Woot!  Tuesday wrote chapter four this week and it’s wicked cool!

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Her heart pounded with every step she took. Ba boom. Ba boom. Ba boom. Each step echoed through her mind as Isis ran for her life. Sweat coated her flesh and slid down her skin in thin rivulets of water. It wasn’t until she was forced to run through the club that Isis realized just how large In Darkness was.

Each foot she took seemed to take an eon. She moved to the right, sliding past an arguing couple.

Two vampires. The man would rather be hunting. The female was determined to spend the night dancing.

Isis envied her as she glided through an open doorway which lead to a smaller, more private dance floor.

The door had barely closed behind her when she heard his voice. She hadn’t run far enough, fast enough.

“Why do you run when you know you’ll be caught?” His voice was dark, deep, and painfully seductive.

Isis pushed aside the need she felt as she listened to the intoxicating tone of his words and reached behind her. Her hands shook as she tightened her fingers around the cool metal door knob.

She swallowed thickly. “Running is natural when you are faced with death.”

“Is it?” He took a step forward, just one step and yet it felt as though he stood right before her. He was calling out to her. The very essence of his being demanded she come to him. She fought it off and focused on what she wanted, no needed.

She rotated her wrist. A cool sense of calm flowed through her when the knob turned in her grip.

“Don’t you believe life is worth living?” She answered his question with her own. She spoke the words as she finished turning the doorknob. The final click of the release was covered by her statement.

A statement that had caught him off guard. He stilled, hard, chiseled face frozen with confusion. “No, I do not believe that life is worth living.” He said the statement so matter of fact. It was as though he was telling her what time it was.

His veiled pain broke off a little piece of her heart.

“Every life is worth living.” Isis threw the words over her shoulder before ripping the door open and running out of the room.  Her feet pounded the ground as she made her way through the club, zigzagging through couples, whipping past small groups of friends and avoiding strangers to make her way to the front of the club.

Exit.

The red, brightly lit sign called out to her as adrenaline pumped thick and hot through her veins. She took in a deep sigh of relief when she saw that the thick door stood open. Her release was at hand. Her heart rate increased with every step she took. And then she did it. She was over the threshold.

Cool air moved over her skin, lifted the dark strands of her hair as she ran the outer length of the goth club. She groaned when pain laced her side. A stitch.

She had to fight past it. She had to ignore the ache and keep going.

He came out of nowhere, stepping from the shadows to stand right before her.

Isis ran straight into his hard chest. She bounced back and her bottom hit the floor. “Shit.”

He reached down and grabbed her arms, lifting her to her feet. Isis found her back against the cool, hard, cement wall. Vincent pressed his body up against hers. She could feel every inch of him. His rock hard chest. The sculpted planes of his flat stomach. The corded muscles of his long thick thighs. And the bulge between them.

She took in a deep breath.

It was meant to calm her.

With the soft act she took in his scent, a dizzying combination of male, need, and danger. It was anything but calming.

“This running thing has got to stop.”

She licked her lips slowly. His gaze lowered to her mouth and he watched the slow glide of her tongue across her lower lip. Her heart pounded in her chest.

Isis could feel the need that coated every inch of his hard frame, deepen, become stronger.

“Fine, then get it over with.” She spit the words out through her clenched teeth. The truth was she was tired. Tired of running. Tired of living in the shadows. Tired of waiting for death to come to her.

Vincent leaned forward and brushed his lips across her cheek. She shivered, took a breath and brought her knee up. His large rough palm caught her knee before it collided with his balls.

She was tired, yes. But she wasn’t so exhausted she was going to give up living.

“Somebody’s been a bad, bad girl.”

He slowly lowered her leg, gliding his fingers up her thigh, caressing her as the callused pads of his fingers danced upon the leather pants she wore. She shuddered when they reached the area where hip met thigh.

Her lips parted as she sucked in air. Her gaze lifted to his. He moved closer to her. Less than a step, but it made all the difference. She could feel his very heartbeat.

“Are you going to do it or not?”

She hated the wait. Isis had never been one for patience and that wasn’t about to stop in the handsome face of death.

“I haven’t decided. It seems so wrong to kill something so pure, so beautiful.”

Her eyes widened as his words rolled over her, sunk deep beneath her skin. She hated him almost immediately. Her arms swung up in an ark. Both hands landed on his shoulders in a chopping style just as she brought up her right knee. This time she made contact. With both his shoulders and gut.

He groaned and grabbed her arms. With a tight jerk he pulled them down to her side. Vincent spun then around in a circle knocking her back against the wall. Forcing the breath from her chest with the impact.

“Two for two, somebody’s batting a hundred.”

She glared at him.

Vincent was playing games with her. Isis knew exactly what he was, what he was capable of. He was unlike anyone she’d ever read before. He was part shadow dweller, part succubus, and part vampire.

“What are you waiting for? Do it! Do what you do!”

He smiled. “And what is it that I do?”

Her glare hardened. “You know exactly what you’re capable of.”

“Hmmm, Sola told me about you. Special, aren’t you? You’re supposed able to see other’s powers, their capabilities. Must be a bitch.”

She blinked at him.

He waited for her. Finally, she spoke. “It has its bad days.”

“Like today.”

“Yes.”

“You know what death at my hands means.”

It was a statement, not a question. Still, she felt the need to answer. “Yes, it’s not actually death. Not in the sense most people think.”

Vincent was part shadow dweller. The embrace of a shadow dweller meant both death and condemnation. Once a human was embraced by a shadow dweller, their souls joined their ranks of the Dwellers. The dead were forced to live among the shadows and remain in limbo forever. It was death and yet a fate worse than it at the same time.

Isis knew she was walking to her death when she went to visit Sola. Death she could accept. Death at Sola’s hands had been preferable to life at the mercy of the man her family had sold her to. But living as a Shadow Dweller with no soul was another thing.

She’d take her own life or run forever before she became a shadow.

Vincent watched her, intense eyes roaming over the planes of her face before returning to hold her own gaze. “You do have the gift of sight, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Such a shame that your death will be on my hands.”

He leaned low and pressed his lips to hers. Her mouth opened automatically, allowing his thrusting tongue access to the deepest recesses of her mouth. Vincent took her what she offered, kissing her like a man starved. His tongue moved her tongue to tangle with hers, coax her into a dance.

He pulled back when they were both breathing hard. “You are dangerous, young seer.”

She stared at him as she tried to capture her breath. She did not know what to say in response to his words, in response to the smoldering heat she saw in his eyes.

He took two steps away from her. “Do you know what I am?”

“Isis!” She turned at the sound of her named yelled at the top of a man’s lungs. Her gaze caught sight of a small mob. Over half a dozen men watched her with disgust filled eyes. Her gaze widened as she took them in. Her family had sent reinforcements.

The man in the middle, the leader, a werewolf took a step forward. The crowd followed.

They’d been sent to drag her back to him if Vincent failed.

She looked around her wildly and caught Vincent’s watchful gaze. “I’ve made promises to Sola, but I can choose to keep my hands clean.”

Let the men her family had hired drag her away and possible kill her while trying to subdue her. Let the mob kill her or take her back.

She considered running, but Isis knew she could not outrun a werewolf, let alone the rest of the crowd. Especially when she was already exhausted from running from Vincent. She needed help.

“Or?”

“Can you tell me what I am?”

“Yes.”

He gave her that smile that she was already coming to know. “Then take my hand.”

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Wanna read chapters one through three?  Pop over to the In Darkness site!  www.indarkness.literalseduction.com

Ce