as she was, Elisabeth exited the car. The man in the trunk went silent. Listening.
She stepped around to the back of the car and popped the trunk.
5
Kieran
Kieran threw his hands over his face, bracing for the final moments of his life.
When she made no immediate move to sever his carotid and feast upon the results, he very warily uncovered one eye to look up at the woman—the creature—who would soon deliver his death…
… and was surprised to find she was exceptionally beautiful. Her light hair, like cornsilk, cascaded in soft, inviting waves, as if she had not just devoured the life from his date. Her cobalt blue eyes regarded him, not with hunger, but curiosity. Frustration knitted into the line of her brows, and he wondered what caused it, then realized it was better not to know. It didn’t matter anyway. This luscious beauty was a stone-cold killer. She was not his friend. Not a fantasy. This was not going to end like it did in the films in Dillon’s secret stash.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asked.
“Get out,” the vampire demanded. “And when you do, remember how quickly I could end your life.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Kieran mumbled, pushing memories of Darcy’s lifeless eyes from his mind before they could take over.
The vampire stepped back to allow him to exit. He wiggled around, searching for purchase, wishing she’d untie his hands. She watched in growing impatience as he finally angled his legs over the side and then practically fell onto the patch of mossy grass.
“You can walk? Didn’t break your feet on the taillights?”
“I can walk.” He shuffled ahead. “Where are we going?”
“The boat,” the vampire replied. “See it ahead?”
“I see it.”
“That’s where we’re going.”
Not just a second location, but a third. I’m so fucked.
And yet, she could’ve killed him at the funhouse.
She panicked is all. Didn’t want to get caught.
“Kieran,” she said, more forcefully. “Go.”
“How do you know my name?”
The vampire watched him, as if debating the honesty in her answer. “I pulled it from the girl’s head as I drank from her.”
“Jesus. Okay.” Kieran turned away to hide his horror. Kelley had also said a victim shouldn’t let their assailant read their fear. He’d said a lot of things that Kieran was only now remembering, when he was living it.
“Boat, Kieran.”
Kieran stepped carefully over the cypress knees, considering his options. He’d been a distance runner in high school, something he’d continued only half-heartedly into his college years. But he wasn’t confident that if he took off, she couldn’t outrun him, especially with his hands tied behind his back. She might be one of those vampires who could break the sound barrier, for all he knew.
Although he and his brothers had spent their formative years studying vampires, none of it was helpful to him now. They’d believed, but that belief had the air of youth, where reality was a hazy future yet to happen. Where it didn’t even have to match with reality at all. They’d studied the fiction of myths. Maybe there was truth there, and maybe not, but every choice from here until the end could determine whether he lived or died.
Kieran drew closer to the boat. He felt her several paces behind. His shoulders were a block of ice as he waited for her to spring forward and overtake him. Perhaps that was why she’d brought him all the way out here. The bayou was a natural body disposal service. What went in seldom came out.
When her hands wrapped around his forearm, he leapt hard enough to lose his footing. Her grip was effortlessly strong. She guided him into the boat, then followed him in. She had the motor going in one pull.
The vampire sat across from him. Her gaze was intense. Fixed. Unreadable. Her eyes stayed on him even as she reached behind her to steer.
“Elisabeth,” she said. “Unless you read my mind also.”
“I…” Kieran stumbled. She’d given her name, something identifiable, which shortened his life further. But that wasn’t what caught his attention. She’d implied she knew he had abilities of his own. “I did not.”
“You can, though.”
“Read minds?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Kieran said.
“But you can read something.”
Did she know, or was she guessing? Even his own family rarely spoke of their gifts. The Sullivans, the family of his mother, were notoriously cagey about their magic. It was often the unspoken dark void in any room they were in together, even as cousins moved their drinks across the table or conjured ice into their bourbon when