Free Chaos and Moonlight (Order of the Nines Book 1) by A.D. Marrow Page B

building, until finally, he leapt off the edge.

    * * *
    Sarah wasn’t sure when it happened, but she opened her eyes just long enough to see the guy with the eye shadow on the top of the roof, aiming a giant gun right at them. From his side, the gigantic guy holding her flicked his arm, and in an instant, the menacing man on the rooftop went down, clutching at his leg.
    “You can’t hide from me, Taris,” the other man yelled. “I’ll find you. And when I do, I’ll take that bitch from you, too!”
    “We’ll see about that, RuPaul!” Taris yelled as they hit the gravel rooftop on the opposite side of the street. As Sarah clung to him, he wasted no time in getting them down off the building and into the truck he had parked in the alleyway behind it.

Chapter 7
    It was several minutes before Sarah realized she wasn’t dreaming. The tall guy in her room, the creepy guy on the stairs, all of it had been real. After about five miles of telling herself to wake up, then looking at the tall guy who was driving, then pinching herself, then telling herself to wake up again, then looking at the tall guy some more, reality and the promise of a full-fledged panic attack set in.
    “I swear, if you let me go, I won’t tell anyone, okay?” Sarah finally found her voice. She had a moment where she thought that maybe this was a dream again, judging by the way the driver of the car looked. He was dark and mysterious, chiseled from head to toe—she should know, she all but crawled into him when they were running away from that other guy. She couldn’t make out much in the dark of the truck’s cab, but even in the faint light of the street lamps, something about this guy made her feel different. Maybe it was his voice—that deep, gravelly, slightly British voice. Maybe it was the smell that came off him, that man-mixed-with-leather-and-aftershave smell.
    “Who are you?” Her damned voice box rebelled against her and her question came out in a whisper.
    He was focused on the road, his eyes never leaving it as he maneuvered the giant diesel truck in and out of the one a.m. traffic. “I’ll explain everything when we get to where we are going. In the meantime, just sit back and try to relax, okay?”
    “Relax? Okay, yeah. I was taken out of my bed in the middle of the night by some guy I don’t even know, and then I was chased up the stairwell by a Sherman tank of a drag queen, and you tell me to relax? Yeah right, pal! Listen, seriously, whatever ransom you’re asking for, I can pay it. Just bring me to an ATM, and you can have whatever you want, okay? Just let me go.”
    “It’s not that simple, Dr. Bridgeman.”
    “The hell it’s not. Look, just let me out, and anything you want, it’s yours. Cross my heart, I won’t tell a soul you took me.” She made a little crisscross motion over her heart.
    “Like I said, Dr. Bridgeman, it’s not that simple. I don’t need your money. I need you to do a job for me. That Sherman tank drag queen apparently wants you to do the same job. I think, circumstances being what they are, you might want to consider working for me.”
    “Work, my ass.” Sarah mumbled to herself. “Who the hell are you, anyway? And what job could I possibly do for you? I’m a medical researcher, you dickhead.”
    He didn’t bother looking at her. He took in a deep breath and let out a long sigh.
    “My name is Taris. I’m an eight-hundred-year-old vampire, and I need you to use your medical research to help me stop the slow yet brutal extinction of a race of people who really do exist but are made into horror movie villains and romance novel heroes.”
    When he was met with silence, he glanced over to see her passed out cold in the seat.
    “I knew it wouldn’t work.”
    * * *
    This was bad. It was obviously going to take some time to convince her he had snatched her for her own good; it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. Damn, how was he going to get her to agree to help them now? She had been