Pretty When She Dies (Pretty When She Dies #1)(41)

Sweeping her hair back from her face, she openly looked around. She was in an enormous loft apartment with amazing views of Austin.

They were fairly high up and she could see down onto the tops of some of the other buildings clustered in the downtown area. There were several doors leading to other rooms and she could not be sure of where the front door was exactly.

“You kidnapped me,” she said finally.

“Yes,” he answered in a calm voice. He was sprawled in his chair, long lean legs askew, still clad in jeans, but he was now wearing a snug T-shirt that had Homer Simpson on it. Not exactly what she expected from a vampire, though the apartment seemed kind of close somehow.

“Why?”

“You're in my territory. I am the Master of Austin.”

She raised both her eyebrows. “What does that mean?”



“It means I am the oldest and most powerful vampire in Austin, and if any of my kind start to draw the attention of the mortals to our community, I deal with it.” He continued to stare at her with his mesmerizing hazel eyes.

“So, how big is our community?” She rubbed the side of her head. It still hurt where he had hit her.

“Including us?”

“Yeah.”

“Two.”

She laughed at that. “What?”

“Two vampires. You and me.” He shrugged. “I've been the only vampire in the city since the late Seventies.”

“Why?”

“The vampire hunters destroyed the cabal.”

“Cabal?”

“One of the terms used to describe a group of vampires living together.”

“So, the Van Helsings killed everyone, but you?” She arched both her eyebrows higher. “So we're the only two vampires in Austin?”

Cian nodded. “Exactly.”

“And you didn't make anymore vampires?”

He nodded again.

“And no other vampires even tried to move in?”

“Oh, no. A few did.”

“And what? They didn't like you or something?” She pulled her skirt down over her thighs and looked around the room again. She noted the paintings and old movie posters with some interest.

“No. I killed them.”

She jerked her chin toward him as her eyes widened. In an instant, she was on her feet and running for the nearest door. To her dismay, he grabbed her arm and whirled her around.

“Don't be foolish,” he snarled at her.

“I've already been killed once,” she cried out and slugged him.

He let her go and she backed away from him.

“I don't want to go through it again!”

Running down a long hallway, she saw a heavy metal door at the end.

This seemed a likely exit and she pushed her body as hard as she could to make it to the door. She ran smack into Cian as he materialized in front of her.

“Shit,” she gasped.

He grabbed her upper arm firmly and hauled her back down the hall.

It was obvious he was stronger and faster than she was. Going limp, she let him guide her, but knew she would bolt the second she got a chance. They were almost the same height, but he seemed to tower over her as he manhandled her back into the living room. He flung her back onto the sofa and pointed a stern finger in her face.

“Do not do that again,” he ordered. “I'm older and more powerful than you. Remember that.”

Impulsively, she kicked his ass as he turned to return to his chair and he whirled about to give her a piercing, red-flamed glare.

“Whoa,” she whispered. “Do my eyes do that?”

“Yes.”

“That explains a lot,” she muttered, remembering Mae, Damon and Kelly Ann's looks of horror.

He sat back down, crossed his legs at his ankles and folded his hands over his stomach. “Let's talk.”



Rubbing her head again, she sunk back on the sofa and curled her legs up on the seat. “Why? So you can know who I am before you kill me?”

“I didn't say I was going to kill you. I said I had killed others. You didn't wait to hear why I killed them, did you?” His Irish brogue was coming out more. It had just been a hint earlier.

“So why did you kill them?”

“They were sloppy. They killed and left far too much evidence of what they were. They risked exposing all of our kind, so I killed them, which is my duty as the oldest in the city.”

She licked her lips as she considered her own actions the last few nights.

Crap. I'm f*cked, she thought dismally.

Cian studied her expression and sighed a little. “I know about what you did at the campus. The Satanic killings were actually you. As was the truck driver killed in Dallas.” He lifted a couple of newspaper clippings off the table next to him. “And I have a feeling this woman who died in East Texas of mysterious causes was you.”

“She was on her way to kill her ex-husband and kidnap her kids,”

Amaliya said defensively.

Cian smiled at this. “So it was you.”

“Look, no one told me how to do this! I've been trying to figure it out for the last few days. I even burned my fingers trying to see if sunlight affects me! I didn't get a manual when this happened. I didn't get any sort of orientation or a workshop. I woke up buried alive! Okay? Alive in a stupid grave in the stupid forest! I was out of my freaking mind. I don't even know how I found that secret orgy and...and...” She licked her lips, remembering her first bite, the way the blood had filled her.