Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (Wicked Lovely 5.50)

The taste of the blood silenced it for a moment, and then it roared back, shockingly stronger than ever.

I dropped the can and heard it clatter on the pavement. Eve’s warm hands were around my face, and her voice was in my ears, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

When I opened my eyes, all I saw was red, with vague, smeared shapes of anything that wasn’t prey. Eve, on the other hand, glowed a bright silver.

Eve was a target, and I couldn’t resist her, I couldn’t. I had to satisfy this hunger, fast.

I gasped and pushed her backward, and before she could do more than call my name in alarm, I spun and ran through the dark, red night.

I didn’t know where I was headed, but as I ran, something took over, guiding me more by instinct than design. When I saw the shining, warm targets of human beings out there in the dark, I avoided them; it was hard, maybe the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I managed.

I stopped in the shadows, not feeling tired at all, or winded, only anxious and more jittery than ever. The run hadn’t burned it off; if anything, it had made things worse.

I was standing in front of the Morganville Blood Bank. This was the entrance in the front, the donation part, and it was closed for the night. Blessedly, there weren’t any people around for me to be a danger to, at least right now.

I turned and ran down the side alley, effortlessly jumping over barriers of empty boxes and trash cans, and came around the back. Unlike the front, this part of the building was hopping with activity—human shapes coming and going, but none of them had that silvery glow I’d become so familiar with. All vampires, this side, and none of them were paying attention to me until I got close, shoved a few aside, and made it to the withdrawal area.

The vending machine stood there in the center of the room. A few people were doubtfully studying it, trying to make up their minds whether or not to try it, but I shoved them out of the way too. I swiped my card; when it didn’t immediately work, I swiped it again and randomly punched buttons when they lit up. It took forever for the mechanism to work, and the can to be delivered.

Working the tiny pop-top seemed impossible. I punched my fingers through the side and lifted the can, bathing in the gush of liquid. It no longer tasted like metal. Warm from the can, it tasted like life. All the life I could handle.

“Michael,” someone said, and put a hand on my shoulder. I turned and punched him, hard enough to break a human’s neck, but it didn’t do much except make the other vampire step back. I grabbed my card again and swiped it, but it was slippery in my fingers, damp with the red residue from the can, which had gotten all over me. I wiped it on my jeans and tried it ag

ain. The lights flashed. Nothing happened. “Michael, it won’t work again. You used all today’s credits.”

No. That couldn’t be true, it couldn’t, because the rush hadn’t lasted, hadn’t lasted at all this time, and I felt bottom-lessly empty. I needed more. I had to have more.

I shoved the other vampire back and slammed both hands into the plastic covering of the vending machine. It held, somehow, although cracks formed in the plastic. I hit it again, and again, until the plastic was coming apart. I shoved my hand through, heedless of the cuts, and grabbed one of the warm cans.

That was when someone hit me from behind with an electric shock, like a Taser only probably five times as strong, and the next thing I knew, I was limp on the floor, with the unopened can of AB negative rolling on the carpet beside me.

I tried to grab for it, but my hands weren’t working. I was still reaching for it, fumbling for the fix, when they picked me up and towed me out of the withdrawal area, into a steel holding cell somewhere in the back.

Days passed. They took me off of the canned stuff and put me on bags again, and finally, the frenzy passed. I won’t lie, it was awful, but what was worse was slowly realizing how bad I’d been. How close I’d been to becoming . . . a thing. A senseless monster.

I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted them to let me out, actually.

Music was the only thing that helped; after they got me stabilized, the woman who delivered the blood also delivered my guitar. I didn’t feel like myself until I was sitting down with the acoustic cradled in my lap. The strings felt warm, and when I picked out the first notes, that was good, that felt right. That felt like me, again.

I don’t know how long I played; the notes spilled out of me in a frantic rush, no song I knew or had written before. It wasn’t a nice melody, not at first; it was jagged and bloody and full of fury, and then it slowly changed tempo and key, became something soothing that made me relax, very slowly, until I was just a guy, playing a guitar for the thrill of the notes ringing in the air.

From the doorway, a voice said, “You really do have a gift.” I hadn’t even heard him unlock it.

I didn’t look up. I knew who it was; that voice was unmistakable. “Once, maybe. You took that away from me,” I said. “I was going somewhere with it. Now I’m going nowhere.”

Oliver, uninvited, sat down in a wooden chair only a few feet away from me. I didn’t like seeing him here, in my space. Music was my personal retreat, and it reminded me of how it had felt when he’d turned on me in my house, in my house, and . . .

. . . and everything had changed.

He was looking at me very steadily, and I couldn’t read his expression. He’d had hundreds of years to perfect a poker face, and he was using it now.

I kept on playing. “Why are you here?”

“Because you are Amelie’s responsibility, and it follows that you’re also mine, as I’m her second in command.”

“Did you take the machine out?”

Oliver shook his head. “No, but we changed the parameters. The testing was done on older vampires, ones who’d had centuries to stabilize their needs. You are entirely different, and we’d forgotten that. Very young, not even a full year old yet. We didn’t anticipate that the formula would trigger such a violent response. In the future, you’ll only receive the unprocessed raw materials.”