Tease Me Thursday!

Welcome to another week of Tease Me Thursday! Here we show you 7 - seven words, seven sentences, or seven paragraphs. Read my snippet and then check out the other authors on the hop!

 

This is a snippet from my latest story, Dare to Love Forever, which is getting ready for submission. Enjoy!

 

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Carson Locke was starving. Thoughts of veins and warm blood flowing though arteries clouded his thinking. His stomach had hollowed, his bones protruded and his muscles shook from weakness. His self-control, held by a fragile thread, stretched to the breaking point. When it snapped, he’d turn into the monster he'd avoided becoming for over twenty-three years.

 

 He needed food. He needed blood. Now.

 

         Despite crouching behind a dumpster in the dark, the cold wind reached Carson, biting at his thin skin. Ten days. Ten days since he’d last eaten. Ten days too long for a young vampire. Ten days since he'd fled his home. Ten days since his mother and brother and uncle had been slaughtered and he'd run for his life. They were all dead because of what he was. Choking back a sob, he forced himself to focus on the back door of the building he’d been watching.

 

            This was his last chance. If he couldn't get the blood he needed here, that last thread of self-control would snap and he’d attack someone. The memory of the last time he'd been forced to bite—the screaming, the wide, vacant staring eyes, the nothingness—still haunted him. Carson squeezed his eyes tight and drew in several deep, steadying breaths. This task was too important to mar with past horrors he couldn’t rectify.

 

            Two women bundled against the cold and a large, dark-haired man exited the back door he’d been staking out. As the women shuffled off to their cars, the man punched numbers into a keypad, securing the door. Carson clenched his fists as the man pulled out a cigarette and patted his pockets, no doubt searching for a lighter.

 

Cigarette finally lit, the man moved toward the parking lot. Carson held his breath as the man disappeared around the corner. A siren blared in the distance, startling him. He clenched his teeth and drew air in through his nose and blew it out through his mouth. The beating of his heart threatened to fill the night air. He was terrified, but he was more hungry than scared.