Free A Night with a Vampire by Cynthia Cooke Page B

Xana stared after him. The niggling fingers of concern she’d felt earlier grew into fists of fear. She looked out at the sea of coffins. This was a lot bigger than annihilating a few vamps.
    Cayman stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned back, his eyes darkening as he grasped the rail with whitened knuckles. “Start unloading the explosives. I’ll be right back. I just need three minutes, five tops. Then we’ll blow this place to kingdom come.”
    Xana nodded, but realized with certain dread that it hadn’t been fear earlier on the hillside that had caused the quiver in Cayman’s voice, but rage. Mr. Cool was about to lose it and that scared Xana a lot more than the roomful of vampires below her.
    The sooner they got out of this place, the better.
    She grabbed Cayman’s pack and moved quickly through the room, strategically placing sticks of dynamite in each corner before inserting the blasting caps and running the fuse the length of the room to connect with a detonator. She attached the timer and placed it at the bottom of the stairwell. The explosion had to be powerful enough to incinerate the basement’s occupants without bringing down the building or the mountain.
    After she positioned her last explosive, she pulled a nearby box next to a coffin and stepped up to look through the small glass window in the top of the steel dome. A man lay tucked inside, his skin an odd shade of purplish gray, the dark circles beneath his closed eyes a deep red. Strangely, he didn’t look like a soulless evil vampire, but she knew too well that looks could be deceiving.
    She headed back toward the stairwell, winding her way through the coffins until she reached the archway her brother had disappeared through. She looked at her watch. Almost dark. She’d hate to be stuck in this building once those coffins started to open. Even her specialized vamp-blaster wouldn’t stop the number of undead housed in this crypt.
    â€œCayman, come on!” she called down the hallway her brother had disappeared into. She heard a soft footstep behind her and pivoted, her gaze searching the room. Nothing. Her stomach churned. Something moved just outside her field of vision. A blurred shape darted from one coffin to the next, where it slipped out of sight again. Xana stilled, her breath coming in short, quick gasps.
    She clutched her gun in both hands and stepped forward, peering behind a row of coffins. A long black leather coat billowed from behind a canister. She’d seen that coat before, knew that mass of jet-black hair. Her blood thinned and rushed to her head.
    Marius . King of the vampires. And the one she’d never been able to get near.
    The sound of a lock clicking open echoed through the room. Her muscles tensed. Fear, her closest friend and staunchest enemy, grasped hold of her heart and squeezed, wrenching free a flood of adrenaline to buzz through her veins. She ran, rounding the last row of coffins, following that jacket.
    No one was there.
    Where’d he go ?
    A breath lifted the hair about her ear.
    Xana spun round.
    In a quick movement, Marius wrenched her gun out of her hand. His jet-black eyes locked onto hers and, for a second, she couldn’t turn away. She was lost and drowning in those inky black pools. Heat flamed, rising through her body to balloon in her chest. Her breath came in short little gasps. She moistened her lips, not missing the quick movement of his eyes as they watched her. She shoved a hand in her pocket and grasped one of the stars, wanting to pull it out, wanting to flick her wrist and embed the razor-sharp points in his chest.
    But she didn’t.
    She couldn’t.
    Marius wasn’t any ordinary bloodsucker. Marius was the king of the bloodsuckers and he hadn’t survived as long as he had without learning a few tricks.
    Tricks she was pretty sure she didn’t want to see.
    â€œWhere’s Cayman?” His smooth voice moved through her