The night air is refreshing, cold, perfumed with the heavy, crisp smell of autumn, the sweet scent of decay. The woman is still unconscious in the front seat; I must have hit her harder than I thought, but I smell no blood, so I expect she'll be fine. Her hair is swept back over her face in the wind so the scent of her shampoo and perfume washes over me. That, mixed with the ever-present smell of her blood, distracts me, which in turn aggravates me. I am not one to be distracted by anything, especially not a human woman, even one who proves to be slightly more interesting than the rest of the horde.
But the ignited spark of interest burns like an ember, brings alive a part of me I didn't know existed anymore. She's dangerous in her own way, a woman with something to prove to be considered equal to the men she works with.
The thought reminds me that is a police officer and is probably still armed, if not wired. I need to eliminate her connection to the outside world, need to remove any threat she can use to try to fight me with. Because now that she's seen me, she can't go back. She is mine.
I pull the car over to the side of the highway after driving beyond the reach of the City lights. I inspect her purse first, find an ID that says Elaine Perry, probably fake, a cell phone, and a secret compartment carrying a second phone. I crush both phones quickly, take the sim cards out and toss them into grass that looks black under the moonlight. I keep her wallet, but return the money to the purse. I tip her seat back so she's lying down before running my hands lightly over her body. First I find a wire, taped between her breasts. I remove it and pull it apart, enjoying the electric sizzle it emits, a death moan. My hands move lower, tracing over each thigh, and I feel a band that wraps around her left leg. I reach under her skirt, her skin smooth under my hand as I trace my way up, looking for the weapon concealed on her thigh. I find it, the metal hard and cool, and unsnap the holster, drawing the weapon up and out quickly before smoothing her skirt back in place.
I wonder how long it will take before she gives in to me, before she decides fighting is useless, how long it will be before I kiss her, taste her, share her body like it is my own. The thoughts excite me, as sex, ever reliable, always does, and I pull back onto the freeway, driving far faster than the speed limit.
***
I pull into the driveway of my secluded home in northern Massachusetts a few hours later. The house is quite big, a simple blue-green color, set back from the main roads for privacy. I stare at it for a moment before getting out of the car. I leave Gray in the trunk to take care of tomorrow, and lift the woman into my arms, holding her like a man carrying his bride over their new threshold. She's light, and I'm strong, so the quick walk to the front door is not cumbersome. The lights are on, illuminating the foyer, and I walk up the stairs quickly, putting the woman down on the bed in the spare room and locking it before heading back downstairs.
"Who was that?" A voice calls from behind me; my maid, Mary. I turn and give her a stern look.
"Collateral damage," I tell her simply, my tone of voice warning her not to ask any more questions.
"Alright," she says, stretching the word so I'm sure to hear the disapproval in her voice.
"You'll need to pick up more groceries in the morning to feed her. She'll be here for awhile."
"Mm." I ignore her lack of a reply. She leaves the room, tells me she's going to bed. But it's still early for me, and I want the woman to wake up. I want to talk to her, want to make sense of her.
I go to my own bedroom, up the stairs across from the woman, and change out of my clothes into a casual shirt and jeans; the smell of blood clinging to my dress shirt makes me want to feed again.
She's still unconscious when I let myself back into the room. She hasn't moved from where I put her. Her arms and legs are splayed and her hair fans out on the bed, contrasting with the red comforter. Her lashes, black as night, stand out against her skin in a clean curve, one that moves slightly as her eyes travel back and forth under their lids. She's dreaming.
I sit on the bed, my back to her, listening to the rhythm of her deep breaths. I'm about to shake her awake when I smell fear and adrenaline rush into her bloodstream. She doesn't move, though, and so I tell her to sit up. She doesn't, instead continues to play possum, though her heart pounds louder, like a hammer hitting a nail.
"I won't say it again," I mutter, knowing full well she can hear me. "Adrenaline isn't released when you're unconscious."
She knows she's been found out. With reflexes that are relatively good, for a human, she pushes herself up,, steadies her back on the headboard, and gropes around her legs for the gun I've taken. I let her know that her bullets aren't fatal, but annoying, and turn to look at her. Her face is drawn, eyebrows knit together, mouth a thin gash against her face. She's scared, but defiant, ready to put up a fight.
"What do you want from me?" she asks, her hard voice undermined by a slight tremor of fear that coils around her words. I'm tell her I'm after her memory, and see that she's deteriorating, that the fear and panic she is frantically fighting are beginning to win, pushing her rational mind out of the way. I take her leg in my hand, enjoying the warmth that my skin absorbs greedily, and pull her so she's in front of me. She shakes visibly and her eyes widen when I take her heart-shaped face in my hands and tell her to collect herself, to look into my eyes, to breathe and stay with me because she has nowhere to go. She can't fight me, and the house is secure. She tries to pull away, but my grip is iron, my fingers strong, intertwined in her thick, now rumpled, hair I tell her I don't want to kill her because she discovered what I am, and when the words escape my lips and become real, I know that they're true. I don't want to kill her.
She asks me what I mean, what she thinks I saw. I think she's bluffing, but I can't afford to let her go. And I don't want to, not when she's proven herself to be immune to my glamour. I tell her she'll remember, that I couldn't rid her of it, and her face, after a moment, goes slack with realization.
"You're a vampire." The words are flat, a dull, and her eyes glaze over, until she comes back to herself, clamps a hand over her mouth and eyes me with a strange look in her eyes; not disgust, or fear, really, but something like contempt. I relax my grip on her and she slides away from me, backs her way across the room, slamming her back into the bureau. She's losing herself again, regressing into prey and I feel my own excitement build, so I cross the room, quickly, press my arms into the bureau on either side of her so she's trapped. I breathe in the scent of her, wild under me, while she tries to convince me to let her go because she's a cop, she's wired, her team will know where she is.
I smile, pull out the pieces of her recording device and watch as fury and distress flash across her face. Her eyes roam around the room, looking for a way out, or something to fight me with. She's coiled like a spring, ready to bite, scratch, tear her way out of here, but all she'll do is hurt herself. I go back to the bed and she follows, her steps stiff and hesitant, like she's about to walk off a plank.
"And when do you plan on letting me leave?" She asks as she sits, across the bed, from me. When I tell her I have no real plans on doing so, her eyes water, but she grits her teeth, keeps the tears from spilling. Most would have broken down by now, but she refuses to do so, refuses me the satisfaction. I wouldn't find it in her tears, anyway. She bites back the emotion growing in her eyes a little too hard, though, because her teeth sink into her tongue, releasing blood that is intoxicating when mixed with her fear and agitation. She's saying something, something acidic and proud, but I'm already bent forward, breathing in the smell of her saliva and blood. I interrupt whatever she's saying when I press my mouth on hers. I ask permission with my tongue, try to massage hers with mine and lap at the blood there, but she draws back like she's been hit.
"You want this?" her words are dark. She spits on the floor, coating a dime-sized area in watered-down blood. I rise without saying anything, go into the bathroom and retrieve a towel, which I toss onto the floor. I'm not going to get anything out of her tonight.
"You're stubborn," I say without looking at her. She's breathing in short, shallow bursts. She's afraid. "But, so am I. My maid will come in the morning. Don't try anything." With that, I leave, locking the door behind me. I hear her scramble off the bed, press her ear to the door. I tap sharply on the spot against which she strains to listen, to see how secure the door is. A second later, she falls back and I walk away, grinning.
***
When I rise the next night, there's a tinge of excitement at the back of my mind and for a moment I don't know why, before remembering the woman I hold captive. Our time together yesterday did nothing but demonstrate that she hates me, can barely stand to be near me. The more I think of the fury she aims at me, the more I want to have her, to know her. To solve her. She's like a wild animal that's been caged, furious at the bars that surround her and her captor.
I run a brush through my hair and walk down the hall. Mary intercepts me before I get to the guest room.
"You sure picked a good one," she says, putting a hand on her khaki-clad hip. Mary is a no-nonsense woman, blunt but intelligent. I'd grown to like her over the years, and she didn't care what I was, the way I paid her.
"She's as willful as you," she continued. "And she hasn't touched any of the food I've given her."
"I'll take care of her, Mary," I say, waving my hand at her. A dismissal. She purses her lips at me, but walks away. I let myself in the room and hear the shower. Steam, thick with the smell of shampoo pours into the room, moistens my skin. I lean back on the door and see her naked body against my own as water pours over us both. I capture her mouth with mine and she reciprocates willingly, pressing herself against me so I can't tell where she ends and I begin, though the wild heart I hear can only be hers.
My fantasy is broken when I hear the water stop. She appears through the doorway, water still dripping off her wet hair down her chest in rivulets. I want to follow them, with my tongue. Instead, I say hello. She stares at me, unsure of what to say, so I ask her why she didn't eat the food I had brought for her.
She says something about being a vegetarian, telling me haughtily that she doesn't kill to eat. Humans. Always so ready to judge what they don't know. But it doesn't matter; the real reason she won't accept my hospitality is because she thinks it would be giving in. She will not make herself comfortable, will not partake in anything I give her because she's too proud.
"Come here," I say, not sure exactly why I want her closer, but needing it just the same. She refuses, squares her stance, so I move in front of her, too quickly for her to see. She flinches, unnerved at my ability and takes a step back.
"What's your name?" I ask, wanting to know who she really is.
"You've got my ID," she says, and I tell her that, yes, I have a fake ID to a persona that doesn't actually exist. I want to know her.
She takes a step forward, angry, asks me how I know she isn't the person her ID said, how I knew the date with Gray was a set up.
"I don't know," I say, rolling my eyes at her games. "Could it have been the fact that anger was rolling off you in waves? Not that Gray noticed. "
"And what did you want with him?" She's close to me now, very close. If I lean forward, we would kiss again. Instead, I change the subject.
"What's your name?"
"Elise Hayes." She crosses her arms, a petulant child furious at having been found out.
"Yours?" She stares directly into my eyes, daring me to be the first to look away.
"Eric Northman." It's true enough. I mock normal pleasantries, tell Elise it's nice to meet her. She turns her back to me, mutters that she can't say the same, and disappears into the bathroom again. She returns, mopping at her hair and chest with a towel.
"I'm all wet," she says, self-consciously, and I can't help but take in her figure where the dress is stuck to the skin. I try to glamour her again, tell her to come here, come closer, but she slides past me, sits on the bed calmly for a moment before erupting into screams. Her face flushes while her hands ball into angry fists at her sides.
"You can't do this!" her voice is loud, commanding. "You can't keep me here like this! This is the twenty-first century! People don't get away with things like this!"
I take in her anger, her desperation and tell her, simply, that in my life, I come first. What she saw threatens me, threatens my race.
"You should be glad," I say, anger creeping into my voice over her insolence, "that I'm keeping you, not killing you." I glare at her, feel my teeth elongate and wait for her to quake, to surrender into her fear, as most do when I become angry. But she's defiant.
"You can't have me," she says, looking me square in the eye. "In fact, I'd rather you kill me."
Her words spur movement in me, and I take her, support her back, place a hand under her neck, and then trace my lips over the artery there.
"Oh, really?" I ask, taking in the scent and feel of her wet hair. I lick her pulse once, then sink my teeth in. She gasps, and I lose myself in the taste of her blood.