Red Rock Snippet Week Day #4: Sanctuary Unbound

Woohoo! Day #4, and it’s time for some Vampire Lumberjack action!  Adam is probably our most joked about, talked about and laughed about character, since we’ve been talking about the vampire lumberjack for years now.  Yes, he wears flannel and has an ax. He builds things–mostly expensive furniture–and has spent the last 80 or so years hiding in the Great North Woods of Maine.  (The reason he’s been hiding there is the focus of A Safe Harbor, even though he’s a minor character in that story.)

This is our first snippet of Adam & Cindy.  IT IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK. Okay, warning delivered.

Head on back tomorrow for one last snippet, a sneak peek of Seamus & Joan, the hero and heroine of our first historical spin-off novella. 

Adam Dubois never planned to leave Maine. New England is a comfortable place for vampires, and his cozy home in the Great North Woods reminds him of a simpler time, a time when werewolves and witches were the things of legends and he was only a simple lumberjack. Hiding from his past failures worked for over eighty years, but a life debt has forced him back into the world–and face to face with a woman who challenges him almost as much as she tempts him.

Cindy Shepherd is lonely and Red Rock isn’t crawling with available men. When a handsome vampire arrives in cloud of mystery she decides he could sate her sexual frustration. After all, if they’re using each other for hot, impersonal sex, there’s no danger he’ll dig deep enough to learn her secrets.

Their casual flirtation turns deadly serious when Adam discovers that the vampire plaguing Red Rock is using Adam’s mistakes as a road map. Together, they’ll face the darkness, but they must trust each other with more than their lives to secure a future–even if it means sacrificing themselves to save everything they hold dear.

* * *

He’d been going full-bore for the last two days, and Adam showed no signs of slowing. What he did show signs of was exhaustion.

Cindy had seen it often enough, both with her classmates and with herself. It was insidious, the kind of work that brought you to the edge of physical as well as mental collapse. There was always more to do, always more people to help. If you stopped, you were letting them down.

But there came a time when there wasn’t a choice.

They’d already stopped using the bar as a makeshift hospital. Most of the people who had fled from Helena had only superficial injuries, but too many of them bore the blood bond that had made Bobby’s healing so sluggish. Adam and Sasha had been working overtime to release all the refugees from those bonds.

And Adam was still at it. Three more people had shown up earlier in the day, a couple and their little girl. The little girl wasn’t hurt, but her bond had proven difficult to break. Cindy had banished her nearly hysterical parents to the kitchen to calm them down and make them eat. Now they paced the foyer, waiting to be let back in to the small room where their daughter had been placed.

“Adam.” Cindy stopped behind him where he sat by the bed. “You have to take a break.”

He ignored her, just like he’d ignored her twice before. The little girl whimpered, and his shoulders stiffened as he made an almost soothing noise. “Hold on. Almost there.”

She fought a sigh. If there was one thing the last forty-eight hours had taught her, it was that arguing with him was useless. Instead, she wet a cloth in the basin on the nightstand and laid it on the girl’s forehead.

It was torture, ten times worse than Gavin’s heart condition, because this was something she couldn’t even understand, much less treat. She’d been flying blind, patching people up while they continued to die under her hands, and it had taken its toll on her, as well.

She was tired, edgy. Angry.

The girl sucked in a sudden breath, and Cindy knew the bond had snapped by the way her body relaxed. Adam, on the other hand, looked like hell. A grimace twisted his face, one of pain and steely determination, and he ground his teeth together so hard she heard it. He dragged in one labored breath, then a second, and magic cracked through the room as he stumbled back with a muffled curse.

He hit the wall and slumped to his knees, both hands balled into fists. His eyes were wild, more black than green, and they didn’t quite focus. “Done.” It was a hoarse rasp. “It’s done.”

It took only moments to check the girl’s vitals, and Cindy kept watch on Adam as she did so. He looked like this last bond had half-killed him, and an instinct she didn’t understand screamed at her to get him the hell out of the room.

“I’m going to bring her parents in,” she told him quietly. “Go upstairs and wait for me. I’ll be right up.” He didn’t react, so she knelt in front of him. “Adam.”

Something dangerous stirred just beneath the surface, feral and hungry. It took forever for him to meet her eyes. “You shouldn’t be this close.”

She should have been scared. Petrified. “Her parents can’t see you like this. It’ll scare the piss out of them. Go upstairs, please.”

He rose, slow and deliberate, as if every movement hurt. He seemed to make a special effort not to look at the girl as he cut a wide circle around her on his way to the door.

He headed in the direction of the back stairs, and Cindy walked into the foyer. The girl’s parents rushed over when they saw her, and she stepped aside to let them into the room. “She should be fine now, but call for me if anything happens.”

They thanked her absently, all their attention focused on their daughter. She didn’t blame then, and it was just as well, because she had to get upstairs.

She found Adam standing on the top landing, staring blankly at the wall. “Come on.” She took his arm and dragged him into the bedroom, determined to make her suggestion before he keeled over—or she lost her nerve.

Locking the door behind them took only a moment. Cindy took a deep breath and pulled her turtleneck sweater over her head. “You need to drink.”

His gaze swept up her body in a tangible wave, and he moved before her shirt hit the ground. Her back slammed against the door, and he caught both of her wrists and pinned them next to her head with a snarl. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Fear spiked, an instinctive reaction because he’d snapped, moving from calm blankness to feral intensity so quickly. She wasn’t scared of him, and she wanted to do this. He needed her help, and the least she could do to repay him for his was to offer.

Offer.

She recalled his words from the first night, when her interest had been more vague curiosity and considerable attraction—the power comes from the willing gift. So she relaxed in his grip and let her head fall back against the wall. “I’m not asking. I’m offering.”

His nostrils flared. His breath fell warm against her throat. “You don’t understand. I haven’t been breaking those bonds. I’ve been stealing them. Stealing them and letting them go, and every time I let one go it feels like slow suicide. I’m out of control.”

“That’s not true, though,” she whispered. “Not if you’ve been letting them go, even when it hurts you.”

“Yes, I make a charming martyr. But don’t doubt that selfish self-preservation thrives inside me. Eventually I’ll snap. And I’ll take.”

“So take me.” The moment the words left her, she wanted to snatch them back. This was more than the concerned offer of someone used to caring for people. She was starting to sound desperate, and that had to mean she wanted this more than she realized.

She felt the slightest pressure, something magical instead of physical, as if he’d stroked her just under her skin. A groan ripped free of him, and he licked a hot line up the side of her neck. “You’re so willing. I’m not that much of a martyr.”

Yes, she wanted him. She trembled with it, burned. What she didn’t understand was why it didn’t feel like it was about sex. Instead, she wanted to feel his teeth sink into her flesh. Wanted to feed him, sate his hunger.

Give him what he needed.

She stood on her toes, straining toward him. Anything to get closer to his mouth. “Let me.”

His body shook. His breath skated over the skin he’d licked, and he lowered his mouth. “Stop me if it’s too much.”

Cindy had never imagined that she’d practically have to beg a vampire to bite her. “I promise.”

Teeth closed on her throat. His fangs were larger than normal canines and a little sharper, and she gasped when they broke through her skin. The pain was intense but brief, vanishing in a rush of warmth.

The warmth built into a hot flare of pleasure, and Cindy gasped again. Her nipples hardened as her body reacted, though the heavy anticipation swelling through her was disorienting.

He hasn’t really touched me. The fuzzy thought scattered as he released her wrists and smoothed his hands down to her hips. His tongue stroked her skin, her body throbbing in time with each lick.

She was wet, ready, and instinct drove her to tear at his shirt. His bare chest was warm under her hands, rough with hair and hard—everything about him was so hard—

He lifted his head, just enough to whisper. “Let me make it good.”