Blood Mate: A Paranormal Romance by Natalie Kristen Page B

cleaned his blade on her bedsheets and shrugged.
“You'll heal. But she won't.”
    The vampire pulled Bryn
roughly to her feet. Bryn pressed a hand to her neck, feeling her
blood pump forcefully out of her wound. She was losing too much
blood too quickly. She blinked around her dark bedroom. Nana had
replaced the windowpanes in her room with dark shatterproof glass and
installed thick, heavy curtains over those tinted windows. With her
curtains drawn, her bedroom was as dark as a tomb during the day.
    Through her fast clouding
vision, she could see her blood all over the bed, and on the floor.
There were crimson splatters on the wall, on the chair. Her mind
reeled. This blood-soaked scene was familiar. It looked a lot like
a murder scene.
    Bryn blinked hard, trying to
clear her vision. She lunged at the vampire, fangs and nails out.
She swiped and slashed at him, but he sidestepped her easily. She
careened into the wall, and almost lost consciousness.
    She slid to the floor, her
breathing becoming fast and shallow as she bled out.
    The vampire strode over to the
window and pulled her curtains wide open. Bryn gasped and raised her
arms to shield her eyes. The dark, tinted glass blocked out most of
the sunlight, but still her eyes burned and blisters erupted on her
skin. The vampire watched her in silence. He didn't seem to be much
affected by the sunlight. Bryn immediately realized that he was a
very old vampire. And he had been careful to cover up every inch of
himself. He was in long sleeves, turtleneck, long pants, boots, mask
and gloves.
    Bryn bit back her pain and
struggled up. She couldn't see so well in the light. But she could
hear Nana's shrieks.
    She staggered out of her
bedroom, and the vampire smiled as he watched her go. He knew she
couldn't go far.
    Bryn saw that the front door
was open. As she stumbled down the corridor, she raised her shaking,
bloodstained hand to protect her eyes from the harsh sunlight
streaming in through the front door. She broke into a lurching,
stumbling run.
    “ Nana!”
    She squinted against the light
and faintly made out a few moving shapes and Nana's kicking, whirring
legs. In the blinding daylight, she could only see them as blurred,
shadowy shapes. But she could scent her grandmother's terror and
outrage.
    Bryn fumbled her way towards
the front door. She heard Nana terrified screech, “No, stay
back, Bryn! Don't come out! The sun!”
    Bryn jerked back. If she
barreled headlong out into the open, into the late afternoon sun, she
would set herself ablaze. And her Nana would be forced to watch her
burn to ashes. No, she would never do that to Nana.
    Nana's scream was cut off
abruptly. Bryn felt a gloved hand around her neck.
    “ Time to go,” the
vampire drawled. “Don't worry, your grandmother's alive.
And—” He dug his fingers into the wound in her neck.
“—we won't let you die...yet. For now, you're more
useful to us alive.”
    Bryn was too weak to resist
when he wrapped an arm around her waist. The vampire started to fade
into mist, wrapping himself tightly around her.
    She could still feel her blood
leaking out of her neck as the vampire misted her away.
    He's leaving a trail.
    She thought of her fellow
Enforcers. Immediately, she thought of Jett and she sucked in a
painful breath.
    This is a trap.

     

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

    Jett thundered up the front
steps to Bryn's house. “Where is she?” he roared.
    Scott stepped forward.
“The...”
    Jett grabbed the burly
werebear by the collar and slammed him against the wall. Scott
didn't fight him at all. There was no anger in the bear shifter's
blue eyes, just understanding and sympathy.
    This is not your fault,
Jett.
    Jett's fists shook and he
closed his eyes in pain. It was his fault! This was entirely his
fault. He had been watching her house the whole night. He had left
at daybreak and gone back to the office.
    Someone had seen him. And
someone had watched him leave.
    He had left Bryn and her
grandmother exposed