Page 7

…the child was already dead.

CHAPTER2

BAD DREAMS

Nick jerked awake.

He felt sick.

He really felt like he might throw up.

But that was insane. Vampires didn’t throw up.

They didn’t get sick like that. Ever. For any reason.

He stared up at the white plaster ceiling as that realization sank in. He gripped the mattress in both hands, wishing he could wipe every memory of that fucking sick, twisted dream out of his mind. Why the fuck couldn’t he have sex dreams, like a normal person?

Why couldn’t he dream about fucking his wife?

The thought brought up a thick, hot ripple of desire.

It confused the revulsion he’d felt a few seconds before.

His mind was sort of working again though, maybe just from the shock of wanting to fuck while he desperately wanted to erase those last few dream images and dream thoughts and dream smells from his mind. More than anything, he wanted to take a shower. He wanted to clear his head. Maybe it would even make him forget what he’d just seen––what his twisted, vampire imagination made him look at while he slept.

No wonder vampires didn’t sleep.

He rubbed his face with one hand.

Why the fuck had he slept? Why did that keep happening?

He glanced around the room, noting the few beams of sunlight that escaped through the gaps in the thick, sun-blocking, vampire-safe curtains. None of them aimed at the bed, thank God, but the fact that they were there at all told him she’d left in a hurry.

She must have overslept.

She must have left in a hurry, and somehow, she’d done all that without waking him up, without him remembering a single thing about her departure.

Maybe he was still more in recovery mode than he’d realized.

Even now, it felt like he still struggled to wake up fully.

He knew where he was.

He knew exactly where he was.

His vampire eyes didn’t need to adjust to the near-dark, not like a human’s.

Even so, he felt disoriented, confused, nearly blind.

He had to fight to make the room around him real to him.

Some part of him was still inside that other house, listening to that other voice.

That other place still lived behind his eyes. Images from that other home still crowded there, vying for his attention. He could hear the child crying and panting and whimpering upstairs. He could see where the other voice had stood, as it stalked, hunting, halfway through the house.

His mother had a mud room, too.

Like that weird voice said, it had led to their backyard.