Dark Needs at Night's Edge Read Online Free PDF Page A

if he wasn’t one to quibble about pink cheeks and the appearance of blooming health... ?
    Néomi didn’t necessarily seek an acknowledgment of her presence. She could float a sheet spray-painted with
    “Bonjour! from le spectre!” if she wanted bad attention, or a possible exorcism. No, she wanted to be seen. She yearned to converse.
    The possibility of this meant that all her grand plans to evict them had evaporated, her rancor over the damage to Elancourt temporarily soothed. Now she wanted to keep them close—
    especially Conrad.
    Curiosity ruled her. Why after eighty years of sporadic tenants had the blood-spitting vampire been able to see her? Why not his brothers? When they’d been chaining up Conrad for the day, she’d waved her hands, yelling as loud as she could. She’d even thrown herself through their torsos, to no effect.
    Was Conrad able to see her because he alone had red eyes?
    She stood to float from one peeling blue wall to the other. The brothers had unerringly chosen for Conrad the Blue Room, the most masculine of all the guest rooms. The heavy curtains were a deep navy, and the spare pieces of furniture—the bedstead, the nightstand, and a high-backed chair by the fireplace—were dark and stout.
    Though she’d expected them to sleep in coffins, they’d put Conrad in the made-up bed. She’d also believed that even indirect sun would burn them, but the room was aglow with enough pallid sunlight to illuminate the dust motes. And when the curtains wavered from a draft in the house, light would encroach all the way up to his feet.
    He turned over on his back then, reminding her how massive he was, his broad shoulders seeming to span the bed, his feet hanging over the end. He must be over six and a half feet tall.
    She floated above him, tilting her head as she peered down. He looked to be in his early thirties, but it was difficult to tell with the mud and blood covering his face. With a nervous swallow, she concentrated and used telekinesis to draw back his upper lip, jabbing his nose before she got it right.
    She saw a slash of white teeth gleaming against his dirty face and... unmistakable fangs. Just like in the novels she’d read long ago. Just like in the vampire movies the last young couple had loved to watch.
    How had these men become vampires? Were they turned? Or born that way?
    At that moment a loud bang sounded from downstairs. Though she dearly wanted to investigate what they were doing to her house, she feared Conrad would wake in her absence.
    The brothers had already boarded many of the windows that didn’t have heavy curtains, and had brought in folding chairs, mattresses, and sheets—even a modern refrigerator. The plumbing had been repaired in the master bathroom. Earlier, electricity had surged to life so abruptly that the lightbulb and fixture overhead had popped and shattered, raining glass.
    She’d floated the shards off the prisoner, a good move because he now began to twist in the tangled sheets.
    When his ripped shirt rode up a few inches, she noticed a thin scar beginning just above the waistline of his loose pants. How long was it? She waved her hand to tug the shirt farther up his torso. The scar continued. Nibbling her lip, she painstakingly manipulated the buttons until she could unfasten them all and spread the sides wide.
    The scar nearly reached up to his heart. It appeared as if a razor-sharp blade had entered at his stomach and slashed upward.
    When she could drag her gaze from the mark, she surveyed his bared chest. It was broad and generously packed with muscle. With his hands behind his back, those rippling muscles seemed to flex even at rest. His entire torso looked hard as rock, with not a spare ounce on him.
    She wondered what his skin would feel like. She would never know... .
    His pants waist sat so low that she could see the line of crisp, black hair descending from his navel. That dusky trail taunted her to ease his pants lower, but she