Excerpt: The Embrace

“Who the hell is this crazy bitch?” Lake asked.
“I have no idea,” said Connor, pacing the room.
“Well then,” Lake continued. “Who’s Griffin?”
That one, of course, Connor knew, but he had no intention of sharing with the likes of Lake. “Will you shut the fuck up so I can think?” he said, fighting the urge to pull on his own hair.
This crazy woman, this crazy vampire, had shown up at the concert, screaming Griffin’s name. There was no way this could end well, but Connor was determined to at least keep the damage to a minimum. He’d considered just killing her, but for one thing, he wasn’t sure he could. She was older and stronger than him; even with Lake’s help, even with Rabe’s, once she realized they meant to kill her, she’d fight back hard and likely overpower them.
And then, of course, there was the fact that he still had no idea who she was or what she was to Griffin. What if he killed her and it turned out he shouldn’t have for some reason? The last thing he wanted was to incur Malcolm’s wrath. He loved Malcolm, and even more, to his surprise, he loved his new position of importance and power, and didn’t want to lose either because of such a stupendous fuck-up as delivering another vampire’s pet human to Malcolm. He had to know everything before Malcolm did.
He crossed to room to where the redhead was chained. Connor had never been sure why Malcolm had built this veritable dungeon in the sub-basement of the hotel. Granted, Malcolm was the law-keeper of their world, and Connor could imagine him having reason to use a place designed to hold a vampire prisoner, but he’d never known him to. Now, however, he was very grateful to have the room available.
The woman was seated on a stone bench set into the cement wall. Chains, so strong even the oldest and strongest of vampires would be unlikely to break through them, were imbedded into the wall at several heights. Connor had fastened a pair of them around the bitch’s wrists, another pair around her ankles, and yet a third chain was wrapped around her waist, just in case. She thrashed and fought against her restraints, but he was satisfied now that they were going to hold her.
He walked to her and knelt down, so that they were eye-level to one another. He looked into her face. It was screwed up in anger, caked with mud, streaked with dirt and blood and tears, and yet he could tell that underneath it, she was probably very pretty. Likewise, he could tell that underneath the patina of dust and mud, her wild tangle of hair was a gorgeous, vibrant shade of red. In any other circumstance, he would have longed to give her a complete makeover. Instead, he calmly pulled back a hand and slapped her across the face as hard as he could.
Instantly, she stopped thrashing and screaming Griffin’s name, and looked at Connor as though she just realized he was there. Her purpose didn’t change, however. Looking him in the eye now, she calmly asked “Where’s Griffin?”
“Who are you to him?” Connor asked.
“Why do you care?” she asked back.
“How about the person not chained to the wall asks the questions? How do you know Griffin?”
She made a show of closing her mouth tight, making her face like stone.
“Fine, have it that way. A few days without blood, a few weeks, and you’ll be begging to tell me.”
She didn’t speak, but he could read her face clearly.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know I’m an asshole. But I’m the asshole with the keys.”
He turned his back on her and walked out of the room, tugging Lake along by his arm.