Trespassers.
Rage filled him. Power surged through his muscles, fueled by the thought of losing Kelsie before he’d had the chance to know her. Before he’d had a chance to explain about himself.
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He ran for all he was worth toward the castle, utilizing a speed mortal eyes couldn’t have perceived.
The savageness of his anger crackled the air as he reached the keep. He heard her voice as he entered.
Not too late!
Relief flowed through him. But an extraneous thought nagged as his boots hit stone. The old dilemma resurfaced. Had Connor been faking her naivete?
Covering what she was? He could find the truth now, if he was careful. She would face another creature here, and he would know about her for sure—if he could hold off that long, when she was in danger.
He climbed the western tower wall quickly, hand over hand, until he stood on a decimated landing above what once had been the great hall. Looking down, he saw her and nearly shouted her name.
A big sucker had Connor cornered—an old thing, tall, gaunt to the point of emaciation, hungry as any depraved, ravenous beast. Against the threat, Connor stood rigidly upright, fear etched onto her features, her green eyes open wide.
Hayden’s heart pummeled him mercilessly. Every muscle in his body seized with the need to move, to help, but he waited, barely able to keep himself back.
"You don’t belong here," he heard Connor declare bravely.
The creature beside her didn’t respond. Hell, Hayden realized, maybe it couldn’t. Maybe it was so far beyond hungry as to be completely mindless.
Careful, Connor, my love!
Love. The emotion swirled around him as fiercely as the wind.
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Three feet of distance separated the Slayer from her viable target. Hayden had been that close to her, once.
Closer. They’d been glued together, mouths and hips and everything in between. It had been sublime.
"I don’t want to hurt you," she told the beast. "God knows you’ve been through enough already. Still, I will defend myself."
The vampire lurched forward. Equally as quickly, Connor’s hand rose, with a speed her expression registered as a complete surprise. Then the monster blocked Hayden’s view.
Wait, Hayden told himself, his boots edging the gap in the floor above her, his muscles tense with strain.
Hold tight. Wait and see.
"Connor," he wanted to shout, "what are you doing to me?"
Kelsie’s senses reeled with input that was sudden and overwhelming. As if she’d jumped into a fire pit, feet first, her skin exploded with heat. Nerves blazed.
She knew this reaction, and also knew what it meant. Something that didn’t belong in this world faced her. A thing apart, independent from the reality most people saw.
The torch, its flame flapping furiously and smelling of oil, gave the area beneath the castle’s moss-covered arch an otherworldly aura. In the dim light, the monster edged closer.
She recognized the difference between this creature and Hayden Flynn immediately—not only in looks, but at a deeper, more intrinsic level. This one felt Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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wrong. It stank of rotting flesh. Its white face shone like a clown’s. Its eyes were empty black sockets.
The creature made no sound when it moved. It didn’t appear to use its limbs, more or less floating on its own evil stench. Kelsie’s heartbeat tapped out a fast staccato. With the monster right in front of her, she almost went down, the horror was so great. Her fingers held tightly to the weapon in her hand, the smooth wood foreign to her touch and not nearly as comforting as a revolver loaded with silver bullets would have been.
No time to be sick!
The monster’s fangs were as black as its glaring eyes. It came on like a slippery darkness, fast as a blink. Like a spider. Two hands, cold as granite, tore at her sweater, tugging her toward its tattered chest. Its mouth gaped open.
Adrenaline kicked Kelsie into gear. She jumped sideways, landing on both feet with her hands still raised. The sharpened stake she clutched gleamed in the torchlight, catching the bloodsucker’s attention.
Angry at this show of resistance, it attacked.
Swinging to the right, ducking quickly, Kelsie hit the wall hard with one shoulder. Pain crashed down, hot, terrible, but she straightened in time to ward off another blow. Ducking again, she came up behind the vampire before remembering that the place where its heart was supposed to reside was on the opposite side.
The fangs side.
The monster whirled before she finished the thought, and had her by the throat. The momentum of its attack sent them both stumbling into another wall.
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A rain of stones hurled down on them as Kelsie stabbed at the gaunt, sunken chest with all her might, without penetrating the flesh.
The vampire tumbled back, flailed its arms, hit dirt and bounded back up as if its backside were made of springs. Kelsie shuffled forward with another shallow breath, but her attention was derailed by the sense of another intruder.
Had this bloodsucker brought a friend?
No. This scent is familiar.
As fast as her fleeting thought, a secondary dark figure appeared between herself and the gaunt bloodsucker. Tall, dressed in black, with his blond hair shining against the backdrop of cold gray stone, Hayden Flynn glanced at her briefly, grabbed hold of her sweater and carried her out of the keep.
He tossed her the last little way, onto the grass, onto her knees. When she looked up, Flynn had already gone.
She stumbled to her feet and sprinted toward the hall, hearing scuffling sounds and a long, piercing wail. After that there was nothing. Dead silence.
Sides heaving, and with the stake clutched in her fist, Kelsie stopped beside the torch, breathless, seeing nothing of the gaunt monster. Only one vampire occupied the ancient space now. Hayden Flynn. His blue eyes were on her, as dangerous as she’d remembered them, and flashing evidence of his hunger. His lips were open, showing her a glimpse of fang.
He didn’t shout, growl, or move toward her. He stood there, unmoving, as if trying to get a grip on Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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himself. Then he said in a deep rumbling tone, "You weren’t lying."
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Slayer looked so small, standing there, her face highlighted by the fire from a torch, as it had been when he had first laid eyes on her. She was no less striking for all her disarray.
The stake she held was aimed, point out, at him.
She was scared, and rightly so. His heart went out to her.
"Just another night in the life of a Slayer," he said, observing her expression carefully.
"You came," she said, breathlessly.
"It was an invitation I couldn’t refuse."
He felt twitchy, wanted to ease her tremors, but was unsure of how to go about it. After seeing her grandmother, Kelsie Connor might have bought into the ancient-enemies scenario.
"Why did you help me?" she asked. "To save for yourself the pleasure of having a Slayer?"
"You haven’t yet grown into that stake in your hand, so where would the sport be in that?" Hayden said.
"I know about you. Did you come after me, all the way to Florida?"
"I left Ireland to avoid the word Slayer altogether.
To avoid this moment, in particular."
He watched her think that over. Her lush lips parted. "I didn’t know about myself," she said.
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"I get that now."
She eyed him suspiciously.
"You fought like a girl," he said, grinning. "Not like a Slayer in tune with her talents."
The wide-eyed Connor didn’t let the comment anger her. Although her face was as white as a sheet, she offered a hushed "Thank you." Two simple words
that Hayden saw she meant. A sentiment that had the similar effect to a stake through his heart. Because with those words she’d uttered, the war was over.
"You’re welcome," he said.
Her eyes met his. "What now? We just go on our way, hoping that someday we won’t want to take up where this left off?"
"Do you think you might change your mind?"
"No."
"Can you walk away this time, and forget about me, Connor?"
"No."
Hayden studied her more intently, his pulse still erratic at the thought of what that bloodsucker might have done to her. The depth of this emotion was new, and unusual. He felt protective. The big bad vampire wanted to watch over the same Slayer more or less assigned to seeing to his demise.
"Then I think you owe me," he said, trying not ruin the effect of his statement by offering her the smile that tugged at his lips… Because he was completely certain about how she could make this up to him. And it involved a bed.
Love thine enemy…
"Go to hell on the owe you thing," she said. "And 72
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what’s so amusing?"
"I was wondering if you’ll forget that I saved you?"
"No one ever forgets their first."
Ah, Connor was sassy, all right, Hayden thought, if somewhat out of her league now, with that stake visibly wavering in her hand.
He could smell the scrapes in her skin from her tussle with the undead. The accompanying scent of blood was adrift, and tempting, but not nearly as tempting as her shirt, torn open at the neckline to expose a triangle of creamy, unblemished skin.
Skin unadorned by the special silver necklace.
Hearing the sound of wood striking stone, Hayden knew that Connor had dropped her weapon. He tried to understand what this meant, mentally, but his body had no such problem in translation, and took him toward her before he thought to pull back.
Her eyes were on him, disconcertingly green.
Within her gaze was a strange, knowing light.
Intelligent. Calculating. Nothing innocent about it.
He looked at her uncertainly. With twelve inches separating them, doubt again crossed his mind. Have I been had?
"Let me see," he said, testing his theory. "You don’t really fight like a girl?"
"Not usually."
Was she hiding a grin?
"You aren’t going to tell me that—"
"I knew you’d come, and wanted to see what you’d do? See if you would jump in to help me, true to your word about not wanting to see me harmed?" Connor said.
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He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
She went on. "That I figured you would be doing the same thing? Waiting to see if I’d stake the monster or not?"
She let him sweat that out for a beat, then shook her head. "The answer is no to all of those things. It would have been something I’d do, though. Just so you know."
Hayden said, with relief, "You didn’t know about being a Slayer."
Connor made a face as she moved a sore shoulder.
"I had no idea."
"Now you do?"
"Oh, yes. I’m getting more and more used to it as the hours fly by."
"Do you want to end this here, as I do, Connor?"
"I do not want it to end here," she replied.
He took stock of that.
"We’re the last hope for the old feud, so I’m told,"
she went on, stepping closer to him, looking up, her sultry scent punctuated by that saucy touch of musk.
Hayden knew that scent, and what it meant. His heart missed a beat or two as his fangs fully extended.
Doubt melted away.
"Do you have an idea of how this is to go down?"
he asked, wrapping his fingers in her hair, gently tugging her those last inches closer.
"Don’t you?" she countered.
His mouth hovered above hers. She didn’t pull away.
"This feud could have been stopped at any time. All it took was for one Slayer to cross the line," Connor 74
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pointed out, licking her lower lip to moisten it, then adding, "Or one Flynn."
Hayden’s fangs began to ache. Temptation was a millimeter away. When Connor’s warm hands caressed the sides of his face, he nearly came undone right there.
"What I have to say about the whole Dark Surrender thing, vampire, is dream on. Why should a Connor agree to give in?" she said.
"A vampire can’t change his stripes. I am what I am, by blood."
"As am I," Connor whispered, her mouth rising to meet his.
In the next second, Hayden had her on the ground, with her arms raised over her head and her body stretched out beneath his. Her heat burned right through his clothes. She didn’t resist, even when he looked longingly at her neck.
"Where is the necklace, Connor?"
"Safe."
When she smiled, Hayden smiled back. Looking into her eyes with renewed respect and more than a little awe, he moved his hips teasingly. "You’re saying you planned this, Connor?"
"Did you assume I’d also think like a girl, Flynn?
I’m a woman, as well as a Slayer."
"Truthfully, I didn’t care what you thought like."
"I get that now," she said, mocking his earlier reply. "You’re not one of the undead."
"Indeed not, since you didn’t use that stake."
"You’re capable of everything a normal man is."
Although she knew some of this already, firsthand, Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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Hayden said, "And more. Much, much more. As long as my partner is a—"
"Slayer?"
"Maybe not quite a match made in heaven,"
Hayden admitted. "But it’ll do in a pinch."
His mouth silenced her response, hungrily. Meeting his drowning kiss with ardor of her own, she flicked her tongue sensually across his fangs…
Then Hayden was on his back, with Connor on top and smiling down at him.
"Just to be clear," she said, "I might not have known about the Slayer gig, but I’ve never been a weakling."
"Point taken," Hayden conceded.
"When I love, it will be forever."
"Most commendable."
"There will be no surrendering here, dark or otherwise, on anybody’s part. Just understanding. And plenty of sex."
"A Slayer after my own heart," he agreed.
Of course, he wouldn’t tell her that he had allowed her get the better of him, this once. That he had seen her move coming, and that his strength would always be superior to hers. Getting him on his back had been a concession to the future. His own kind of surrender.
And now she owed him twice over.
Trying not to laugh out loud over the hand Fate had unexpectedly dealt him, Hayden glanced at Kelsie Connor’s smooth neck, currently flushed pink, so very inviting and silver free. He watched her skin pulse over her blue-tinted veins with each excited beat of her heart.
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As her hips began to move against his, and she gave a low, sensual chuckle that he likened to the call of the wild, Hayden thanked those Fates again, seven times over, for this strange, lovely, unexpected, extraordinary gift.
With an answering growl, deep in his throat, and a firm hold on Connor’s hips, he decided that this old ruin on the cliffs of Clare was as good a place as any to show a Slayer what miracles a vampire could perform, if given the opportunity.
She’d find out later that a vampire’s libido, not unlike his thirst, was insatiable.
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Vampire Lover
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