The Bite That Binds (Deep In Your Veins #2)
Author: Suzanne Wright

CHAPTER ONE

(Sam)

She was there again. She came nearly every night. I still wasn’t sure whether she was a dream or a hallucination. But I knew that as soon as she crooked her finger, I’d follow her like she wanted me to. It was always the same.

It was like being in a trance, and yet not. I knew the choice to follow her was mine, but it was like there was some kind of pull that overrode my reservations. So, like I always did, I slipped out of bed and walked behind the tall, slim vampire who was clothed in only a torn emerald-green dress that matched the colour of her eyes. Her coal-black hair was so thick and long that it covered most of the pale skin of her arms. Just like always.

I followed her into the living area of my apartment where a large oval-shaped mirror stood, totally out of place. The vampire turned and smiled; it was reassuring and friendly, but I wasn’t reassured at all. Then she lifted her arm and pointed at the mirror. It wasn’t my own reflection staring back at me. Instead, it was like I was looking through a large doorway. There was a derelict one-floored house that seemed to be in the middle of no-man’s land.

The vampire stepped through the doorway and gestured for me to follow her. Not bloody likely. Every instinct I had in this dream or hallucination or whatever it was screamed, ‘No!’

So I did the same thing I always did; I shook my head and mouthed ‘no’. Again the vampire indicated for me to follow her, but again I shook my head. Her smile fell as anxiety and dejection filled her eyes. The doorway closed behind her, and that was when it ended.

“Sam,” a familiar voice murmured as fingers combed through my hair. His spicy, masculine scent swirled around me, stirring my senses. But, then, everything about Jared had each of my senses on high alert. And the cocky sod knew it. “Sam, baby, wake up.”

Nah. Although the mattress felt a little harder than usual, I was too tired to care. I shoved at the firm, hard chest I could sense hovering over me, but Jared only chuckled.

“You did it again.”

“Did what?” I mumbled.

“You went for a stroll in your sleep and ended up on your living room carpet.”

Peeking through one eye, I saw that he was right. Groaning, I allowed my eyelid to drift shut again. Apparently tired of waiting for me to move, he scooped me up and arranged me so that I was straddling his lap on the floor. “I dreamed about her again,” I explained drowsily as I rested my head on his shoulder.

He sighed. “You know, I think we should arrange a meeting with Antonio so we can talk to him about this.”

“It was just a dream. I don’t think that warrants a visit to the Grand High Master Vampire.” In truth, I wasn’t as unworried as I sounded.

“Almost every night over the past two weeks, I’ve woken up to find that I’m alone in bed. What if it wasn’t a dream and you weren’t sleepwalking at all? What if it would have been possible for you to follow her through that door, or whatever it was?”

I’d wondered about those things as well.

“I don’t want to take the chance that one night you do as she asks, and I wake up to find that you’re gone. You need to talk to Antonio.” He lifted my head to seize my gaze with those hazel eyes that had more of an effect on me than I cared to admit. It was like they were designed to snatch and trap a person’s attention – they certainly seemed to have that effect on the females around here. The effect wasn’t lessened by the red tinges to his irises that marked him as a Pagori vampire and glowed whenever he was thirsty, angry, or horny.

I didn’t envy Jared being a Pagori, despite that that breed of vampire was the most powerful of the three and had incredible strength and speed as that strength came with a price – their bloodlust was just as strong.

The bloodlust wasn’t so bad for the hypnotically beautiful Keja vampires. All vampires had a preternatural allure, but a Keja’s allure was enchanting and bewitching. The breed was identifiable by the fact that they had fangs and also amber tinges to the irises. Like with Pagoris, the tinges glowed if the Keja was angry, thirsty, or horny.

Sventé vampires, like myself, didn’t have this characteristic, which I was quite happy about – I liked my irises just as they were thank you very much. But although Sventés were stronger and faster than humans, we were weaker than the other two breeds of vampire. We did have some strong points; not only did we have the agility of jungle cats, but our bloodlust wasn’t overpowering – enabling us to walk among humans without losing control and leaping on one. Having a manageable bloodlust, however, meant that the other two breeds considered Sventés to be very tame and human-like and, therefore, inferior. Snort.

Unfortunately, Jared had once been one of those prejudiced vampires. When I’d first arrived at The Hollow from London to partake in the try-outs for a place in the legion − Antonio’s personal army − Jared had thought the idea was absolutely ridiculous. It hadn’t mattered that I was unique in being a Feeder: a vampire gifted with the ability to absorb and manipulate the energy around them. Nor had he been impressed by my perfect control of this overwhelming gift that should technically only be a Pagori power. He, like many others, had been too hung up on the fact that I was not only a Sventé, but female.

As such, it hadn’t helped my cause that Jared was one of the assessors during the try-outs. He had denied me a place in the new squad, despite that I’d earned one. But that attitude had kind of backfired when Antonio then made me Jared’s co-commander. Ha. It had been a while before Jared accepted me as his co-commander, but now the arrogance and narrow-mindedness that had created his prejudices was gone.

Not that Jared had had a personality transplant or had switched from alpha to beta. No, he was still assertive, imposing, and demanding – and could even be cocky and irritating, for that matter. But the narrow-mindedness that had once acted as a huge barrier between us was no longer there.

He wasn’t a chocolate and flowers person, wasn’t the type to spout pretty words or shower a girl with compliments. In fact, he could probably be described as a little emotionally awkward. He very rarely shared those three important little words, but he was also attentive on the most intense level. When I needed him, he was there. When I wanted his attention, he gave it. When I had a problem, he tried to fix it − even when I didn’t want him to.

It was strange to have someone who I knew I could totally rely on. I’d never had that before, didn’t want to lose it; didn’t want to lose this person who I had come to love and had every intention of Binding with in just nine evenings’ time.