Shadows Strike(27)

Heather tilted her head enough to peer around Cliff and saw a large male who could easily pass for Ethan’s brother sitting at a table across the room, reading a book. His eyes never lifted from its pages. “Are you a vampire, too?”

“Aidan is immortal,” Cliff supplied. “A very old immortal who can kick my ass without lifting a hand, so you don’t need to worry about me losing it and attacking you or anything.”

“Okay.” This was so weird.

Aidan’s lips quirked up.

Heather returned her attention to Cliff. Relaxing her guard, she peeked into his mind . . . then fought the urge to recoil. Those were some ugly, ugly thoughts. But he was doing his damnedest to eradicate the ones he could and ignore the rest.

She nodded to the earbuds. “I do that, too, sometimes. I’m telepathic. And when I’m tired or stressed, I can’t always block other people’s thoughts. Were you listening to a book or music?”

“A book.”

“Which one?”

“Walter Mosely’s latest. David gave it to me.”

“I haven’t met David.”

Cliff hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Aidan. “He’s even older than this one. And this guy’s ancient.”

“Watch it, youngster.”

When Cliff smiled again, Heather understood why it didn’t reach his world-weary eyes. The struggle he waged inside must be exhausting. He tilted his head to one side. “Are you afraid of me?”

Heather looked past him to Aidan. “Can you really kick his ass?”

Aidan slid Cliff a sly look. “Hang on to your chair, vampire.”

Cliff lowered his hands to the arms of his chair just as it leapt into the air a good four feet and spun in a circle.

Heather’s mouth dropped open.

Cliff laughed and flashed her a genuine smile, his brown eyes finally lightening. “What’d I tell ya?” His chair returned to the floor.

That was so cool! If Ethan weren’t sleeping beside her, Heather suspected she would’ve jumped up and down like a child, raised her hand, and shouted, Me next! Me next!

Aidan laughed. “I can see why Ethan likes you.”

Heather glanced at Ethan, who hadn’t moved. “How long has he been sleeping?”

“Several hours,” Cliff said. “Immortals and vampires tend to sleep deeply after we’ve been severely wounded.”

Heather took stock of her own body and felt no pain. A quick check revealed no tubes feeding her painkillers. “Are my wounds gone?”

“Yes. Seth, the leader of the Immortal Guardians, healed you with his hands, then Melanie gave you a transfusion—human blood—to replace the blood you lost.” Cliff eyed her speculatively. “Is it true that you shot a vampire in the head when he sank his fangs into your neck and tried to drain you?”

“Yyyyes,” she answered cautiously. Would Cliff be angry that she had killed a fellow vampire?

“That is awesome,” the young vampire praised.

“It is,” Aidan agreed. “I’m surprised you even remember that, having been bitten.”

“It’s a little hazy,” Heather confessed. “And I’m not sure if I’m remembering the battle last night or the dreams that came before it.”

“You should have told me about the dreams,” Ethan mumbled. Tightening his arm around her waist, he snuggled closer.

For some reason, Heather felt heat creep into her cheeks. It hadn’t bothered her to have Ethan curled up beside her while he’d slept. But now that he was awake, it seemed too intimate with the others watching.

She turned her head on the pillow and met Ethan’s piercing brown eyes. “I wanted to tell you. But in the dreams, the vampires didn’t appear until you did. I knew if I called you, you would race over to check on me. And I assumed, when you did, the dreams would come true. I thought maybe if I kept my distance, I could keep it from happening. I didn’t expect you to—”

“Come around the hedges?” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder.

Her heart skipped a beat. “Yes.”

Cliff’s forehead crinkled. “Is that a metaphor?”

Ethan laughed and turned his attention to the vampire. “Not for what you’re thinking. What are you doing here, anyway? I sense it’s still daylight.”

Cliff shrugged and pointed to his head. “Couldn’t sleep. Too much noise up there.”

Ethan pushed himself up onto one elbow. “That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

Ethan looked to Aidan. “And what are you doing here?”

“Babysitting you.”

“Well, I’m awake now, so you can go get some rest.”

“No, I can’t. The two of you aren’t to be left alone.”

Ethan frowned. “Why?”

“Ask Seth when he returns,” Aidan countered. “And don’t even try to read my thoughts, little telepath. My mental walls are far too strong for you to breach.”

Heather bit her lip. How had he known? She hadn’t intended to read all of his thoughts. She had just wanted to take a peek and find out why she and Ethan couldn’t be alone.

“It isn’t that you can’t be alone,” Aidan offered. “It’s that you can’t be left unguarded.”

“Are you reading my thoughts?” she demanded.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Weren’t you going to read mine?”

Yes, damn it.

He laughed and looked at Ethan. “Why couldn’t I be so lucky?”

Ethan sat up and ran a hand through his short, tousled hair. “Why do we need to be guarded? Does Seth think the vampires will come for us here?”

Heather watched the play of muscles in Ethan’s bare back and tried not to let it distract her. But he looked really good. Pure temptation. He was so close. So warm. And probably still hard for her beneath the blankets and the sweatpants she could now see he wore.

“Marshal your thoughts, woman,” Aidan pleaded with a comical grimace. “You’re broadcasting, and this is getting a little uncomfortable.”

Heather’s face went up in flames as Ethan glanced down at her with interest and Cliff casually raised a hand to his mouth to hide a smile.

“What exactly are you thinking?” Ethan asked, his voice still low and husky from sleep, which only made things worse. Because she could imagine him saying other things to her in that low and husky voice while he—

“Heather!” Aidan barked.

She jumped and covered her face. “I know! I’m sorry. It’s . . . the vampire’s bite. You said it contained a chemical that drugged me, right?”

“That’s been out of your system for hours,” Ethan said with a grin.

“Well . . .” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “I don’t know what to say. You’ve been in my head for a year now and then you kissed me and were all irresistible charm when we finally met—”

“Dude, you kissed her?” Cliff chimed in. “Awesome!”

Heather rambled on as though he hadn’t spoken. “Then you showed up tonight with your coffeepot and newspaper and boyish smile—”

“I thought women liked flowers and chocolates?” Aidan remarked.

“And now I wake up with you all over me and looking like”—she motioned to his gorgeously muscled chest and flat washboard abs—“that. So . . . of course I’m going to have some . . . inappropriate thoughts.”

“That is so cool,” Cliff said.

Ethan’s eyes lit with an amber glow. “Aidan?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to be in the same room with us to guard us, do you?”

Heather’s breath caught. Her pulse picked up at the heat in Ethan’s gaze.

“Sadly, I do,” Aidan countered. “But even if I didn’t, if the two of you made love in here, I and every vampire on the floor would hear you.”

“Well, screw that!” Heather blurted. She was not an exhibitionist, visually or verbally.

Cliff laughed as Aidan continued.

“And if you sought the privacy of the soundproofed room Chris recently added, I wouldn’t hear it if you were attacked.”

The glow in Ethan’s eyes faded as he turned his head and studied Aidan. “Anyone who attacked us in a room down here would have to get by you and all of Chris’s men first.”

“Not necessarily.”

Heather looked at Ethan. What did that mean?

Ethan looked as confused as she felt. “Just what the hell is going on?”





Chapter Nine

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” Ethan requested.

Seth had returned to the infirmary at sunset and, instead of letting Ethan and Heather leave, had given Heather a change of clothes he’d nabbed from her home, then teleported the two of them to Zach and Lisette’s house.

Now Ethan and Heather sat, shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip, on a living room sofa, their linked hands resting on Ethan’s thigh.

Across from them, Seth manned a wingback chair. Zach propped up the fireplace mantel, his arm curling around Lisette’s shoulders as she leaned into him. Their Second, Tracy, occupied a love seat nearby, her brow furrowed.

“The prophetic dreams Heather has been having,” Seth obligingly repeated, “were planted in her subconscious by Gershom.”

Shit. That was what Ethan had thought Seth had said.