Bite the Hand That Feeds E-Book

Lucy Eldritch

• Herausgeber: Lucy Eldritch
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The leader of the new breed, Robert James, is missing. The few remaining vampires are being picked off, one by one.Vampiress Elaine Sullivan is keeping her head down, working as a barmaid and trying not to attract attention. Until, that is, she falls for a man who claims he can cure her vampirism. It's her only hope for survival and she grabs it. The trouble is: he lied.

Leseprobe

BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS

BY: LUCY ELDRITCH

BOOK TWO OF THE NEW BREED VAMPIRES BOOK SERIES

For all the people who believed I could do it. You know who you are.

Copyright © 2016 by Lucy Eldritch

All rights reserved.

The author exerts her rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

Author’s Note: This book follows British spelling and usage. For example ‘colour’ and ‘jewellery’ are correct British spellings.

CHAPTER ONE

“Laney?” Tyler shouted.

I ignored him.

He repeated himself, louder this time. “‘Laine? That creepy guy is here, staring at you again.”

‘My name is Elaine’, I thought to myself. ‘Not Laney. Not Ellie. Not ‘Laine. It’s Elaine, you sleazy twat.’

I was proud of myself for not going over to the manager - all shiny, slicked back hair and even shinier teeth - and punching him through the wall dividing the bar from the staff area.

Don’t kill the management. After the incident at All Bar One, I even had it written on my hand for a time.

“Thanks for the heads-up, Tyler,” I said out loud.

I was, and this is no joke, working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. I didn’t have much choice. Career opportunities for vampires were quite limited.

I busied myself washing glasses behind the bar for a minute or two. Then curiosity overcame me, and I couldn’t help but take a quick glance at the table ‘creepy guy’ usually occupied. There he sat, making patterns with a gnarled finger in the condensation around his pint glass. Fosters. Always the same drink. One pint of Fosters, half an hour of staring at me without speaking then he’d sneak away when my back was turned. Definitely odd, certainly creepy. If I hadn’t been a vampire, his behaviour might have scared me. As it was, it was just annoying. Today, though, I’d had enough.

I knew I could cover the space between where I stood and his table far quicker than ‘creepy guy’ could react. Vampirism has its advantages. I would have done it, too, if the bar hadn’t been filling up with the usual after-work crowd of media professionals, students, and locals wanting a cheeky drink before going home.

Instead, cleaning cloth in hand, I worked my way around the tables. I mopped spilled wine from one; picked a couple of empty glasses from another; flirted with a regular or two. I kept moving, inching closer to ‘creepy guy’, his face hidden by the dirty grey hood he seemed never to remove. Every time I took a peek, he was still running his finger in crisscross formation across his beer glass. A thousand yard stare told me he was in his own world. Good. He wouldn’t even see me coming.

Or so I thought.

*******

“Hello, Elaine,” he said. He hadn’t even looked up from his drink.

I pushed a strand of lustrous black hair off my face and peered down at the guy. For the first time since he’d been coming into Apotheca, the cocktail place where I worked, I caught a glimpse of his face. Putting the empty glasses down, I gripped the table hard, causing part of his pint to spill. I tried not to stare. I failed.

Painful, un-healing sores and deep crevices covered every inch of what, on a normal man, would have been described as his skin. But he didn’t have skin. Not really. Instead, it was like one of those ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ Halloween masks. Most of the flesh was gone. What was left was cracked and raw.

I composed myself.

“Do I know you?” I said. I kept my voice casual sounding, but inside my heart beat in double time and the first beads of a nervous sweat formed under my hairline. Whatever this man was, he wasn’t truly human. A vampire? I didn’t think so. Like all of the new breed, I could smell vampires.

“Yes, Elaine, you know me.”

His voice was parched and unrecognisable, like someone who had spent years chain smoking without stopping. He could have been twenty years old; he could have been two hundred. I couldn’t tell.

“Sit.” He indicated a spare chair with the same knotted finger he used on his glass.

I sat, arranging myself so that Tyler, the tiresome little jobsworth, didn’t notice I wasn’t, technically, working.

“Well?” I asked, “Who are you?” I leaned across the table to get as close as I could stand. I revealed my fangs, just for a brief moment. I figured it might intimidate him. It didn’t.

My reward was a croaked laugh and an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

“Who I am doesn’t matter, Elaine.” The man paused and met my gaze. Something about his eyes was familiar to me. They shone with a life that belied the rest of his appearance.

“What matters,” he continued, “is what is coming next.”

He was about to say something else when - from behind me - raised voices; the scrape of a chair skidding backwards fast, combined with that sudden crackle of tension and unvoiced anticipation among the other occupants of the bar, told me there was going to be a fight.

I jumped up, turned a little too quickly for someone pretending to be human, and headed for the source of the commotion.

I could hear Tyler, the cowardly little shit, shouting my name and pointing. What a big brave man he was, cowering behind the bar and hoping the situation would be resolved before he actually had to do anything. I could have killed him. Then I remembered my vow: don’t kill the management. I could have added ‘again’ to that statement as I raced towards the two hulking rugby-player types squaring off next to the display of antique apothecary cabinets. Break those and there would be hell to pay for all of us - staff, management, and hulking rugby-player types alike. The cabinets, all dark wood and Victorian class, were worth thousands.

I reached the two guys - one in a football shirt, the other dressed in close fitting Armani - putting myself in the middle of them at the exact moment the first punch was thrown. It was wild, unskilled and had a full twenty stones of combined fat and muscle behind it. Aimed at the man wearing the Manchester United shirt and too-tight jeans, the punch nevertheless glanced off the side of my head. My neck snapped backwards with an audible crack. It almost hurt. A normal woman would have crashed unconscious, possibly dead, to the floor. Instead, I shook it off. Though, I admit, I did appear irritated.

I heard one bystander mumble ‘Jesus H. Christ’ as the Armani suited guy’s punch connected. Most were too stunned by what happened next to react at all.

The man who threw the punch attempted an apology while simultaneously trying to get around me so he could attack Manchester United shirt guy again. I smiled my sweetest smile and feinted as if to let him pass. As he lumbered by, fists clenched in anger, I kicked out at his leg.

The casual observer wouldn’t have thought much of the kick. It was half-hearted, not aimed, and spoke of frustration rather than intent.

The unmistakeable crunch of bones breaking was drowned out only by a shriek of agony as the man clutched at his ruined leg. He dropped and lay there, unmoving but alive. Whimpers of pain were audible even above the commotion as more people crowded in to watch the show.

Manchester United shirt guy whooped with joy, pointed at the prone man, and did a little victory dance. That was his mistake. Whirling on the spot, he lost balance, crashed into a table, and stumbled into my path. I didn’t hesitate.

I grabbed at the back of his neck. Missed, but my fingers caught hold of his ear. He yelped, tried to pull free but couldn’t.

“Time to leave, gentlemen,” I instructed. Bending down, I grabbed Armani suit by the arm. Without effort, I hoisted him to his feet. He didn’t resist. I redoubled my hold on the ear of the other guy. Well, he did struggle. Silly man. What else could I do? He could consider himself lucky I didn’t rip his earlobe off.

To the sounds of cheers, I dragged the pair through the crowd towards the heavy glass doors at the entrance to Apotheca. Queen Anne chairs, polished wood tables: whatever obstacle I could have avoided, I chose not to. I just pulled the two guys through them, splintering chair and table alike.

I reached the double doors at the exact moment they swung open from the outside. Standing there was a guy, maybe twenty five or so, an astonished look on his face. Frankly, though, his surprise in seeing a slim young woman hauling three or four hundred pounds of testosterone fuelled males out of a bar wasn’t what caught my interest. It was the tousled hair, the cheekbones and, let’s not be coy, the gym-honed body all too visible underneath his tight black t-shirt. This guy was hot. And, for once, more or less the same age as me.

He stepped to one side, his eyebrows raised, and a wry grin on his face. “Ladies first,” he said.

“Thanks,” I whispered, hoping to sound seductive. Well, as seductive as anyone throwing two guys out of a cocktail bar could.

I couldn’t resist showing off a little, so I put all my vampire-assisted strength into hurling the two men across the street. Both bounced, there’s no other way of describing it, off the kerb opposite and fell across each other in a tangle of limbs and humiliation.

The guy in the football shirt struggled to his feet. He turned in my direction, face contorted with anger. Opening his mouth to say something, he took in my expression and thought better of it. He stalked off down Thomas Street, flattening his shirt down over his gut as he went.

The Armani suited man stayed slumped on the ground. He managed to dig a phone out of his pocket. “Taxi to Manchester Royal Infirmary please,” I heard him say. A pause. “Yes, now!” he added, his voice rising in frustration and anger. He ended his call, looked up and pointed a trembling finger at me.

“You’re a fucking monster,” he raged, “You’re not fucking human.”

In the time it took for me to formulate a suitably witty retort, the guy with the tousled hair said: “You don’t look like a monster to me. Quite the opposite.”

A shout from inside Apotheca spoilt the moment. “Laney, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Get back in here now.”

I took a deep breath. Then another. “My boss,” I said, almost to no-one in particular.

Tousled hair guy nodded. “Tell me about it.” He took a moment then thrust out a hand for me to shake. “I’m Greg Warner, by the way.”

“Laney. Er, Elaine. Elaine Sullivan.” I shook his hand and we both turned to go back into the bar. Tyler was still kicking off, and I couldn’t help but sigh.

“Don’t kill the management,” Greg commented.

I laughed. The sound was hollow, though. I knew I’d made a mistake. Revealing my supernatural power left me exposed and vulnerable. I didn’t realise just how vulnerable until a few weeks later. By then it was too late.

CHAPTER TWO

My first floor flat in Manchester’s Northern Quarter was so small it put ‘part’ into apartment. I sat in an uncomfortable cream coloured armchair - the only piece of furniture the previous tenants had left - and wept. To be honest, weeping wasn’t usually in my repertoire of emotions, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Several hours had passed since the incident at Apotheca. Nevertheless, an immense sadness, an irretrievable loss, took residence in my brain and refused to let go. It wasn’t because Tyler had ranted and raved about broken furniture as well as potential liability if the bar got sued by one of the guys I’d slung out. I could cope with that. It wasn’t even the quizzical glances from the customers who saw what I was capable of. Sure, I was exposed but I could move on - to a different bar, a different city. Nope, it was none of those things.