With that he led her up to the balcony and, with a sweeping gesture, showed her the white room below. More white greeted her with a few pieces of white satin furniture. He took one of her hands and curled the fingers around the rail. He gave the lightest of jumps and became airborne. Looking back at her, his hair flipping and floating, every perfect line of his body silhouetted against the white around him, he smiled as he drifted down to stand in the center of the lower room.
Leigh looked over her shoulder at the door. She had no idea how quickly he could return but she knew trying to escape while he watched her wasn’t smart.
He made a clicking noise as if calling a horse, pulling Leigh’s attention back to him. From nowhere Leigh could identify, a female figure walked toward him. Laughter, high pitched and excited, came from this woman.
Sickened, Leigh realized she was watching a bride approaching as if to join her groom.
Heavy lace covered the woman’s face. The same lace clung to her body in an ankle-length dress, and swept behind as a long train. She carried a single lily and its heavy scent rose all the way to Leigh.
The fingers of her right hand would not separate from the railing. They weren’t stuck but paralyzed.
Colin took hold of the bride’s dress by the neck and tore it open all the way to the hem. A voluptuously perfect body was revealed, the large nipples on oversized breasts the only color to relieve almost blindingly white skin. He swept up the woman, sucked each nipple into his mouth and pulled his head back to show thin streams of blood coursing down from where his teeth, with dual fangs glittering, had broken the skin. He lapped up the blood before shifting to the woman’s neck and biting down with a grunt of satisfaction.
The blood that rushed from there seemed darker, and stained the shreds of torn wedding gown.
Colin opened his own suit over his bulging crotch. A single thrust and the woman’s feet shot from the floor. He rose with her, copulating in the air while she hung with arms wide, like a willing, bleeding, sacrifice.
Leigh felt faint.
“Look away, Leigh.” She heard the loud order in her mind. A glance down proved that it couldn’t have been spoken aloud. Colin would have heard.
A great growl erupted through the whole space. A huge animal with thick russet fur and oversized claws on its outstretched paws sprang into view.
Massive, handsome, terrifying, the doglike beast loped closer, its eyes heated as if by fire. She closed her own eyes, waiting to be mauled, praying it would all be short.
Fur brushed across her fixed fingers on the railing and she could move them again. “Climb on my back,” a voice in her mind ordered, and she barely hesitated before climbing on and feeling the animal’s thick fur beneath her face and body.
“I need you to hold on until velocity and gravity take over,” the voice in her head said. And a second later, “Good. Now then. Hold tightly.”
She still did not dare look, but she gripped the giant’s fur on either side of its neck.
“I’ll get the little dog,” she heard next. “And your coat.”
Leigh cracked her eyes open but closed them again at once. They were in the air, splintering through the front door. The icy blast of outdoors touched her, then made her so cold she felt nothing.
chapter TWENTY-THREE
NILES STOOD in the middle of his sparsely furnished living room, waiting for Sean to explain himself.
His second in command rested his brow on the fireplace mantel and gripped it with both hands. They had been back, with Leigh in their possession, for more than half an hour.
“Are you going to explain how this near-miss happened?” Niles said when he figured he would be waiting a long time for Sean to start this conversation. “You could have cost me Leigh.”
Sean straightened up and jerked his head toward Niles’s bedroom. “Shh. You’ll wake her up. She’s still much too cold. Better off under that pile of quilts.”
“She would have been better off if she hadn’t been snatched.”
Sean stretched out on the couch and turned his head away. “And this could have cost you Leigh. What happened to the team needing her?”
Niles wasn’t going there, not now. “How could that lousy scourge have moved into the area without our knowing?” he said instead, then answered his own question. “They’ve been getting help, that’s how. And we know from where. Regardless of how much he hates the walking dead, Brande knows they can help him get what he wants. He intends to run this island—with a little help from a lot of friends. And he can only hold control over Whidbey so long as we never get bigger in numbers. That’s why he’ll do anything to get Leigh.”
Sean scooted up until he could rest the back of his head on the couch arm. “What if Colin wants her, too? It would be just like his twisted kind to want her only to stop anyone else from having her. A fight between the pack and the scourge could keep all of them busy for a long time.”
Niles wanted to break something. No, smash something, a lot of things. Pulverize them. The old rage was back as strongly as it had been when they lost Gary in the Middle East.
Tonight, with Leigh asleep in his bed, he couldn’t afford to give in to one of the nightmarish episodes that left him sweating and drained.
Jazzy went where Niles went as he paced, pumping his hands in and out of fists. Skillywidden sat beside Leigh on the bed, watching her sleep, and Jazzy wasn’t happy with that arrangement.
Without Skillywidden leading the way, it would have taken longer to find Leigh at the vamp’s house. The cat had to be as fae as Sally was, but it had an easier time slipping in and out of tight spots.
Niles grimaced. He knew that when Leigh woke up and discovered she was in his cabin she would be confused and maybe angry. And he wouldn’t blame her.
He would need one hell of a cover story.
Hovering by the door now, ready to leave, Sean had his thumbs hooked into his jeans’ pockets and the usual inscrutable expression on his face.
Niles wasn’t fooled. “You’re as puzzled by this as I am.”
“Sure I am. I’m also pissed I didn’t realize Leigh had left Gabriel’s until too late. Are you going to calm down enough to be rational, boss?”
“Hell, no, I’m not calming down. What were you doing when you were supposed to be watching Leigh—sleeping?”
Sean’s expression showed nothing. “In a way.”
“Meaning?”
“That’s none of your damn business. You’re not the only one lonely for someone to… ”
Niles sighed. He looked at his bare feet. Putting on shoes hadn’t occurred to him. “Let’s drop this for now. We’ve got vampires right in the middle of everything.”
“We already knew there was one. We saw him the night of the fight.”
“Take it from me”—Niles gave a humorless laugh—“Colin wasn’t the vampire from the other night. And if we didn’t know about either of them, how many more are there? Rough sex and domination are this latest guy’s thing. That, and fresh, supposedly innocent blood—preferably in front of an audience.”
“You expected a tea-drinking ceremony, or—”
“This is not the time for jokes,” Niles snapped, his voice practically a growl. “We’ve got to hope Leigh will think she had a bad dream after a bump on the head in the storm.” He gritted his teeth. “I hate it that she saw that sick scene at Colin’s. He planned to have her next… ”
Sean held up both palms. “Okay. You’ve obviously got it bad for her. But I’ve got to remind you that boss or not, the rules apply. That woman in there has to want you before you go any further. You cannot seal until she understands what you are.”
Niles still wasn’t in a mood to discuss his relationship with Leigh with Sean.
“I want to find a way to get Sally to open up with us,” Niles said, narrowing his eyes. “My theory is that the woman wants to be part of two worlds, human and fae. Otherwise, why would she be so helpful to us?”
“Try her being a spy fo
r the other side. How does that fit? That, or she’s just a sweet thing who wants the best for all of us.” He curled his lip.
“Knowing how the fae keep their secrets, we may never find out her angle. But instinct tells me she’d choose us over any of the others—except for her own kind. And she likes Leigh. That doesn’t feel like a guess.”
“Boss—”
“I got your message,” Niles said. “You can quit lecturing.”
Sean slipped away leaving Niles and Jazzy to stare at each other. He picked up the dog and got a frantic licking. Jazzy was panicky.
Niles walked quietly to the bedroom door and pushed it open enough for him to see the bed.
Leigh’s eyes were open.
He almost turned around and left.
“What’s happened?” Leigh asked. “This is your place?”
“Uh huh. Easier to look after you here.” He turned on a lamp.
She struggled to sit up but fell back on the pillow. “Why would I need looking after? I’m all twisted up in this quilt.”
With her tufted ears twitching, Skillywidden moved even closer to Leigh. The cat’s purplish eyes fixed on her face. With one paw, she touched Leigh’s forehead, above the cut Sean had already reported.
“Yeah,” Niles said, to either Leigh or the cat or both. “Take it easy, Leigh, I’ll unwind your feet, but you should stay there for a bit. You probably want something to drink. I don’t have brandy but I’ve got that other wine.”
She frowned as if she found him puzzling. Her expression slowly changed. “Something horrible has happened. I know it. What’s happened, Niles?”
Niles fluffed up the quilt, feeling awkward even though he liked the idea of making her comfortable in his bed. “You banged your head,” he told her, wishing she would go back to sleep and give him time to figure out how to deal with this.
Leigh put a hand to her head and winced when she felt the crusted-over cut.
“You want that wine?” he said.
“Um.” The look suggested deep thought. “Why not? This has been quite a day.” She stared at him again. “I want you to tell me everything that’s going on. Whatever it is. I’m scared.” Her face stiffened even more. “I was going to stop by Phoebe’s bookstore then go home. I took a wrong turn. Wow.” Her eyes got huge and horrified. “Wow, I’m all muddled up,” she whispered and pulled the quilt over her head.
Niles made it to his mostly unused kitchen and gave thanks for having bought wine with a screw top. That might mean the stuff was horrible, but the guy at the store said lots of wine came that way now and it should be good. He poured a healthy measure for Leigh and turned to head back. He changed his mind. If he had a glass, too, it would be an excuse to sit with her while they drank it.
Leigh sat on the edge of the bed, her feet dangling over the side but not touching the floor. The cat had only moved enough to keep her eyes on her charge. “Well,” he said to Leigh, plastering on a grin. “You were coming down to see me anyway. I’m glad you made it earlier rather than later.”
The look she gave him would have cracked bones. She ruined the effect when she sniffed and wiped away tears.
“Wine,” he said brightly and handed over a glass.
There wasn’t a chair in the room. Hooking an elbow around a bedpost, he crossed one bare foot over the other. He raised the glass to his mouth.
“For crying out loud, sit down here,” she snapped, pointing to the bed beside her. “Your virtue’s safe with me.”
His virtue? She was what his mother would once have called sassy. But that had been a very long time ago.
A good look at Leigh’s strained face and he figured she wasn’t sassy, only shocked.
Niles sat, realized he’d cut off the cat’s view of Leigh—cats could glare, or this one could—and moved to sit on the other side. “That cat’s got a thing for you,” he said.
“I think she’s pretty cute.” Leigh frowned around, caught sight of Jazzy moping in the hallway, and called him. “Why do you go without a shirt in the middle of winter?” she said.
Niles looked down at his chest. Damn, he’d been in too much of a hurry to think about it. But what did she expect from him anyway? “I’ve got my pants on,” he said and winced.
A snort escaped Leigh. “Should I say I’m grateful for small mercies?”
“Depends on how dangerously you want to live.” He was grateful for any sign of her spirit returning.
The humor slid away from her features. “How did I get here? And don’t keep making excuses not to tell me.”
He had known this was coming. “I opened the door and there you were. But you were icy cold and passed out.” Not such a stretch. “I put you under the quilt to warm you up. That cat was with you. So was Jazzy.” That much was true.
“That’s what happened?” She said it as if trying to remember. “How did I get down here? Where’s my car?”
“Your car’s up at Two Chimneys. You must have gotten a rock through the windshield. Sean’s fixing that. But apart from that the car seems fine.”
She frowned again. “You left to go check my car? To find it? Why would you think of that?”
He would have to be more careful.
“Sean saw it and called me. You’ve only got a few superficial scratches on your face. They’re clean.”
She twisted around to see the whole room. “I don’t remember coming here,” she said. “I know I was going to the bookshop, but… ”
He hoped she didn’t totally freak out. “Car accidents can really shock you. You’ve probably blocked it out.”
Leigh didn’t look convinced.
“I didn’t handle it well with you this morning,” he said. He wanted to rush her past any recollection of being in that house and what she saw there. “I thought I’d probably scared you off completely. Thanks for coming anyway and giving me another chance.”
Her expression softened. “What you said didn’t make much sense. Or maybe I’m scared of my own feelings. I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Gabriel didn’t get his money’s worth out of me today.”
Niles didn’t care about Gabriel at this moment. He turned sideways and hooked up a knee, leaning so he could see her clearly.
“I’m sure I got everything you said wrong,” she told him.
He regarded her for an instant. “Do you hope you did?”
“That’s not fair. More questions instead of dealing with the ones we already know about.”
If she remembered what had happened to her she wouldn’t be even this calm. “Maybe I’m not sure what to say, Leigh. Talking about feelings isn’t what I do—not usually.”
“Is that because you’re out of practice or just too macho for sloppy stuff?”
“It’s not sloppy to want someone.” He felt as if he had begun to slide and a ravine opened before him. “I told you I won’t push it if you aren’t interested, but I am in love with you.”
She put her glass aside and took his, too. Then she caught hold of the forearm he’d replaced across his middle and pulled his hand free. She held it on the bed between them.
“Niles, how can you be in love with me? You haven’t known me long enough. We’ve never… ”
“Made love?” He smoothed her cheek, took one of her hands to his mouth and kissed the palm.
“That’s what I was going to say.”
“There’s something I believe in,” he told her. “If we’ve come together like this, from a long way, then it was meant to be. We didn’t know it but we were moving toward each other and now that we’re here, it’s time.”
Leigh played with a piece of her hair. “Time?” she said and sounded shaky.
“Time for us to begin. Us.”
Tentatively, she rubbed his knuckles and stroked the tendons in the back of his hand with a forefinger.
He leaned slowly closer, expecting her to push him away. She didn’t. Niles opened her mouth under his and sucked her bottom lip gently between his teeth. And she softened against him.
The kiss went on and on, seeking and finding deeper places, neither of them trying to end it until Leigh pulled back a little before resting her brow on his. She closed her eyes and so did he.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” she whispered.
“I want what you want.” He passed the tip of his tongue along her lip. “But it has to be… ”
“What I want?”
He actually shook from holding himself back. Muscles all over his body ached and his thighs contracted until they felt like rocks.
But through it all there was a longing for something else, something he couldn’t identify.
Leigh buried her face in his shoulder. He felt her breath sighing over his skin. This was what he had hoped and longed for, wasn’t it? She was drawn to him and he could have her.
No. Not just yet.
The females of his kind had started dying when they gave birth. Then they all died—none of them survived. Niles knew he must not forget the truth about his own kind. And that he must share the truth with Leigh.
He stroked Leigh’s hair. He massaged her shoulders and wrapped his arms around her as if he could somehow shelter her from all harm. But no one had been able to save those others. He and the team hoped it would be different with Leigh, but they didn’t know for sure, he didn’t know.
A shudder shook him and he gritted his teeth. Convulsively, he held her even tighter, his face in her neck, kissing her there.
She made a sound and he winced. Carefully, he loosened his grip without letting her go. Her breasts were soft against him but her small body was firm. Firm but so slight. She would not withstand a violent turmoil waged from within her, one that could consume her life.
The risk was too great.
Still holding her, Niles said, “I should get you home. This isn’t the right time to discuss any of this.” There would never be a right time, and he felt torn apart by the sense of loss.
“I’m not going anywhere without you.” She said it, and as if to force him to believe her she dug her fingertips into his naked back. “I don’t know why but I have to be with you, Niles. It’s meant to be. There is so much I don’t understand but I think I will if I trust.”
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