One More Bite Book Two: One More Bite, #2

By Odette C. Bell

This is it. No going back now. I've drunk from the most powerful vampire in the city, and he won't let me go.
I'm thrust head-first into the dark world of vampires and greed. But I will soon find out I have no idea who I am, what I can do, and who exactly wants me.

….

One More Bite follows a rare witch and the vampire who'll do anything to use her as they fight an ancient force. If you love your urban fantasies with action, intrigue, and a splash of romance, grab One More Bite Book Two today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: May 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393732129

Book preview

1

My teeth were in his neck. I was drinking.

And I… had to stop.

But I couldn’t tell that to my body, because for the first time in my life, everything felt right. It was all clicking into place, nothing left out, nothing broken, everything working as one.

I’d felt strong before now. When I’d started snacking on vampire blood, I’d finally understood what I was really meant to be.

But this was different. Every part of my body knew that, from my lips, to my throat, to my trembling stomach, to my stiff white fingers as I gripped his large biceps.

I had to stop, leave, and get the hell out of here while I could.

But….

From somewhere, I thought I heard sirens. It couldn’t be close, but they were coming. More police. More reinforcements.

I needed to take my chance to get out of here.

I finally pulled back.

His hand was still locked on the wall behind me. As I jerked away, a few trickles of blood splashed down his white collar. They were one thing – a distracting thing, considering I’d had to finish my feed halfway through. But the thing that mattered most – by a goddamn mile – was his smile. Regardless of the fact I’d fed on him, he wasn’t weak. There was a curling, defined grin plastered over his mouth.

I couldn’t even tell you what he wanted—

There was a sound from downstairs. The police had arrived. I doubted anyone else would be able to hear it, but I instantly jerked my head down, my eyes opening wide.

It doesn’t matter, Varn said in a soft voice. I’ll tell them to go away. Now I—

I shoved him. I didn’t honestly expect the move to work. He was an ancestral vampire and all. But I’d just fed. And when I shoved him, I propelled him several meters away. He didn’t strike the bed – the room was too large. He still did fall down on his back. He didn’t power up, growl, and try to push me against the wall again. He sat there, looking at me, his gaze ablaze. It was not with anger. I can smell you now. You’re a new median. You’ve only just changed, what, he took another sniff, five days ago at most? You must be confused.

At the admission that I must be confused, I swear my heart wobbled. Because I was – goddamn was I confused. I needed someone – preferably someone I could trust – to sit me down and answer every single one of my questions. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. And if I was stupid enough to trust somebody like Varn, he would turn around and bite me.

Knowing that, feeling it deep down in my gut, I gripped my neck, blocking off my throat from him.

His brows tightened, his cheeks twitching. I have no intention of hurting you. Now I understand what you are— he reached a hand out to me.

It was far too much like what had happened in my dreams. Over and over again, he’d reached out to me, and over and over again, rather than run away, I’d accepted him and his blood.

That wasn’t going to happen in real life.

I turned toward the window. I’d throw myself out of it. It didn’t matter that I was on the fourth floor of the building. I’d sail down the wall outside. Maybe I would break my legs. Maybe I wouldn’t. Honest to God, right now it felt like I could withstand being run over by a semitrailer. It wasn’t just blood pumping through my veins – it was pure magic. That was evidenced by the fact that my eyes felt like they were crackling like flames. That was nothing to be said of my fingers – as I stretched them out toward the window, I saw magic racing around them. It was this permanent glittering outline.

I pushed toward the window, my mind made up, but that’s when Varn moved. You would have been forgiven for thinking that he was down and out. He’d been crumpled on the floor, his body weak aside from his blazing gaze. Now he moved like a loaded spring. He grabbed my leg. I tried to wrench out of his grip, but he held me in place.

You can’t go back out there. You need to feed regularly. Now you’ve had ancestral blood, you’re not going to want anything else. It might sate you for a couple of hours, but you still have to keep feeding. You’re a new median. You can’t go long between meals. If you do—

I turned around. I kneed him in the shoulder. My move was powerful, and by God, I did not hold back. He jerked to the side.

I twisted and threw myself at the window again. I reached it, but once more he was right there. He grabbed me around the stomach. My gut had a chance to twitch as he moved in close, as I caught a whiff of his scent, as I practically felt his heart vibrating in his chest. He pulled me to the side. He didn’t slam me back against the wall – he just put his body in between me and the window.

Let me go, I hissed. There was a distressingly weak quality to it. It remained for like half a second until I remembered who I was and what I was capable of. I elbowed him in the gut.

He was forced to drop my arms. The look in his eyes suggested he would grab me up again, though. I wanted to tell myself that look was one of a predator who was about to pin their prey to the wall and get rid of them once and for all. But it was far too mixed up for that. There was this conflicted power in his gaze. There was this need, too. And it certainly wasn’t the need of someone to feed.

I fell on the floor by his feet. I immediately kicked back, knowing full well that he could move fast. I might be strong, but he was arguably more agile. I had to keep away from him. But as I backed toward the door, I became exquisitely aware of his men outside. There were five, and three more were angling down the corridor toward us. They were also armed. All I had to do to ascertain that was open my nostrils and sniff once.

Alarm pulsed through my eyes. You’ll help me, my ass. Anyway, I would never accept help from someone like you, I snarled as I let my gaze tick up and down him. I tried to flush away all of the memories of his pleasant heat and smell, and I concentrated instead on everything I had learned. He was a monster. He was probably the worst in this entire city. And since coming into my powers, I had met true bastards.

I let all of that settle in until my jaw settled too. It was so hard, it could’ve cut concrete.

His gaze flashed. I don’t know what you think you’ve learned about me—

Justin. He was working for you. He almost— I was about to reveal that he’d bled one of my friends dry, but I stopped. I didn’t want to drag anyone else into this. He bled a young woman dry – or at least tried to. He was interrupted by a policeman. I found him at the back of the hospital. He was planning on doing it again.

Varn’s brow twitched. It crumpled as if someone had just scrunched up paper. So it was you on that roof near the archive office, then?

Yeah, it was me. Why couldn’t you smell me?

Because medians cannot be smelled by vampires. You wouldn’t be perfect predators if that were the case.

I hated the way he said predators. It wasn’t because it was dark or dangerous – it was because it was… God, I didn’t want to go there, but it had a note of weakness. And yet, it was offset by that blazing look in his eyes.

I twitched away again. I became aware of the fact that someone had just let the police in at the bottom of the building.

My whole body started to shake. They weren’t these powerful convulsions or anything – just these tight, almost surface like jitters. I was like a plane that was vibrating, getting ready to shoot off into the air. And when I shot off, no one would be able to stop me. I settled my gaze on the window again. My mind automatically tracked back through every movement Varn had made. Without me having to try hard, it told me just where he was strong and where he was weak. If I ran hard enough, I’d be able to use my power to smash right through the window and every defense he might be able to put up.

He clearly knew this, because his eyes narrowed. I just ask that you listen. You need to. If you don’t, you’re going to be used by your direct. Now he smelled. He opened his nostrils wide. He even parted his lips.

I’d never really been drawn in by the sensation of someone smelling before. Of course not. Smelling was hardly important to humans. And even if it were, it would be kind of disgusting to be so engrossed by someone else doing it. But disgusting or not, my body was on tenterhooks. As my head inclined toward him of its own accord, my muscles tightened to the point of snapping.

Direct? I whispered. That was a word I hadn’t heard for a while. It was technically only about five days, but it felt like five years.

The vampire who turned you. Who was he? You have to find out. And whatever you do, you have to keep away from him. There was this truly scared quality to his voice. If he weren’t a vampire, it would’ve shaken me up – but because he was a vampire, it shook the whole room up, too. And I was not making that up. This tiny slight magical vibration traveled down from his barrel chest, into the floor, and across through the carpet. Even if I’d suddenly jumped into the air, it would’ve still powered into me, still gripped my gut and tightened it like screws.

I bit my lip. My vampire incisors were still out. They cut the flesh.

His gaze locked on a single bead of blood as it dripped down the side of my mouth. Judging by the way he stared at it, his vampire senses had just been engaged.

Vampires didn’t drink median blood though, right? When I’d let that asshole from the bar drink my blood, he’d freaked. Then again, he’d probably freaked because my blood had revealed to him that I was a median, and it would’ve reminded him that he was on the dinner table, not me.

As Varn’s gaze still remained on that single bead of blood as it made it to my throat and traced down until it splashed against my collar, I got the feeling that ancestral vampires could drink median blood just fine.

I twitched away from him. I promised myself I was still the one in charge. I was still the bigger predator. I tried to prove that with a growl. "I’m not gonna wait around here while you give the cops more time to find me.

Like I said – I’ll send them away. No one needs to know what happened here.

I’m sure they don’t. All that blood in your office, I growled, can just be a secret between you and me, ha? Bullshit. I don’t care what it takes – I’m gonna drag you down.

His cheek twitched. Believe it or not, his hand was still reached out to me. You’ll find my family does only one thing—

Hold back the dark? I got in first. I tilted my head back and laughed. It was a vicious move. It wasn’t because I was trying to drag him through the mud or anything – though I obviously didn’t care about his feelings. It was because the tension was getting too much for me. My senses were becoming even sharper than they ever had before. I swore I could hear the conversations going on down in the ballroom. It was all too much for me. It was like standing in a corridor as thousands of lights flashed in your face, thousands of people screamed in your ears, and thousands of vibrations shook you to the core.

I found myself taking a jerked step forward, my hands groping in and out, forming the kind of tight fists that would allow you to smash through the core of a planet.

But he simply opened his arms wider, remaining steadfast in front of the window.

I quickly calculated if I could get through his men outside. The answer was yes. I didn’t even have to think it through. Especially not in my current state. I felt like I could smash through an army.

He clearly knew this, as his eyes widened. You need to trust me. And you have to remain here. Only I can help you. You may not believe this, but I’m a good man, his voice dropped. On the word man, it was barely audible.

I paused – for far too long – then I laughed. "I know exactly what kind of vampire you are, I emphasized that. The kind to collect blood from other vampires. I don’t know what you’re doing. But the DA—"

I was working with the DA from the beginning, he spat quickly, obviously realizing the police were coming upstairs and at some point I would freak and end this conversation regardless of what he said to keep me on the spot.

Bullshit, I snapped.

He shook his head. If his gaze was anything to go by, he was telling the truth. But screw that. I was not that naïve. A vampire’s gaze could hide any number of lies. They were predators, through and through. Evolution had taught them exactly what they needed to get what they wanted every single time. And he wanted me in this room. So it was time to leave.

I pushed toward the window once more. He grabbed me again. That’s when he disturbed my pocket. That pin ripped out of the fabric of my dress and clattered onto the floor. He instantly jerked his head down to it. His eyes opened wide. And right there, right up close to him, I saw the fear playing through his pupils. You shouldn’t have picked that up, he stammered. And make no mistake, it was a stammer. It had previously sounded as if his voice was as hard as a mountain top. Now it was nothing more than a baby bird.

"Justin was looking for information on the massacre, wasn’t he? You sent him to the archive office. And he would’ve killed that manager if it weren’t for me. So you’re a good