At Second Bite Read online

  At Second Bite

  by

  Michelle Rowen

  “Do you know who I am?”

  The handsome man’s gaze searched hers so thoroughly she felt as though she was being strip-searched at the airport, not just propositioned at a singles bar called the Meet Market.

  “That’s an interesting line,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “The ‘do you know who I am’ line. It’s a bit of an alternative to the whole ‘do you come here often’ thing.”

  “My name is Evan Frost.”

  “Julia,” she offered after a moment’s hesitation. “Julia Donner.”

  He offered her his hand and she took it expecting a handshake. His warm fingers curled around hers and he brought her hand to his mouth to brush his warm lips against her skin.

  “It is you,” he said. “I know it truly.”

  “You know what truly?” She raised an eyebrow.

  Was he going to buy her a drink? Should she buy him a drink? Damn, she hated getting dragged along to these kinds of bars with her desperate friends. It so wasn’t her scene.

  “She told me it was you, but I did not initially believe. Now I do.”

  “Who told you what?”

  “The witch. The one who led me to you. I have searched 300 years and you are finally returned to me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He looked at her very seriously. “You, Julia Donner, are the reincarnation of my beloved soulmate.”

  She actually laughed out loud at that. “You are kidding me, right?”

  He frowned at her reaction. “I do not kid you.”

  She had to admit to being a little disappointed. At first glance the guy had potential - serious “introduction to her bedroom” potential. At second glance, he was just another loser. Pretty on the surface, but crazy underneath.

  Julia sighed out loud. “Three hundred years? That’s kind of a long time. What are you, a vampire, or something?” She was kidding of course, but the look on his face told her he wasn’t.

  “You sense what I am,” he said with obvious approval. “You know me.”

  She tried not to laugh. “No, I don’t. Besides, vampires are cold, undead creatures of darkness. And you’re . . . well, you’re—” very hot “—warm and breathing.”

  “Real vampires are not what you might expect. We are simply different than humans. We do live eternally. But when our soulmates are taken away before they are sired, we must try to find them in their next life. It has not been easy for me to locate you. I feared I would never find you again.”

  Right. “I think you should probably take off. My friend’ll be back any minute.”

  Instead of departing, he took a step even closer to her. “It is I, dearest Julia. Evan. Search your heart. You know me. I know you do.”

  She leaned back from him. “I know you need to get away from me or we’re going to have a big problem here.”

  He looked very confused. Either this guy was surprised that his whole reincarnation shtick didn’t work on her or he was completely insane. She didn’t know which. She didn’t care. Either scenario creeped her out.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, with a deep frown creasing his forehead.

  She slid off the bar stool. He put his arms on either side of her to block her from leaving.

  “Please, stay and talk with me a while longer, Julia.”

  “I mean it,” she said very firmly. “Get away from me now.”

  A small smile touched his lips. “I remember that fire, that spark of life inside you. There are many things that are so very, very different, but that remains. You are the one. The witch is not wrong. She guaranteed me that you are she.”

  “That I’m your reincarnated soulmate?”

  “Yes.” His smile widened. “You are beginning to believe. That is wonderful.”

  She tried to move away from him but he didn’t budge. Was she going to have to call security? Not that anyone seemed like they were paying attention. A quick glance around the bar confirmed that several people were very close to each other getting to know each other much like she and Evan.

  “What do you want?” she asked him warily.

  “You, of course,” he replied.

  “Not interested.” She eyed him. “Maybe you should go bite some necks somewhere else.”

  “I need to drink very little at my age.”

  “If you’re a vampire, then how old are you?”

  “I am nearly 400 years old.”

  He looked no more than thirty. A very hot, but creepy, thirty.

  “I should be able to go wherever I want and not worry about getting harassed by some dead guy.”

  “I’m not dead.”

  “Undead, then.”

  He made a frustrated sound in his throat. “You don’t believe me.”

  “Obviously not.”

  “The witch told me it shouldn’t take long to convince you of my intentions.”

  “Which are?” Julia turned to face him again.

  He stepped closer. “To woo you, to take you as my wife, to make love to you and worship your body until our desires are sated, and to sire you as a vampire so we will never have to be apart again.”

  That probably shouldn’t have turned her on. This guy spoke like something out of a 1950s horror movie. But there was something about him . . .

  Something familiar?

  Nah.

  “I don’t believe in vampires,” she told him, but her voice sounded a bit breathy now. “And I don’t believe in soulmates.”

  He leaned closer and pushed her hair behind her ear so he could whisper, “Let me prove it to you.”

  It was working, damn it. Sad but true, she was starved for male attention. She’d put up her “girl power” front for years now, shunning relationships that didn’t seem like they had the legs to go for . . .

  To go for what? she thought. Eternity?

  She didn’t believe in true love. And she sure didn’t believe in soulmates. Then why the hell was she letting this self-proclaimed warm-blooded vampire nibble on her ear?

  And why was she letting him kiss her, there in the middle of the bar in front of everybody? That was something Julia’s bar-hopping buddies did on their nightly hunt for masculine prey. Not her.

  But soon enough she was kissing him back. So much for her half-hearted protests.

  After a moment she felt a twinge of pain and pulled away. “What was that?” she asked.

  “Sorry.” Evan was frowning, his brow lowered. When he looked up at her she realized that his eyes were black. Like, black. Not darker, not shaded because it was low light in the club. But black, even the whites. “I didn’t mean to taste you so soon.”

  She touched her tongue to realize that she’d cut it on something and was now bleeding. “What’s wrong with your eyes?” she asked.

  “It happened when I tasted your blood.” He looked away. “I can control myself. You don’t have to worry about your safety, I assure you.”

  She pushed at his upper lip, drawing it back from his teeth.

  “You have fangs,” she stated.

  “Yes. You may not have noticed them before. They are very small unless my hungers are triggered.”

  Her eyes widened as the slow, sick realization began to spread over her. “You’re a vampire.”

  He nodded. “I don’t normally share my secret for fear of attracting the wrong sort of attention - especially in a public area such as this. But I knew you had to know as soon as possible.”

  She just gawked at him.

  His eyes slowly returned to their normal shade of blue. “So you see, I’m telling you the truth. You’ve witnessed it with your own eyes. I am immortal. You are my soulmate and we
are finally reunited.”

  Julia slipped off the stool to stand in front of him on her high heels, which didn’t even bring her close to looking directly into the tall man’s eyes. He looked pretty happy actually. The long sharp fangs receded to become slightly pointy canines.

  She put her hands on his chest and felt the warmth of his body, the muscles of his chest and abdomen beneath the thin black dress shirt he wore. His heart did beat, but she realized that it didn’t beat very fast. Half as fast as hers did. Maybe less.

  “Do you believe?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I believe.”

  His pleased expression shattered as she kneed him in the groin, pushed away from him, and ran screaming out of the club.

  Julia made a beeline for the subway entrance a block away, the gaping mouth in the sidewalk beckoning her back to normal life. But a moment before she reached it she found herself grabbed from behind in an iron vice of a grip. A hand clamped down over her mouth. She struggled but knew it was not going to be any use. Fear and panic fought for first place in her brain. It was a close race.

  What was Evan Frost going to do now? Had she made him mad by running away? Obviously. Somebody didn’t get grabbed and dragged into a dark alley if everything was peachy keen.

  Fury then mixed with her other emotions. As soon as his hand left her mouth she was going to scream bloody murder. Her throat muscles tensed painfully in preparation.

  She felt the brick wall slam against her back, knocking the breath out of her and suddenly there was a knife at her throat. A big one.

  “Say one word and I’ll remove your head,” was the hard-edged threat that made her nod emphatically in agreement. The knife was sharp and she was very fond of her head exactly where it was.

  Also, the guy who said it wasn’t Evan. It was somebody else. Somebody she didn’t recognize. He was tall, with shaggy dark brown hair. One eye was covered with a black patch. The other was dark blue, almost black and it glared at her. He wasn’t smiling.

  He slowly took his hand off her mouth.

  The guy definitely didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked pissed off beyond words.

  “What’s your name?” he growled.

  Julia blinked, now confused. “I ... I agreed not to t-talk, remember?”

  “I’ll only hurt you if you scream. Got it? I need some answers and I need them now.”

  “O-OK.”

  “Name.”

  “J-Julia.” She bit her lip. She didn’t want to give him her last name if she could avoid it. He didn’t press for it, so that was one good thing. She clutched her purse against her chest.

  He was eyeing her very intensely. “So you’re Evan’s soulmate, huh? How sweet is that?”

  “He’s c-crazy.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “He . . . He’s a v-vampire.”

  The man smiled at that, but it wasn’t remotely friendly. Since she was now paying attention she saw the fangs immediately. The thought that this guy was also a vampire did nothing to help the panic situation. “I smell blood. You bleeding right now?”

  She swallowed hard. “Evan bit my tongue.”

  “Such a charmer, isn’t he? Can’t even keep his fangs to himself during a good old-fashioned grope.” He came closer to her and squeezed her chin enough to prompt her to open her mouth so he could see the small cut. His good eye turned to black and he grinned a little. “Probably shouldn’t have done that. I’m really hungry right now myself. Haven’t had a chance to feed lately. I’ve been too busy tracking Evan.”

  “T-tracking him?”

  “He’s been trying to lose me, strangely enough. Thinks I’m too overprotective. By the way, you can quit with the fake stutter now.”

  She frowned at him. “It’s not fake. I typically s-stutter with fear when somebody has a knife to my throat.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “This little thing?” He lifted the huge machete-like blade so it glinted in the light of a nearby street lamp. “A guy has to protect himself against dangerous women like you in the big scary city, you know.”

  “Protect yourself. From me?”

  His expression grew colder. “You’d be surprised.” He drew closer to her so she could actually feel his warm breath on her face. “You’re not as pretty as you were last time.”

  She glared at him. “Last time?”

  “Last time you were with my little brother Evan 300 years ago. No, you were a major beauty back then. You know what they say about Helen of Troy? Well, you were even hotter.”

  In her current dire situation, she wasn’t sure why his appraisal of her sub-par hotness pissed her off as much as it did. “For the record, you’re not half as attractive as your brother either.”

  He grinned. “I guess I kind of deserved that.”

  “I’m not who you think I am.”

  “Yeah, right.” He smiled, which helped to show his family resemblance to his handsome brother, but she couldn’t really keep her eyes off that big old knife he held. “So you’re Evan’s reincarnated soulmate. And since I knew her - or rather you — I’m going to have to say that you should have stayed dead.”

  “You need to let me go now.”

  “Do I?” He eyed her. “You obviously have me confused with my brother. He’d do anything you wanted him to. You had him twisted around your little finger. That was not a good time in our lives. He may not have understood exactly what kind of woman you were, but I did.”

  “Oh yeah? And what kind of woman was that?”

  “Evil,” he said the word evenly. “Manipulative. Treacherous. Just because of how you looked, you could get away with anything. You nearly destroyed Evan. I won’t let you do it again.” He reached up to touch his eyepatch. “And I still remember when you did this to me. Just because we’re immortal doesn’t mean we can regenerate body parts. I do miss having two eyes.”

  She felt cold at that. “I never would have done anything like that.” She took in a shaky breath. “Unless it was self-defence. A big, nasty thug like you probably deserved it.”

  He drew closer so that there were only inches separating their faces. “You did it when I was unconscious and tied up.”

  “Oh.” Hard to claim self-defence when the other person was defenceless.

  “You thought I was trying to get Evan to leave you and you were letting me know you didn’t like me very much. It worked. I know Evan was shocked at what you did - hell, you almost killed me that night — but you’d already had your soulmate-click thing. If you hadn’t fallen down that flight of stairs and broken your neck running away from me when I got loose of the ropes, he never would have been free of you.”

  She shivered at the vivid picture he’d painted in her mind. “Soulmate-click thing?”

  He rolled his eye. “When soulmates find each other, this click thing happens. It’s like their souls recognize each other and come together like magnets. Apparently it’s impossible to ignore. Wouldn’t know. It’s never happened to me, happily enough.”

  “Are you going to kill me now?” she asked, her voice shaky.

  “That was the original plan.”

  But he was frowning now, harder than before. He had a knife and he was going to kill her in cold blood but he was frowning. Hesitating. No one was around. If he wanted to cleanly and efficiently chop her up into little tiny pieces, then she knew this was his chance.

  He breathed out through clenched teeth. “Dammit. This shouldn’t be so hard. I know what you are. I know what you’re capable of. But I do wish you looked more like you used to. This would be so much easier.”

  “Because that’s what I want. For this to be easy for you.”

  He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself. . . Julia. A little small talk might be what I need right now.”

  “I’m a nun,” she offered quickly, scrambling for anything that would make him not want to kill her. “I devoted my life to God several years ago. A life of purity and giving to others.
It’s very rewarding.”

  He cocked his head to the side and damned if she didn’t see a sliver of amusement slide through his one eye. “Nuns usually hang out at singles bars in this neighbourhood?”

  “I’m trying to help others find their way. Lost souls and all that.”

  “Right. Sure, I believe it. So I guess as a woman of the Lord, you would think of vampires as demons, right? Evil incarnate?”

  “Since I only realized that they were real about twenty minutes ago, I’d have to say that I have no defined judgments on vampires yet.”

  “What’s it like to not believe something, to think it’s only myth, and then to have it shoved in your face?”

  “Jarring,” she admitted. “Not as jarring as being threatened with a big knife, though - by a vampire.”

  “I can imagine that.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “So, Sister, what are your defined judgments on me?”

  “I don’t even know you.”

  “You know I’m a vampire and that I obviously have murderous tendencies.”

  “You haven’t killed me yet.”

  “Give me time.”

  She had no reason to doubt him, but there was something in the set of his mouth, and in the way he wouldn’t look her in her eyes, which made her doubt him.

  Why would she doubt him? She didn’t know this guy. He even looked scary, although not as terrifying as he had a few minutes ago. Underneath his less-than-stylish black duster and eyepatch and days-growth of beard, was something that wasn’t unattractive. Normally it was hard to judge somebody’s physical appearance when they were threatening your life. Fear could be blinding.

  He’d threatened her with a damn knife. She should be passing out from fear, screaming with terror, not appraising his hotness factor.

  And yet. . . she was. Sort of. In fact, the longer their strange conversation continued, the more she didn’t believe he was capable of murder, even though he was a vampire.

  He was trying to help his stupid little brother from making a mistake. That was all. This guy wasn’t a murderer. She knew it then. It was a gut thing.

  And she’d reached this verdict, why? Because he had nice lips? Good cheekbones? A deep, sexy voice? A tall, muscular body?

  No, it was something deeper than that, something she couldn’t put her finger on. Besides, if he was a murderous vampire, then why wouldn’t he bite her? He didn’t even need an actual weapon since he already had sharp fangs. And her neck was as exposed as her cleavage in the tight black dress she’d chosen to wear to the club tonight.