Destined for a Vampire (Blood Like Poison 2)

When my eyes had adjusted to the dim light, I saw the orangey glow of candle light sparkling like a thousand tiny diamonds in the spider web that hung thickly in the little hallway. It was evident that a path had been cut recently, as if someone had walked right through the middle of them.

Silently, I tiptoed toward the light, toward the mouth of the short corridor where a room opened up at the end. When I got to the point where if I continued on, I would no longer be in the shadows, I stopped walking and leaned slowly around the corner to peer into the room.

What I saw both confused and concerned me. It was Lilly. She was lying atop a cot that sat in the center of a circle of dozens of white pillar candles. She was still fast asleep, lying on her side with her pink lips parted ever so slightly. My heart squeezed at the sight of her. I didn’t know what it was, but something about Lilly touched me—deeply.

But why was she up here? In a hidden room, surrounded by candles?

The questions had no sooner entered my mind when I heard a woman’s voice break the silence.

“Mmm, that smell. I can almost taste your sweet blood, warm and sticky, flowing over my tongue like silk.”

I stilled instantly. I wasn’t even breathing. I thought at first the woman was talking to someone else, but then, with a lightening bolt of panic that shot straight to my toes, I realized that I recognized the voice. And she was talking to me.

Just as I was turning to run, I felt a breeze stir my hair. And when I looked up, I was face to face with a beautiful red head that I’d seen before. My head swam dizzily, my mind rebelling against what I concluded.

No! It can’t be! It just can’t be, I was thinking, but all the while, that other part of me, the rational calm part, was telling me that it was very much true.

“Heather,” I whispered, stunned beyond description.

“Bravo,” she said, moving around to my back.

I was in shock. Savannah’s mother was standing right behind me. I recognized her from the photos in Savannah’s room. And her name was Heather; Mr. Grant had mentioned it. She was the same Heather that Bo had been searching for, the one and only. Though I had no proof, I was certain of it. I knew it, knew it without a doubt, knew it in my bones. It was her. And she’d found me. Again.

It jarred me when I finally placed that vaguely familiar floral scent. I’d smelled it, the scent of roses, in my bedroom when I’d been attacked and bitten, as well as at Denise’s house when I’d gone to visit her and caught someone there. It had been this woman—Heather.

Savannah had been right. Her mother had visited her. What Savannah didn’t know was that her mother is alive. Sort of. She’s a vampire. Somehow, though she was unable to see anything else, Savannah could see vampires.

And then I remembered yet another alarming thought. She could see Devon, too.

My racing mind stopped its erratic flitting when I felt the hair at my neck move. Soft, warm fingers brushed it away and my focus was once again sharply concentrated on the person at my back.

I knew I needed to flee, to get out of there, away from her, but I couldn’t just leave. I wasn’t the only one at risk. As terrified as I was for myself, for what she might do to me, I had to consider Lilly. If possible, I was even more horrified at what the woman might do to her. She was just a child.

Before I could follow my fears to any kind of conclusion or come up with some sort of plan to get us out of there alive, I heard the quiet words that I’d heard once before. And I knew what was coming.

“Shh,” she breathed. Then, in the husky voice I’d heard at Denise’s, she promised, “It will only hurt for a moment.”

And then I felt the stab of sharp teeth penetrating the skin of my throat. With a panic that vibrated through my body, ringing in every cell and fiber of my being, I knew I had to fight, but I was paralyzed. I couldn’t even lift a hand to wipe away the single tear that had slipped from the corner of my eye to slide down my cheek.

The one comfort I had was that Sebastian would eventually have to come back home. If I could just make it until then…

My hopes were dashed, however, when I heard another voice, a velvety tone that rose above the buzzing in my ears.

“There will be time for that later, Heather. Bring her here.”

It was Sebastian.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Sebastian?” I squeaked.

Behind me, Heather withdrew her teeth and laughed, a mirthless sound. Her warm breath tickled my ear and made me shudder.

“That’s what you call him, yes.”

Taking my arm in a vise grip, Heather guided me none-too-gently on into the candlelit room. Standing on the other side of the long, narrow space was Sebastian.

He was leaning up against the wall beside a spiral staircase that disappeared into the darkness behind him. In one hand, he held a large book. I recognized it from the display in his office. It was the book about vampires, the one that he’d partially translated.

“Sebastian, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Sweet Ridley,” he said, shaking his head. “Poor sweet, clueless Ridley.”

Despite the precariousness of my situation, my hackles rose at his patronizing tone. I bristled silently, waiting for him to continue, cautioning myself to keep my mouth shut.

“I could’ve spared you some of this if you’d only sipped from your drink, like you did that first night. Only you didn’t and now, here we are.”

“What is going on Sebastian?” I repeated.

Sebastian paused. “How shall I explain this?” he asked rhetorically, his question more to himself than to anyone else in the room. “Let’s just say that you are a vital part of my experiment.”

I gulped.

“What experiment?”

“My experiment to see if you’re the one, of course.”

“The one what?”

“The one for Bo.”

Airflow in and out of my lungs stopped. “Bo? What’s Bo got to do with this?”

“Bo has everything to do with this,” Sebastian said, pushing himself away from the wall. “Haven’t you figured it all out yet? Don’t you know who I am?”

Sebastian strode slowly to the center of the room and stopped, facing me. A smug grin tipped one side of his mouth.

A loud sound, like a single flap, popped in the otherwise quiet room and a puff of air feathered my face. Though Sebastian’s form didn’t change, on the wall behind him, a shadow appeared. It was the shadow of two large wings arising from his silhouette, the span reaching from one end of the long room to the other.