Templar Vampires - Midnight Sun Part 6

Allie rolled her eyes. "Oh please! Everyone knows what the cooties are, even a vampire as old as you, so don't play stupid."

Pus.h.i.+ng her dangerously close to the limit of her exasperation, he knew he was jeopardizing a vital part of his anatomy if pressed her much further. "Of course you're not diseased."

"Then why are you avoiding me?"

Cupping her chin in his palm, he stared deep into her eyes, loving the golden fire burning in them. "How could I avoid you when we were sitting at the same d.a.m.n table?"

She s.n.a.t.c.hed her face from his hand. "Whatever." She turned sharply and went to leave.

He wasn't amused anymore.

Much to his chagrin, Allie had dismissed him. A man of his status and stature did not get dismissed.

Ever.

Though she strode quickly through the door and down the ten steps leading to the courtyard, Sebastian caught her easily. "Why do you do that?" The woman had the sheer nerve to look bored. "Do what?"

He actually felt his teeth clench with frustration. "Walk away."

She shrugged off his hold. "I don't like games, Sebastian."

"So you walk away from someone? Have you any idea how b.l.o.o.d.y rude that is?" He dropped his voice to a menacing hush. "And I do not play games."

She gave him a level stare, in no way backing down. "I'm well aware of how rude walking away is. Why do you think I did it?" she drawled matter-of-factly. "I won't stand here and have you throw bulls.h.i.+t at me. That's just as rude."

"I didn't throw bulls.h.i.+t at you."

She snorted. "Oh come on! You didn't bother to say h.e.l.lo to me when you got here. Then, I sat at the table with you for over an hour and you didn't look at me once, not even to politely acknowledge me when I spoke. Do you know I actually considered flas.h.i.+ng you to see how you would manage to continue to ignore me?"

Nowthat would have gotten his attention.

The idea of her flas.h.i.+ng those b.r.e.a.s.t.s at him got him even harder. He gave credit to denim since he was putting the fabric to the test tonight.

Dropping his gaze to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he liked the way they strained against her tee s.h.i.+rt. Not too heavy nor too small, they were the perfect size to fill his hand.

No, he wouldn't have minded at all if she whipped them out for his viewing pleasure.

Of course, he couldn't be held responsible for what he did to her if she dared such a thing. Propriety be d.a.m.ned, he wanted to throw her down on the ground and take her right there on the ground like a barbarian.

"Um, Sebastian?" Allie's voice pulled him from thoughts of her stretched out beneath him on the gra.s.s, his body sliding slowly in and out of her until... "I'm up here." She was pointing to her face.

Caught gawking at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Sebastian was far from embarra.s.sed by it. He gave her a mean scowl. "I know b.l.o.o.d.y well where you are," he snapped. "Don't point out your b.r.e.a.s.t.s if you don't want attention drawn to them."

"I wasn't pointing them out!" She pointed directly at them. Catching herself, she rolled her eyes at her action and lowered her hand.

Smiling at her exasperation, he admired the furious flush coloring her cheeks. "Obviously not."

Allie looked ready scream. Much as she did last night, she ma.s.saged her temples with her fingertips.

"Oh G.o.d, I'm back in Bizzaro World again." She groaned dramatically, which had him biting his lip to keep from laughing-not a smart thing when one had fangs. Dropping her hands, she shook her head at him. "You make me crazy, you know that?" The condition was mutual, though he was loath admitting it.

"I have to go." That came out brusquer than he intended.

"So do I." She glanced at the watch on her right wrist. "My sister should be at my house by now."

Surprised, he didn't know she had a sister. Then again, he made a point to know as little about her as possible. He thought it would make keeping his distance from her easier. Now he realized it only made him more intrigued to discover all the things he didn't know.

"Sebastian?"

His name on her lips was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

"What?" That too, came out harsher than he'd meant it. Painfully aroused, every moment spent in her company was torture.

"I hope we can be friends, that's all. Don't you think it's time, especially now with everything that's going on?"

Hanging between them, going unspoken, was their attraction for each other.

The smile she gave him when he told her they were already friends reminded him of the sun he hadn't seen in hundreds upon hundreds of years.

Suns.h.i.+ne.

That's what she was-a blinding midnight sun cutting through the darkness of his existence.

Chapter Seven.

"Tell me, pet, do you have anything hiding in there?"

She knew his name was Stephan since that's what his followers called him. Prying open her mouth he peered inside as if looking for something. Wanting to shake her head and free her chin of his hold, she knew better than to try that twice.

All she could do was glare daggers at him, which earned his amus.e.m.e.nt. With a laugh he petted her head like she was a G.o.dd.a.m.ned dog. And maybe by now she was, reduced to the name he liked so much to call her.

Pet.Dog. Both the same meaning though different words.

Hungrier and thirstier than she'd ever been in her life, she thought she was going to go insane from it.

Mostly though, she was afraid, trapped in a nightmare she couldn't wake from.

At first she tried to count the days since she was kidnapped and brought here, but had given up. Three, she believed, though she couldn't be sure since there were no windows and no clocks. Only her captors'

comings and goings marked the pa.s.sing of time. Not knowing how she lasted this long, she had moments when she felt more dead than alive. Given the things he'd done to her she wondered why her body wouldn't give up, especially since she knew her mind had.

She wanted to go home and see her mom and dad. She'd give anything to be back with her family, though she knew she was never going to see them again.

Home was a million miles away and so far, G.o.d wasn't listening to her prayers to rescue her.

Why the expression "s.h.i.+t in one hand, wish in another" came to mind, she couldn't say, but it did fit the situation. The s.h.i.+t was definitely filling up fast and her wishes of making it out of this alive lessened with each pa.s.sing moment.

Her father's greatest fear was his only daughter would go out with friends and never come home. Her dead in a ditch, was what he told her kept him awake at night. Looking around the disgusting room, she wondered if being dead in a ditch wouldn't have been a better fate. A nice, quick death, over and done with before she even knew what hit her. Instead, she was beaten, bitten, and drained of blood until too weak to fight.

Coming out of work, she had been dragged into a van and restrained by two vampires who tormented her relentlessly during the long ride to where she was being held captive.

She knew she was in the mountains due to the popping of her ears. For someone who'd been born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains, she had to be awfully high for her ears to pop. High enough not to be found before the vampire killed her.

The house was filthy, with flies buzzing all around her. Bugs crawled the floor and walls, coming in to feed on the mounds of old trash decomposing throughout the rooms. Thick, repugnant odors of rotting garbage, blood, and sweat still made her gag.

When she thought of h.e.l.l, this was what she imagined it to be. Not a place with lakes of fire and a pitchfork-wielding devil with a forked tail and horns. That was the h.e.l.l of make-believe. Real h.e.l.l was here in this house.

The devil didn't have horns and red skin. No, his skin was as pale as death and his razor-sharp fangs the stuff of nightmares and horror movies.

When their leader wasn't around, Stephan's henchmen took turns torturing her, each bringing his own twisted style of torment. A vicious bunch of vampires who took genuine delight in each and every whimper and scream they pulled from her, they were careful not to hurt her too badly. After all, they had to save something for their leader.

She was taken for a reason, though she didn't know why they'd targeted her. Stephan believed she might have something he needed and no matter how many times she told him he was wrong he refused to listen. Instead, he played mind games with her, until she felt herself slipping into the abyss of insanity, her only escape from the things he did to her.

Over the last days she found herself contemplating the wildest things, like maybe after she was dead coming back as a ghost to visit her family one last time-or haunt the vampire who killed her. Crazy Allie believed in ghosts, so maybe there was a chance it might be possible, not that she ever held much faith inthe things Allison Parker believed in before now.

Maybe Allie wasn't so crazy after all.

Facing Stephan, it boggled her mind that he looked no older than her own twenty-three years. Since he liked to scare her with what he was, he reminded her more than once that he'd been around since the medieval age. Almost seven hundred years to be exact. Needless to say, it was a chilling concept to know this-thing-had seen nearly a thousand years go by.

He'd had a long time to perfect his methods of torture and murder.

"Please," she begged, though for her life or a quick death she didn't know anymore.

Regarding her curiously, he tilted his head to the side, his glowing silver eyes cutting through her.

Strikingly handsome, his looks were deceiving. He looked like a guy she would be attracted to had she met him on the street.

His face wasn't that of a cold-blooded killer, nor the face of a demon. Yet beneath the guise of handsome young man lay a soul which belonged in the deepest recesses of h.e.l.l.

"Please, what?" His voice was a low, almost seductive purr. When he spoke she could see his fangs.

She doubted she'd ever get used to feeling those fangs bitingher. Nor would the sensation of him pulling at her blood ever fail to stir her revulsion.

"Please kill me already."

Her words pa.s.sed through a throat raw from screams and damage done by his fangs.

He ran his hand over her dirty and knotted blonde hair. "Where's the fun in that, love?" His English accent lent him an air of sophistication.

Too tired to fight back her tears, she s.h.i.+vered with disgust when he tenderly wiped them from her face.

She knew better than to pull away. She dared that once. On G.o.d she swore she'd never do it again. The pain he inflicted upon her was too much to bear a second time.

"Don't do this. I don't have what you want."

Over the past days he asked her if she had "it", though he never said what it was he thought she had.

Knowing he could take whatever it was he wanted from her whenever he wanted, she knew he refrained solely because he found sick delight in tormenting her.

"I think you do."

Shaking, she s.h.i.+fted on the dirty mattress. The rope tied around her wrists and ankles cut deeper into her torn flesh. "I don't have anything," she wept.

He pushed her back on the mattress. She lay trembling violently as he slowly untied the rope around her ankles. When he nudged her legs apart she thought she was going to be sick all over herself. Behind him, standing in the doorway, were four other vampires watching and snickering. "Oh, you havesomething I want."

He crawled up her body, fangs bared. She couldn't stop the scream rising from deep inside of her. Only his hard slap shut her up when she released it.

He took hold of the rope around her wrists with one hand, pinning her hands over her head. His other hand settled on her throat in a crus.h.i.+ng grip. "Now we play, pet."

She slid her eyes closed and willed herself to another place and time, back to when she was a young girl and her parents took her and her brother to Disneyland. What a fun time they'd had, enough to make lasting memories. She always wished she could go back to that place again...

Even if only in her mind, she took herself out of the dirty hovel of a house, away from the evil touch of the vampire. She lost herself in the memory of her family as the vampire took her body and robbed her sanity.

The last sight Amanda Driver saw was of his fangs lowering to her throat.

The sweet oblivion of madness took her then, finally giving her peace as a monster invaded her body.

Chapter Eight.

Allie blinked against the harsh intrusion of sunlight. Grudgingly, she allowed the day to break the wonderful dream about Sebastian. Certainly not the first of such dreams, she doubted it would be the last. The man crept into her brain five months ago and refused to leave. Not that she objected to having him running wild in her mind. Although there were worse things to occupy her mind than a gorgeous medieval warrior.

Reluctant to abandon the coziness of her soft bed, Allie yawned and stretched, the harsh daylight invasive to eyes used to the night. When one ran with vampires, one rarely-if ever -saw the morning.

With a quick glance at the clock, Allie groaned and forced herself to get moving when she saw it was already two o'clock. Her body screamed in protest for more sleep when she dragged herself out of bed.

Shuffling out of her room, she went down the hall to the bathroom, the house as silent as the grave.

Disappointed she didn't hear Lexine about, she a.s.sumed her sister had gone out to catch up with her old friends. She missed her kid sister, who she hadn't seen in three months. She had been hoping to spend some time with Lex before the investigation she had scheduled for today.

Catching her reflection in the mirror as she brushed her teeth, Allie barely recognized herself. Though usually pale, her complexion looked downright dead. Her hair was a mess and she moved beyond circles under her eyes into something resembling the hollowed out sockets of a skull.

I look like a corpse.

What she needed was a long hot shower to help her feel human and alive again.

With summer here, maybe it was time to get herself a tan. A tan meant sunlight. Sunlight meant waking earlier. Waking earlier meant going to bed earlier, which was something she couldn't do since it would take time away from the only family beside Lex she had. Her parents didn't count as family to her.