Marked By The Vampire (Purgatory #2)(29)
Author: Cynthia Eden

He inched closer.

“They are, aren’t they? Please, just loosen them for me. I don’t want to lose my hands.”

Slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small set of keys.

Her breath rushed out. “Thank you.”

***

Her blood, her skin, her taste…

“Uh, is something wrong?” The woman before Shane asked, frowning up at him. She was a pretty blonde. A pretty blonde who’d been flirting with him from the moment he entered the diner. She leaned toward him, showing off a very ample bosom. “Is there something I can do for you?”

He’d taken blood too many times to count. He knew how to seduce in order to get exactly what he wanted.

He should smile at the woman. Feed her a line. Get her to walk outside with him. Then he’d find a secluded spot and feed on her.

Except…

Her scent was wrong.

Her voice was wrong.

Her hair was wrong.

She was wrong.

Shane wanted blood, all right, but not that woman’s. He hungered, he needed, but he didn’t need her.

Oh, hell, I am so screwed. Because he realized what was happening. He’d seen this same twisted shit go down before.

Growling, he spun away from the blonde. Marched back outside. The sun was still shining. Most vamps would have been hiding in the shadows right then. He wasn’t most vamps. He glared up at the sun.

And went back—almost helplessly—to her.

***

His fingers slid over her wrists. “Dammit, you did a number on yourself,” Connor muttered.

Olivia rolled her eyes. Right. Because she’d cuffed herself. The injury was totally her fault—not. “You guys should have told me that the cuffs tightened automatically. At first, I thought I was just dreaming that crap.” There was a soft snick behind her. Then finally, finally, the cuffs were falling away. Wonderful. Fantastic—

Pain.

She moaned as the feeling came back to her fingertips and that feeling was burning pain.

“Easy.” His slightly rough fingers began to stroke her hands. “I’ll help you.”

She looked down at the floor. He’d crossed the red markings on the floor in order to reach her, but he’d been careful not to smudge those strange lines. If she could catch him off-guard, maybe Olivia could shove him back and make him fall onto the marks—perhaps she could get out then.

I’ve been trapped like this before.

The knowledge was there, but she couldn’t pull it out from the depths of her mind. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t remember when she’d been held prisoner like this.

Blood and fire.

“Genies grant wishes, don’t they?” Connor asked. His fingers were still rubbing her wrists, her hands.

She didn’t reply. She had no clue what genies were supposed to do. Olivia was too busy trying to figure out how to get away from him.

“I have a wish.” His head was bent toward her. He seemed to surround her, and a shiver slid over Olivia.

The werewolf is dangerous.

“I wish that I weren’t so f**king twisted on the inside.”

His gruff words catapulted her into action. She whirled around, and even though he was bigger and stronger, she was the desperate one. Olivia heaved against him. Sure enough, he stumbled back, and his booted feet slipped over the markings, smudging them.

Work, work, work—

She leapt forward, lunging across those smudged markings, and the invisible wall didn’t slap her back down. Euphoria burst through her as Olivia rushed for the door.

But a hard hand grabbed her ankle and yanked her back. She hit the floor and then he was on her. Connor grabbed her hands. Pinned them above her. His eyes were blazing—glowing with the familiar stare of a werewolf and then darkening with—with the power of a vampire?

Impossible!

“Help!”

His fangs were out.

The door flew open behind them and thudded into the wall. Then Connor was ripped off her. Tossed across the room by an enraged Shane. And Shane didn’t stop there. He flew after Connor, heading in with powerful fists and bared fangs.

Olivia staggered to her feet, then she ran out of that door. She didn’t see Pate, didn’t see anyone, and her gaze flew around frantically as she tried to find some way to escape from that area.

Light glinted off something to the right—something…she rushed forward. Yanked back a tarp and saw that the light had been shining off a motorcycle’s handlebars. Her hands searched all over the motorcycle as she chanted, “Key, key, key—”

“Olivia!”

Uh, oh. That bellow had to be Shane’s.

But even as that bellow echoed around her, Olivia’s fingers curled around the key. She had that motorcycle roaring to life two seconds later and she wobbled on the thing as she tried to steady it and get away.

“Olivia, no!”

She’d never ridden a motorcycle in her life, and the one she was on seemed freaking huge as she tried to steady it. She was struggling with the clutch and what she thought was the throttle, or maybe it was the gear shifter and—

Pate appeared in front of her. About twenty feet away. He had his gun up and aimed at her.

She was heading right for him. Olivia jerked the handlebars to the right, and that was when she lost her barely-there control on the motorcycle. The wheels spun. Gravel flew, and the motorcycle careened toward a tree.

Before the impact, the last thing she heard was Shane shouting her name.

Chapter Eight

“Come on, Olivia, open your eyes for me.”

The voice was familiar, tempting. Her eyelashes lifted, slowly, and the room around her came into focus.

“That’s better.” Shane leaned over her. Worry had etched a faint line between his brows. “How do you feel?”

“Like I hit a tree.”

A faint laugh came from the corner of the room. Her gaze slid over there, and a rough pounding shot through her temples.

A man stood in the shadows, a guy Olivia was pretty sure she hadn’t seen before. His blue eyes swept over her. “I think that’s because you did hit a tree, Dr. Maddox.”

With his words, her failed escape attempt came rushing back to her. Olivia tried to sit up in bed, but Shane’s hands came down, and he held her in place. “Easy. You’ve been out for hours.”

Out? That would explain the throbbing head.

“Do you always heal so quickly, Dr. Maddox?” The man in the corner asked her.

She didn’t feel like she’d healed. She felt like she had a concussion. “I don’t exactly crash into trees a lot, so I’m not real sure about that.” Her speech wasn’t slurred. That had to be a plus.