Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I didn’t know what I was doing, reasoning with a guy who was trying to steal from me, but I felt I had to try before I screamed.
“Please,” I said. “I don’t have anything.”
“Give me your fucking purse,” he snarled, and he was big as he stepped up, shrouded in a black hoodie so dark that I couldn’t see him. He was drunk. His words were slurry.
“Give me your fucking purse! Now!”
“Honestly,” I said, taking a step back, “I don’t have any money.”
The man stepped closer until I was backed against a wall. His breath smelt of whisky.
“Then I’ll just take something else,” he said and reached for my tits.
I put my arms up to protect myself, and caught a glimpse of the wild eyes under that hoodie. Fuck. I was terrified. I told myself to fight, to lash out. To give it everything I had to get him off me, but I didn’t need to…
That hood of his was yanked back and the man went sprawling to the floor, Hans towering over him.
The brute of a thief leapt to his feet and tried to wrestle him, but it didn’t matter. There was no way he’d ever have won.
I’d felt Hans’ strength before, but I’d never seen the extent of it. I’d felt the power of his teeth, but I’d never seen them biting someone else…
Hans slammed the guy into the wall beside me, crushing the guy’s heaving chest against the bricks with his face turned in my direction, right next to me. And then he tore the hoodie down far enough to free the thief’s neck. The guy’s flesh was pale and orange under the pathetic excuse for a yard light, but it was bright enough for me to witness the attack.
Hans’ eyes were on me as he sank his teeth right the way into the thief’s neck next to me. The guy tried to cry out, but Hans slapped a hand over his mouth.
Gloved.
Hans had gloves on.
The guy was muffled and flailing, trying to shove Hans away, but it was pointless. It wasn’t just Hans’ eyes on mine as the scene reached its peak. I stood mute as I stared into the thief’s gaze, watching the submission of his soul as he lost the fight.
The thief gave up in front of me, his eyes draining of life along with his throat. His hands dropped at his sides, limp, and he tried to whimper but had no sound to give.
Neither did I.
I was fixated in a mash of horror and fascination, mute and useless. I didn’t even try to help the man survive, but maybe I would have if Hans’ eyes hadn’t drawn my attention back to his with their glistening green. The glow of his stare was enough to drive me insane, but it wasn’t in a bad way. Not like it should have been.
The vampire was a monster. He was killing someone right in front of me.
I should have been running again as fast as my legs could carry me, since he was cold, and ruthless, not giving a fuck about the life he was taking, but I couldn’t.
He was too beautiful. A beautiful creature in the most beautiful form I’d ever seen him.
He gasped when he finally pulled his teeth free and let the thief’s limp body drop to the floor. I could still hear the victim’s ragged breaths, but they were so slow now that they were nothing but tiny little whistles.
“Time for you to see another vampire ritual,” Hans told me, his mouth dark with blood.
With that he took a knife from the inside of his jacket. Long and thin and brutal.
I flinched, finding my voice.
“Hans? What the hell?!”
He dropped to his knees and tugged the dying guy’s head back, staring up at me with blood still trailing down his chin.
“Do you think we can drain people to the point of death and leave our teeth marks standing proud when we walk away? Our reality wouldn’t just be a whisper of folklore then, little one.”
Hans slit the guy’s throat open with enough force that it slashed through the bitemarks, and tore the evidence away. I had to cover my mouth with my hands.
Watching someone being butchered was a world away from seeing their blood being sucked by a vampire – bizarre, but true. I retched as I watched Hans wipe the knife clean with a handkerchief, then slip it right back inside his jacket.
“It’s all right, Katherine. I know this is difficult.”
I was shaking my head, trying to believe it.
He got to his feet and put his hands on my shoulders, still gloved and no doubt still wet with blood.
“Katherine, listen to me. The guy was nothing but a vile, corrupt excuse for a man. He was going to beat you, do you know that? After he’d raped you, of course. And plenty of innocent people after you. I’ve just saved plenty of people from a nasty fate.”