Dance Until Dawn Read Online Free Page A

taste.
    ‘
Why
?’ I demanded. ‘Why are you making me drink blood?’
    ‘Blood is the staple diet of the vampire,’ came the calm reply.
    ‘You’re obsessed with vampires. You perverted creep.’
    ‘Why do you suppose I am keeping you here?’
    I raised tear-filled eyes to his.
    ‘Because you like torturing women.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You just want to torture
me
.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Rape me.’
    ‘I do not condone rape.’
    ‘Kill me.’
    ‘You are already dead.’
    I felt the cold realisation of utter despair. This man would never release me. Whatever his plans were, getting me a cab home wasn’t among them. I had never felt so alone in my life. I might live alone, but I was rarely there on my own. I was rarely there period. Rehearsals, matinee shows, and evening performances all took up most of my waking hours.
    Shit.
    Rehearsals.
    ‘I have to go to work,’ I said. ‘I’m late for rehearsal.’
    ‘I think your colleagues would be rather alarmed to see you.’
    ‘What?’ I looked at him again and he returned my look calmly.
    ‘You have not been at work for five weeks, maybe more.’
    ‘Five
weeks
? Why?’ Horror filled me afresh at this new information.
    ‘It is rather unusual for dead people to continue with their former careers in my experience.’
    ‘There you go again with the dead people crap,’ I muttered. ‘Can I have a mirror?’
    ‘I fear a mirror will not be of any use to you.’
    ‘Why?’
I wish someone would give me my brain back
 …
    ‘Vampires cast neither reflections nor shadows.’
    ‘Yeah right,’ I said bitterly. ‘If I
believed
in vampires, which for your information, I
don’t
.’
    ‘How terribly unfortunate for us both.’ An amused tone had crept into his deep voice.
    So it seemed I’d lost my job, as well as being imprisoned by a blood-drinking, vampire-obsessed psychopath, plus I could never put makeup on again because I didn’t have a reflection, apparently. Nothing left for me then. He had obviously been removing my identity … or something … for ages. Wasn’t there a film about that too? I held my head in my hands, trying to keep track of the frantic thoughts as they whirled around.
    ‘Who or
what
are you?’
    ‘You may call me Will.’
    ‘I can think of things I’d rather call you,’ I replied. ‘So
what
are you? You say you aren’t a lunatic, so what are you? Serial killer? Rapist? Or just a pervert?’
    He walked towards me again, and I scuttled up the bed away from him.
    ‘I am your sire. Your maker, if you like,’ he began. ‘Like you, I too am a vampire, although I have been a vampire for over three hundred years.’
    ‘You need to get out more,’ I shook my head again. ‘Take my advice and ditch the horror DVDs, they’re melting your psycho brain.’
    ‘I understand that this is rather a lot to take in,’ he said. ‘But I would appreciate it if you would stop referring to me as either psychotic or perverted.’
    ‘Well
I’d
appreciate not being kidnapped and shut in this filthy hole.’
    ‘
Touché
.’
    Will moved away from me, then turned suddenly to pin me with his emerald gaze.
    ‘It is imperative that you feed soon,’ he said, his voice still calm but with a thread of something else in it now. It sounded like fear … but no … surely it couldn’t be.
    ‘And if I won’t?’ I looked down at the red stain on the floor again.
    ‘You will not survive.’
    ‘Is that a threat?’ I asked.
    ‘Fact.’
    ‘I will not drink blood.’
    ‘I am very much afraid you will have to.’
    I did look up at him then. He still held the phial in his left hand.
    ‘I have no idea who or what the hell you are, but I am not drinking blood, you—you disgusting pervert!’ My voice rose to a near hysterical scream at the end of the sentence. I could feel tears fill my eyes again, which threatened to fall, and I struggled to prevent them.
    He sighed and bent to retrieve the stopper from the phial. After he had replaced it, he slipped the