The Vengeful Vampire Read Online Free PDF Page B

bedroom.

    “Someone was in here,” his voice broke. “Someone grabbed me and pulled me off you.”

    She shook her head in confusion. “There’s no one else in here, Jackson. It’s only us.”

    Bravado deflated, his shoulders hunched, his eyes wide. He was as scared as her, but Serenity knew from experience—a scared animal was also a dangerous one.

    “No. Someone else was here, someone grabbed me. I felt his hands on me. I felt his cold, fucking hands on me!”

    Cold hands, she remembered. Cold hands and soft, pale skin.

    No. It couldn’t be possible ! Nevertheless, Serenity found herself looking around the room, half-expecting to see her stranger materialize out of thin air. She caught herself. That was crazy. There was no way someone had gotten in and out of the room without either of them seeing.

    Serenity’s face betrayed her; her guilt flickered across her features.

    “Who is he?” Jackson demanded. “Some guy you’re screwing? Have you let another man in here?”

    Her eyes widened with fright, but again the stranger’s face appeared in her mind like a subliminal image on a television screen.

    The memory made her pause too long and Jackson seized upon her silence.

    “You have!” he said, incredulous, as though he never truly believed her capable of an affair, despite his constant accusations. “You little whore! You’ve been seeing someone else!”

    It wasn’t a question anymore but a statement.

    She shook her head, desperate. “No, no, I haven’t. I swear to you.”

    Jackson’s injuries prevented him from leaping across the room and strangling her. A lump the size of an egg protruded from the back of his head. Reaching up, he tentatively touched the bump. He pulled his hand away, fingertips dark with blood.

    The sight of the blood threw him off his rant. She could always rely on Jackson to put his well-being ahead of everything else. “I need to get to hospital,” he said. “I’m hurt. You need to call an ambulance.”

    Serenity stared at the blood and a sliver of malice slipped down her throat. She wanted to tell him to suck it up. He’d given her far worse injuries and she’d never been able to seek medical help. But years of silence weren’t broken in a day and she held her tongue.

    Grateful to be out of Jackson’s company, if only for a minute or two, she left the bedroom and ran downstairs. Crossing the living room to where the phone sat on a side table, she lifted the receiver and dialed 911.

    “What’s your emergency?” asked the tinny voice of the operator.

    “I need an ambulance.”

    “Can you describe the incident, Ma’am?”

    “My husband’s had an accident in the bedroom,” she said and a bark of hysterical laughter almost escaped her. She managed to clamp her mouth shut and the laugh came out as a strange, strangled cough. Images of Jackson in some weird perverted mess with a pair of handcuffs and a candlestick danced through her mind. Hysteria lurked perilously close to the surface but if she gave in, Jackson would kill her.

    “I was attacked,” Jackson shouted, still finding the strength to try and control her actions. “Tell them I need the police as well!”

    For once Serenity ignored him; she gave the operator their address and hung up. Taking a deep breath, she made her way back up to the bedroom.

    “Jackson,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. She sounded authoritative, not like herself at all, and her tone made him look up. “What are you planning to tell the police? That some invisible intruder attacked you? The first thing they’re going to ask is if you’ve been drinking, which you clearly have, and then they’ll send you for psychiatric tests.”

    He opened his mouth to protest and shut it again.

    Serenity knew he’d been weakened by his injuries, but even this small victory lodged like a powerful rock inside her.

    But she had to wonder, what did happen? Jackson didn’t leap backward by himself and she