Department 57: Bloody Crystal Read Free Page B

lasted.
    After leaving the club by the back door, she strolled down the road toward the seafront. Llandudno was a pretty, Victorian seaside town, and it had the white-painted wrought iron to prove it. She walked along the covered walkway, busy by day and by night, but tonight company was thin. She stepped down from the walkway and prepared to cross the road.
    A hand snaked out and grabbed her around the throat, fingers pressing either side of her windpipe. She didn’t stand a chance, the movement too fast for her to do anything about it. Which meant her attacker knew something about vampires, that they could be choked to death by pressure on the trachea, that a blade against the carotid would slow them down, if not kill them.
    Being an old town, Llandudno was also possessed of back alleys, and her assailant dragged her down one now. Raucous laughter surrounded her, and for a moment, fear rose in her throat and choked her. He could have killed her. For all her strength, she wasn’t invincible. A strike to her throat would have put her down. As it was, she had difficulty catching her breath. The hand around her throat slackened as another curled around her waist and dragged her back against a hard male body. Unmistakably male, unmistakably aroused. His cock jutted against her backbone. She considered playing dead but decided against it.
    She’d feed and get out of here. And she was in luck. This gang was drunk.
    She’d seen them before, surely. Ah shit, the men Rhodri had helped to eject earlier. They’d hung around instead of going on.
    “Well, who have we here?” the one holding her taunted. He ground his cock against her ass, rotating his hips. His friends whooped and rotated their hips, like a stupid chorus or a particularly bad imitation of the Chippendales.
    “A pretty little barmaid. Hey, pretty little barmaid, what’s your name?”
    She raised her hand to her throat when the man holding her released it, rubbed at the mark he’d have left there had she been mortal. “Cerys,” she mumbled. No need to hide her name. She needed a moment to get her breath back, but after that…
    Without warning, someone flew into the alley. He put the first guy down with a well-aimed kick to the jaw and went for another without hesitation. A normal man, even a vampire, would stop to take stock before going for someone else. The man previously holding her grabbed her again, but Cerys decided otherwise. With a swift jab of her elbow, she winded him. When he released her and doubled over, she spun around and stunned him with an openhanded snap to his jaw, pushing his head back against the filthy wall behind them.
    When she turned back, Rhodri had already dispatched the fourth man and stood over him, glaring. “Are you all right?” he asked as he turned his attention to her.
    His eyes burned, intensity and something else taking over. Excitement? She hoped not. Anyone who got off on hurting mortals didn’t hold any interest for her. “What do you think?” she said with a curl of her lip. “He grabbed my throat. I was just getting my breath back.” She nudged one of the men with her foot. “Did you have to be so—dramatic?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean I needed to feed tonight.” She stopped, caught her breath. It had been a long time since she’d shared that with anyone, and it made her almost giddy now to articulate her simple need.
    “So feed.”
    “With you looking?”
    His eyes widened. This alley was lit dimly from the streetlight at the end, but he was half turned toward it, and she saw the telling gesture of surprise. “It’s private? I never thought of it like that before.”
    “My mother brought me up properly.”
    He laughed then. “If it makes you feel any easier, I’ll turn my back. But if you don’t mind, I’ll take one of these specimens. I haven’t fed for a while.”
    How old would that make him? Older vampires didn’t need to feed as often, as their body became more efficient in