Blood Trial Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers #1) - Kelly St. Clare Page 0,41

chip over the pad next to the lift.

Months spent in hotel rooms had taught me that much.

I used the chip again inside the elevator and pushed button 44.

My hell.

My salvation.

After the token ding, I crept into the reception area, one foot at a time.

No alarms went off, and my insides slowly unclenched.

It was just for a night. For safety. I could charge Beast too. Though I wouldn’t text Tommy until morning or she’d come to get me in the dark.

Right now, I was within four familiar walls. I could make do until morning.

I crept into my office, leaving the door ajar in case I had to make a silent getaway.

Crawling under my desk, I opened my pack.

A change of clothes—thankfully work clothes—glasses, purse and cash, grocery voucher, phone and charger, razor, toothbrush, and paste, body wash, and moisturiser.

My list of belongings had increased by a partial grocery voucher and a phone that preferred the early 2000s. Should I laugh or cry about that?

It had to be near ten at night. I was usually a night owl, but not after this hellish week. Not after today.

Yawn after yawn besieged me, yet sleep remained a flittering and distant sonofabitch. Instead, branded on the backs of my eyelids was Clint’s ugly mug.

I shuffled onto my other side and tried to find a better spot to nestle my head atop my pack. I was using my spare set of clothes as a blanket.

It was fucking cold in here.

Clint. Toss.

Clint. Turn.

Clint. Clint. Clint.

At first, I thought the muted thud was in my head. I’d been replaying the part where I’d run. The muted thud was my bag rising and falling against my back.

I only froze when someone laughed.

My eyelids flew open.

Holy fuck.

Someone was up here.

I wasn’t alone.

The woman laughed again. A lover’s laugh. A man echoed the sound in a deep baritone, their conversation a mere murmur of indistinct words.

I covered my mouth. Shit! This was bad. I mean, I could explain the situation. And would. But receiving a key and then using your workplace as a bedroom looked really bad.

Where were they in the building?

Removing my makeshift blanket, I eased out from under the desk and crept to the door, glad I’d left it ajar.

One of them had turned on an office light beside reception.

I recognised them. It was the young woman and man that Katerina had so strongly disapproved of being together. They’d snuck up here for pretty obvious reasons. The man, somewhere in his thirties, had her pressed against one of the reception benches. Her mini skirt was hiked, one of her feet hooked around his calf.

Who came to work to bang anyway?

At least it looked as though they’d picked their romping spot. I just had to keep quiet and wait for them to go. They had no reason to come into my office—I hoped.

“That’s it, baby. You know you want it,” he panted. “I trust you.”

Jesus. Sexy talk was anything but when I wasn’t part of the action.

I cast one last amused glance their way but stilled, squinting.

What the hell?

The office light was catching on the woman’s teeth. Her fucking long teeth. The man tipped his head to one side, baring his neck, and—

Jerking violently, I slapped both hands over my mouth as the woman bit into his neck. One of her hands came up to push his head even farther to the side. The other clamped his body against her own.

She drew on him, slurping, swallowing, gulping.

She was drinking his blood.

He moaned, his hips moving against hers. The Bright Eye didn’t reciprocate, and his movements weakened. The man’s hands clawed at her back, slipping away to the soundtrack of her gurgling swallows.

The monster followed him to the ground, snarling as she ripped into his neck anew.

He stopped moving.

Eventually, she stopped too.

I couldn’t blink or think. I couldn’t even inhale. Frozen to the spot, fear pulsed unchecked at the thought I was next; that this vampire—for that’s all she could be, as impossible as that concept was—was thirsty for more.

A switch flicked within her. One moment she was a snapping animal. The next she was screaming bloody murder, shaking the man’s corpse.

The man she killed.

“Ryder,” the vampire moaned. “No. Come back.”

She bit her wrist, dripping glistening ruby droplets into his mouth.

I couldn’t look away. Terror—shock—demanded that I watch until death found me.

She sobbed over her dead lover. Her meal. “Kyros will save you.”

Gathering the man in her arms with no perceivable effort, the young woman raced to the emergency stairs, disappearing