creep you mentioned?”
“The very same.”
“Ladies.” He made a point of smiling as unpleasantly as he could. “We need to talk. Or rather Elizabeth and I do.”
“I’m not telling you anything!” Her voice was a little shaky, but her eyes glared defiance.
“Yes you are, because if you don’t, I’ll shoot your little friend’s kneecaps.”
“He’s bluffing!” Heather said. “He doesn’t have a silencer on it, and a gunshot and my screams would be heard all over the neighborhood.”
Time to start scaring them. He grabbed the shrew around the neck with one hand and squeezed until she passed out. Dropping her on the floor, he turned to Elizabeth. She was halfway to the door. He beat her to it, yanked her back, kicked the door closed, and threw her on her back on the kitchen table. When she recovered from the shock, she started to fight and yell.
He took care of that by snarling and treating her to the sight of his half-descended fangs.
She froze, mouth open and eyes wide with horror. He loved it when mortals did that. She was bleeding where he’d hit her forehead. At the rich aroma, his fangs descended completely. She opened her mouth to scream again, but his hand blocked her mouth as his arm pressed down on her chest and pinned her to the table. “Make one sound I don’t ask for, and your little friend dies. She’s only unconscious now, but I can fix that. Understand?” When she nodded, he moved his hand off her mouth. “Good. Now tell me all you know about auxiliary accounts in the Devon operation.”
“Ask my father if you want to know.”
He splayed his fingers. Nice breasts. Perhaps another time…. She squirmed. He dug his fingers deeper. “I know everything you told him. I heard your conversation.” Her heart raced in shock. Nice. “I want to know the rest of it.”
Her chest heaved against his fingers. “I told my father all I know. There’s a second set of financial records and they seem to be in code. Just numbers.” She threw him a glare. “If you heard me, you know that already.”
“You know what the numbers refer to?”
“If I did, I’d have told Dad.”
“Any idea what they are doing?”
“Something underhand, illegal, and illicit!”
“Smart-ass answers put your little friend in real peril.” She glared. He chuckled. Mortals were so pathetic. “I’m giving you—and her—a second chance. Do you know exactly what the Marshes are doing?”
Her breasts rose and fell under his fingers as she took another deep breath. Beads of sweat broke out on her upper lip. Mortals were fascinating when terrified. “There was no way of guessing. It looked fishy, so I decided Dad needed to know.” She paused. “He already did, didn’t he? You’ve got a racket going on.”
All this trouble for a woman’s guess. “Your father and I have an arrangement. In the future, we won’t need your help in the business.”
“I wouldn’t dirty my hands with it!”
Silly girl! Mouthing back at him, refusing to acknowledge the evidence of her own eyes. He snarled, and a little mewl came out in her efforts to hold back the scream. She looked up with defiant dark eyes, the fair hair drawn back from her forehead as sweet-scented blood trickled down the side of her face.
No point in waiting. His spread hand pinning her down, he leaned over her, licked the line of blood from her face, and relished her shudder. He lifted his head, looked her in the face again, and, holding her eyes with his, lowered his mouth on her neck.
She never stopped struggling. All the better. The rise in her blood pressure sped the flow of luscious blood, and her fear only added piquancy. He drank deep. Finished, he paused long enough to lick the punctures to seal them. He’d leave no evidence.
She was weaker now and lay quiescent, looking at him with pure, undiluted, scrumptious fear.
Usually he left this memory with his victims, to return in nightmares during dark, lonely nights, but not this time. Casting a glamour over her, he reached into her memory, stripping it. “You remember nothing of this, Elizabeth. Nothing at all.” He cupped his hands on her head, forcing his will on hers. “Do what I tell you. Forget!” Her mind gave way, accepting his compulsion.
Her eyes went blank. Had he taken too much? Screw it! His survival, and the success of his plans, was what mattered. He rolled her off the table to the floor and reached for Heather. He hadn’t intend to feed off her as well, but what the heck? He had a long flight back to Oregon and her neck was available. He drank hard and fast, sealed the wound with a lick, and dug into her mind, erasing her memories. “Heather, you’ll remember nothing. Absolutely nothing. Understand?” He compelled her as he had Elizabeth, and her mind, too, collapsed under his superior will.
Heather gave him the same glazed look. He dropped her to the floor and stood up. He had the grandfather of all erections from the power and thrill of imposing his will on two puny females. He walked out, leaving the door open to give the impression of a robbery. Taking the keys Heather had dropped on the floor, Laran drove away in her car, abandoning it, unlocked, with the keys in the ignition. With a bit of luck some delinquent teenager would find it and leave an abundance of incriminating fingerprints.
He jogged the block or so to his rental car and, with the satisfaction of a job well done, drove back to the airport.
The cold brought Elizabeth to her senses. Her head ached. She had no idea of her name, what had happened, or where she was. She crawled over to the other woman muttering on the floor.
She sat up and stared at Elizabeth. “Who are you?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
She shook her head slowly, as if it hurt to move. “I thought you might.” She looked around. “Where are we?”
Heather tried, but thinking caused a dull ache inside her skull. This place was familiar…it was just…Through the aching fog of her fragmented reason, she grasped a stray memory. “It’s a house. Someone lives here.”
Elizabeth looked around. “Who?”
“Hell if I know.”
“What if they come back?”
An exchange of sheer terror crossed between them.
“We mustn’t be here!” Elizabeth said, pulling herself to her feet. “If they come back, maybe they’ll do it again.”
“Do what?”
“I don’t know, but it was hideous. Wasn’t it?”
Heather nodded. Caught in the horror, neither of them could remember. “We’ve got to get away!”
They clasped hands, and, seeing the still-open door, headed outside. In the empty carport they exchanged another frightened glance. “Where?” Elizabeth asked.
Heather didn’t try to answer. She pulled Elizabeth’s hand and ran.
They fled the miasma of horror that enveloped the house. Past streets and shops Heather had once known, they ran on, down dark alleys, skirting yards and leaping walls. As the miles passed, they fatigued and slowed but never stopped, driven by the need to put distance between themselves and the forgotten terror behind. Hours later, they collapsed in a corner of a park. They had no idea where it was, or why they were there, but the sense of menace was gone, and they slept huddled together.
Hours, days, passed. They had no idea how long. A homeless man approached them but retreated fast when they snarled. No one else ever came near. Until…
A middle-aged man, strolling through the park, paused and then walked past them a couple of times. They were drawn to the quiet power emanating from him. He looked around the park and back at them. “Where is your controller?” he asked. “Tell