Free Vampire Most Wanted by Lynsay Sands Page B

might be best to be close at hand, at least until he found out what had happened. Which meant he’d be sleeping in his SUV. It was probably for the best, he acknowledged. Staying at the hotel might raise suspicion among the carnies. No one on their wages could afford a motel room let alone a hotel. He wouldn’t get any information at all if they were all suspicious and leery about him, so staying here had seemed the better choice.
    Several people called out greetings as he passed and Marcus responded politely, but didn’t slow. At his SUV he made sure no one was looking, then climbed in the back, unlocked the built-in fridge, and retrieved several bags of blood. He stuffed them inside his shirt, grimaced at how obvious it was he had something in there, and then tugged on the leather jacket he’d used as a pillow last night. It was too damned hot for the jacket, but the leather at least made the bulge in his shirt less obvious. Still, he moved quickly as he locked up and left the SUV, sticking to the shadows as much as possible on his way back to Divine’s RV.
    He knocked once on her door, but—afraid she’d turn him away—Marcus didn’t wait for her to answer. He pulled the door open and stepped inside, barely ducking in time to avoid the mop that came swinging at his head.
    “Whoa. It’s me,” he said quickly, holding up a hand as he straightened. Good thing he did too, or he would have taken the mop in the face. Damn, the woman was fast. “Divine, it’s me, Marco.”
    “And what the hell makes you think that makes it okay to break into my RV?” she asked dryly, this time doing the unexpected and ramming the end of her mop into his groin.
    Marcus’s breath left him on a sound he didn’t think he’d ever made before. It came out a whooshing “ eeeee-iiiiii-owwwww” and ended on a howl. He also dropped the bags of blood in favor of cupping his screaming genitals with one hand while grabbing the mop with the other to ensure she didn’t do that again. He needn’t have worried, Divine’s hands had gone lax on the mop, her attention fixed on what he’d dropped.
    “What the devil is that?” she asked with dismay, staring at the clear bags of dark crimson fluid lying on the floor of her RV.
    “They’re for you,” Marcus muttered through gritted teeth. Damnnnn, the woman had nearly unmanned him . . . and the blow had hurt enough that he’d nearly passed out. He still might do so. Immortal women were stronger than mortal women, or mortal men for that matter, and she hadn’t held back. It was all he could do not to cross his legs and hop around continuously howling like a sissy boy. Alternately, he wanted to rip his pants down and see if his balls were still intact. He suspected she’d crushed at least one of them with her blow, popping it like a balloon in his jeans.
    That thought made Marcus cast a reluctant glance down. He groaned when he saw the blood beginning to blossom at his groin. Dammit, the woman had unmanned him.
    “Well, what on earth do you expect me to do with these?” Divine asked, bending to pick up one of the bags and peer at it with distaste.
    Marcus snatched it from her hand and slammed it to his mouth almost before his fangs had finished extending.
    She stared at him wide-eyed as the bag quickly began to shrink. When the last drop of blood had been sucked up through his fangs into his body, he pulled the shriveled bag away with a gasp of pain and turned away to bang his forehead against the wall and then lean there trying to ignore the new pain now centered at his groin as the nanos in his blood began to make repairs. Damn, the fix was almost worse than the damage had felt when she’d hit him. Correction, he thought grimly, trying not to gnash his teeth. It was worse, because the blow had taken only a moment and the repairs were going to take much longer.
    “Crap,” Marcus groaned, pressing his forehead harder into the wall to try to distract himself from the pain in his lower