Kane waited for Tessa outside the university building where she worked. Mackenzie had managed to get the information from her, and while he didn't exactly want to be here, he knew no one else could promise Tessa any kind of safety.
He smelled the approach of snow on the air and suspected that before the night was over, a white blanket would cover the city. It mattered to him not one way or the way, for he felt neither cold nor heat, but it might slow the rogues down a bit. It would be real hard for them not to leave trails that even human eyes could read once it snowed.
He had donned clothing unfamiliar to him: a parka, rather than the leather he preferred because it could stand up to the treatment he gave it, and jeans—the human preference for which he could not begin to understand. He hoped to blend in as he stood here waiting.
Already the city was on heightened alert because of the four murders last night, all of them grotesque, savage enough to hide any evidence vampires were involved. He didn't want to appear out of place at all. Not now, not when he was here to protect Tessa. Another time it would have made no difference to him, but tonight he could not take to the rooftops or vanish swiftly and without warning, not unless he wanted to terrorize Tessa more than she already had been.
He saw her emerge from the building, wrapped in a long coat with a knit scarf around her neck and a knit cap on her unusual hair.
He forced himself to walk at a human pace toward her.
"Good evening," he called, so his appearance wouldn't startle her.
She turned to look at him, and those amazing eyes of hers widened then narrowed. "Mackenzie told you," she said.
"But of course. I said I would protect you."
She looked as if she desperately wanted to argue but though better of it. She glanced around at the darkness held at bay only by the walkway lamps around the campus and then back at him. Truly a choice of evils. The thought amused him.
"We will walk," he said and stepped toward her, offering his arm. It was an old habit, but he wasn't at all surprised when she visibly hesitated. Finally, she took his arm reluctantly.
"We can take the campus bus."
"Perhaps you can. I cannot."
"Why not?"
"How much torture do you expect me to subject myself to?"
"Torture? Oh."
He watched the understanding dawn on her face and enjoyed it. Damned if he was going to pretend to be something other than what he was. As Mackenzie would have said, she could "like it or lump it."
Then she startled him by asking, "What do you live for?"
It had been a very long time since a question had set him back on his heels. They continued to wend their way through the campus, heading toward public streets that he knew to be lined with apartment frequented by students.
Prime hunting grounding, because youth made many students relatively fearless, and they came and went at all hours of the night to visit one another or get something to eat.
"What do I live for?" he repeated, even as he began scoping the vicinity with an eye to see how easy or difficult it would be to hunt. "Why should you care?"
"I don't know," she admitted.
"What do you live for?"
Satisfaction filled him when she didn't answer. It wasn't a question easily answered by anyone, and certainly it was not the kind he cared to discuss with a virtual stranger. Even a stranger who smelled like ambrosia and awakened his every instinct to take her, drink from her and come to know her in that intimate, exquisite place only vampires and their lovers could go.
They reached her street eventually and he paused, surveying everything intently.
"Do you smell something?" she asked.
"City smells, human. Coming snow."
"Then why do you look so concerned?"
"Because this would be a marvelous place to hunt."
She stiffened, but she didn't pull away. "How so?"
He raised his other arm and began pointing. "See all the dark places between the buildings? All the large evergreen shrubs? The little alcoves around doorways, not all of which are lit?"
"Yes..."
"Those rogues would look at this as a smorgasbord."
"Oh, no," she whispered.
"You have reason for concern."
"Yes, but I'm not just worried about myself. Most of the people living here are just kids."
"I know. All the more tempting." He shook his head. "I will keep my assessments to myself, if that will make you more comfortable. But I must say, if this is where you live, I am reluctantly to leave you alone here."
"I can lock myself in."
"Locks don't stop us if we choose to ignore them."
He felt the shudder pass through her and smelled her rising level of fear. That scent called to his kind and inevitably would call to the others.
"You're practically a beacon," he said irritably. "Your fear is perfuming the air. Let's get to your place before we discuss what to do to protect you."
She didn't argue. Indeed, she quickened her step, guiding him toward her apartment on the third floor. The alcove around her door was lit, but it didn't reassure him.
He stilled her hand as she started to use her key, holding it back until he had inhaled the air around the edges of her door.
"It's empty," he said finally and let her open the door.
She stepped quickly within, closing the door behind them and locking it before she even turned on a light.
What Kane saw affected him. She owned little, and what she owned appeared to be very much second or third hand. Little spots of color, like a pillow here and there, and the dishes on her counter tried to liven the tiny space. Not that he owned much anymore. Not since Violet. He had plenty of money, just no desire to spend it. He suspected this was a very different situation.
She hurried over to her kitchenette, as if she wanted to put distance between them, and began a pot of coffee. Then she pulled something from the freezer and put it into a small microwave.
He took the opportunity to check out her apartment, including the bedroom behind the closed door. The quality of construction was about as poor as the builders could get away with, and even the walls looked worn from abuse.
He returned to find her waiting, watching. Uneasiness roiled in her. She didn't like having him here, but he suspected she would like being alone even less.
"Eat," he said as the microwave pinged. "While you do, we'll discuss measures to protect you."
She nodded slowly, then turned to pull a prepackaged dinner out of the microwave. A cup of coffee soon sat beside it on the tiny dinette. He settled onto one of the creaky chairs facing her.
"This apartment affords little protection," he told her flatly. "If you insist on staying here, you must keep your windows and doors tightly closed at night."
"I'm not sure I'll ever go out at night again."
"It must feel that way right now. But trust me, Tessa, you would not like to live as I do, claiming only half the day for yourself. When we have taken care of this problem, you'll learn to feel safe again."
"Maybe."
His gaze fixed on her lips as she licked away a bit of food. Her mouth had a lovely shape, and the plumpness of her lips enticed him. His entire body responded with a hunger so intense he froze for a few seconds, fighting it, seeking self-control. It wasn't easy.
"Do you have a home?" she asked.
He froze. Memories threatened to spill over the dam he had constructed. Violet! But no, he could not allow that now. "What do you mean by 'home'? I consider Paris my home. Do you mean where do I live?"
"Where do you live? I mean, you must need a special sort of place during the daytime. Do you have a place that's yours here in town?"
He shook his head. "I make do. One can always find a place dark enough, especially in a city like this."
"So the rogues have no trouble, either."
"No. But if it snows, they'll have a new set of problems to deal with."
"Why?"
"Because not even a vampire can fail to leave tracks in the snow. The question is whether they'll care."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because if they cared about those things, they wouldn't be starting this fight."
She ate another few mouthfuls before speaking again. He tried not to watch.
"So they don't care if they're discovered?"
"The night is safe for them because they're awake and they have numbers. No vampire can threaten them in the daylight, and they don't really fear humans." He paused as a thought struck him. "They clearly don't want secrecy. They want to emerge from the shadows and achieve reality."
"But they are real."
"Of course. But living life as a legend that not even their prey believes in... well, that's a form of unreality." He paused again, thinking it through. "They're tired of being fairy tales. Humans love a good vampire book or movie, but they don't walk the streets afraid that one will leap out at them. They don't accord us any respect." He nodded slowly. "Yes, that's part of it, I'm sure. They want to be known, to be real and to exercise their power. They want to gain respect through terror."
Tessa put her fork down and pushed her meal away. "That's horrible. I can't even imagine wanting that. My pack...we prefer that no one is aware of us at all. We like the anonymity, the freedom to just be what we are. We avoid humans and vampires and other things that aren't like us."
"You can make that choice. Unfortunately, the survival of my kind is intimately tied to the humans on this planet."
"You couldn't drink the blood of something else?"
"Not indefinitely."
She looked down and absently stirred her coffee. "What would these rogues do, if they killed off everyone?"
"Oh, they won't kill everyone. They know better. I'm sure they'd find enough humans they could turn into slaves."
Tessa shook her head and now pushed her coffee away. "That can't happen."
"It could, but we need to ensure it doesn't. But the important thing right now is that we find a way to make you safe. If I'm with you every minute of the night, I'll be no help to Asher; if I'm with you, you might fall into danger again."
He rose from the table, desperately needing to put space between them. The pulse in her throat, her scent, her lips, her eyes...everything about her woe his primal needs and desires. Much as she despite vampires, she had no idea of the pleasure he could show her, the absolute heaven that lay between life and death.
But he knew, and it made him both restless and dangerous. The need for action filled him the only antidote to desire.
The room was too small to truly escape. Worse, he could smell moments of desire passing through her, too. They came and went like waves on a shore, as she battled them down. What was it about her? Since Violet he'd never felt anything like this, nor did he want to.
Maybe he was just emerging at last from the claiming. Maybe he was feeling what he had felt in the days before Violet, and he just couldn't remember it.
He turned his back to Tessa and reached for the cell phone Asher had given him. Asher gave them to everyone he worked with so they could be instantly in touch. More like a radio, he supposed, than a phone. Not that he paid a whole lot of attention to most modern technologies. He had no use for most of them.
But this one was about to prove convenient. Asher answered immediately.
"We need a better place for Tessa to stay. Her apartment affords little more protection than a cardboard box, and the neighborhood is perfect for hunting."
He heard Tessa's gasp, but ignored it as he listened to Asher. When he finished, he turned to her.
"I'm taking you to Asher's office. Bundle up and pack a bag. It's going to be cold at the speeds I'll use."
"Now wait one minute," she said, though her eyes looked more worried than angry. "I have a life. I have things I need to do."
"That's just it, mon trésor. You have a life. We'd all like for you to keep it. Asher is going to locate a safe place for you to stay. In the meantime, I want you out of here."
"But why?"
"Because if anyone, anyone, we can't trust has found out what happened last night and that you survived, they're going to want to finish it. Not even I can protect you against three of them." He paused then added, "I may even have increased your danger."
She gasped. "How?"
"By killing that one that came back for you. They know he's missing. What if he told them he was going to finish you? If they went looking for him, they will know you were gone, too."
For a few seemingly endless minutes, she didn't move. He watched emotions play over her face, but couldn't read them all, either by sight of scent. It had been a long time since he had tried to read a human in more than the most basic ways.
Whatever she was thinking, she made up her mind. "All right," she said quietly. "But I want to make one thing perfectly clear."
"Yes?"
"If I can't escape this fight, then I want to be part of it."
"But why?"
"Because these rogues must be stopped."
She rose and went to pack, leaving him to wonder what she hadn't said. No one in their right mind would want to get into the middle of this fight if they could avoid it.
That meant something else was pushing her and that could be cause for serious concern.
The little home she'd made for herself wasn't much, but Tessa resented having to leave it behind with no idea when she'd return, if ever. Even less did she like having a bloodsucker take charge.
But not even a certain innate stubbornness, the stubbornness that had caused her to leave her pack despite their objections and strike out on her own, could outweigh common sense. Maybe a few days ago it would have been different. But not after being attacked.
As she jammed items into a duffel, enough to get by for at least a few days, she thought about irony. Life, she decided, was ultimately ironic. To depend for survival on the very beings she had been taught to abhor was irony enough for an entire lifetime. Finding herself incredibly attracted to one reached even beyond that.
She paused in her pack and closed her eyes. Kane Durand was right behind her eyelids, waiting for her. Just thinking about him made her throb deep inside, a freeing she wasn't very familiar with. She'd been battling it since last night, and rather than easing, her attraction to him seemed to be growing.
Not good. Damn, her pack would disown her.
That thought should have pulled her up short, but it didn't succeed. Instead, she continued to feel the simmering, unwanted yearning he had awakened in her.
And she couldn't even figure out what caused it. He wasn't the most likable guy in the world. He hadn't attempted to do even one thing to make her like him.
Yet there he was waiting for her in the living room, promising protection she loathed having to need, and he just wouldn't go away.
But did she want him to go away? That question really disturbed her. She shouldn't even be asking it.
Her body seemed to have developed a mind of its own, one that yielded to no logic or reason. It insisted on feeling an almost smoky desire, something intangible that wound thickly around her and made her pulse leap when he was near.
"Damn," she whispered and resumed packing. "Double damn."
Taking her cue from him, she changed from her works clothes into jeans and a sweater and boots. Then she pulled out a parka she had recently bought but had only needed a few times here so far.
That parka struck her as a reminder of her difference. Her pack dealt with the cold by changing or by wearing wolf skin clothing. She had left her own skin and fur clothing behind because it would have aroused comment. But each time she put this new parka on, it reminded her that something was wrong with her. With each rustle of the nylon, she hated it.
When she was ready, Kane shouldered her bag and they left the building together. Once they were on the street, she noted the way his gaze kept searching every nook and cranny around them, the way he tested the air repeatedly.
Then he said, "You're going to have to get on my back now."
"What?"
"I smell another vampire, and I don't recognize the scent. See those deep shadows over there? We're going to walk to them and then I'm going to put you on my back. When I do, hang on tight because we're going to be moving at top speed."
"The bloodsucker could be in those shadows!"
"He's not that close yet. But he's going to be able to smell me if he hasn't already. There's no time to waste."
"Some protection," she muttered as she followed him into the shadows. "Talk about me being a beacon. Why do I not feel safe walking in a haze of vampire scent?"
He surprised her with a quiet laugh, then before she realized what was happening, he'd lifted her and sling her on his back, her duffel to one side.
"Hang on," he said.
It was all the warning she got before the wind battered her face and the world began to pass in a blur. She had to press her face to his back and close her eyes against the bite of the cold wind.
Almost instantly she wished she could lift her head and face that wind and the world that seemed to be passing like an insane carousel.
Because now her awareness settled on him, on the powerful bunching of muscles she could feel through his jacket and hers, on the way her legs wrapped around his hips and how damn good it felt to have him between them.
She sensed he had climbed but he didn't pause long enough for her to look around and be certain. Not that she would have seen much.
Her traitorous body now noticed one thing and one thing only: the heaviness between her legs, how open they felt and how hard she was beginning to throb. Nearly every movement he made applied a delicious pressure that deepened the ache.
Oh, how she hoped the wind was blowing away the revealing musk and pheromones.
In less time she could believe, they arrived at Asher's. He eased her from his back and turned to her.
He'd smelled her arousal. She could see it in the way he smiled at her. He startled her by reaching out to touch a stray lock of her hair. His golden gaze captured her, and for the first time she realized that it seemed to make promises, promises of delights beyond imagining.
She felt both a huge relief and a massive disappointment when he looked away to press the buzzer. So that was how they did it, she thought almost dizzily. A simple look that seemed to promise a taste of Eden.
Clearly she wasn't immune, so she had to keep reminding herself that it was an empty promise.
Except that didn't work too well. Following him down the hallway to Asher's office, she still felt slumberous with awakened passion, and even the brush of her jeans between her legs seemed like a teasing promise.
Her skin had become exquisitely sensitive, responding even to the lightest movement of her clothes. She hurried to the couch without taking off her jacket and folded her arms and legs, trying to contain things she was sure she didn't want to feel.
Except she did. If she'd been feeling them for anyone but a bloodsucker, it would be different. They were so delicious, and they threatened to betray her.
Asher and Mackenzie were in the office.
"Where's Julie?" Kane asked.
"She works tonight."
Kane swore.
"It should be all right. If she has to leave the morgue, she promised to call first. I can get over there fast enough to keep an eye on her."
"And if they don't care?" Kane waved a hand, displaying more emotion than Tessa had yet seen from him. "Don't you see, mon ami? We have at least two chinks in our armor: Julie and Tessa. Both of them smell of us now, and both of them will inevitably be noticed because of it. What is more, we have to divide our attention in order to protect them. Just how do you propose to organize against them or fight them if they cause your wife to go our repeatedly to visit their crime scenes? Eh? You will spend all your time protecting and none planning. If that is the case, I suggest we all leave town right now and come back later to deal with them."
"I've sent for help. Julie is arranging tonight to take the next week off. It won't be easy, but they'll let her do it."
"In spite of this crime wave?"
"When someone in her position says she can't handle it anymore, they let them take time. It's better than having them break."
"Ah, but that leaves the little wolf here. I doubt she will find it so easy to leave her job and classes."
Tessa spoke. "I said I wanted to help with this fight. I meant it." Desire had trickled into the background and with the return of her strength, she stood. "If it's necessary, I'll quit my job and drop my classes tomorrow. Kane is right, you can't have divided attention."
Had she just said that Kane was right? But he was. This was no exercise in fantasy, and she knew the threat better than anyone, having been nearly killed by four vampires who had clearly enjoyed her every scream and attempt to fight them off. However, she had gotten into the middle of this war she was squarely in it now. Stubborn, yes. But also determined. Kane's description of these rogues keeping enough humans as slaves had stiffened her backbone completely. She had only to think of her fellow students and her coworkers to know she couldn't stand back from this.
Asher nodded. "I'm not sure what you can do, but we need to clear out of here for a little while. It's not secret where I can be found, and I doubt it's a secret that Julie's my wife. Regardless, we need to wait for some others to arrive. Soren has a place north of here in the woods and he's working on it tonight to make ready for us."
Kane stirred. "Soren's back?"
"He's most definitely back, and he's worried about Beth, too. So yes, we have a place to go to ground until we can organize."
Tessa spoke. "What if they follow us?"
"I would much rather meet them in the woods than in town. No humans will get in the way."
Kane nodded but folded his arms and looked dubious. "And you, mon ami? Will you be able to live with yourself leaving this city unprotected for a few days?"
"I will have to. I can't do anything by myself. We know there are at least three. There will probably be more soon if there aren't already?"
"Babies," Kane said harshly. "If they create newborns, we will have to act immediately."
Asher nodded. "I know. But at least we can leave the women in a safe place."
Tessa spoke first, filled with trepidation. "I can call my pack."
"No." Both vampires answered her simultaneously.
"We don't want them in the middle," Kane said. "What is more, they might not distinguish between us. Why should they? And how will you feel if they get hurt? This is not their fight?"
"They're strong. Strong enough to take down a vampire."
"I know," he replied. "But a newborn is not just a vampire."
She didn't argue. How could she? She had no idea why they seemed so concerned about newborns, other than that they were simply amped-up vampires. But they were right about one thing: this wasn't her pack's fight—they could get hurt, and she didn't want that. What's more, unless she told them what had happened to her, they would want no part of this mess.
She pulled off her jacket, becoming uncomfortably warm now, and wondered just what she should do. Being stashed out of the way while Kane, Asher and their friends tried to deal with this didn't suit her at all. Yet she could understand how she would be a distraction if they had to worry about her.
Crap!
The earthquake had happened. Not only was she worried about the gruesome death and terror that might be inflicted on humans, but she was worried about a couple of vampires. One in particular.
Who would have imaged it?