Page 25 of Cursebound
Right now, I don’t give a shit. They can come at me with flaming torches and pitchforks and put me on YouTube. I have to get to Rosa.I need you, she said. That’s all that matters.
I’m there within minutes, but I’m too late. I pay attention to the skid marks where the van pulled up beside her and note the discarded syringe near the gutter.
I stop, force myself to freeze. To breathe, concentrate, and track when all I want to do is kill. A homeless man approaches from the sidewalk, pushing a shopping cart full of cardboard boxes. I growl at him, and he immediately backs off.
I pick up the needle and scent her blood—the blood of my woman—and let out a howl, vowing to end the lives of anyone who has ever harmed her. First, I must find them. There is a necessary order of operations here: Find Rosa, save Rosa, tear Rosa’s enemies limb from fucking limb.
They were heading south, but that knowledge is not enough. There’s a lot of south. It could mean a block away; it could mean Texas. I focus on ignoring my bloodlust and make myself to think.
My nostrils flare at a familiar scent. Lemon and spice and Rosa. Tiny shards glimmer under the streetlight, invisible to the human eye but glinting bright for me. The faint scent of blood is overpowered by the perfume.
I picture her being manhandled, staggering toward the back of the van, slamming her hands down on the doors. She did it on purpose—smashed the glass and left this trail for me. Leading me to her.
“Good girl, bella,” I murmur, taking off again. Now that I have the scent, it isn’t hard to follow. The van drove down side roads and headed back toward the highway that skims the border of the lake. A vampire can’t run quite as fast as a moving vehicle, but I can follow its route and know that I’ll find it. That I will find her.
I follow her scent as fast as I can, passing parks and stores and idle squad cars. I run by schools and churches, under and over bridges and along the neon-lit edge of the highway. I never lose her despite the smells of the city at night. She is all that exists to me. Rosa is all that matters.
Eventually, the landscape around me shifts as I enter the grand suburbs at the outskirts of the city. There are fewer vehicles and more trees, and the homes I pass get bigger and bigger as I go, featuring long driveways, tall fences, and electric gates. This is where the rich people live—it is the same the world over. They build their walls and lock their doors and think it all keeps them safe, but it won’t keep them safe from me. Nothing will keep them safe from me as long as they have her.
I reach a point where her scent makes an abrupt turn down one of the paths. Stopping, I sniff the air and make sure I’m going the right direction. Every second counts, and I can’t afford to make any mistakes. If I lose her, I’ll…
No, I don’t have time to think about that. I won’t lose her.
The road goes into the trees and hits a gate. I skulk into the greenery for cover. There are lights all along here, and there might be cameras. I can’t just bust my way into this like I usually would. I have to be smart about it, like Rosa would be.
They won’t expect me. They won’t know I am out here, prowling, searching for her, until I emerge from the shadows and tear out their throats.
The walls around the property are about eight feet high and built to keep people out. Too bad for them that I am not people.
I am Luca da Firenze, and I’ve been turning up in places I have no right to be for hundreds of years.
Pausing, I listen for signs of life on the other side of the gate. A man, alone. Faint, tinny music tells me he’s about to die while playing Candy Crush on his phone.
I take a run at the wall, vault from the grass in front of it, and leap high enough in one jump that I get my fingertips on the curve at the top. It’s close, and my nail is ripped away, but I get enough of a grip to pull myself up and swing my legs over the side.
I land silently, and light spills from the window of a small security lodge. If they have cameras, there will be a bank of them in there, but probably none on the structure itself. I’ve been in places like this before—I’ve killed in places like this before. These pricks never think they need security in the guard hut.
I scoop up a handful of gravel and throw it at the window. Not hard enough to shatter it, but enough to make some noise and get his attention.
The fucker in there assumes he’s safe within the compound, with his cameras and his gates and probably his gun. The music from the phone stops. Within seconds, the door opens, and a man dressed in black emerges. He looks young, tough, fit. Cautious. He’s not an idiot, and he has his gun in one hand, radio in the other.
He doesn’t see me, and before he has the chance to use the radio, I come up behind him and claw my right hand across the front of his throat. Blood spurts, hot and delicious. He reaches up to try to hold his torn neck together, but I grab his head, yank it to the side, and sink my fully extended fangs into his flesh. He tastes of coffee and a protein bar, and then he tastes of nothing.
His blood powers through me, and I drop his lifeless body to the ground, feeling stronger. Before going into the hut, I stamp on the radio and kick the gun away.
I lick my teeth, calmer now that I’ve released my true nature. Now that I’ve killed. There’s a bank of screens in front of me, along with a thermos and a copy of some bullshit celebrity magazine with a Kardashian on the cover.
Each screen shows a different viewpoint—the driveway, the pool house, several other buildings. At the heart of it all sits a stone-built mansion. A stone-built mansion with a van parked outside the door.
She’s here. I’ve found her. And now there will be carnage.
CHAPTER 12
ROSA
Consciousness returns in spurts, one fuzzy second at a time. At first I can only hear muted sounds coming from somewhere nearby, and I have a vague sensation of waking up from the deepest sleep. Grogginess and confusion threaten to overwhelm me, but I chase my scattered thoughts and soon corral them.
I was drugged, kidnapped, and driven somewhere in a van. Okay. So far, so bad. I keep my eyes closed in case someone is in the room with me and try to move my hands. My fingers are responsive but sluggish. The same goes for my legs—all I can manage is a twitch of my toes. The rest of me remains paralyzed.