Darkness Rises(11)

She should be furious. Frightened. Instead, she felt as excited as she would on a first date.
Crap.
Stepping back, she withdrew her arm from his grasp.
Dropping his hand, he tilted his head and studied her with those entrancing amber eyes.
Yeah, he was hot all right.
Short, midnight hair glinted in the moonlight. Faint stubble shadowed a strong jaw. Straight nose. Broad shoulders. What was clearly a well-developed, muscular build beneath a black T-shirt that clung to him courtesy of the vampire blood that saturated its front. Slim waist. Slim hips. All revealed by the gap in the long, black coat he wore.
She didn’t let her gaze stray farther. The last thing she wanted to do while facing him was blush like a schoolgirl if he had a nice package.
His tempting lips stretched in a slow smile.
 

 

Usually, the minds of mortals were revoltingly easy for Étienne to read. Krysta’s thoughts, for some reason, were proving rather elusive, although he had caught something about his package.
He grinned.
Her pretty brown eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
He performed a gallant bow and offered his hand. “Étienne d’Alençon.”
She raised one eyebrow. “If you think I’m going to put away my weapons, think again.”
He had expected no less from this bewitching warrior. “As you wish.”
She motioned to the clothes of the vampire he hadn’t had time to discard. “What happened here?”
“Exactly what you think happened.” He had taken out the vampires who had fallen for her ruse, damn her and her insistence on putting herself in danger.
“You killed a vampire?”
“Three actually.”
“Where are the other two?”
“Deteriorating on the roof.”
Her gaze darted to the building beside them, up to the edge of the roof, then returned to him. “You fought them up there?”
“No. Down here.”
“And you—what—carried them up there?”
“Threw them. Two of them, anyway. I didn’t have time to toss the last one before you arrived.” Again, he smiled. “You’re very fast for a mortal.”
As she stared up at him, he tried again to read her thoughts and couldn’t. Was she a gifted one like her brother? If so, what was her gift? Neither had referenced it the night he had followed them home. And he hadn’t seen her demonstrate one.
“Why did you kill them?” she asked. “Are you guys engaged in some kind of turf war or something? Are they encroaching upon your territory?” Such derision and scorn. It didn’t belong in that melodic voice.
“I have no territory—not here in the States, at least—unless you count the small parcel of land upon which my current abode resides.”
“You sleep in a crypt or something?”
He laughed. “No. I like my creature comforts. And, no, I am not engaged in a turf war as you called it. I killed the vampires to protect you.”
Anger flared in her gaze. “First of all, I don’t need protecting.”
“The events that transpired the night we met suggest otherwise.”
“That was a unique situation. Vampires don’t usually travel in packs.”
“A comment that makes me wonder just how long you’ve been hunting them.” The fact that she still lived led him to believe this was a fairly new endeavor for her.
“Years,” she responded defiantly.
He may not be able to read her thoughts clearly, but he could glean enough to know she told the truth. Even so, doubt plagued him. “How many years? You can’t have seen more than twenty-five in your lifetime.”
“Twenty-seven, not that it’s any of your business. And I’ve hunted vampires for six of those.”
Astonishment gripped him. This fragile, mortal woman had hunted and fought vampires for six years and survived to tell the tale? With no help from the network?
So much had been happening in North Carolina in recent years: The uprisings. The battles. And she had hunted vampires through it all?
“That’s impossible.”
“Apparently not or I wouldn’t be standing here.” She frowned. “Wait. You said them.”
“What?”
“You said them, that I had been hunting them, not us.”
He swore silently.
“What are you?”
“I have fangs. My eyes glow. I heal at an accelerated rate. And I have preternatural speed and strength. What do you think I am?” he retorted. Until he was sure she and her brother were operating independently and weren’t part of some new threat—especially not members of the mercenary group he and the others had recently defeated—he was reluctant to tell her that he was an immortal.
He had actually once been like her brother: a gifted one, or mortal born with special abilities stemming from advanced DNA, before he had been infected with the vampiric virus. Vampires were human before they were infected and, lacking the advanced DNA, were driven insane by the brain damage it caused.