EXCERPT - City by Night

Chapter Three : Villains are Only Sexy on the Other Side of the Screen

The one thing Mary has forgotten—or maybe the one thing that she's never bothered to remember—is that vampires are, ultimately, monsters.

Hungry, powerful, scary monsters.

When she wakes to find Antonio standing in Richmond's living room, glaring down at her, she is very immediately reminded. For the first time in her life, Mary feels like prey. Something small and old deep in the back of her brain recalls what it's like to be at the bottom of the food chain, to be hunted by things with sharper teeth, sharper senses, and sharper claws.

Antonio is a glorious Italian monster, with long dark hair, thick dark lashes, and dusky dark skin. The actor, Larry Byrne, was born in Vancouver and has to take weekly accent lessons. He goes tanning a lot, and wears falsies on set.

Before Mary can even register enough to take a breath to scream, Richmond is launching himself at Antonio with a dramatic, "No!"

Antonio ducks out of the way and lets Richmond's own momentum carry him into the stone wall opposite. Mary winces as Richmond ricochets and hits the ground hard.

"What is this, Richmon?" Antonio asks, rolling the "r" of Richmond's name in a sinister, delicious way that makes Mary shiver. His black eyes pin her to the sofa. "Another urchin? How many do you plan on adopting, Richmon? Or have you finally come to your senses and this one is for me?"

"Don't touch her!" Richmond screams from the floor, and Mary wonders why he doesn't just stand up and wallop Antonio back. Yes, moaning from the floor is nice and dramatic for a plot line, but this is Mary's life here! The hero can get up and start saving it any second now!

There's no reason not to. Oh, unless she's been cast as the starlet of the week? They die a lot. Mary doesn't like that thought, so she deliberately stops thinking it. Instead, she starts thinking about how to escape.

"Leave her alone!" Richmond howls.

Antonio, of course, does the exact opposite of what Richmond wants, he always has, and leans right down into Mary's personal space, arms folded thoughtfully behind his back, hair a black sheet, cascading off his shoulders as he gets closer. Mary shrinks back against the arm of the sofa and wonders why on Earth she ever thought Antonio in person would be sexy.

He's not sexy, he's freaking terrifying!

There's something about him, the dark masculine alpha dog menace that he exudes like a miasma, the preciseness of his almost clockwork-like movements, which are all that break up his deathly stillness. Richmond, at least, feels like he used to be human—but Antonio doesn't feel like anything but a creature, a thing. It's cloying and heavy and it just doesn't bleed through the television screen. His mere presence presses down on her, and she wishes there was a screen between them now.

Antonio is a fiend. Antonio was a fiend before he ever died.

He did things...he was a celebrated soldier and a selfish politician, yes, one of the most famous lovers of all time...but generous, kind, and considerate? Pretty much the opposite. Antonio has never hesitated when it comes to taking what—or who—he wants. He has always liked the fighters, the screamers...the ones who cry, "No." It's more fun when they break.

The overwhelming presence of Antonio makes Mary want to scream. It makes her want to roll over and expose her belly like a submissive puppy in the hopes that pleasing him will grant her mercy. It makes her want to curl up and cry.

Mary takes a deep breath, screws up her courage. She dredges up what little alpha-ness she has of her own, and clutches it tight.

"Erm," Mary says. Antonio doesn't move back, doesn't stop the slow invasion into her personal bubble, just plants his hands on either side of her shoulders and nudges his nose up under the curve of her jaw. His breath is freezing against her skin, and she feels every pore contract in horror. "Signor Antonio..."