In the darkness she heard whispers, though meaning skipped past her awareness, as if she’d dropped into a memory too painful to confront. Yet out of the murmur of voices she caught the word vampire. And seconds later, Flynn. The concepts swirled around and around, forming the image of a tall, light-haired man with a chiseled face and the teeth of a demon.
She blinked and came to, shaking, tense, cold to the bone. The vampire had set something into motion with his talk about Slayers and enemies. As she stood with her hands raised, looking at the handsome representation of the devil standing across from her, in his prime and in his element, Kelsie said "Flynn," with the inflection of an oath.
Yes, she knew that name. Had heard it before.
Flynn was a cursed name tied to the very soul of the legends in Clare. And also, if she was right, tied to the creature across from her.
Not just a vampire. An ancient Irish one.
She lowered her hands slightly, her need for answers outweighing everything else. How had she Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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known his name? What did this mean?
"You’re one of them, " she said. "I suppose Ireland’s too small for the likes of you these days? Big city, easy pickings?"
"Again, couldn’t you answer that question as well?" he replied.
They were alone on a street corner. No help was to be had if she shouted. She had made a huge mistake by wishing for monsters this night. She was no more a Slayer than…
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Kelsie said. But thinking about the term Slayer produced a tingle of rightness she couldn’t completely ignore.
Was that a title for the thing she felt growing within herself? Vampire Slayer?
Absurd!
She was keyed up and ready to get off a potentially damaging roundhouse kick out of sheer frustration.
This vampire hailed from the same county in Ireland as herself, and talked nonsense. He’d told her they had been born to take each other down or die trying. Just moments ago, she had called werewolves out of a nightclub, wolves who were hogtied to an awning by a full moon.
Her dizziness wasn’t going away. She had to dial things back, hoping the vampire would maintain his distance until sanity intervened. It was important to understand why this was happening, how she could wind up here with him and why she hadn’t sprinted in the opposite direction.
"If your perceptions are so evolved," she said, testing her voice, "maybe you’d be kind enough to 40
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enlighten me further. Did you come all this way to find me, in particular, or was our meeting coincidence?"
The vampire smiled again, this time showing a flash of pure white fang. Stunned by the sight, Kelsie stood her ground. A fresh jolt of introspection occurred with the sight of those fangs.
Maybe the desire to find these creatures hadn’t been just an idea for an article, after all. Maybe it had been an ongoing compulsion, and the Blood Moon over her head was the excuse she had used to act on that compulsion. She had never been afraid of the dark. Had never been truly afraid of anything.
Irish people were nothing if not superstitious. It wasn’t a stretch to wonder if it might be possible for a Blood Moon to affect more than just things that went bump in the night. Including in the mix the things that chased those night creatures, for whatever reason.
Breakout article or…the need to slay them?
A shudder racked Kelsie. Why? Because the vampire was right. She had come out here alone, looking for monsters. What did this say about her?
That she really might be a Slayer, and didn’t know it?
She might have an alter ego she hadn’t been aware of until now?
"If it’s confession time, Connor, you start," Flynn said. "It was the other way around, wasn’t it, and you were looking for me?"
Kelsie shook her head. "I was looking for a wolf."
"By the way, how did that turn out?"
His question had the ring of irony in it. The question she had asked herself minutes ago rose up again, as bright as the demon moon overhead and Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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twice as discomforting to face.
What sort of person called werewolves, and didn’t fear vampires nearly enough?
"Slayer," she whispered, short of breath, her gaze rising to meet the blue eyes that were now considerably closer.
Call me foolish, Hayden thought, but Connor didn’t appear to be faking the surprise that turned her face an ashen-white. She was riddled with quakes. She did look vulnerable.
Without a second thought, he closed the distance between them, pinning her arms to her sides as a precaution, holding her tightly against his body—a move that primed his thirst to savage levels and sent his libido spinning into overdrive.
The fragrance of her blood filled him—heady, fierce, scintillating—as her body molded to his. In his arms, she seemed small, slight, though he knew looks could be deceiving.
When her body convulsed, he held her tighter.
Connor. Are you really a Slayer who doesn’t know anything about herself? Truly as fragile as you seem at the moment?
His thirst nipped at him as mercilessly as a thousand slashing teeth, painful, terrible, new, sending the heat of apprehension across his nerve fibers, calling the beast in him over the line. His head angled toward her neck. He rested his lips against her soft, moist skin, independent of his will to stand firm against the urges, and shut his eyes.
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Her protest gave him pause. Though it shouldn’t have mattered, Hayden lifted his head, saw that Connor’s teeth were chattering. She’d split her lip again. A final straw. All that blood… A vampire could only take so much.
She was up off the ground and in his arms before her next breath, and struggling like a wildcat to get free. He carried her over the sidewalk and into the enveloping darkness of a beach protected from the moonlight by line after line of old palm trees.
He set her on her feet near one of those trees, and pushed her up against it, waiting for her struggle to ebb. The fragile skin beneath her left ear lifted with each heartbeat, moving the silver chain ringing her throat.
"You haven’t been taught well enough," he warned, his accent and fangs in full evidence now that he’d given in to the emotions gripping him. "The reputation of the Connors has markedly slipped."
He touched the tip of her earlobe with a finger, and watched the chain beneath it vibrate, as if it recognized an enemy when its wearer didn’t. He could tear the chain from her in a second. Yet the delicate silver strand was a reminder of his adherence to a personal vow. Harm no mortal.
He had to let Connor go. He had to let her run, no matter what he was feeling or what he perceived in her.
A twist of pain stirred him from his thoughts.
Hayden glanced up to find Connor digging her small white teeth into the flesh of his wrist.
He was hit by an overwhelming urge to laugh at the Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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irony. Searching her gaze, he found it openly defiant.
But her green eyes held a hint of another emotion not so insignificant to get around. The Slayer’s hunger was upon her. She also felt this attraction, and was… willing.
Heaven help them.
Forcing his thirst down with all of his might, leaning into Connor’s young body, Hayden opened his mouth…and let the laughter out. Then he ducked as her fist came at him, faster than a mortal’s normal reaction time, though not quite fast enough. He caught her fist easily in his, reveling in the meeting of skin on skin.
Pressing her arm to her chest, slipping his hand over the silk cloth, he noted how hard her heart was beating, felt the uplifted swell of her breasts. This time, when he kissed her, the night came crashing down.
Kelsie melded to the vampire’s heat, thinking to fight, but parting her lips to receive him, sure she would burn in the same hell he had come from, for doing so.
This kiss was blazing, ferocious, rich. His mouth did terrible things to hers, provocative and mind-numbing things. His hands were fluid, touching her here and there.
The pleasure was extreme.
Caught up in the fire, Kelsie snaked her hands up his back and over the carved muscle beneath his shirt, bringing from him dangerous growls of delight.
If they were old enemies, these actions were insane.
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The kiss deepened when she wouldn’t have thought it possible. He devoured her, monstrously. Frightening new longings filled her. Inner fires ran rampant, her neck, chest, belly and hips lighting up like tinder.
"Flynn." She formed the name against his lips, her hips sliding against his invitingly, seeking a further connection in this ravaging of the senses.
He understood what she wanted. She felt the slow slide of her skirt over her thighs, followed by the sound of lace tearing.
She cried out when he entered her with a passionate thrust, and thought she might be losing her mind. But she gave in to the fever by wrapping her legs around him. Trapping him to her. Growling with her own wicked delight.
She wanted this. God alone knew why.
Flynn reached the core of her body with his next series of thrusts, slickly hitting the crucial spot over and over again. Kelsie clung to him as the sky threatened to explode, as the night went from red-drenched black to gray to white, and back to velvety darkness. She sent her hips to meet his, the crescendo deep inside growing steadily stronger, and arriving as a blisteringly hot orgasm that left her reeling.
She gasped, cried out, but wasn’t so far gone that she missed the sharp prick of fangs dragging across her throat.
She slammed back into herself with a lucid warning. One bite, and it will all be over.
Fear of that sort of ending cut right through the passion and the desire, bringing up another chilling thought. Perhaps Slayers and vampires were shaped Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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from a single stone. Designed to hunt, taught to kill each other to avoid this very situation, this very thing: the merging of their flesh and blood and souls that might mean the creation of some new abomination.
The spark of that possibility shook her. Her hands flexed. Her spine snapped straight. Kelsie broke from the flames of greed awkwardly, panting to get her breath back. With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, she knocked the vampire away, got both feet on the ground and stood facing him, shaking so badly she could hardly stand.
He seemed as dazed as she was. His expression turned questioning. She could see how his body shook.
But this separation allowed Kelsie enough distance for her anger to return, and for the new thing he had called her to unfurl.
Slayer.
CHAPTER FIVE
It took Hayden several seconds to realize what was going on. They’d shared something intimate, ultimate.
Now, Connor suddenly looked formidable.
Her eyes were bright rings of color, her stance none too stable. She gave off a new vibration. Their union had caused some sort of untimely transition. Either that, or the vampire lover routine had been an act all along, and she’d used him for some nefarious purpose.
Not trusting himself to speak, his head spinning with the hastiness of the separation, Hayden gathered himself together. His hunger hadn’t lessened, nor had the desire to possess her. After tasting all that heat, he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had more.
He wanted to yank her back. Wanted to take her all over again. He’d nearly touched her soul.
"Connor?" he finally managed to say.
She stood with her hands on her hips, not bothering to press her skirt into place to cover herself, looking no less splendid in her flushed, disheveled state.
"You were going to bite me. The sex, the moment, wasn’t enough."
"A bite doesn’t make you like me," he said. "You should—"
"Know this?" she finished for him.
"Yes." Hayden held up his hands to placate her, watched her own hands fly to her neck—to search for Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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what? Fresh bite marks? Or maybe just to protect herself?
"I’m not one of the undead," he said. "I’m a living vampire, and as alive as you are. This union is—"
"Sacrilege," Connor said through bruised, quivering lips.
"Only if you’re a—"
"Slayer?"
She sounded unsure of the word, Hayden thought, as if it had stuck in her throat. He took two cautious steps toward her, hesitated when she stepped back. The confusion on her face seemed real.
"It wasn’t an act," he said, trying to believe that.
"You wanted this as much as I did."
Her eyes flared a brilliant green. The atmosphere around her grew thicker, as if she’d gained more substance. Yet she had invited this sudden union. She had participated. Would a Slayer do that?
She stood there, beautiful, different, silent. When she moved again, it was to touch her mouth. After that, she ran her hand slowly over her torso, her fingers trespassing over every one of her curves, ending in the valley between her legs. She looked down at herself, pulled at the shreds of the black lace panties he had torn out of the way, her face now devoid of expression.
Hayden’s attention was riveted. He couldn’t take his eyes from the woman he’d been inside of.
"Yes, I wanted this closeness," she admitted.
"Why?"
"You tell me. Isn’t it a strange time to come to your senses?"
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"Better late than never, is the saying," Connor responded soberly. "But then, it doesn’t take into account the lapse that occurred in the first place."
Truly perplexed, Hayden grinned ruefully. "You are good, Connor. Very good. You had me going. I wonder for what purpose?"
She contemplated his question, looking as though she truly had no idea what he was asking. If this sudden onset of innocence was some sort of taunt-the-vampire routine, he should applaud her performance.
She had, in fact, gotten him good. So good that his body continued to be racked with quakes.
"The woman kissed me back," he said. "What will the Slayer do?"
"Walk away."
That was the thing he wanted the least, and the answer that surprised him the most. He was riled up, overflowing with need. After an intimate affair with this woman, whatever else she might be, could he just let her go? Would he?
"I’m way too attracted to you," she said. "Your pull on me is too strong, unnerving. It’s obvious I can’t trust myself."
She hadn’t blamed him. Connor, Hayden decided, was becoming more interesting by the minute. After that confession, even her hand on those filmy panties came in a lagging second place to the sheer wonderment of what she might do or say next.
Although his hunger continued to rage, he was also curious.
"Another time," she said. "We can set a date, meet again."
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Hayden knew he could be on her before her hand stopped fluttering, if he chose, Slayer or not. He’d been a vampire for a long time. Fifteen years ago he’d been handed his fangs and the thirst that came with them. He had passed through the fire of loss, losing his family in the flames of their final death. He was the last of his kind. The last of the Flynns. And he hated the curse that ensnared him.
He hated that this Slayer’s mother had killed his father.
This Slayer he had just…
"Date?" he repeated. Now that they had been as close as any two beings could be, would it be back to fighting? Sex as foreplay?
"Dinner first, perhaps?" he suggested.
"In the manner of a last supper, you mean? I’ll pass," she replied.
"More’s the pity. It would have given us time to get to know each other even better." The words tasted bitter, and rang with unintended sarcasm. Hayden wanted a repeat engagement, her
naked body hot against his and smelling of desire. His sense was that she wanted the same thing and would ignore it—for what? Taking care of business?
"Funny how things change," Connor said in a steadier voice. "An hour ago, all I needed was a story to further my career. Now I need the skills necessary to deal with a vampire, so that I can continue with a career of any kind." She paused, then added, "Do you want to kill me, Flynn, whether or not I am what you think I am?"
Hayden found her question absurd, having had his 50
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tongue in her mouth and her legs spread apart.
"You said you were supposed to," she pointed out.
"I have never harmed anyone," he confessed, knowing his answer might allow this Slayer an edge.
"I’m not what I am by choice, Connor. I’ve never had an urge for violence. Taking out a Slayer might make me worthy of my name, but I have no desire for that.
What about you? Do you want to remove me from the world?"
"No."
"What do you think of when you look at me?"
"Sex," she said.
Unable to help himself, Hayden laughed at her answer. It was the second time he’d laughed in an hour, and it made him feel lighter, somehow.
"Is that a compliment?" he asked.
"Yes. And very un-Slayerlike, I’m sure. Also, though, part of me wants to break your teeth and string them on a necklace. That feeling is new."
Her eyes shone with interest. Her creamy skin gave off an almost supernatural glow, reflecting the dappled moonlight streaming through the palm fronds overhead. Hayden didn’t know what to think.
Indecision kept him silent.
"So," she said, rolling her skirt over her hips. "I need to find out what this means. What that name you called me entails. Can you give me time?"
He nodded. Now what are you up to?
"Meet me a week from tonight. At the castle on the cliffs of Clare," she proposed.
When she turned from him, Hayden felt a stab of regret so painful, he winced. He saw also that Connor Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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