Night's Promise(43)

“After you.”

Fear shadowed the hunter’s eyes for the first time. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know if you let me go.”

A faint scuffle warned Derek that the first hunter had regained consciousness. He turned in time to deflect the knife aimed at his back. The blade scraped along his forearm. It stung like hell. Grabbing the man by his arm, Derek threw him down the street. There was a sickening thud when the hunter skidded, headfirst, into a brick wall. The coppery scent of blood rose in the air.

The red-haired vampire looked up at Derek. “Are you through questioning him?”

Derek stared at the hunter. “Depends on whether he has any answers for me.”

The hunter cleared his throat. “What do you want to know?”

“Who are you? Why are you here? Did someone send you?”

“My name’s Ashby. I was hunting vampires when I came across these two in the Den.” The fact that he found it hard to believe the two old ladies were vampires, or that they had taken him down, was evident in his voice. “I followed them here.”

“You weren’t after me?”

Ashby shook his head.

“You’re lying,” Derek said. “Who sent you?”

Ashby shook his head again, harder this time, as if that would convince them he was telling the truth.

Derek glanced at the red-haired vampire, who sank her fangs into the hunter’s neck.

The hunter let out a shriek. “McDonald’s after Mara! Word on the street says she’s willing to lay down a lot of credits for information regarding Mara’s whereabouts.”

The redhead reared back. Delicately wiping a bit of blood from the corner of her mouth, she looked at the other woman, then at the hunter. “Lou McDonald?”

The hunter nodded.

The white-haired vampire shook her head. “I would have thought she’d be retired by now.”

“Who’s McDonald?” Derek asked.

“Only one of the most dangerous slayers in the world.”

Derek grunted softly. And then he stared at the two old women, wondering why he hadn’t put two and two together sooner. He didn’t know the redhead’s name, but there was a connection between them that he didn’t understand. “Which one are you?” he asked. “Edna or Pearl?”

“We never meant you any harm,” the redhead said. “It was purely research.”

“Be quiet, dear,” the other woman said.

“Hush, Pearl.” The redhead smiled at Derek. “I’m Edna. I only drank from you so I could find you again.”

“Why would you care where I was or what happened to me?”

“Because of the werewolf gene, of course,” she replied, as if he wasn’t too bright. “Didn’t your mother tell you about it?”

“Yeah, she told me. You’re lucky she wants you alive, or you’d be history now.”

Edna swallowed hard, thinking that, at the moment, Derek looked even more dangerous than his infamous mother.

“Stay the hell out of my sight,” Derek said. “Both of you. And get rid of that body down the street.”

Edna nodded, then glanced at the hunter trapped beneath her and Pearl. “What shall we do with this one?”

“Whatever you want,” Derek muttered darkly, and left them there, the hunter’s cries for help ringing in his ears.





Derek spent the rest of the evening in Sheree’s bedroom. Sitting in a chair by the window, he watched her sleep, wondering what the future held for the two of them. Wondering what would happen to him during the next full moon. He wasn’t afraid of changing into a wolf. He could do that now. But a werewolf? Would he become one of the monsters so popular in the movies? A slavering, bloodthirsty creature who terrorized the countryside, killing indiscriminately? Would his werewolf form be different from the wolf he could assume at will? When he shape-shifted, he remembered who and what he was. Would that be true in werewolf form? Would he recognize those he knew, or attack them without mercy?

He glanced at Sheree, sleeping peacefully, one hand tucked beneath her chin. What was he doing bringing her into his life? What if he killed her? There was no way he’d ever be able to live with that. Maybe he was worrying needlessly. Maybe, come the full moon, nothing would happen. His father had carried the werewolf gene with no ill effects. Hopefully, his son would also be spared.

He sensed the coming of dawn even before the first faint rays of sunlight lightened the sky. It manifested itself in a sudden prickling in every nerve and cell in his body, a tingling that would become excruciating if he was caught in full sunlight.

He brushed a kiss across Sheree’s cheek before he left the house.