Shadows Strike(3)

Her aim never wavered.

Unease trickled through him. “You are a Second, aren’t you?”

She inched backward, her gaze darting around the clearing as though seeking some avenue of escape.

Ah hell. “At least tell me you work for the network,” he damned near begged.

She muttered something beneath her breath. Something about a dream.

He frowned. Maybe she had hit her head when she had fallen. “Are you all right?” he asked as he raked his gaze over her. “Are you injured?” He hadn’t thought any of the vampires had touched her, but he had been distracted. If one had bitten her, it would explain her being less than lucid. The glands that formed above the fangs of vampires and immortals during their transformation released a chemical similar to GHB under the pressure of a bite.

But this woman didn’t seem drugged. She didn’t appear acquiescent. She didn’t look as though she were about to pass out. She looked alert. Very much so.

She just seemed a little . . . off.

“Miss? Are you injured?” he prompted again and took a careful step toward her.

“Who are you?” she demanded, tightening her hold on the semiautomatic until her knuckles turned white. “What are you? What are they?” She nodded at the vampires, who would soon be no more than piles of clothing once the virus that infected them devoured them from the inside out in a last, desperate bid to live.

“Please lower your weapon,” Ethan said, infusing his voice with as much calm and reassurance as he could. “I won’t hurt you.”

A laugh of disbelief escaped her before she bit her lip, brow puckering.

Hell. As much as her hands shook, she’d shoot him eventually if he didn’t take the gun away from her. Unwilling to lose more blood than he already had, Ethan leapt forward in a burst of preternatural speed and yanked the weapon from her hands.

Gasping, she stumbled backward, then turned to run.

Ethan reached the trees first and turned to face her.

She stopped short. Backed away.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated, voice soft. He could hear her heart pounding in her chest, as hard and fast as the hooves of a galloping horse.

Again biting her lip, she looked around, took in the piles of clothing where the vampires had fallen . . . and seemed to come to some decision.

Turning her back on him, she crossed to the nearest lawn light, bent, and yanked it out of the ground. She went to the next, bent, and yanked it out of the ground, then continued on to the next and the next until she had gathered every single one of them.

Puzzled, Ethan watched her. “What are you doing?”

Offering no response, she dropped the lights into a bucket he hadn’t noticed and started folding up her chair.

“Miss?”

“Heather,” she said as she knelt and started shoving the belongings scattered on the ground back into her pack. “My name is Heather, not that it matters.” As soon as she finished, she glanced up and opened her mouth—to ask for her gun back, he suspected—but apparently thought better of it and zipped the pack closed.

Rising, she looped it over her shoulder, grabbed the chair with one hand, the bucket with the other, and started toward him.

Ethan tucked her 9mm into one of the many inner pockets of his coat, then showed her his empty hands so she wouldn’t fear he would shoot her.

Such precaution proved unnecessary. Heather walked right past him and plunged into the trees.

“What are you doing?” When she didn’t answer, Ethan followed. “Heather? What are you doing? Where are you going?” He tried not to notice the sway of her shapely hips as she moved forward in smooth strides, but it had been a long damn time since he had had sex and this woman’s body, hugged so snugly by her soft jogging suit, made him want to strip her bare and—

“I’m going home,” she announced.

Ethan’s eyebrows flew up. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m going home!” she practically shouted. “I’m going home. I’m going to bed. And I’m going to wait for the damned alarm clock to wake me up.”

She really thought this was a dream?

“I don’t know why it didn’t wake me up this time. It always wakes me up at the same point in the dream. Every freaking time. Right after I look down and see that it’s 5:43. All hell breaks loose. I fire my gun. And the alarm wakes me up.” She shook her head, her wavy, brown hair swinging into motion and sweeping across her back. “Maybe there was a power outage. I can’t remember the last time I changed the backup batteries in that thing. Or maybe the damned thing just crapped out on me. I don’t know.”

“The clock?” he asked, trying to follow her words.

“Yes. I don’t know why the alarm didn’t go off this time, but it didn’t, and I need to wake up. I really need to wake up.”

“This isn’t a dream, Heather. You aren’t asleep.”

The trees thinned.

Heather exited them, leading him into a backyard that had recently been mown. “Yes, I am.”

“No, you aren’t,” he insisted, thinking this the most bizarre conversation he’d had in recent memory. Beyond the lawn, a quaint little frame house painted pale yellow stared back at him over a slightly warped back deck.

Dropping the bucket, Heather spun to face him. “I didn’t know it was real!”

Ethan stopped short, nearly bumping into her. “What?” She smelled good, too. And standing this close to her, towering over her the way he did, gave him a tantalizing glimpse of her cleavage.

What the hell was wrong with him?

“I didn’t know it was real, okay?” She motioned to the meadow on the other side of the trees. “I knew the clearing was real. I knew that much. But I didn’t know you were real. I didn’t know they . . . the freaking vampires . . . were real. I thought you were all symbolic or something. I mean, who the hell knew vampires really existed? And I didn’t know I was going to kill two of them. Or that you would slice and dice the others right in front of me. Or that they would shrivel up and . . . and . . . and . . .” Words seemed to fail her. “The dream never went that far because the damned alarm always woke me up!”

She combed her fingers through her hair in an agitated gesture. Noticing that her hand shook, she rubbed it on her pants leg as if the tremors could be removed like dirt. “I just . . . I need for this to not be real,” Heather finished, turning pleading eyes up to his.

“I’m sorry,” he said, fighting an absurd urge to wrap his arms around her, draw her close, and tell her that this was all a dream, that everything would be okay. “But it is real.”

Heather stared up at him for several seemingly endless minutes. “Your fangs are gone,” she mentioned, her voice soft and low now.

He nodded.

“Your eyes are still glowing.”

Because he was attracted to her and, evidently, had lost all control over his body. Not that he could tell her that. “It takes a little longer for their color to return to normal.”

A bird twittered nearby as the sky began to lighten.

“What did you say your name was?” Heather asked.

“Ethan.”

Another lengthy silence followed.

Oddly, he didn’t mind it. Didn’t feel awkward. Just concerned for her.

“This is real, Ethan?”

“Yes.”

She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Then thank you for saving my life.”





Chapter Two

Heather willed her hands to stop shaking as Ethan raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“That third vampire would have killed me if you hadn’t taken him out.”

He smiled, flashing straight, white teeth. “Well, I couldn’t have defeated seven vampires without your aid, so why don’t we call it even?”

He had suffered some pretty atrocious wounds.

She eyed his bloody and battered form. “Are you okay?”

He nodded. But she noticed he couldn’t straighten all the way.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Because you look like hell. Not that I know what you look like without all of the blood and gore.”

He started to laugh, but cut it off with a pained grunt. “Honestly, I’ve been better.” He motioned to the house behind her. “Is this your home?”

She nodded. “Sort of. I’m renting it.”

“We have a lot we need to discuss, Heather. Would you like to do it inside?”

She noticed his eyes kept going to the brightening sky. “Oh. Right. The whole vampire sunlight thing.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, then smiled. “Right. We’ll get to that. First, I need to ask a favor of you.”

She shrugged, his easy manner finally unwinding her nerves and aiding her pulse in slowing. “Ask it.”

“Would you wait here for just a moment? I need to retrieve my car.”

“Oh.” Why did it seem weird that a vampire would drive a car? Too many cheesy movies in which she had seen vampires turn into bats and fly away, perhaps? “Okay.”

“Please don’t make any phone calls while I’m gone,” he added.

Who the hell would she call? Anyone would think she had cracked if she called them, said she had been swept up into a battle between vampires, then proudly displayed a clearing with empty clothing scattered about on the ground. “Okay.”