Forbidden Days (The Firsts) (2 page)

“Let’s try this again.”  He caught her eyes with his, held her there.  She wanted to look away, but really couldn’t.  “You will drive me to Vancouver.  No questions, no complaints.  Now.”  He waited for her response.  She didn’t know how far to push him.  But…don’t let them take you…

“I told you, no!  Just let me out and you can have the freaking car!  I don’t even know how to get to Vancouver anyway.”

“This is crazy.  You can
not
refuse me.”

“Well, I did.  I do!”

“No, you don’t understand.  You should not be
able
to refuse me.  This is unprecedented in three hundred years.  No one has ever disobeyed a compulsion from me.”

Now she was getting frightened.  He was a nut job, and they were too unpredictable.  They didn’t have any grip on reality, and they didn’t have anything to lose.  Ooo, kayyy.  So, just play along, don’t enrage the psychotic.

“You know, I think I
will
take you to Canada.  Let me just set the old GPS here…”

“That won’t do.  You aren’t under compulsion, and I can’t have you running on your own free will, so I’ll have to…”  He trailed off and stared at her silently again.

Taking in her overall appearance, nice dress, hair and makeup perfect, sexy, a gorgeous woman, the type he preferred to compel.  He shook his head slowly. 

“Really need to find out what you are…”  And he slid forward, the five speed gearshift digging into his gut, and in seconds he had her in his mouth, his teeth buried, warm red blood escaping just a small amount from the tiny punctures on her neck.  He fed, but easily.  He wasn’t hungry, he wasn’t feeding so much as tasting.  Ah.  Something…different…   He sat back and looked at her in surprise.

She was not fully human
.

Delicious, almost euphoric.  He closed the wounds with his tongue and sat back.  She felt the connection to him, he could tell.  That should do it, should bond her to him so she would follow his orders.  Her body collapsed back against the leather seat, and there was a slight smile on her lips.  But when she spoke, it was still not under his compulsion.  Not completely.  But she was no longer argumentative.

Her eyes were sparkling now and she wet her lips as she leaned forward.

“Um, how did you get in my car like that?  It was locked and it has a very expensive alarm system.”

“I have a few skills.  Would you like to drive me somewhere?  Like up north?  You didn’t seem to be doing anything when I interrupted you.”

“Oh, no, I already told you that I can’t go to the second location.  You’ll kill me or worse.”

“What’s worse than death?”

She smacked him on the arm.  She
smacked
him!  No one smacked an old vampire.  But this titian haired semi-human did.  He was so shocked he let her get away with it.

“Rape, of course!  Then again, it would be the first sex I have had in…hmmm…let’s just say a long, long time.  Might be doing me a favor.  Ha!”

His blood bond had destroyed her inhibitions with him.  Which, being female, he knew from experience, meant she wouldn’t shut up the entire trip to Vancouver.  Still, he needed a driver and a ride, and she was primed.  And it was a fine luxury car, a Mercedes McLaren, a preference of his, so…

“What if I promise not to rape you, unless of course you want me to, and you go ahead and drive me to Vancouver?  Really, you were just…what…listening to music when I found you here.”

She smacked him again.  Oh, this he’d have to see to.

“No, you  idiot.   I was getting ready to wail down the walls of Jericho.  Had a bad date.  Had a
last
bad date.  Feeling sorry for my silly self.  But I’m okay now.  I’m always okay.  But I’m not driving you to Canada tonight.”

“Look I need you, so you don’t have a choice.  Look’s like I don’t either.”  He scooted toward her again, reached for her.

“Oh, no, you’re just going to bite me again.   Hey!  Why did you bite me in the first place?”

“To make you mine.  You are blood bonded to me now.”

She laughed.  It was pretty, warm, came from her heart.  “What are you, a vampire?”

“Just…scoot over.”

Her eyes, now soft green, struck his dark ones.  She looked into them deeply and pulled back.  “You are,” she whispered.  He frowned.  What the hell did she see?  The mind link didn’t allow the blood-bonded human access to
his
mind, so what the hell was happening with her…

He’d had enough for now.  “Just drive,” he said, pushing hard against her will.  It should have worked.  

He could feel her pushing back.  She had apparently had enough too.  “I’m getting out and calling the cops.  May I suggest you be gone by then,
vampire
.”  Suddenly her eyes shot wide as if something hit her.  She started to wheeze a little and blinked at him.  “What am I saying?  There’s no such thing as a vampire.  They’re fiction.  And not very good fiction, at that.  Have you injected me with something?   Something that makes me think you’re something you could not be?  I am an educated woman…I won’t be tricked.  I won’t be your victim!  I’m getting out of here you crazy asshole!”

“I can’t allow it now.  You know enough to be dangerous.  And I kind of think you are the type who will research this and get yourself and a lot of others in trouble.  I couldn’t pick a normal fucking human tonight.   My luck sucks this week.  I really have to get out of here before Shanks finds us.  We have to go, and go now.  Drive the car or I will kill you!”

She felt the compulsion behind the threat…and finally believed him.  And started the engine.

He set the GPS and let her start his egress from a city that held more danger for him than anything in centuries. 

“Not to sound too dramatic, but I have a mortal enemy here and I’m not up to a life or death battle tonight.   Not now.”  He didn’t know why he was explaining to her.  Her silence was expected.  There was no answer to that comment.  He just hoped he could keep this loose cannon of a woman on a short leash until he could find figure out what to do about her.  He couldn’t just let her go.  Her heart was pounding, her pulse racing, her respiration erratic.  He had convinced her for now that he was a serious threat, and she was properly terrified.  Good.  That should work for a while.  But he could read her, more than just her breathing and heart rate.  She was strong and smart, much more so than she realized.  She
would
try to escape at some point again.  He may have to take her deeper under, but only as a last resort.  He hated to destroy someone’s free will.  But his survival instinct, like all living things, was strong, too.  He would never hesitate to do what he had to.  He hadn’t survived three centuries as a wuss.  Although Shanks would disagree.

They drove in silence until they were out of the city and on a relatively empty highway, the darkness cut only by the brilliant headlamps of Park’s car.  She could feel his eyes on her.  Hell, she could feel
him
… his breathing, his unsettled emotions, his concern.  She should not be able to read him this well.   This had happened a few other times in her life…the reading of someone’s emotions, feelings, and sometimes their actual thoughts.  She’d often been able to read people’s intentions, if they were telling a lie.  But only people she had an intense relationship with.    Although, she guessed that probably
did
apply to an abductor.

He was breathing calmly now, but he was agitated.  She decided to try to engage him, eventually to reason with him.  She’d heard it said that sometimes you just need to get your kidnapper to make a connection with you, see you as a person.  Okay, she could do that.

“Um, so…what’s your name?”  Ah, bad start, bad start. “I mean, just your first name, of course.  Not like we’re going to be Facebook buddies, right?”  She laughed, briefly, softly, nervously.  This was going
so
well…

“I think we should agree that this doesn’t have to turn out to be bad for either one of us, right?  I take you where you want to go, you let me go home safely afterward, right?”

“Sure,” he said.

Park slammed on the brakes, grateful no one was behind them.  She swerved the car off the road, simultaneously releasing her seatbelt, and when it came to a stop, she shoved the door open and started running into the road, praying someone else would be passing by on either side.   Kicking the strapless Louboutins off, she broke into a sprint.  She’d always been fast and she knew she had a good head start.  Just as headlamps glowed from the other side of the road, she headed for them, waving her arms…and was stopped sharply by her abductor.  Like a dark shadow, he was ahead of her and she literally ran right into him.  A small sound escaped her in surprise.  Taller than her by a good eight inches or so, her small body was completely encompassed by his much larger one.

“How did you…I was way ahead…what the hell…”  She was shocked he was there, shocked he’d caught her when she hadn’t even seen him.  Her only other recourse was if the car advancing toward them realized she was a woman in trouble and stopped.  So she yelled.  Loudly.  Struggled, twisted, tried to yank free.  It worked, and the vehicle, which was a large pickup truck that had seen better years, stopped with a screech.  God, she hoped it was someone who could help her.  She was relieved when a large, beefy guy came at them.

“Hey!” he called out, “What’s going on here?  You all right, lady?”

“No, I’m not!  This man kidnapped me!”   The kidnapper, with her throat in his hands, glared at her, and squeezed, cutting off her speech. 

“This is a waste of my time,” Bas said.

The beefy hero reached for the kidnapper.  Park tried to pull free so he could deal with him, but was shocked again when the kidnapper set her to his left side, still gripping her throat with his hand, which was supernaturally strong, and he grabbed the would be hero by the throat with his right one.   The hero suddenly stopped moving, looking into the kidnapper’s eyes.

“You saw nothing on the road here tonight.  You will get back in your truck and continue to your destination.”  The kidnapper released the big guy, who turned immediately and went back toward his truck.  Park tried to call out but her throat was too compressed for words.  The beefy hero was gone.  And the abductor let her go.

She rubbed her neck and throat, sore from the restraint.

The abductor turned to her.  “See?  That’s how it’s supposed to go.  It’s
not
how it’s going with you.”

Ah, her throat hurt.  “Then why don’t you let me go…get yourself someone compliant like him?”

“Because it’s too late.  I have to take you with me.  Why did you jump out of the car like that?”

“Because you lied to me.  When I asked you if you were going to let me go when you were through, you said ‘sure.’  You lied, you don’t intend to let me go.”

“This is ridiculous.  You should not be reading me.”

“Well, you should not be fucking abducting me, but you are.  The cops are right, never let them take you to another location.  No honor amongst kidnappers.  You’ll have to kill me, right here, right now.  I’m not going anywhere with you!”  She turned and started to walk away, but wasn’t at all surprised when he was once again in front of her.  This time he took her face gently in his hands, his thumbs caressing the tender skin that was still sore from a few moments ago.  He massaged the area with his fingers and the soreness subsided completely.

“I am not going to hurt you.  I promise. Can you read
that
?  Can you tell I am telling the truth now?”

She could.  He was.  Now she was confused.  “So what do you plan to do with me?”

He shook his head.  “I truly have no idea.  But it’s going to be okay, I promise you.  I don’t hurt humans, and I sure the hell don’t hurt supernatural beings who aren’t a threat.  I still have no idea what you are.  I’ll find out, though.   But for now, we really have to go.  You don’t understand that the creatures chasing me, and you because of me, are going to kill me.  You won’t live through it either, so we really need to be gone. You have to listen to me.”

She stared at him again, aware that she’d done that a lot tonight, and that he was telling her the absolute truth.  They were in serious danger.  He wasn’t scared, exactly, but he was far from unconcerned.

She lowered her head, causing him to break his hold.  When she looked back up, she nodded.  They walked quickly back to the car, scooping up her shoes on the way, and got back on the road.  They drove in silence until the female electronic voice of the GPS told her to turn left.

144

Chapter Two

Park was tiring.  The highway had been endless, and now, after five nonstop hours of driving, her legs were cramping, and her eyes were getting heavy.  It was late into the night and well past her bedtime.  And she really did have to find a bathroom.  Glancing aside, she noticed
his
eyes were closed.  Well, wasn’t that just lovely.  So she had to wake him up and was trying to decide how to do it rudely, when his eyes opened into two slits.

“I am not asleep.  And yes, we will need to stop soon.  I can’t go through past dawn.”  He closed his eyes again, forcing Park to regain his attention.

“Well, I need to stop
now. 
I have several
human
needs, unlike you,
vampire
.”

He certainly was sticking to his story.  She’d fallen for the delusion herself a little while ago, due to shock and fatigue she was sure.  The funny thing was, she could tell he really believed it.  Traveling next to him for so many hours in silence, she’d let her mind wander.  And it had wandered into his.  He had been resting through much of the trip but he’d been aware of everything around him.  It was only the past half hour she had noticed he’d lost focus.  He really
was
worried about several things, and one of them was the looming dawn.  She shook her head. Well, however crazy he was, she still needed food, sleep, and a private restroom.  Not necessarily in that order.