Free Infinity by Sedona Venez

hair pulling me completely off the ground as he buried his face into my neck. “There’s more power than I thought in your blood.”
    My head snapped back, with feet dangling mid-air. Tears ran down my cheeks. Strands of hair snapped from my scalp. “Let me go,” I rasped through the pain.
    He abruptly dropped me, allowing my body to awkwardly slide down his body. “You belong to Maxim?” He roared, his eyes angrily searching my face as his fists clenched. “What is he to you?”
    I slapped frantically at him. “Fuck you, you psychotic freak.”
    He backed me against the marble countertop. “Speak or I’ll snap your neck. Maxim. How do you know him?”
    I hauled back with all my strength, punching him in his face. I grabbed my hand in pain. It felt like I literally hit a brick wall. “Leave me the hell alone. I don’t know anyone named Maxim.”
    He snarled viciously like some sort of wild animal. “Fucking lies. You smell like him. The only thing keeping me from breaking your neck is the fact that you haven’t fucked him.” With a snarl, he whirled me around, throwing me into the wall so hard, my head cracked against it with a thud. “Why the hell do you smell like him?”
    My head swam, blinking like a fool until I noticed that he was holding a knife. “What did I just say? I. Don’t. Know a fucking Maxim.” But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should. Maxim....the name echoed in my head as I committed it to memory.
    With sonic speed, he swung, slicing me across the arm. I clutched my arm in pain as blood pooled around the gash. I tried to side-step his inevitable next attack, when he stepped in slicing me across my other arm. The biting pain from the arm gash made me delirious and frantic to flee his manic wrath.
    I screamed. “Mother fucker! Maybe vampire women get hot over blood and death but attacking me is not a panty dropping proposition.”
    “I’m not trying to fuck you, Infinity. I’m trying to kill you.”
    Pull it together, I chanted in my mind like a prayer. Survival. I knew that if I could calm my nerves, I could survive. No, not just survive, but kill him. Him or me. It damn sure wasn’t going to be me. Blood dripped down my arm, my heart pumped, pain was not even a thought. My mind raced through everything Mom taught me in our sparring sessions. This I could do. Would do. My pulse slowed. My frantic thoughts calmed. The pain mercifully subsided; I looked quickly at the gapping gash on my arm. It wasn’t bleeding anymore.
    He circled me with this weird smirk, his eyes cold, deadly, taking in my rapidly healing wounds. “Just like I thought. You’re not human. Time for the ultimate test, baby. Let’s see if you can survive death my beautiful monster.”
    “Monster?”
    We stared at each other. The word monster made my heart stutter. There was no way I could heal this fast unless I was one of them. A fact that I would dispute with my last dying breathe.
    He smiled with incisors glistening. “What would you prefer? Consort?”
    I moved back a step. He took a step forward. We circled each other in this weird seductive death dance.
    He smiled. “Death will look so good on you.”
    Death? Nope, not today. I could do this. I could beat him. Something in my soul knew this.
    “Not today. This Superstar is going to fuck. You. Up. Bloodsucker.” I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, my survival.
    Alik roared. Furious, he charged me, his feet just skimming the marble floor, racing toward me, violently fast. I hurled myself at him, my hands and fists attacking him from every angle. Alik blocked, twisted, and kicked with amazing speed.
    My heart pumped with sickening excitement as I planted my heel in his face, smashing in his nose. His eyes narrowed as he calmly reached up, snapping it back into place. He stepped back, staring at me. The expression on his cold but handsome face seemed to change to one almost of respect.
    Damn! Dead. That’s what I needed him to be… dead,