Page 14 of Incandescence

Maya

I woke with Alexander wrapped around me, keeping my back warm, while goosebumps peppered my front from the damp cold. Even worse was the oppressive darkness that revealed no hint of night or day outside.

Yet somehow I felt safe with my lover’s arms around me. Not just any lover. Alexander. He made my last boyfriend—if Jeremy could even be called that—look like a young punk with fluff between his ears and the self-discipline of a gnat.

Jeremy wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the nest. Alexander had endured forty-six years of hell on Earth.

Cold fingers of fear stilled my breath, before I inhaled jaggedly and blinked into the bleak gloom. Now we just had to stay alive and free from the vampire.

I strained my ears for any sound upstairs. The music had probably been long silenced.

Now nothing stirred and I reached for the flashlight and flicked it on, sensing Alexander wake even before I turned the light his way.

Though I was glad to hear no movement upstairs, I worried it was too quiet. Like maybe someone or something was waiting for us the moment we left the cellar and entered the house.

If the vampire didn’t get to us first, the humans would either kill us for seeing their drug lab, or take us to the vampire who’d compelled them to do so.

Alexander sat, looking instantly alert and awake. “Good morning, Charley.”

“Morning,” I said in return, somehow warm inside by him using my real name.

“We should go.”

I nodded, unwilling to ask his real name in return. “Yes.” While we still can.

We could lie in the dark and plan our next move for hours, but it wouldn’t make any difference. We had no way of knowing what we might face, if anything, and the longer we waited, the more likely we’d be caught. With any luck the partygoers would all be sleeping off their night of debauchery.

We dressed quickly before hauling our backpacks off the ground and heading up the steps.

I tied my hair into a ponytail as Alexander carefully lifted the hatch.

I sucked in the stale beer and cigarette scent that was somehow fresh in comparison to the drug-laden, unventilated air we’d been breathing, before I blinked against the weak morning light while trying to see or hear anything at all.

A raspy snore in the lounge room indicated at least one person was sleeping off their chosen poison. I followed Alexander out of the cellar before he carefully shut the hatch then held my hand as we moved with stealth through the house and toward the front door.

Daryl lay sprawled on the sofa, his snores increasing in volume. Evidently, he’d been too drunk to make it to his own bed.

“Going somewhere?”

I looked at Alexander, his expression revealing nothing more than mild irritation. He turned to face Rory. “Actually, yes. We’re leaving.”

Rory stepped closer, along with three of his dazed-looking mates.

“Not without my permission you’re not.” He lifted his hands, his stare glassy but his intent all too dangerous.

“We invited you into our home, showed the utmost hospitality and generosity, and now you’re both leaving without even a thank you or a goodbye? ”

Alexander arched an eyebrow and repeated drily, “Thank you and goodbye.”

Daryl’s snores cut off. He woke and stretched. When he saw his brother and mates held us up, he immediately pushed off the couch and stepped behind us. Alexander and I half turned to keep both brothers in our sight.

The younger brother looked more bleary-eyed than everyone else put together, yet it was obvious he wasn’t under any compulsion.

He’d probably slept through the brainwashing.

He was obviously hungover and apparently mystified by the tension.

He put out his palms, signaling us to stay put. “What the fuck is going on?”

Rory barely noticed his brother. “We can’t let these people go.”

Daryl shot us a frown. “Why the fuck not?” His mouth dropped open and his body stiffened. “Holy shit. They saw our lab, didn’t they?”

My gasp gave us away even without trying. Daryl charged toward us, quicker than a striking snake. “I’ve got them!”

Alexander shot his arm out, his clenched fist thumping Daryl’s jaw. The brother flew back and landed on his ass with a muffled grunt even as I saw the glint of Rory’s knife. I grabbed Alexander’s arm and said hoarsely, “Let’s get out of here.”

He nodded and we leaped over Daryl and sprinted through the door, our tread snapping across the leaf-littered pathway before we raced out of the front yard and along the sidewalk, past dingy houses. My pulse jerked erratically as the roar of a loud engine started up behind us.

Alexander cursed and grabbed my hand, pulling me into a driveway and all but dragging me past a dilapidated, fibro house. He jumped a wire gate and I managed to stumble over it.

He caught me and guided me behind the dirty house, where a weedy yard showcased an aged hills hoist with clothes hanging limply from its lines.

A black Rottweiler trotted around the corner, his big silver collar glinting along with his bared teeth. The dog moved slowly toward us, growling and nervous, his undernourished body giving him a dangerous edge.

The brothers’ car roared past, its engine subsiding fast into the distance. I held out my hand and called the dog to me. I needed to calm the animal. I had no doubt the brothers would return, and any barking or vicious growling at this early hour might alert them to our whereabouts.

But the dog didn’t move. His chest rumbled with a menacing snarl before a succession of deep woofs sounded like a neighborhood alarm.

The back door of the house banged open and a skinny, stringy-haired, older woman dressed in flannel pajamas, yelled out, “Shut the fuck up, you stupid dog, or Freddie will beat the shit outta ya again.”

I gritted my teeth as the Rotty slinked low, his fear apparent. The dog was only doing his duty. The owner was clearly the stupid one when she didn’t even glance our way before she slammed the door shut and stomped back inside.

“The poor dog,” I whispered. Not only was it starved, it was beaten too.

Alexander nodded, but I noted he was more preoccupied by the desiccated clothes on the washing line. The sorry-looking shirts, pants and underwear appeared to have been pegged up at least a month earlier.

I called the Rotty again, and he watched us with unblinking, assessing eyes before he finally slunk toward us. He snuffled my hand, then whined when I gently stroked his head.

“Good boy,” I murmured, my heart melting for the dog that’d probably never known a kind word in his life.

I opened my backpack and fed the dog my energy bars even as Alexander stalked toward the washing and unpegged two shirts and a jacket. Carefully unclasping the dog chain that’d been secured to the hills hoist, he moved back to the house and away from its windows.

His eyes gleamed as he handed me a shirt and jacket. “Put these on.”

I nodded. “Good plan.”

After he’d unlatched the gate and carefully opened it, I snuck through with the dog on his lead, our backpacks abandoned so as not to give us away. Ten minutes later we were walking down the street, the Rotty dragging against his lead with an eagerness that belied his starved condition.

The energy bars were probably more than the dog had eaten in a week.

I pulled my borrowed jacket around me even as Alexander adjusted the hood of his red and black checkered shirt. His face was shadowed in his hoodie, and I fell back a little to conceal myself next to him.

The brothers wouldn’t be looking for two poorly dressed people out walking their dog. I grinned at Alexander. His tall body was at least one size too big for the shirt and pants, while my pants were loose around my waist and tight on my ass, the jacket a couple of sizes too large.

He raised a dark eyebrow. “We look like hobos.”

I nodded. “Good.”

I stayed in his shadow when the brothers’ sedan throbbed past twenty minutes later. Not one of the passengers or the driver looked at the down-and-out couple walking their half-starved mutt.

We turned a corner of the block and my breath whistled through my teeth. I bent and ruffled the Rotty’s ears. “Good boy...Jasper. I’m going to buy you the biggest bone I can find.”

“Jasper?” Alexander queried with a wry smile.

I shrugged. “I can’t keep on calling him dog or Rotty.”

Alexander tightened his arm around me and I rested my head against his shoulder. “You did great.”

I smiled up at him. “The clothes and dog worked a treat.”

“They did. Now we just have to keep out of sight.”

In unspoken agreement, we headed to the doctor’s house. It was risky, but we were certain the brothers would have looked there already and discovered we didn’t live there. The doctor would have set them straight.

I looked up at the man I craved to be with more than anyone else in the world.

If my wish had half a chance of coming true, now was a time to think clearly.

I blinked, ignoring the sexual thrill pulsing through me.

This tough, smart, gorgeous man had been my first ever lover.

I couldn’t have chosen better if I’d tried.

I cleared my throat, forcing my mind back on survival. “You’ve lived with that vampire leech for forty-six years.”

His lips tightened. “Yes.”

“Aside from sunlight, does he have any other weaknesses?”

He shrugged. “Everything has a weakness.” He drew a hand over his face. “Our strain of blood is extremely rare. And he’ll grow weaker every day that he doesn’t drink.”

“Until he finds us or another donor,” I finished for him. “What are the chances he’ll find someone else?”

“Slim to none. It’s why he’ll do whatever it takes to get us back. It’s also why he spends so much time looking through his telescope. He can see the auras of people, and different blood types show different auras. Our blood type gives off a distinct aura all of its own.”

I stored away the information, not even thinking beyond the fact that other vampires might well see that same aura and kidnap us. “In all the time you were in the nest, how many donors did the vampire procure?”

Alexander didn’t hesitate. “Twelve.” Clearly those numbers were branded into his head, no matter how much he undoubtedly wished he could forget every one of those women.

“So, fourteen, counting you and me?”

“Yes.”

I did the calculations. “In the forty-six years of searching for donors every night, he’s only found one suitable candidate every three years.” I stared up at him. “If he found no more donors with our blood type, would he survive?”

He shrugged. “For as long as I was in the nest, I was always his main blood source, so I have no idea how long he’d survive without me.”

Hope swelled inside. “If you were his primary food supply, what were the women? His appetizer? His dessert?”

I couldn’t think about those same women also being Alexander’s sexual release, not if it replaced hope with despair and bitter jealousy.

His face drained of color. “Yeah. I think keeping the women in the nest was his insurance against me dying. Those women prolonged the vampire’s need for my blood.

If something happened to me, then his own mortality was at risk.

” He blew out a slow breath. “But you were different. The vampire was excited about you and I think...”

“Yes?”

“I think your blood might be as pure as mine. A perfect and potent vampire food.”

I frowned, my mind spinning. But I wouldn’t be distracted by the shudders of revulsion filling me, knowing I was a vampire’s ultimate meal ticket.

Instead I concentrated on the possibilities to outmaneuver the vampire.

“So he’ll be expecting us to run and hide.

He’ll also expect our own hunger will flush us out long before he starves. ”

Alexander scraped a hand over his face. “Without a doubt.”

I pulled on his arm and he stopped before turning to face me. Jasper snuffled in the grass beside the sidewalk while my pulse galloped like a runaway train, my squeaky voice giving away my excitement. “So the leech wouldn’t contemplate the idea of us going back to his nest to destroy him?”

Alexander’s eyes widened even as he compressed his lips. “Bad idea. I watched one woman in the nest commit suicide. There’s not a chance in hell I’ll let you die too.”

I squeezed his hand. “We’re in this together. You won’t let anything happen to me, just the same as I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He blew out a harsh breath. “You don’t understand what we’re up against. Fighting the vampire is like trying to injure smoke. It’s just not possible.”

It was my turn to shrug. “So then we suck the smoke into a vacuum and never let it out again.”

Alexander’s eyes crinkled at the corners despite his stern look. “We talk to this doctor again first. Only then do we even consider the idea of returning to the nest.”

I nodded, my belly churning with what we had yet to face. “Deal.”