She stopped struggling and looked to where the dark figure in a black cloak and hood strolled out of the darkness. The dark figure walked directly at them. He pushed aside the dark material as he pulled out a wickedly curved knife right there in front of the store.
“Now!” Draven yelled and started to pull her into the parking lot.
The man Bryna could only assume to be the Wraith jammed the stunned vampire in the chest with the metal blade, jerked it up, and twisted. Bryna covered her face with her hands. No matter how many times she saw a vampire turned into dust, it was still very disturbing. There was the hiss and then the rapid burning of flesh and bone.
She shuddered when a group of people standing around them started clapping. She dropped her hands to stare up at the hooded figure looking at her with glowing eyes. Peanut butter and pickles! Everyone thought this was some show because of Shawn’s book. Her hands fisted at her sides, and she gave her best rendition of a sweet smile to the man she was assuming was Wraith, but hadn’t actually confirmed yet. “I’ll be right back.”
She marched herself back into the book store and snatched a book up off one of the tables. She was going to find out what that idiot put into this book. Then she was going to make him tell everyone he’d stolen the idea and was a fraud. She wasn’t exactly sure what she’d be able to threaten him with, but since she had this newly dark figure looming over her—one who hadn’t killed her, but the freaky vampire trying to enthrall her. She might be able to figure something out. She shook her head and focused on not focusing on the massive figure following her up to the cash register. She needed to get this little issue of Shawn’s latest book out of the way before she went into critical core meltdown tomorrow afternoon.
She wasn’t going to acknowledge the figure next to her. She wasn’t. He was supposed to kill vampires and then fade away. Damn it, why wasn’t he fading? She shuddered again when he brushed up against her in the line, because he had this feeling of safety. That was bad.
She didn’t deserve to feel safe. Not after the way she’d killed Vincent, and she would take it to the grave with her, if she could ever actually get herself there.
“He’s cool,” the cashier said. She was a pretty little blonde who looked so innocent and sweet it made Bryna’s chest hurt. She used to be that girl, a lifetime ago. Instead of snapping at the girl, she forced another smile. “Yeah, he’s just a little too involved in Shawn Duke’s vampire world. This is his birthday present,” she added as an afterthought. She paid the woman and then briskly walked out of the store. She stepped around the pile of dust that was slowly blowing into the parking lot. Eww. Vampire guts would be all over this place soon. She wouldn’t be able to shop here again until after it rained.
When she got to her car, the Wraith opened the driver’s side door for her with an eloquent bow of his hooded head and hand gesture.
“You’re not coming with me. You’re supposed to vanish after you kill vampires, I thought.”
“Only when the vampire I killed is the only threat an innocent faces,” he murmured in a deep bone-warming tone that was so familiar it had tears stinging her eyes, and yet, she couldn’t quite place it.
“I’m not an innocent.”
He leaned down so that his concealed face was close to the side of hers. “You are. More than you realize.”
She jerked back and dropped the book. He stooped down and picked it up for her. Heat tingled in her fingers and spread upward when his hand brushed against hers. “Th-thank you,” she stammered. “But I can make it home on my own from here.”
*
“You are not safe, Bryna,” Vincent murmured. Part of him wanted to throw back his hood and let her see his scarred face, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate having this happen in a very open and very public place. She deserved a hell of a lot from him. Dragging her emotions up and spilling them out for the world to see wasn’t any way for him to behave after what he’d done to her the last time.
“That’s nothing unusual,” she muttered as she maneuvered around the door so it was between them.
He gritted his teeth together. He wasn’t sure he was going to survive her guilt a second time around, when this time he knew she was so far from guilty it made his bones ache. “I am supposed to convince you of the importance of your life.”
She snorted hard. “I didn’t think—whatever you are—played practical jokes on people.”
“This is no joke, sunshine. I will not hurt you.”
Her little body went rigid. “Keep your endearments to yourself. I don’t need them.” Her words were laced with bitterness. “Go home.”
“Think of it as a free chance to sleep without nightmares,” he offered.
Her eyes narrowed on him. “How could you possibly know that?”
He put up his arms in an over exaggerated shrug. “I am the Wraith. You know me and what I am. Would I still be here if there wasn’t a danger?”
Her eyes rolled. “I didn’t say there wasn’t danger. I’m just saying you’re wasting your time.”
His jaw clenched. “A pulse cannot kill the living. Now we have to get out—”
She let out a small noise and then finished for him, “—out of here.”
He bristled. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but he should have expected for the demon to show up. If she said they needed to move, they needed to do it now or he was going to be starting all over again way too soon. He reached out and hooked his arm around her. “Just close your eyes and hold an image of me in your head.”
“What?” she demanded in a high tone.
“Just do it.”
She snapped her eyes closed and turned her face into him. Then he flashed. Bryna coughed and sputtered as they appeared in her apartment. She shoved away from him and then turned to look around her apartment. She did a whole body shudder. “Yeah, great, no more demon, what the hell was that?”
Vincent’s mouth curved even though his hood still concealed his face. “Sorry about that. We call it a flash. One moment I’m in one place and the next, where I want to be.”
Her head bobbed as she went to the threadbare two-seater couch and sat down. “Warn me next time. I don’t think I travel that way well.” Then she jumped up to her feet. “Can the demon track it?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean it still cannot find you.” He took a step back to give her more space. His eye was starting to twitch. The more he thought about showing her who he really was, the more his stomach turned. Perhaps it was better to tell her she couldn’t have killed him in the way she thought she did. Then make her safe without her ever knowing he’d saved her life. To show up and then abandon her again seemed cruel, and he didn’t like it one damn bit.
She eyed him for a moment before she nodded slowly. “Do you think I can skate under its radar for the next day? I have something very important to do tomorrow.”
Shit. He’d forgotten. His birthday. “We’ll see, but you have to let me know the second you feel anything so I can move you.” His jaw tightened. He hated melodrama, even when it was the truth. “I have to keep you alive. Your death brings about the apocalypse.”
Her face scrunched up, and then she started to laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Really? I can’t see how that’s possible.”
“Look, I don’t know why, I just know that it does. You did not cause Vincent’s death. It was a piece of iron across his face that delivered the death blow.”
*
Bryna went perfectly still everywhere. So still she wasn’t sure her heart was even beating. “How do you know that?”
Wraith paced the length of her living room for a nervous minute before he turned his hooded face to her. “I am not with the living.” His soul-soothing voice went pained.
Bryna jumped up and rushed over to this strange and imposing man. She curled her hands into the fabric of the cloak he wore and tugged. “You know him? Is he okay? Does he know I didn’t mean to kill him?” She let go of him and moved back several paces and whispered, “Does he know I still love him?”
He moved forward and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not sure it is wise to answer any of your questions, but you did not kill him. This above all things he wanted to make sure you understood.”
Again with the voice that was making her want to snuggle up to him and demand he never leave—and she didn’t snuggle, ever. Not anymore. This was peanut-butter-and-pickles not good. Yet, she couldn’t seem to make herself pull away from him. No good at all. The only man she’d ever not been able to shake had been Vincent, and he was ten years dead.
Her brain was still trying to wrap around what he was saying. “Wait a second. I didn’t kill him?”
“No.” This time his voice went raw. “A pulse is designed to send those who’ve already met death into Oblivion.”
She let out several slow breaths before she nodded and scurried past him and toward the kitchen. “But he died.” She didn’t want to think about that night. It still haunted her, and she wasn’t going to rehash any of the events—ever. “So when I used the power it—”