Page 34 of The Vampire's Seduction

“What is that? Are you hurt?” she asked, scrutinizing him for a different reason. Two patches of dried blood on his shoulder. His injuries must have healed. She looked at the sink again. The blood was so dark it was almost black. Still holding onto the wall, she pushed past him, dipped a finger in the blood, and lifted it to the light to study.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

Olivia turned her finger left and right. The blood was thicker than usual and too dark. Her heart skipped a beat.

“Silver? You were shot with silver?”

His merriment vanished. His face guarded, he observed her like she might have some trick up her sleeve or would attack him like a rabid dog any second. “How do you know?”

She refused to let his coldness bother her. After all, this wasn’t new from him. It only reminded her that it was better for them to go their separate ways, that he didn’t like her or wished to help her if not for them being mates.

“I study VB, remember? I’ve studied how silver impacts your blood at the microscopic level. No other element does this.”

His expression darkened further. The temperature in the room dipped, raising goosebumps on her arms.

“Looking for other weaknesses, are you?” Cold and merciless. Back to the terrifying vampire she first met.

Except she wasn’t scared of him anymore.

“Get over yourself,” Olivia snapped, sick of his mood shifts. “And here I was, worried about you.”

She pushed past him to the main room, anger burning in her belly. Not only at him, but at herself for the ball of hurt squeezing her chest. He was a vampire. A stranger. Why should she care what he thought of her?

Was this what it meant to be soulmates? To care about a total stranger’s opinion? He’d told her he would help her because they were meant to be together.

Not because he knew her, not because he cared about her or understood her.

No, because something in his upside-down world had decided they were soulmates. And he, despite being an immortal, centuries-old vampire, still believed in superstitious nonsense.

Well, not her. She didn’t believe it, so he could take his help and judgmental attitude elsewhere.

Yet, her feelings didn’t change the fact that she needed his help. No, not his help. A vampire’s help. He couldn’t be the only person who had connections to witches.

“You were worried about me?”

Olivia took a deep breath to tamp down her wild emotions before facing him. Ignoring the strange note in his voice, she said, “Forget I said anything. Who was it on the phone? Are you going back to Las Vegas? Is that where you’re from?”

“Yes, after what happened downstairs, it’s best if we move to Vegas.”

“We?” She barked out a bitter laugh. “I’m not going with you.”

He gritted his teeth, annoyance stamped onto every line of his male body. “I can’t protect you here, but in Vegas, no one will dare touch you. The Organization can’t get to you there.”

“The Organization?”

“The Organization of Benevolent Mercy. Those people worked for them.”

Olivia’s brows furrowed. “They said they were from Zylotech.” She’d heard of the Organization of Benevolent Mercy, the biggest anti-vampire institution in the United States. “Why would the Organization want me? Don’t they only lead anti-vampire protests and deal in propaganda?”

Marek let out a derisive huff. “That’s their public persona. In private, they fund vampire research with companies like Zylotech and train a small army to kill vampires.”

The terrible image of those desiccated vampires shackled to metal tables flashed in her head. Her mouth dry, she said, “If you’re telling the truth, what do they want from me?

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Marek muttered, storm cloud descending over his features. “You really don’t know why?”

Olivia threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know!”

“What about your research?”