Immortals After Dark 05 - Dark Needs at Nights Edge Read Online Free PDF

his bonds. Limbs feel leaden. Drugged. Rage stabs him, the need to kill strangles him like clenched hands around his own throat.
    How long have I been out? He remembers where he is. The manor—as forbidding as he’d sensed it would be. When he’d been in the car, the sight of it had made him sweat and thrash.
    The feeling of being watched is multiplied here, the tingle on the back of his neck unrelenting.
    He tenses. He’d seen... had he seen a spill of shining black hair as some female twirled round? Can’t determine what’s real and what’s illusion. Before she vanished, he’d thought he’d glimpsed blue eyes going wide with surprise. He’d smelled roses and had seen a bared shoulder—slim and impossibly pale. Yet no one else had reacted to her.
    Which means she can’t be real.
    Anything he sees that others don’t is suspect. She’s likely a figment in his mind from another’s memory. Someone that he’s drunk had known her as a wife, a mistress... or one of their own victims.
    He strains harder against the chains. Nothing. Metal like this shouldn’t be able to hold him. Unless... Mystickally reinforced.
    Damn his brothers to hell! Why in the fuck would they bring him here? This place feels wrong, menacing. He doesn’t know how or why. Doesn’t care. Just know I have to get free.
    Suddenly the smell of roses surrounds him. I’m not alone in this room. Though he sees nothing, there’s another presence here. Is it the female from before? Was there a female before? He begins to sweat.
    Something is inches from him, creeping closer... he could swear he feels warm breaths against his ear. He writhes, baring his fangs in warning. The need to kill seethes inside him.
    Closer... closer...
    From directly beside his ear he scarcely hears a voice. He can’t make out the faltering words.
    But he senses expectancy—a yearning that hits him in roiling waves. His head feels like it’s about to explode. He’s supposed to do something. “What? What?” He doesn’t know... doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do...
    He hates this need he senses.
    “Seeeeee meeeeee?” the faint voice says. He jerks his head back and forth. Sees nothing.
    He lunges upright, feeling a shock of something, like static electricity.

    Conrad’s body drifted through hers, making her gasp and him shudder.
    He stumbled to his feet. Confusion appeared to mount within him. “Someone’s here. Real?” His voice sounded even raspier than last night.
    “Conrad, be calm,” she said slowly.
    His eyes glowed a deeper red. “Show—yourself!” Could he possibly be responding to her words? Or did he merely have some kind of vampire’s sense that he wasn’t alone?
    With a low growl, he backed against the wall as he worked on the manacles. Finally he looped his bound hands under his feet to bring them forward. Seeming to relish the chance to fight, he intently scanned the room for an enemy, for a kill.
    As Néomi hovered about him, waving her hand in front of his face, his eyes darted wildly, his head jerking right, then left. Frowning, she brandished her forefinger, stabbing his eye, passing straight through it.
    He didn’t blink.
    She floated backward as if pushed. He can’t see me. Heavy disappointment settled over her.
    Beautiful female? Just the ramblings of a madman. She’d seized on the words no matter how unlikely they were because she’d been desperate.
    The elation of the night had set her up for the bitterest disappointment. She gave one last frantic wave at his eyes—
    He snapped his teeth, the sound like a bear trap; she reacted with a startled cry and raised her hands, shoving him away, sending him like a cannonball into the high-backed chair. When the chair slammed into the opposite wall, it collapsed from the impact, exploding into a cloud of splinters, tufts of upholstery filler, and plaster.
    Battling to be freed from the shambles, he yelled in a foreign language, what had to be oaths. Yet he appeared to like the