Chapter 2
Chapter two
Ethan
A glistening drop of ruby red blood slid down the side of the woman’s face, landed on her shoulder, and seeped into her white shirt.
Ethan suppressed the urge to vomit.
It wasn’t easy given how much of his best friend’s insides were now splattered across his lab, but dumping the remains of his ratatouille dinner on the floor wasn’t going to save him from meeting a similar end.
He had to run. Had to get away. Had to tell… someone.
But who would listen to him? If he hadn’t witnessed it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t believe the truth either.
He’d known Jake for almost a decade and considered him a brother from another mother.
Ethan was even the one who’d gotten him the job at VieTek Pharmaceuticals.
A decision he deeply regretted when the dark-haired vampire dropped Jake’s corpse to the floor and brushed the back of her hand across her mouth, smearing the blood on her lips into a hideous, crooked smile.
Vampire.
He still couldn’t believe it, but there was no other explanation.
Vampires were real, and one just viciously murdered his best friend.
The only thing that had saved Ethan was the fact he had been under a table cleaning up a spill when the door crashed open and the monster ripped Jake from his computer chair.
With a hand clamped over his mouth, Ethan watched the vampire’s nostrils flare as she sniffed the air and started prowling around the lab.
Searching…
Hunting…
For him? Did he even stand a chance against that… that thing?
The slight ache in his thighs from crouching under the lab table turned into a burn, and Ethan could feel the imminent cramp digging its teeth in. He shifted slightly, and that tiny motion—that little squeak of his converse sneakers on the linoleum—was apparently enough to seal his fate.
Terror spread through his body when the vampire paused midstep, her head cocking slightly.
“I do believe,” she said, spinning on her toes and stalking toward Ethan’s hiding place, “that I’ve found my missing scientist.”
Ethan huddled farther back under the table, tossing up a prayer to any deity that might be listening.
They weren’t. They never were when it came to him. Although, the fact he didn’t believe a higher power even existed likely wasn’t helping.
A hauntingly beautiful face slid into his view as the vampire knelt down in front of him.
“Hello there.”
Faster than Ethan could track, her hand flashed out and grabbed the collar of his lab coat, yanking him from under the table with inhuman strength.
She dragged Ethan up her body as she rose, holding his face inches from hers. He could smell the blood on her breath—Jake’s blood—and the ratatouille roiled in his stomach.
The vampire closed her eyes, inhaling Ethan’s scent. Then she pulled back and fixed an appraising stare on him. Her dark brown eyes took in every inch of his face, those nearly black irises expanding and contracting as they roamed over him.
“It’s almost a shame,” she said, her tongue swiping out to lick up a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth. “To have to kill someone so… intriguing. So intelligent. A pity, really.”
Ethan swallowed roughly and struggled in her iron grip to no avail.
The inevitability of his death lingered heavily in the air, his clock ticking down.
If she thought he was going beg for mercy, though, she was going to be sorely disappointed.
Ethan didn’t beg for anything, and he certainly wasn’t about to start in the final moments of his life.
“Do it,” he bit out. “I’d rather die than spend another second looking at your hideous face.”
Her lips twitched in a faint grin, like a snake amused that the mouse dared to fight back.
“In that case,” she replied, the vacant depths of her soulless eyes offering him a glimpse of his demise, “your wish is granted.”
A second set of teeth descended behind her normal ones, and when the fangs were fully exposed, she struck.
And Ethan let out a gut-wrenching scream.