Crimson Rush A Vampire Romance (Crimson Book 1) (3 page)

He released me so quickly that I stumbled a little before getting my balance.

Sliding his fingers beneath my chin, he tilted my head so that I was forced to look into his eyes.

“Do you want to die?” he asked.

A band of apprehension tightened around my chest so that I could barely manage a whisper. “No.”

“Then why are you here? Why are you with Luke?”

“I told you?”

He released my chin and smiled. “Oh yes … you are under Luke’s protection … and you wanted to ask me some questions?”

I nodded.

“Tell me Miss Lavelle … why haven’t you ever been with yet? Why haven’t you let him give you that ultimate high of having sex with a vampire?”

Warning bells rang in my head. It had to be a trick question. “That’s none of your business,” I told him.

His eyes raked over me seductively, and I felt my heart jump.

“Goodnight Miss Lavelle. Maybe we’ll meet again,” he said with a devilish smile. “Also … would you tell Luke I’d like a few words with him before he goes.”

The drive home was uncomfortable at best. After I told Luke what happened with Marcus, he grew quiet, almost brooding. I got the distinct impression he was avoiding conversation so that he wouldn’t have to answer any of my millions of questions.

That was just too bad for him.

After he and Charlie had thrown my life into total chaos, the least he could do was answer some questions.

Vampires!

Until Uncle Charlie had shown up at my house, I hadn’t a clue they were real, or what Crimson Club really was.

Discovering that I actually had an Uncle Charlie, along with the fact that vampires were not just myth, was a major head-trip I wouldn’t be forgetting too soon.

In the short time it had taken for Charlie to explain why he’d come back to Cookson Springs, I went from clueless to panic attack.

I even picked up the phone to call 911 and report a couple of insane men in my house, but then Luke demonstrated their sincerity by showing his fangs, and his impressive ability to move across the room at a speed that would have been impossible for a human.

I slowly began to accept what Uncle Charlie was telling me, though reluctantly. There were still a number of things I was confused about, but the main thing was Luke.

Now why would my Uncle Charlie, who claimed to be a vampire hunter, be partnered with a vampire?

It wasn’t a subject I was ready to tackle yet, if ever. All I knew is that Charlie needed my help and I’d agreed, mostly to help Max. My friend had been found off the side of the road, nearly comatose.

Charlie claimed that what happened to Max, might be connected to what he was investigating.

According to Charlie, all I had to do was go to Club Crimson with Luke, and see which vampires took the most interest in me.

Sounded easy enough, except that he’d never actually explained why it was important to know which vampires showed an interest.

Wouldn’t all of them?

By my way of thinking, if you had blood, a vampire was going to be interested. It would be something like flaunting a sirloin steak to a starving man.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luke reach into his pants pocket and pull out a mini bottle. Opening the bottle, he downed the whiskey without so much as flinching.

That’s when it dawned on me that he was drinking something, other than blood. He’d had whiskey earlier in the night, but I’d been so caught up in watching Marcus that it hadn’t occurred to me to ask the obvious question.

“I thought vampires could only drink blood?” I asked, without taking my eyes from the road.

He laughed. “It’s a bit complicated to explain, but basically our body function is almost normal, as long as we feed.”

My face twisted in disgust.

“Don’t ask if you don’t want to know,” he said.

“There are a lot of things I want to know about vampires. Like how do they keep their existence a secret?” I asked, glancing over at him.

It was difficult to keep from staring at Luke. After all, he was a vampire. I found this intriguing, but he wasn’t bad looking either. I kind of liked the way his chestnut colored bangs swept carelessly across his forehead.

“Is it really that much of a secret? If you give it some thought … you’ll see that vampires are very much a part of human culture, and always have been.”

I shrugged. There was no denying he had a point. If you paid any attention at all, you’d find vampires everywhere. The concept was certainly popular.

“Life is full of mysteries,” he said, after downing another mini bottle.

I was starting to get worried that he’d get drunk. I wondered what a drunk vampire would be like.

“Like what?” I asked.

Looking over at me, he let his eyes rest on the hollow between my breasts. I may not have known this if I hadn’t have looked over at him at that precise second.

He was making no secret of where his thoughts were going. “Like the mystery of how you managed to get through the night without becoming someone’s feeder, especially with the way you are dressed.”

“What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?” Now I was a little offended.

Considering how some of those people at Club Crimson dressed, I felt my attire was more or less modest.

I looked passably nice, though not spectacular. My dark hair was long and difficult to style, which was the reason I wore it loose most of the time.

Since my eyes were also dark, I sometimes wore eye shadow to add some color. True, my pastel blue dress was a little low cut, but nothing compared to what some women wore these days.

“Take care darling. Not all vampires will show the same restraint as I do,” he warned.

A few minutes later, I pulled up in front of the old two-story farmhouse where I lived, and had lived since the day I was born.

Now that Mom and Dad were gone, I lived alone, or at least I had until Uncle Charlie showed up claiming to be my dad’s brother.

The porch light was on, but all the windows and doors were shut. I thought this was a little odd on account of it being such a warm night. It was already September, but in the Cookson Hills of Oklahoma, that didn’t necessarily mean much.

We got out of my old Chevy Malibu and started for the house. As an afterthought, I locked the car doors. I usually didn’t, but I wasn’t fond of the idea of getting inside the car and finding something waiting for me in the backseat.

A couple of days ago the thought wouldn’t even have crossed my mind, but things had changed. Now everything was different.

As soon as I walked through the door, Charlie handed me a beer and motioned for me to take a seat. I thought it was real nice of him, considering it was my beer and my house.

Charlie reminded me a lot of Dad, in looks anyway. He was probably just less than six feet, and had the same sandy colored hair and gray eyes as my dad, but that’s where the resemblance ended. I remembered Dad was always clean shaved, but Charlie had a mustache and goatee, and his mannerism was not nearly as refined as my father’s either.

“So what happened?” Charlie asked.

I was startled to see Luke’s green eyes glittering with anger. “Marcus Savoy runs that place. Did you know he was here?”

Charlie took several gulps of his beer before answering. “I wasn’t sure, but I suspected one of the Five might be behind this, and that it might be Savoy.”

“Okay guys,” I interrupted. “I’ve had enough. I want to know what the hell is going on, and I want nothing but the truth. Not only have I just discovered that vampires are real, but some ancient vampire just threatened to eat me tonight. My entire life has been turned upside down … I want to know why.”

A strange look passed between Charlie and Luke.

What were they up to?

“Well?” I said, raising my voice a couple of notches.

“They’ve come here to harvest blood, that’s why the girl they found a couple of days ago was drained of all her blood. The thing is … I don’t know why, though I do have my suspicions?” Charlie replied, and then took another drink of his beer.

“Maybe a vampire drained her blood after he bit her,” I offered.

Charlie shook his head. “No bite marks. I’ve already checked into it. Her blood was drained through an incision in the leg.”

Luke cut in, “I hate to break the news to you Charlie, but some vamps don’t drink straight from their victims. They drain them and save it for later. That bit about there being no bite mark doesn’t mean anything. I’m a little more curious why they decided to setup shop here, and not someplace less conspicuous, like Tulsa or New York.”

“Like I said, I have my suspicions. That’s why I sent Star with you. I knew they’d sniff her out, especially if they are doing Rush.”

I was totally lost. I didn’t have a clue what Charlie was talking about, but the talk about the Rush definitely got my attention. “Explain please. What is Rush?”

Luke waved a hand as if to brush away Charlie’s words. “That doesn’t mean a bloody thing. If you haven’t noticed, your niece is quite breathtaking. Any bloke would notice her, even the undead kind. ”

The blood rushed to my face. “You still haven’t explained anything,” I said, directing my words to Charlie.

“Rush is a drug created by vampires for vampires. It’s a little like combining Crystal Meth and LSD … if you’re a vampire,” Charlie explained.

Well that explained what Rush was. I should have just asked Charlie to begin with.

“Those are the words Max keeps saying,” I blurted out.

“I told you!” Charlie glared at Luke.

Luke shook his head. “That doesn’t mean that Marcus is involved, and as far as him singling out Star, well you know all vampires are attracted to enchanted blood.”

I winced when Charlie slammed his bottle down on my coffee table. “Why are you protecting him? There’s no way one of the Five would be in a backwoods place like Cookson Springs … at least not without a damn good reason.”

Luke glared at Charlie through narrowed eyes. “I’m not protecting him, but killing one of the Five is a suicide mission. You are risking them slaughtering this whole town, so you better bloody well know for sure.”

“Okay that’s it! Both of you out!” I yelled. “I won’t have anything to do with the word killing, and unless you are going to start from the beginning and tell me everything … I’m going to have me a bologna sandwich and hot shower. And as far as I’m concerned, I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and pretend I never met either of you knuckleheads.”

“You better drink that beer and get you another,” Charlie advised.

After taking several swallows of my beer, I leveled my eyes on Charlie. “So talk.”

Charlie sighed heavily. “I hoped you would never have to know any of this … that you would just have a normal life. I know that’s what your parents wanted.”

When I didn’t respond, he continued.

“Cookson Springs isn’t just some hick town full of rednecks, though it sure does seem like that on the surface. There are very few places in the world like it … and believe me, I’ve been all over. After the witch trials in Salem, a lot of the true witches fled Salem, and some of them ended up here. They were drawn here by … I don’t know … some kind of power. I’ve never really understood that part.”

Charlie paused long enough to finish off his beer. “The Lavelle family came here from Salem, but their roots go back much further … back to the Old World. One of the main ingredients of Rush is the blood of a witch … and obviously there are many witch descendants in this area. That’s how I know what’s going on, and that Marcus is involved. Somehow the vampires found out about us,” he finished.

Okay, so I was descended from witches. That was strange. Not as strange as vampires, but still pretty bizarre.

“What happened to Max? Do you think they did something to him because he found out about them?” I asked.

Charlie shrugged. “Possible. He could have been compelled to forget, but I don’t know why they wouldn’t have just killed him.”

“Compelled? What does that mean?”

“The thing with the eyes,” Charlie said, pointing to his eyes. “They can use their eyes to mess with your head. It’s a form of hypnotism.”

That could explain my reaction to Marcus. I hoped it did anyway.

“There is another possibility,” Luke pointed out. “He might have tried some Rush himself. Some people do tend to have a nasty reaction to it.”

“How did you get involved with all of this?” I asked Charlie. “And why is a vampire hunter working with a vampire?”

“I knew that one was coming.” Luke chuckled.

“I wouldn’t really say I’m a vampire hunter … more of just a hunter. The organization I work for pays me to get rid of undesirables. Since I have certain gifts, it makes my job easier. That’s what I did after your father and I had our disagreement years ago.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I’d just as soon not get into it,” he said, looking away.

Charlie not wanting to talk about his problem with my dad made me a little nervous, but I was too tired to get into it, especially with so many other problems to deal with at the moment.

“So you are here to kill Savoy and then you’ll be on your way?”

Charlie nodded. “But obviously I can’t just walk in there and do it. Luke’s right about one thing … it would be suicide. Marcus is a very old and powerful vampire. That’s where you come in.”

I shook my head. “I told you, I’m not going to have anything to do with killing.”

Charlie frowned. “What do you care? He’s a monster … and don’t forget what happened to your friend.”

I hadn’t forgotten about Max, but I couldn’t stand the thought of killing, no matter if it was a person, a vampire, or a slimy old toad.

I shook my head. “Sorry. It’s just not going to happen.”

“You don’t have to do any killing. All you have to do is help me get some information. I need proof that he is producing Rush. It’s forbidden, so if he is doing it … the killing part will be justified.”

With a roll of my eyes, I asked, “And just how do you suppose I do that?”