Page 6 of Taste of Forever (Vampires of Sanguine #3)

His response? A shake of his head and a sigh. “Yeah, DimeBag, I’m still here,” he said into the microphone.

“Unbelievable,” I groaned, heading for the bedroom.

After a shower and brushing my teeth, I flopped into bed and stared at the ceiling. Sleep wouldn’t come for hours. My work schedule had turned me into a night owl, so I was wide awake to stew—to listen to every whisper from that little resentment demon on my shoulder.

What kind of man turns down sex to play a computer game? He doesn’t even pretend to care anymore. Why do I even bother?

Is he getting his needs met somewhere else?

That last thought made me flop violently onto my side, facing my nightstand where my phone lay charging. No, Justin wasn’t a cheater, despite all his faults. I was just projecting because it felt like I had come dangerously close to cheating tonight.

I reached for my phone without thinking, but stopped short of picking it up.

A vampire drinking my blood showed me more concern and care than my own boyfriend tonight. How messed up is that?

I had been nothing but an anonymous, faceless blood donor, and he’d made me laugh to relax me. He told me not to be afraid, assured me he wouldn’t hurt me.

And he hadn’t.

He’d made me feel incredible.

My skin heated at the memory. Not just at the physical pleasure, but the sound of his honeyed voice. The weight of his presence—so close to me but impossible to see. Who was he? Did all vampires have that effect when they walked into a room? His presence seemed to demand attention, demand respect.

But I hadn’t felt afraid. The whole situation was strange and scary, but he wasn’t. He’d made me feel comforted, like he would shield me from harm. And then fuck me into oblivion after he finished drinking my blood. Or maybe while he drank it.

I rubbed my eyes with a sigh. It had been so long since I’d felt desired that my mind was truly spiraling, thinking of blood and vampires as sexy. Ugh, absolutely not.

Justin really didn’t need to do much to show me that he cared, that he still loved and desired me.

I wanted to believe that he did, that he was just comfortable in the relationship and didn’t see the need for romantic gestures anymore.

It wasn’t like I was asking for flowers or even a date night—a spontaneous kiss would have made me swoon.

A, “Hey, how was your night?” would make me feel I mattered.

Really? asked the resentment demon on my shoulder. You think a starving woman will be satisfied with sprinkles of breadcrumbs?

Well, no. Maybe not satisfied. But it would be better than how things were now. A step in the right direction.

Minutes crawled by and I was no closer to falling asleep. Justin swore and yelled at his teammates in the living room, oblivious to the real world. And the real world had vampires in it. I was still wrapping my head around that.

Justin had been mildly concerned when I had been held captive for three days at the prepper village, but we’d fought about something stupid right before. When I finally returned home, he figured I’d been staying at a friend’s place to cool off.

“You didn’t try to call me? File a missing person’s report?” I demanded when I returned home. “Or even check in with my friends or coworkers to make sure I was okay? I could’ve been dead in a ditch or something!”

“Well, you’re obviously not,” he’d said. “I figured you wouldn’t answer if I called. You’re the one who stormed out.”

Always your fault, mused the resentment demon. Even your own disappearance. Your boss called because you missed a day of work, but your boyfriend? Not a peep.

I rolled to my side with a frustrated groan and yanked my phone off the charger. I wouldn’t make a habit of this. Seriously, I wouldn’t. But if there was a chance that the vampire’s voice could relax me enough to sleep, I’d take it.

My eyes half-closed when I hit the play button on the audio file. I wanted to immerse myself in that room again and recall every sensation. How strange that I’d rather be there again instead of in my own bed.

But instead of hearing recorded voices, I got nothing but static.

“What the hell?” I opened my eyes and dragged the slider to different parts of the audio file. It was all static.

I sat up, confused and frantic as I swiped through my recent files.

“No! What the fuck?”

The video and still images I’d shot were corrupted too. Nothing could be made out through the dead pixels and random lines of distorted color. Everything I’d recorded that day, all the proof I had of vampires’ existence, was completely unusable.

How? I had checked everything when I got to my car. It had all been there.

My head shot up, recalling the guy who’d bumped into me. Something must have broken when I dropped my phone.

I turned on my bedside lamp to inspect my phone more closely. Maybe I missed something because of how dark it was outside. I popped the phone from the hardshell case and brought both pieces right in front of my nose.

Nothing. Every dent or scratch had either been there before or was entirely too small to cause any internal damage. The same scuff on the case’s corner I’d noticed before was the only visible damage that I could attribute to dropping it.

“Damn it,” I sighed, replacing the case and checking my files again.

Just for good measure, I powered the phone off and turned it on again.

No change. All the files from earlier today were corrupted, including photos I’d taken of the tiger lilies I grew on our back patio.

At least those would be easy to re-take.

I held the phone next to my ear and shook it, expecting to hear some loose component rattling inside, but there was nothing. At a loss, I tossed the phone back onto the nightstand and flopped down onto the pillow.

It seemed really weird that dropping my phone on a sidewalk would corrupt only my most recent files, but I supposed stranger things had happened. Like finding a hidden world full of vampires, getting bitten by one, and nearly having an orgasm as a result.

Without those files, I realized, I had no proof of vampires. That was the whole fucking point of me going there.

“Shit.” I rubbed my forehead.

My brain was locked on to the vampire world like a target. I needed proof—for my own peace of mind, if nothing else. I needed to know that I wasn’t completely losing it.

Which meant I had to return to Sanguine once again.