Vampire's Companion Read Free

frantically. The acrid smell of fear stung his nostrils. The room shrunk as if he were a discarded pet left unwanted at a shelter and placed in a tiny cage.
    If not claimed, he had no rights here, not even to life. If cast out of the club at the end of the night and left to wander, the empty void of the bond with its howling, never-ending need for connection and blood would drive him insane.
    He shuddered. He’d seen slaves allowed to go mad, some of them left to wander the street, others chained to walls, barking like crazed dogs.
    Taking his cock in hand, he did what survival instinct demanded. He worked at becoming aroused so that he might capture a vampire’s attention and avoid a fate worse than death.
    * * *
    Terach lurked beyond the street lights creating an illusion of safety in the rough area surrounding the homeless shelter. The scent of unwashed humans and their evening meal drifted out through an open window.
    If he strained, he could hear Cia beneath the sound of a colicky baby and the never-ending drone of a television. For him, everything about her had become an irresistible draw, like an offered neck or a heated fist grasping his cock to guide it home.
    Night air caressed his skin. Moonlight beat down on him with the incessant call to hunt.
    He struggled to keep his fangs sheathed. He’d long since given up trying to control his cock. It had been in a constant state of throbbing hardness from the moment Detective Cia Caldwell had arrived at his sire’s club on police business.
    His only relief from the constant ache of unfulfilled desire came during the day when his heart ceased beating. He’d been alive for centuries, but now each night passed with the slow crawl of eternity—thanks to his sire’s command that he court the woman he’d already claimed.
    Terach didn’t need Gian’s edict. He knew what it was like to be owned by another, to have no free choice at all. To be a slave passed around at a drunken party or one sent to a visitor’s tent to be used in whatever manner appealed to his owner’s guest.
    In his human life he’d gone without food until he became little more than a stick figure. He’d gone without the touch of any, save those who reviled or owned him.
    Death had once seemed preferable in that long ago human life, and he’d taken his chances. He’d run, knowing that hunting and killing escaped slaves was great sport for the soldiers left with little to do after the lands they’d invaded had been thoroughly conquered.
    A companion was not a slave. But still, he had made Cia his without her consent, without giving her even the choice of death. He’d acted on the glimmer of precognition that had once set him apart in the superstitious village of his childhood. An ability that had made his senses buzz at life-changing crossroads.
    The night he followed Gian was one of those times. He’d leaped to Gian’s defense, when in fact, Gian had been setting a trap for those who would prey on him, leading them into darkness so he could feed.
    Centuries had passed, but fierce satisfaction still surged through Terach at remembering the joy of becoming the hunter after that chance encounter with Gian had led to his being made a vampire.
    With the ravenous, mindless hunger of the newborn, he’d gorged himself. He’d killed those sent after him, and those who’d used him, and finally, he’d drained his fat tick of a master dry.
    He touched his tongue to a canine tooth. Stroked, allowing both of them to descend into fangs.
    Prowling forward, he circled the homeless shelter in the hopes some fool would attack him so he could vent his frustration. But tonight he was the only predator waiting outside it in the darkness.
    If Cia wouldn’t allow him across her threshold tonight, he would have no choice but to feed from another. It was an unappealing prospect, an unappetizing one.
    He wanted her. She was his companion, bound to him by blood and magic eight nights earlier when he’d saved her