Bloodlust Read Online Free PDF Page B

head.
    I shivered and pulled my thin sweater closer to me as I sat on the edge of the bed staring at the door of the motel room, waiting for it to open.
    It was my blood that had set him off. Declan was affected by it—his vampire side was. My blood wouldn’t kill a dhampyr, but it would weaken him—we learned that lesson when a scientist we’d gone to for help had used it against Declan to try to kill him. The scent, however, now triggered his bloodlust.
    It might be true that he was an assassin who’d killed countless vampires in his life, but he would never deliberately hurt me. Once I’d gotten used to him and his fearsome appearance, I knew this for a fact. I felt safe with him.
    However, I hadn’t felt very safe an hour ago. I’d felt scared to death—for him and for myself.
    I paced back and forth in the small motel room between the bathroom and the window, so many times that I practically wore a line in the carpet. I went to the window and peered outside at the dark and nearly deserted parking lot, a million questions racing through my mind. Where had he gone? Was he okay? Was this—whatever it was—going to wear off? Get worse? Hurt him?
    I tried to think about something else because this was eating me up inside. My mind wandered back to being at the bar and reading the newspaper. My picture, my sister’s plea for help. She had no idea what had happened to me that day—a day that was still crystal clear in my memory.
    I remembered the chemist—the para chemist, since he dealt in formulas meant for preternatural uses—who’d grabbed me and put me between him and Declan. Declan wanted the prototype formula he’d had. It was only in its initial stages. One sample. And it had been injected into me.
    My sister knew nothing about this. She might have seen some security camera footage of the hostage situation, the standoff between Anderson and Declan, but she’d have no idea how it had turned out. Just a fleeting image of me running away and being pursued by a large, scary-looking man with a gun who’d just shot someone in the head and left his dead body bleeding on the lobby floor.
    With a shaking hand, I picked up the motel phone and held it to my ear. I pecked out the numbers and waited as the phone rang once, twice, three times. Voice mail picked up and the familiar sound of Cathy’s voice brought the sting of tears to my eyes.
    She lived here in Los Angeles. From where this motel was, her house was only about ten miles away. Despite speaking to her weekly on the phone and sending tons of emails, I hadn’t seen her or my nieces since Easter when I’d stayed at her house for the weekend. I missed her so much.
    I opened my mouth to say something after the beep, but pressed my lips together. The silence stretched like bitter taffy until I lost my nerve and hung up. This wasn’t the time. And it wasn’t fair to just leave her a message that explained nothing.
    The moment this was all over—if I found my way out of this mess—when I finally saw my sister, I swore I’d never leave again.
    I leaned back on the bed, trying to ignore the huge rips in the mattress from Declan’s violent burst of rage. A bare spring poked into my back.
    The next moment I sat bolt upright when someone knocked on the door. Declan wouldn’t knock. And no one else knew we were here.
    Heart racing, I slipped off the bed as quietly as I could and went to the window to glance outside. I gasped. Matthias stood outside the door with his hand pressed against it, a half smile on his face.
    “Jillian—” The eerie singsong way he said my name carried easily through the thin door. “I know you’re in there. Your blood . . . it calls to me even from a distance.”
    Cold sweat slid down my spine.
    He could smell me. It was a chilling thought. I guess I couldn’t exactly pretend that no one was home. However, I wasn’t about to swing the door wide open and roll out the welcome mat. The memory of what he’d done to me the last