered. “Get her.”

She didn’t have to say it twice. In the back of his mind, he made a note to thank her, but the rest of his brain was swamped with a need he couldn’t control, and he shot out of his quarters with the single-minded purpose of a wolf tracking a female in heat.

So he really wasn’t happy to see his buddy in the hall,
blocking his path. Riker slammed into Myne, knocking him out of the way.

“Dude.” Myne caught Riker’s shoulder and swung him around. “What the fuck?”

Riker let out a furious snarl and introduced his friend’s spine to the wall. “Don’t. Just. Don’t.”

Myne’s smoky eyes flashed. “You need to feed, man. You’re jacked.”

“I already fed,” Riker ground out.

Myne raked his gaze over Riker, nostrils flaring as he took in Riker’s scent. “Ah, shit.” Myne’s voice went low. “Come on, buddy. Let’s grab a bottle of rum and hit the game room.”

Rum and the game room? On any other night, Riker would have taken Myne up on shots and some poker or pool but not now. Not while he was high on blood and riding the moon fever like it was his personal bitch. There was a dark, barely restrained lust lurking just below the surface of his civility, a living thing that had been clawing at him for years, waiting to get out.

Nicole had unlatched its cage, and it wanted to thank her.

“No.” Riker shoved away from Myne.

“Dammit,” Myne snapped, and this time when he tried to stop Riker, his face got intimate with Riker’s fist. The crack echoed through the halls, followed by Myne’s growl. “You stupid fuck. No good can come of you screwing the human.” Myne put the back of his hand to his mouth and came away with blood. “You’ve been moping about Terese’s death for twenty years, and it’s a
human
who drags you out of it?”

“Shut up.”

Never one to follow orders, Myne pressed on. “She’s not just a human, you dipshit. She’s a human who
owned
Terese. You’re really going to stick your dick in that?”

Riker hissed. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” His voice throbbed with anger. “Go find your pain-loving female, and give her a good dose of misery. Or is she with someone else this month?” Like Myne, Riker didn’t ease up now that he’d struck a sore spot. Why go for the pain when you could go for the kill? “What are you going to do when her father finds her a suitable male to mate with? What then? What female is going to be eager to take your particular brand of affection? No one here will have you.”

The brief flash of hurt and surprise in Myne’s eyes shamed Riker, but Myne recovered quickly, his expression hardening into stone. “Don’t come crying to me later when you’re ridden with guilt and regret.” Myne shoved past Riker and disappeared down the hall.

Dammit.
Now lust
and
anger were ripping through his veins and spinning him off his axis. Only one thing would set him right again, and that soft, feminine thing was in a room down the hall.

He didn’t even remember getting there. When Katina moved to intercept, all it took was a scowl, and she moved aside.

He found Nicole in the bedroom.

She jumped off the bed, where she’d been sitting with a piece of paper, hands frantically folding out some sort of animal shape.

“Get out,” she rasped.

He prowled toward her. “After.”

“After what?” She swept up a glass of water off her nightstand and hurled it at his head. He stepped easily aside but didn’t avoid the water that splashed on his back when the glass shattered on the wall. “After you yell at me some more?”

“No,” he said darkly. “After we finish what we started.”

NICOLE’S HEART WAS
pounding out of her chest. Riker stood there, his body radiating a combustible mixture of danger and lust, his fangs glistening behind parted lips.

Lips that had been on some skanky vampire’s throat while she arched against him, her legs locked around his waist.

Nicole had no right to be jealous. Hell, she didn’t even have a reason. They might have inexplicable physical chemistry, but there wasn’t anything emotional between them. Nothing. She didn’t even like Riker.

Liar
.

“There’s nothing to finish.”

“Nothing to finish? You wondered why sex with a vampire was such a big deal. I’m going to show you.” He moved toward her, slowly, like a cat sneaking up on a bird. “Stamina.” He stepped closer. “Multiple orgasms.” Closer, and her mouth went dry. “Flexibility.” Closer. Her skin flushed hot. “Strength.” Closer. Her stomach did a flip-flop. “The ability to sense heat so we know what parts of the body are the most sensitive at the right time.” Closer. A throbbing ache started low
in her pelvis. “The ability to hear the slightest change in the tempo of your pulse so we know exactly how every stroke, kiss, and lick affects you.”

Oh. Dear. Lord.

Wetness bloomed between her thighs, and then he was in front of her, his hands on her shoulders, his mouth on hers. A needy, masculine sound rattled inside his chest as he rolled his pelvis into her belly. The rigid length behind the fly of his jeans was a
big
clue to what he thought they needed to finish, and she had to swallow a groan.

“You shouldn’t have come back to my place,” he murmured against her lips.

No, she shouldn’t have. “Sorry. Did I ruin the mood for you and your girlfriend?”

He slipped one arm behind her waist to haul her even more firmly against him. “Not my girlfriend.”

“My apologies. She’s a casual screw, then.”

He took her bottom lip between his teeth, then soothed the spot with his tongue. “We’ve never had sex.”

Oh. Huh.
As much as she liked that answer, she still had the image of them dry-humping in her head. “So I interrupted your first time.”

“I didn’t want her. I feed from her. That’s all.”

She shoved him away and stepped aside. “Really? Because you two were about thirty seconds from being a lot more than blood buddies.”

“I’ll be damned.” A blatantly triumphant male smile lit up his expression. “You’re jealous.”

“I am not.” Yes, she was. “I’m . . . confused. I’m so freaking . . . I don’t know!”

He regarded her the way someone might look at a rabid animal. “I don’t understand.”

She rounded on him. “You wouldn’t, you giant ass.” To be honest, she didn’t understand, either. But that didn’t stop her from putting several days’ worth of fear and stress on the table. “I’m scared, okay? I’m lost. I don’t know where I am, and everyone here looks at me like they want to eat me or torture me. Maybe both. I want to go home, but then I don’t want to go home because everything I thought I knew is one big lie. The people I trusted have turned against me, and even my own brother is afraid to help me.” She paused to take a breath, fresh fuel for her tirade. “I should hate you, but instead, I’m attracted to you, which is beyond twisted, especially since I know that after I get Neriya back, I’m probably going to die.” She dashed away tears with the back of her hand. “So forgive me if I’m a little emotionally unstable right now.” She sniffed. “Ass.”