Dark Destiny (Dark Sentinel #1) - Lexxie Couper Page 0,18

fingertips harder to her neck, she licked her lips. She’d asked Ven to “turn” her the last time he’d come to her. She’d practically begged him. The rapture she felt whenever his fangs punctured her neck, the deep, steady burning sensation through her body as he drank from the twin holes… Fuck, she couldn’t go without that. Even twenty-four hours was almost impossible to bear. If she were a vampire too…

A shudder wracked Amy’s petite frame and she let out a gasp. An eternity of that drawing burn was too exquisite to ponder.

Rolling her head to the side, mouth dry, body throbbing with need, she looked at the clock beside her bed.

Nine-sixteen p.m.

Where was he?

Her gut clenched and she licked her parched lips, closing her eyes for a moment. She ached for him. A desperate ache low in the pit of her belly.

Rolling from her bed, she stood and crossed to the window, parting the flimsy gauze curtains to stare out into the night. He rarely entered her home that way anymore. Her open invitation allowed him much more freedom to come and go. But every now and again when he was in a playful mood, she’d hear her name whispered and there he’d be, perched on her windowsill, four stories above the ground, grinning at her with that cheeky, sarcastic glint in his pale eyes.

Tonight didn’t seem to be one of those nights.

She gazed at the busy street below, watching tourists and locals alike move about the Cross’s main drag, some pausing to listen to the strip-club hawkers, some popping in and out of the various twenty-four-hour stores, some giggling at the hookers teetering along the sidewalk in stiletto boots and leather g-strings.

There was no sign of Ven at all.

Her stomach clenched with denied need and she frowned. Two nights, now. Two nights that he hadn’t come to her.

She gnawed on her bottom lip, rubbing her palms up and down her bare arms as she did so. The ache in her core grew stronger and a hot prickle crawled over her body.

God, he wasn’t coming. Again.

Maybe he’s hurt?

She sucked in a sharp breath at the disarming thought. The paranormal world in Sydney existed in shrouded secrecy, only known to those within it. Territorial demons, vampire hunters, weres, dark elves…shit, even other vampires—all existed side by side in a tenuous concord, all presenting a very real threat to that concord and each other. And from what Amy could gather, most either targeted Ven or avoided him like the plague.

“That’s it,” she muttered, turning from the Ven-less windowsill. She crossed back to her bed and grabbed her phone from the nightstand, ignoring the way her hands shook as she punched in his mobile number. She needed to know he was okay almost as much as she needed to feel the burn of his feed.

“This is Steven Watkins. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

She quickly punched a key on the phone, cutting the connection. She could leave a message, but she didn’t want Ven to think she was desperate.

But you are desperate, girlie girl. Your whole body aches, your muscles are weak and trembly, and your heart’s racing. You know what you want. You know what you need.

She closed her eyes, chewing on her bottom lip before snatching up her jeans and a skimpy black shirt from the end of the bed.

Damn it. Damn him. Damn Ven for not coming to her, for not giving her what she wanted.

She dressed with harried impatience, muttering senseless sounds of contempt the whole time.

She did know what she needed, what she craved and hungered for. She needed to feel the burn so fucking much it hurt. She needed it now. She couldn’t wait any longer.

She didn’t want to wait any longer.

She wouldn’t.

And she knew exactly where to go to get it.

She just hoped to God Ven never found out.

Ven strode through the St Vincent’s Hospital Emergency Department doors and stormed along the crowded passageway toward the exit. The glaring fluorescent bulbs above him bleached his already pale skin to a ghastly white, but he didn’t give a rat’s arse.

Whether he looked like a walking corpse didn’t matter at the moment.

Where the fuck was she?

He weaved his way through waiting patients, worried family members, and exhausted interns alike, shutting the potent, tantalizing stench of fresh blood permeating the air from his mind. He was hungry, bloody hungry, but feeding wasn’t the priority.

Finding Death was.

In the last two hours, he’d trawled through just about