His Captive Mortal A Vampire Romance - Renee Rose Page 0,59
mutter, shading my eyes to look up at the mountain. Dusk is falling, which is good. I need Charlie awake, so I can yell at him.
Darkness falls, and I stop to hold out a hand and call a ball of light onto my palm.
“Help me find him,” I whisper. Tingles spread through my body, and I sense the direction I need to go. And not five minutes later, I literally stumble across the rusted-out iron platform lying among the creosote.The top of the bunker.
Charlie is in there. I’m sure of it.
From the outside, it’s not much to look at. Just a bunch of metal panels in the ground. One of the panels has been moved aside to reveal a staircase. Which is weird because Charlie can trace in and out of his home. He doesn’t need to exit through the door. The only reason this panel would be open is if someone else is here.
A chill runs through me.
I jog down the stairs. “Charlie?” There’s a door at the end that’s hanging half off its hinges, like someone broke it down.
Oh fork.
I push open the broken door and freeze.
The three vampires from the fight in the alleyway are gathered in the living room, holding Charlie down. One of them wears a leather glove and holds some sort of silver cup in his hand, which he thrusts against Charlie’s bare belly.
Charlie hisses, and I hear the sound of sizzling skin as the silver burns his flesh.
“We can go on all night. Hell, we can go all week. Eventually, you’re going to tell us where your pretty little fairy is.”
“Fuck. You.”
The vampire strikes Charlie across the face with the silver cup, leaving another terrible burn.
I cover my mouth to hold back my scream.
Charlie catches sight of me, and his eyes widened. Before I understand what’s happening, my belly lurches sideways, as if he was hypnotizing me. He doesn’t complete it, however, because in the next instant, his torturers also see me, and the leader blurs directly in front of me.
I keep my gaze away from his, hitting him with a ball of light. My powers have increased; this time my weapon knocks him back on his ass.
Charlie roars, struggling against his two captors. “Aurelia, get out,” he yells. “Leave me!”
I send another flash of light at one of the vampires holding Charlie, and all four vampires in the room bellow in pain.
An idea occurs to me, but before I can move, the gloved vampire blurs behind me and picks me up by the neck, slamming my face up against the wall and pinning me there.
Pain explodes in my cheek and nose.
Charlie roars with anger.
I try to cast another ball of light, but the radiating throb in my face consumes too much of my energy.
The vampire twists my arms behind my back, holding both my wrists in one of his, the other hand pressed against my nape.
“Aurelia!” The anguish in Charlie’s voice brings me back.
He cares.
And I came here to fight for him. The ape holding me thought I needed my hands for magic, but I don’t. I picture Charlie and surround him in a black bubble, its walls too dense to penetrate.
“Aurelia, what are you doing?” he shouts.
I flash the brightest light I can imagine into the room—light as bright as the sun.
Terrible screams filled the air, and my skin grows hot where the vampire had been holding me. I squeeze my eyes closed, my own vision blinded by the intensity of the flash. I spin around, but can’t move, my retinas burning from the light.
“Aurelia! What’s going on? Get me out of this damn bubble!” Charlie’s furious protests bring me back, and I release him from the black sphere.
He rushes forward, then stops, looking at the piles of ash where the vampires were. I stare, round-eyed.
“Did I...kill them?”
Charlie looks at me, a grim expression on his face. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” I say inanely.
He wraps me in his arms, squeezing too tightly. “I’m not.” But then he releases me again, as if remembering who I am. Who I was. “I told you not to follow me.”
I draw a breath and shut his front door. “I know, but I just had to talk to you. Please, Charlie—you can’t hold me accountable for something I did in a past life.” When he doesn’t speak, I say, “Or maybe you can, but I’m telling you I'm sorry.”
He continues to say nothing, just looks at me with the same expression—as if I’m dead to him. But no,