No.
Nicole spun around and saw her nightmare walking out of the darkness.
“Get away from her,” the hunter ordered, that voice still a dark rumble that she could almost feel.
She realized her right hand still held the frat boy. Nicole let her hand fall away from him. No way would she put a human—well, a semi-innocent one anyway—in the middle of this fight. “Go back inside.”
Her college snack blinked at her. “But we were—” A few drops of blood trailed down his throat. “I thought you were gonna …”
“You thought wrong.” She stepped away from him, and her gaze turned back to the hunter. “And unless you want to die, I’d recommend that you get your butt back in that bar.”
“D-die?” The word sounded like a frog’s croak.
The hunter was closing in. She took a deep breath. Yes, vampires still breathed. Their hearts still beat. Blood still flowed in their bodies. They died when they were transformed, but that death lasted only for an instant. All those tales about stone-cold vamps were false.
“Look,” frat boy blustered, “I’m not going—”
She glanced over her shoulder. This time, she let the guy see the monster in her eyes and the sharp teeth that had been ready to rip open his throat.
“Holy shit!” Frat boy ran, nearly falling twice as he hurried back to the bar.
She shook her head. Flexed her wrists. And waited.
The hunter kept coming toward her with his slow, stalking steps. She wasn’t going to run this time. Not when the odds were better. One against one now. And she might even be able to take him. Well, she might, depending on exactly what he was.
Because, as Nicole had unfortunately discovered over the last six months, monsters were real. Demons walked the earth, vamps hunted at night, and werewolves really did howl under the light of the full moon.
Her rose-colored glasses had smashed the night a vamp attacked her in New Orleans. She’d woken to a new world, new terrors, and the understanding that everything she’d known was really a lie.
Humans weren’t at the top of the food chain in the real world. They were just prey for the Other, for all of the supernaturals who lived in the shadows and who hunted whenever they damn well wanted to hunt.
Hunt.
Her hunter stopped less than a foot away. His gaze raked her.
“This is the second time tonight that you’ve taken my food away.” She licked her lips. Really, was a good meal so much to ask for? “Guess what that means.”
He stared back at her. A faint line appeared between his brows. “Your eyes … they should be green.”
A vamp’s eyes changed color—to f**k or to fight, that’s what she’d been told. The irises faded to pitch-black. “My eyes change, the better to see you,” she whispered and smiled. Actually, they changed the better to hone in on prey, so she was telling the ass**le the truth.
His gaze dipped to her mouth. He stiffened. “Your teeth …”
Her smile widened, and she knew he’d have a better view of her fangs. “They change … the better to bite you.” She wasn’t Little Red Riding Hood. She was the wolf. A hunter should know that. But while he stared at her, she took that moment and attacked.
Nicole leapt forward and wrapped her hands around his arms. Her mouth rose to his throat. “You took away my food, so that means you’re dinner.”
And Nicole did the only thing she could. She bit.
After all, vampires had to survive, too.
CHAPTER TWO
When Nicole flew toward him, Keenan lifted his hands and tried to step back. But she reached him anyway. Too fast for a human. She reached him, she touched him—and she didn’t die.
That fact floored him.
For so many centuries, no one had been able to touch him and live.
Even though he’d fallen, Keenan had thought he still possessed the Death Touch. According to the tales he’d heard, he should have still—
Her teeth sank into his throat. A razor-sharp slash of pain burned his skin and then—and then, sweet fire …
Pleasure.
Her mouth was on him, her lips whispering over his flesh, and he could feel the delicate lick of her tongue on his neck.
Touching.
His c**k began to swell, the need, the lust, rising within him. Her br**sts brushed against his chest. Her ni**les were tight as they pebbled against him.
Her mouth was on him, her br**sts against him, and she was still alive.
Well, sort of, anyway.
When her tongue licked over his skin again, fire shot from his neck right to his aroused cock. Aroused.