Page 31 of Taming His Vampire Mate

Nothing.

The keypad lock dangled by its cords. No pry marks, no scratches on the housing—just ripped straight from the door in one savage pull. As if I needed more proof that this wasn’t human.

“This wasn’t some mindless monster,” I said, staring at the damage.

“Plenty of intelligent monsters come out of the bleeds,” he replied, though a doubtful note crept into his words.

No. This reeked of a vampire attack. A brazen, sloppy one. Either a newborn who didn’t know better or one so starved they didn’t care.

It wasn’t just Godric in the mix, then.

The door opened easily, and I stepped inside.

Jeremy crowded in right behind me.

The first thing I smelled was the sharp twang of stale blood. A lot of it.

“Hell,” Jeremy said immediately. “Someone died in here.”

I drew a long, slow breath and shut my eyes, counting to five. Steeling myself was necessary. The instant I showed any weakness—any at all—he’d pounce on it. Exactly the way Magnus would have.

And no, the bodies of innocent people don’t get easier to look at after centuries. Age doesn’t harden you. Instead, it deepens the tragedy, because you understand more fully the richness ofwhat life can offer. Age doesn’t make seeing senseless slaughter any easier. It makes it far worse.

I flipped the light switch. Dingy yellow light flooded the room, immediately making me want to throw myself off the nearest bridge. It was part backroom storage, part manager’s office. A desk sat against one wall. On top of it was a bulky monitor surrounded by haphazard piles of paperwork. Sticky notes clung to the wall above, held by mismatched thumbtacks. An oversized calendar, crammed with notes, hung beside them. Cardboard boxes stamped with food logos were stacked in the corners. Two wire racks held plastic tubs of candy and over-the-counter medicine.

In the center of the floor: a dark rust-colored stain, the size of a dinner plate. A pool of blood, long dried. But no body. No drag marks.

“I’m not sure if that’s a relief or not,” Jeremy said, following my gaze. “A little disconcerting, if you ask me.”

“Not if the victim was turned.”

“Turned? You mean, like a vampire?”

I hummed in agreement and stepped to the desk. The calendar was a work schedule, neatly written in pencil. Flipping back through the months, I saw each day carefully crossed off—until four days ago.

I dropped it on the desk, my unease crystallizing. Did that mean the gas station had been vacant for four days? Impossible. Maybe the manager was sick. Or on vacation. But the simplest explanation was that there was no one left to close up shop.

“Holy shit,” Jeremy murmured, joining me. He’d clearly noticed the same thing. “Someone ought to have been here. Travelers passing through. Locals grabbing gas or food. Deliveries.”

“Unless they did come and never left.”

Revulsion curled through me. The attendant had died here. That was certain. And then they’d gotten up and walked away.

Robbed of their human life in an act of terrifying violence.

And their maker—Godric—had what? Let them get hungry? Urged them to kill? Laughed, the way Magnus used to, when they killed an innocent person for the first time, driven half mad by their hunger?

Godric had been Magnus’s right hand. He’d learned from the best.

I needed to get out of here.

I bolted from the back room, through the store, and into the fresh air.

I took deep, measured breaths. The sun was far too hot and bright on my skin.

“What was that?” Jeremy demanded, emerging behind me a moment later. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a weak stomach! You’re eight hundred years old! A little blood’s nothing, right?”

Then he caught my expression. The annoyance drained from his voice. “Oh.” His brows knit, and I despised the flicker of concern in his eyes. “But it’s not—you don’t actually—you couldn’t—”