Michael took a step toward her and she scurried back like a mouse caught in a fox’s sight, using the alley wall as leverage to hold her upright. He took another step toward her and she whimpered with fear, a sound that cut him deeper than any slayer’s blade ever could.
“Try to calm down.” Michael took a slow step forward and approached his female with arms outstretched in supplication. She pressed her body against the unyielding bricks as though hoping they’d swallow her up. The fear that leached from her pores burned his nostrils and masked the sweet scent of her blood. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Bullshit.”
Ronan smiled. “Come on, we, well, he”—he jutted his chin toward Michael—“just saved your life. Do you really think we want to hurt you?”
Her pulse slowed and she studied Ronan with an intensity that caused a pang of jealousy to flare in Michael’s chest. He let out a low growl that vibrated in his throat.
“Down, boy.” Ronan cut Michael a look.
Michael swallowed down the residual aggression that caused his fangs to pulse in his gums. He lowered his voice, solely for her. “Take a deep breath. Gather your thoughts. You know I won’t harm you.”
His mate eased herself away from the wall, no longer trying to become one with the bricks. She took a stuttering breath and then another. “Maybe not.” Her gaze locked with Michael’s. “But I still don’t trust you.”
* * *
Despite the fear that shook her right down to her bone marrow, Claire’s heart soared in her chest at the sight of Michael standing not five feet away. This was crazy. Completely bat-shit insane. The star of her nightly sex dreams had just brutally killed someone. With a freaking knife! Granted, the bastard had been about to carve her up like a Thanksgiving turkey, but it was murder just the same. Her mind refused to wrap itself around what had just happened. Never in her life had she seen anyone move so fast, yet both men had been nothing more than a blur in her vision as they fought. The entire scuffle seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Shit like that just didn’t happen.
She studied the man who approached her like she was the dangerous one. Ha! If that wasn’t the joke of the century. He was slightly smaller than Michael, though no less imposing. His use of the name Claire had spoken in her dream—Mikhail—sparked her curiosity. And despite her very dangerous, very precarious situation, her instinct did in fact tell her that she had nothing to fear from these men.
The other man—Ronan she thought his name was—smiled and Claire blinked, craned forward to get a better look, and blinked again. Were those fangs poking down from his gums? Jesus. She’d heard of people getting body modifications done, forking their tongues like lizards’ and having cat whiskers implanted into their faces, but she’d never seen it firsthand. Seriously, fangs. The priest had used the word “vampire.” Claire thought back to her dream.… What. In. The. Hell? Maybe these guys were part of some deranged cosplay group? She’d witnessed some pretty effed-up shit in L.A. but this took the cake.#p#分页标题#e#
“It isn’t safe here. We need to leave. Immediately.”
Mister Tall, Dark, and Overprotective was a little on edge. “What’s the matter?” Accusation flared in her tone. “Worried about the cops?”
His turquoise eyes bore straight through her. “Hardly. Where there is one slayer, more will be close behind. I need to get you to safety before the vermin crawl from their holes.”
“I’ll be fine on my own. Thanks.”
His gaze darkened and his lip curled into a sardonic smirk. “You’re coming with me.”
Claire’s eyes widened with incredulity. Unlike his buddy’s, Michael’s upper jaw sported two sets of fangs. Who in the hell had money to throw around on unnecessary dental work like that? Maybe for once her instincts were steering her wrong. “Look, buddy, I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.” His gaze slid over her, protective and predatory, and she shivered. “No way am I jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire just because you say I should.” Holy crap, even bloodied and looking like an axe murderer, he stirred her desire. Sick! But no matter how badly she wanted to touch him, kiss him, and do naughty, naughty things to him, Claire wasn’t going to fall for his spoon-fed bullshit.
Michael brushed past his crony and Claire bristled. Each individual nerve ending in her body was aware of him, igniting with a heat that left her flushed and sweating. Her body was a sex-starved traitor, responding to his massive body and dark, broody expression that all but stripped her bare to his gaze. That same low, delicious rumble that had driven her crazy at the club vibrated in his chest and it was all she could do not to tackle him to the sidewalk. Her mind was starting to think that her body might be on the right track. Damn it, Claire, focus!