Page 71 of Taken By The Vampire King

I’d just relaxed when the door cracked like thunder as it smacked against the wall, and I almost fell off the bed.

“Nicolas Dupont,” I yelled before I’d fully straightened. “What the hell do you think—”

I bit off my words.

Man in front of me.

Not Nicolas.

He grinned, then spoke like he could read my addled mind. “Oh, I’m not Nicolas Dupont, ma chérie.” But something in the way he spoke Nicolas’s name implied a viciousness not present in his casual pose or his easy grin.

My skin shifted like it wanted to crawl away from my body in this guy’s presence. I lifted my chin, trying to prevent myself from shaking.

“Where am I?” My voice rang out clearly, despite the unwillingness of my skin to stay and protect me.

He laughed. “Why, New Orleans. Can’t you tell? We’re holding quite the party to celebrate your arrival.”

He gestured vaguely toward the window, indicating outside, where the music continued.

There was even something sinister about his laugh. Something otherworldly that I couldn’t pinpoint. He had an eerie calm, but his eyes were alive and alight, almost crazy.

“Is Nicolas here?” I tried to sound casual as I stepped farther behind the bed, almost shielding myself from this man I didn’t know.

“Is Nicolas here?” He mimicked me, his voice falsetto, his hands clasped sweetly over his heart. Then his voice returned to normal. “No. He is not here. That would be quite unacceptable. He’d spoil all our fun.”

He took one gliding step toward me, then another.

I stifled a scream.

Fucking hell. Another predatory male.

Except this one made me long to be anywhere but in his presence, while Nicolas’s proximity had made me long for him inside me.

I shook my head, still trying to stir my thoughts into action. None of this made any sense. “What do you want? Why am I even here?” The heavy fear from before returned, binding me, constricting me.

He laughed again, the sound rolling over me and leaving me unclean. “I want to get everything I’ve always wanted. And you’re the key to it all.”

I opened my mouth to ask what the hell he meant, but still laughing, he began to back away, until all I could see and hear was his eyes watching me and his laugh booming off the walls like the sound itself could attack me.

He slammed the door shut behind him, and fine pieces of plaster flaked off the wall and floated to the floor, but it was like the laughter continued, mocking me. He’d left without even giving me a name, without telling me anything he planned to do with me.

Probably no one else even knew where I was.

Who would think to look?

Nicolas. The thought came to me unbidden, piercing through the fear.

But I knew, and with a certainty that shocked me. If anyone looked for me, it would be him.

If anyone came for me, it would be Nicolas Dupont.

More than once, he’d declared me as his, and if I believed anything of him at all, it was that he didn’t stand idly by while someone took what was his away from him.

I ran to the door and beat on it again, then the window, a whirlwind of frenetic activity as I tried to find a way out, but the music continued, raucous and happy, and there was no way anyone near that noise would hear my pitiful attempts to get their attention.

None of this made sense. And I should never have run away from Nicolas. He’d begged me to stay. In his house, I might have been his pawn, a piece in his game to get what he wanted for his future—but here in this strange room with a man I’d never met, I was a victim, and for the first time since I’d signed Nicolas’s contract, I was a true prisoner.

I might even be food.