Excerpt

The shock of separation drove black spikes of pain into her temples. She opened her eyes, gasping for breath. Motes of red swam in her vision. She twisted around to look at him, in wonder and terror.

“Sorry.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know how else to convince you.”

“You’re—you’re the real thing, aren’t you?” Bianca thought her chest would burst. “Nosferatu. Undead.” She rubbed at her throbbing forehead. “But it can’t be! I never believed...”

“Believe,” he whispered, almost inaudible. Then all at once was back in his chair, leaving her heart slamming against her ribs. He smiled at her, that wide open, country-boy smile. Bianca worked to catch her breath, to calm herself to some semblance of normalcy.

It wasn’t possible. Vampires were a fiction, a legend. They were creatures of fantasy and nightmare. For some reason even she didn’t comprehend, the notion of vampires tapped into something fundamental in the human imagination. She personally knew dozens, maybe hundreds, of people who desperately wanted vampires to be real. These people, and others like them, fueled the engine of her success. However, even the most obsessed, the ones who caught and ate flies and slept in coffins in their cellars, knew the truth.

And now, here, that truth was being challenged.

He read her doubts, in her mind or on her face. He disappeared suddenly, then reappeared at her side with a glass of water. “Looks like you could use this.” Another blink and he was back where he started, smiling at her across the desk. The water was there, at her elbow, proof that she hadn’t been hallucinating. She took a sip and stopped fighting the evidence of her senses. It wasn’t possible that he was a vampire. But it was true.

“Are you very ancient?” she asked, finally. The question sounded absurd. What was she doing, continuing the interview?

Jim laughed, wholeheartedly this time.

“I’m twenty four. Or I was, that night six years ago at the frat party, when somebody’s girlfriend’s sister turned me. I admit that I was drunk. Barbara had just told me that she wanted a commitment, and I knew I wasn’t ready. I told her I loved her, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy her. So I went off, got plastered, and the next thing I knew I was in bed with this slutty-looking brunette who had very sharp teeth.” Bianca couldn’t help giggling. His tale was such a contrast to the mythology that she marketed.

“And then? What happened next? What about Barbara?”

Jim’s face grew shadowed. “Look, I don’t really want to talk about it. Not now, at least. Not here. Can we go somewhere quiet and dark for a drink?”

“You can drink? I mean, besides—well, you know.”

“Sure. I can’t eat solid food, though. It’s awful, because my senses are exceptionally acute. I can smell a juicy steak grilling half a block away. Pure torture.” He sighed. “Anyway, what about the job? Do you still think that I’m unqualified, Ms. Sorenson?”

Bianca took note of the challenge in his voice. Her body still trembled at the proximity of an honest-to-goodness creature of the night, but her mind was working overtime. How could she best use him to further her goals? To expand her vampiric empire? His photos were far too raw for her audience. Could he project the same level of intensity in a less extreme scene? And what about his co-models? Could he elicit the same sort of rapturous response from them that she had seen in Barbara’s face? Without actually taking them, of course?

She imagined herself in the woman’s position, offering her throat to those vicious fangs. The notion was seductive. She had just been given a taste. To give in completely to that kind of power—to be overwhelmed, consumed by an unnatural hunger... She’d scoffed before, but now she understood the temptation.

Bianca had always felt like the boss, even as a lower-than-dirt intern at Harper’s while she was still a student. She’d always wanted the power, never considered letting go. Now the thought of offering herself to this creature made her damp with desire. A wave of dizziness swept over her, followed by a surge of fear. This guy was dangerous. He was a threat to Bianca’s essential self. She wasn’t all that concerned that he’d kill her. No, she was afraid he’d somehow erase her, turn her into some craven, submissive creature begging to be bled. Like all those silly girls who snapped up her magazine as soon as it hit the stands.

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