She didn’t relax. Nor did she stop visually searching the yard behind him.
“I meant I was hunting in the area and . . . was passing by on my way home and just thought I’d . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Ah, hell. I suck at this.”
“Suck at what?”
“I wasn’t hunting nearby,” he admitted. “I was hunting forty miles away. But I can’t stop thinking about you and wanted to see you again.” Bending, he retrieved what he hoped she would see as a romantic gesture. When he straightened, he held a newspaper in one hand and a stainless steel coffeepot in the other. He offered her a sheepish smile. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Heather bit her lip. And he did think he saw a little Aww, how sweet enter her pretty brown eyes.
Stepping closer, he leaned against the door frame opposite her. “I’m afraid I don’t really know how to do this.”
He heard her heartbeat pick up. “Do what?”
“Date. I haven’t tried to court a woman in about a century. I don’t know how to get things going and can’t ask Ed or he’ll never let me live it down.” Damned if he didn’t feel like a teenager with his first crush.
Her throat moved in a swallow. “You want to date me?”
“If dating you means spending lots of time with you, getting to know you, and exploring every inch of your delectable body as soon as you’re ready to take things further, then yes. I really want to date you.” He held up his goodies. “I remembered your neighbor with the newspaper analogy and . . .” He released a rueful chuckle. “As I said, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even like coffee. I just liked the idea of it and wanted to see you again.”
“Oh, Ethan. It’s perfect.”
His heart leapt.
“But I really wish you hadn’t come.” Stepping back, Heather opened the door.
Disappointment struck. “Why?” He had been so sure she’d felt the same spark.
She brought the hand he hadn’t realized she had been hiding behind her back around and raised a Walther PPQ 9mm. “Because I dreamed you would.”
As Ethan gaped down at her, she pulled the trigger.
The coffeepot Ethan held clattered to the floor as he jerked his head to one side and ducked the bullet Heather fired.
Just as she had dreamed every night for a week, vampires poured from the foliage that bordered her front yard.
Heather squeezed the trigger again and again, striking vampires in the chest to slow them down, then hitting them in the major arteries.
Ethan swore and drew two sais. “Get inside!” he shouted as he turned and tore into the vampires who made it to the front porch.
“It won’t do any good!” She ejected her empty magazine, drew another from the substantial pile she had stacked on the table just inside the door, slammed it home, and advanced the first bullet into the chamber.
“The hell it won’t!”
Warm blood slapped Heather in the face as Ethan’s blade slid across the throat of a vampire determined to get past him. Gasping, she wiped her eyes and mouth with her sleeve and fired her Walther. Again and again and again until she’d emptied the magazine.
One of Ethan’s large hands, still curled around the grip of a sai, touched her chest and gave her a shove.
As Heather stumbled backward, he caught the door with two fingers and swung it closed, shutting himself outside with over a dozen vampires. “Call Chris! His number is on the contract you signed!”
Heather tripped and landed on her ass with a curse. Scrambling to her feet, she lunged for the table and grabbed another magazine. A vampire crashed through one of the front windows as she slammed the full mag home and racked the slide.
Glowing blue eyes turned her way as the vampire picked himself up off her floor and flashed deadly fangs.
“Oh shit.” Heather fired her 9mm before the vamp had the foresight to leap forward.
Crimson liquid sprayed from his jugular, splattering the walls and floor and furniture as he brought his hands up to his throat and staggered around the room.
A second vampire catapulted himself through the window. Then a third.
Outside, Ethan swore. “Heather!”
“I’m okay!” she shouted. “Just stay out there!”
Please, stay out there, she silently entreated as she emptied her magazine into the vampires, ejected it, and slammed another full mag home.
Adrenaline—fueled by pure panic—flooded Ethan’s veins, lending him even greater strength and speed. He didn’t fear for his own safety. He feared for Heather’s, knowing what would undoubtedly happen to her if he didn’t live.
How many fucking vampires were there? Two dozen? Three?
Where were they all coming from? And why the fuck were they there?
He had lost count of the number he had struck down, but the bodies shriveling up at his feet began to pile up enough to trip the vampires clamoring toward him. Were his back not up against the house, Ethan would not have survived an attack by so many. The fact that the vampires could only come at him from three directions instead of four helped, but Ethan was a young immortal. Not as powerful as the elders. The odds of him defeating this many vampires were slim to none.
A fourth vampire dove through the front window.
Ethan swore and hurled a sai at a fifth who sought to follow, nailing him in the heart. Palming one of the many daggers inside his coat, Ethan continued to fight and wished like hell he were telepathic and could call out to Seth or Zach or any immortal nearby to come to his aid.
Gunshots resumed inside. Two bullets burst from the wood to Ethan’s left and embedded themselves in one of the vampires he fought. Ethan hoped like hell Heather wouldn’t accidentally shoot him while she fended off the vamp inside.
The sound of glass shattering warned Ethan that vampires had found another way in.
Why were they so intent on getting to Heather? What the hell?
Kicking open the door behind him, Ethan backed inside. “Heather?”
“I told you to stay outside!” she shouted, steadily firing her weapon.
A vampire rushing in from the back of the house dropped.
Ethan kept backing up until he was within a few feet of Heather. Close enough, he hoped, to help her fend off the steady stream of vampires intent on reaching her.
Another window shattered, behind them this time.
Heather grunted.
Heart stopping, Ethan sliced at his two foremost opponents and spun around.
A vampire had come up behind Heather and locked his arms around her. As Ethan turned, the vampire lowered his head and buried his fangs in her neck.
Heather cried out. Pain and tears filled the brown eyes that met and held his.
A vampire’s bite didn’t generate the erotic pleasure found in so many movies and books. Instead, it would have felt like someone had just stabbed Heather with two large needles.
As Ethan took a step toward her, she jerked the hand holding her weapon up, pressed the barrel to the vampire’s forehead, and fired.
“No!” Ethan roared, afraid the vamp would tear her throat out.
The vampire’s head jerked. Abandoning his hold on her, he stumbled back a step and raised a hand to the hole in his forehead.
Heather turned to face him and shot the vampire again. And again. Until he dropped.
Agony streaked through Ethan’s right side as a vampire’s blade pierced it. Another blade sliced across his left hamstring. Growling in pain, he staggered forward and turned to again swing his blades at the bastards.
A fucking machete cut across his stomach.
Ethan’s speed slowed. His strength began to wane as blood poured from his wounds.
He needed to end this. Now. Or he wouldn’t be able to. Not with the wounds he was racking up and the blood he was losing.
Ethan did his damnedest to push the vampires back, away from Heather, who somehow managed to remain lucid enough to aid him, firing her weapon whenever he didn’t block her aim.
Beneath the steady barrage of her bullets and Ethan’s blades, the vampires’ numbers began to dwindle. Soon Ethan found himself fighting the last three vampires.
His breath came in short gasps, each feeling like a blade burying itself in his chest. He swung his sai, struck a femoral artery. Threw a dagger, pierced a brachial artery.
One vampire down. Two more to go.
Barely able to remain upright, Ethan heard Heather’s 9mm fall silent after a series of clicks. Was she out of magazines?
Her gun sailed over his shoulder and struck a vampire in the forehead.
Ethan would take that as a yes.
One of the vampires who faced Ethan nearly matched him in height. The other was several inches shorter. Both, thanks to the many injuries Ethan now sported, surpassed him in speed and strength.
As Ethan fended off the attack of the taller vampire, the other one left his peripheral vision. The taller vamp’s blade cut across Ethan’s chest half a second before Ethan cut the vampire’s throat.
A weight struck Ethan’s back. Stumbling forward, he turned . . . and felt his heart stop.
Heather stared up at him with eyes full of pain, the tip of a long blade sticking out of her stomach.
The second vampire had circled around to come up behind Ethan and Heather . . .
She must have thrown herself between them to keep the vampire from stabbing him.
“What have you done?” he whispered, horror stealing what breath remained in his body.
The vampire behind her directed a smile full of malice at Ethan over her shoulder, then yanked the blade out of her.