she felt the soft pile of velvet against the back of her legs, her buttocks, and her shoulders where they met the rising arm of this chaise.
A sharp needle of fear pricked her brain.
She tried to move, but her arms and legs wouldn’t budge, nor could she turn her head. She rolled her eyes upward, trying to see to the top of this freaky dark chamber with its weird red light.
She heard a quiet cough.
What?
She wasn’t alone?
She tried to whip her head toward the sound.
But she couldn’t. It lolled heavily against the back of the chaise.
Move, Rylee, get up and friggin’ move! Another sound. The scrape of a shoe against concrete—or something hard—reached her ears. Get out, get out now. This is too damned weird.
Her ears strained. She thought she heard the softest of whispers coming from the shadows. What the hell was this?
Her insides shriveled with a new fear. Why couldn’t she move? What in the world was happening? She tried to speak but couldn’t utter a word, as if her vocal cords were frozen. Frantically, she looked around, her eyes able to shift in their sockets, but her head unable to swivel.
Her heart pounded and, despite the chill in the air, she began to sweat.
This was a dream, right? A freakin’ nightmare, where she, immobile, was positioned on a velvet lounge and naked as the day she was born. The chaise was slightly raised, it seemed, as if she were on a weird stage or dais of some kind, and surrounding her was an unseen audience, people hiding in the shadows.
Her throat closed in terror.
Panic swept through her.
It’s only a dream, remember that. You can’t speak, you can’t move, all classic signs of a nightmare. Calm down, shut this out of your mind. You’ll wake up in the morning….
But she didn’t heed the suggestions running through her mind, because something was off here. This whole scene was very, very wrong. Never before when she’d been terrorized by a nightmare had she had the insight to think she might be dreaming. And there was a realness to this, a substance that made her second-guess her rationale.
What did she remember…oh, God, had it been last night…or just a few hours earlier? She’d been out drinking with her new friends from college, some kind of clique that was into the whole Goth-vampire thing…no, no…they insisted it was a vampyre thing. That old-fashioned spelling was supposed to make it more real or something. There had been whispers and dares and blood-red martinis that the others had insisted were stained with real human blood. It had been some kind of “rite of initiation.”
Rylee hadn’t believed them, but had wanted to be a part of their group, had taken them up on their dares, had indulged…and now…and now she was tripping. They’d laced the drink, not with blood, but with some weird psychedelic drug that was causing her to hallucinate—that was it! Hadn’t she witnessed the hint of hesitation in them when she’d been handed the blood-red martini and twirled the stem in her fingers? Hadn’t she sensed their fascination, even fear, as she’d not just sipped the drink but tossed it back with a flourish?
Oh, God….
This initiation—which she’d thought had been a bit of a joke—had taken a dangerous, unseen turn. She remembered vaguely agreeing to be part of the “show.” She’d drunk the fake “blood” in the martini glass and yeah, she’d thought all the vampire stuff her newfound friends were into was kind of cool, but she hadn’t taken any of their talk seriously. She’d just thought they’d been screwing with her head, seeing how far she would go….
But within minutes of downing the drink, she’d felt weird. More than drunk, and really out of it. Belatedly, she’d realized the martini had been doctored with a potent drug and she’d started to black out.
Until now.
How much time had elapsed?
Minutes?
Hours?
She had no idea.
A nightmare?
A bad trip?
She hoped to God so. Because if this was real, then she really was situated on a couch, on a stage, wearing nothing, her long hair twisted upon her head, her limbs unmoving. It was as if she were playing a part in some eerie, twisted drama, one that, she was certain, didn’t have a happy ending.
She heard another whisper of anticipation.
The red light began to pulse softly, in counterpoint to her own terrified heartbeat. She imagined she could see the whites of dozens of eyes staring at her from the darkness.
God help me.
Gritting her teeth, she willed her limbs to move, but there was no response. None.
She tried to scream, to yell, to tell someone to stop this madness! Her voice made only the tiniest of mewling noises.
Fear sizzled through her.
Couldn’t someone stop this? Someone in the audience? Couldn’t they see her terror? Realize the joke had gone too far? Silently she beseeched them with her eyes. Slowly, the stage became illuminated by a few well-placed bulbs that created a soft, fuzzy glow punctuated by the flickering red lamp.
Wisps of mist slid across the stage floor.
A rustle of expectancy seemed to sweep through the unseen audience. What was going to happen to her? Did they know? Was it a rite they’d witnessed before, perhaps passed themselves? Or was it something worse, something too horrible to contemplate?
She was doomed.
No! Fight, Rylee, fight! Don’t give up. Do not!
Again she strained to move, and again her muscles wouldn’t obey. Vainly she attempted to lift one arm, her head, a leg, any damned thing, to no avail.
Then she heard him.
The hairs on her nape raised in fear as cold as the Northern Sea. She knew in an instant she was no longer alone on the stage. From the corner of one terrified eye she saw movement. It was a dark figure, a tall, broad-shouldered man, walking through the oozing, creeping mist.
Her throat turned to sand.
Panic squeezed her heart.
She stared at him, compelled to watch him slowly approach. Mesmerized by terror. This was the one. The man the vampyre-lovers had whispered about.
She almost expected him to be wearing a black cape with a scarlet lining, his face pale as death, eyes glowing, glistening fangs revealed as he drew back his lips.
But that wasn’t the case. This man was dressed partially in black, yes. But there was no cape, no flash of red satin, no glowing eyes. He was lean but appeared athletic. And sexy as hell. Wraparound mirrored sunglasses covered his eyes. His hair was dark, or wet, and was long enough to brush
