vampireinthebasement by Crymsyn Hart Read Free Book Online Page B

gym with all the workout equipment and the showers. Daniella had discovered another room with a fridge in it. Exhaustion for being awake during the day and the power she sensed around the house weighed on her. That was when she had decided to lie down on the cot and all hell had broken loose.
    Tris turned slowly and glanced back at her over his shoulder. “How is your hand?”
    She was stunned to hear the question coming from him. “Fine. Why?”
    “You took my silver knife. It must have seared your flesh. Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
    Daniella glanced at her palm and where she had grabbed the weapon. The skin was still raw, and it had not healed. The throb in her temples had turned into an ache, and her gums tingled once more. Soon the twisting cramps of the hunger would invade her body, and she would not be able to move. How am I going to tell this behemoth I need to eat? I’m sure he’s really going to go for that, considering he hates vampires anyway. Yeah, so, I need to sink my fangs into someone. Can you run down to the corner mart and pick me up a clerk or two? I might be able to put it off for a while, but if we keep going at it this way then even my ability to hold out from drinking is going to run out soon. I’m not going to show him either. But is he trying to be nice to me? Maybe I should ask. “I’m fine,” she forced herself to say. “No need for you to worry about little old me. I know even asking me if I’m okay is out of your comfort zone.”
    Tris grunted and stomped up the steps. She figured he would slam the door on her again, but he did not. Instead the soft click of the latch went into place, and his footfalls walked away from the entrance to the basement. His words echoed through her mind about her parents. What man would rightly have sex with a succubus? Maybe he didn’t know. Daniella did not know who her parents were. Ever since she could remember she had been in foster care, tossed around from house to house, living with only a couple of families who truly cared for her. One had wanted to adopt her, but something happened and they had moved away, leaving her with the neighbors across the street until the county had picked her up. Their faces were only a blur in her mind now. All the families after that did not give a flying fuck about her and only wanted her for the monthly income she would bring in. Daniella had been lucky and never had anyone who had tried anything with her, but when she was sixteen she ran away with her boyfriend at the time. They had driven halfway across the country before she was caught and transported back to the state. She got lost to the system. Daniella knew better than to get into drugs. The only thing she had were her wits and her body. On a break, she had gotten hired at a sleazy strip joint and became a popular dancer at seventeen.
    Daniella thought about all the hands grabbing at her and waving dollar bills in her face so she would come over and dance for the greasy men. Their pawing at her had annoyed her, but it was the assumptions she would sleep with the clients that really got to her. Finally, she saved up enough money, got her GED, and thought about going into college, only she needed more money to do that so she kept on dancing. Five years later, she met Balthus .
    His proposition for forever had sounded like a wonderful idea. She could go to night school and get any degree she wanted because she had forever. She would be with others of her own kind, those he had rescued from the street. Prostitutes, junkies, other strippers who were going nowhere, but Balthus had seen potential in her. Maybe it was the succubus part of her he had seen. Was that what made her special? Was it because she was slightly different than the other vampires and could not ride the shadows or that her hunger was something she could resist? She had been asking herself these questions over and over again, but no answer came to her mind. Instead she slumped down onto