Page 11 of Fangbanger

I lounge against the wooden counter, because I don’t take orders from mortals. She leans against the opposite, scowling. She is lovely when she scowls. I would give anything to find her hideous.

“Stop looking at me like you want to eat me, vampire.”

I snort. She doesn’t know the half of it. Her damn spell is intoxicating.

“You might like to be eaten. Humans have begged before.”

I have no business telling her this. I prefer bagged blood for efficiency as I hunt. I haven’t taken a blood giver to my bed in years.

Her nostrils flare before she whirls and limps to the stove, where she fishes the strip of cloth out of the boiling water. “I beg only to get out of parking tickets and to secure the last blueberry muffin from the coffee shop in town.”

I don’t know what to say. I’ve never had a blueberry muffin.

“What do you propose? To kill your brother.” She flicks me a glance under her lashes that pulls my spine straighter.

I blink. I nearly forgot about my purpose. I shake my head, clearing it of her scent, then scowling. I will not let her distract me. I will eradicate every pleasant thought I’ve had about her in these last few minutes. I have a mission, and I feel her irritating presence like a scalding brand at the back of my brain.

Like the brands my sire used to burn our fighting records into our skin.

The ones I tried to cut off when I got free.

I will never be controlled again.

6

LEAH

The vampire is entirely too much. Marcus. Too fucking much. He takes up all the air in my kitchen, sprawling at my dining table, looking at me with hooded eyes and an intensity that I can’t figure out. I don’t remember the last time I had a man in here.

Not a man.

But he smells like a man, and with those carved arms pulling the material of his shirt taut, he looks like a man. Just not any man I’ve met.

He looks to be about two seconds from biting me as I wrap my hand.

“Talk,” I bark. I’m unsettled and I don’t like how he looks at me. This truce will be harder than I thought. Impossible, perhaps.

He shifts on the chair, and his eyes dip to my hand, then away.

“Wrap your fucking hand,” he says tightly.

I bare my teeth and tie off the knot. “Control yourself and we won’t have a problem.”

His fangs peek out. “I don’t take orders from humans.”

“Not a human.” I toss the bandages down. I’m mortal and long-lived, but not human.

“Close enough,” he growls. “I bet you taste like a human. Worse.” He takes a short, sharp breath, nostrils flaring. “I wouldn’t bite you if you were the last food source on planet Earth.” His words rip at a soul-deep wound inside me, echoes of the teasing I put up with as a kid with no parents. I should be glad he doesn’t want to bite me.

“I’m offended,” I say lightly.

I have no community of slayers. I had no one until my great-aunt took me in and I moved to Silver Falls. Even now, I am more of a guardian for this town than a member of it. Of course a vampire in my kitchen is intriguing. Anyone in my kitchen would be intriguing.

His lip curls, showing his fangs.

“Bite me, and I will stab you in the heart.” I pull the etched silver knife from my belt and set it on the table in warning.

“This truce will go swimmingly,” he drawls. “I should have known. Slayers aren’t known for their intelligent decision-making.”