With a roar Raven caught the back of the man’s head and flipped him over his shoulder, ramming his foot into his neck. “Who offers the bounty?” Raven demanded, pressing hard enough to cause the man’s eyes to bulge.
“Many.” The man choked. “The bid goes higher every day.”
“Damn,” Raven muttered quietly, and then adding pressure, he asked, “How did you track us?”
A wry smile curved the man’s lips, holding no humor. “I’m a bloodhound. I can track anyone with merely a drop of their blood.”
“Not anymore.” Raven cursed and then reached down and twisted the man’s neck.
I heard the snap of bones and tried not to look at the men lying mere inches from me on the floor. One lying in a pool of his own blood, his eyes wide with shock and terror; the other with his head twisted grotesquely.
I couldn’t bear to see it and I couldn’t look away. I felt my stomach roll and pressed the back of my hand to my mouth yet still stared at the dead men.
Because someone had put a bounty on my head.
I was too shocked to move, to see. This couldn’t be happening. I wasn’t that scared child anymore. I didn’t have any paranormal abilities. My eyes glazed over to a blur with a mixture of unspent tears and fear.
I felt a strong, callused hand encircle my arm and slide me out from under the bed. I started kicking furiously, trying to push the fingers off my body.
“Zen.” Raven’s voice was soft. “It’s okay.” He hoisted me up, and I had no choice but to let him pull me into his arms, supporting my weight as if I were as light as a doll.
“You’re a vampire.” It wasn’t a question but a statement. I wasn’t afraid of him. Maybe I should have been. Perhaps it was because he’d protected me in the parking lot, or as evidenced in the two bodies that lay on the floor, killed for me. I’d known vampires existed, even before it had become widely acknowledged. Now Raven, a vampire, steps in with knowledge I thought no one else knew about, claiming he was here to save me when I’d spent my life hiding from anyone supernatural. So far, he’d given me no reason not to believe him. But that did nothing to stop the trepidation coursing through my veins.
He pulled back his lips to reveal his fangs and smiled around them. “I won’t hurt you, Zen.”
“Okay,” was all I could manage to say.
The tears came then. Thrust out of me by huge racking sobs that stole my breath and left me trembling, and all the while Raven held me, whispering soft reassurances.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I knew I should have been afraid of him. He’d taken me against my will, yet he had done no harm. Why was he holding me so gently?
So many “whys”.
I found my legs again and stood on my own but still clutched Raven’s shirtfront like a lifeline.
“Why do they want me? I’m not a vampire. I can’t do anything. Why do they think I have special abilities?” I wasn’t sure the sound of my question was audible.
“That is not for me to explain,” he replied gently.
“Why should I trust you?” I demanded the answer, needing something solid to hold onto and silently longing for that one tiny piece of security.
He tilted my face and searched my eyes. I kept mine glued to his, open and hiding no secrets. Without warning his lips came to mine, and without reason, I accepted.
This was not a tender kiss, no gentle brush of lips. It was fast, hard, and filled with fire. I drank his passion in, opening my lips in invitation until at last he thrust his tongue inside my mouth.
Every nerve in my body sizzled with unexpected desire, leaving my mind reeling as a variety of emotions jumbled through me. Never before had I felt such quick attraction. Never before had it reached this level. I knew I should have pushed him away. He’d kidnapped me! I didn’t know him…
Lie!
The word echoed in my brain, telling me I had known he would come all along. Without knowing his name or what he looked like, I knew he would come to me.
As quickly as it began, it ended. I was left feeling confused and instantly missed the warmth his body provided when he mumbled an apology and stepped away.
All at once it came back to me. The night I’d been walking to my car alone and some drunken bastard followed me…Raven had intervened and escorted me home. Only I didn’t get his name and cursed myself daily for not asking. But he’d remained in my thoughts during the day and in my dreams as I slept.
“You!” I accused and knew my eyes were wide with shock, and my heart jolted with unexpected joy.
“You remember?” he whispered, disbelief clear in his tone.
Well, truthfully, no. I didn’t remember his face. It was dark and I was shaken. It was the kiss that haunted me and kept me tossing and turning with frustration most nights.
I felt the blush creep up my face. “I remember enough.”
“As do I.” His voice was unapologetic and a little amused.
“I could have taken care of myself that night.” The words were out before I could stop them. But what could I say, that I couldn’t get him off my mind?
“And let Howdy Doody take advantage of you?” A smile tugged at the edges of his mouth.
“Howdy Doody?” I sputtered a laugh. “Like the little red-headed, freckle-faced puppet? I guess he did look like that, didn’t he?”
“Red hair, scrawny build. It’s the best description I have.”
“Howdy Doody’s been off the air for like, fifty years. How old are you?”
“Older than you’d think,” he muttered.
I stood there, hands on my hips, and finally, finally put a face to the kiss that had been tormenting me, and just like that, my angst was gone. “Thank you,” I said softly, giving him a long overdue apology.
“I will tend to this mess.” He gestured with an elegant sweep of his hand, bringing my attention to the bodies of the men on the floor.
I had a brief wash of guilt that I’d shared such an intimate moment in the company of two corpses and then realized it could have been Raven and me lying dead. Refusing to think of the attackers, I reached my hand out to touch Raven, only to have him turn away swiftly, coldly.
With his back to me he ordered me to get ready to leave and swept his hand toward the bathroom.
“You can’t just keep me here against my will,” I shrieked out of both frustration and humiliation. How could he go from molten to ice in the span of a moment? My body and mind had betrayed me. Certainly I couldn’t really feel the attraction, the deep-seated need for a man this quickly. It was the stress of the whole situation. It had to be.
“You would have preferred to go with them?” He raised a mocking eyebrow.
I looked at the dead bodies on the floor and blanched. “No,” I squeaked. “But you can’t make me stay with you, either.”
“I’ll do as I please,” he rumbled so softly, it took me a moment to register the words.
I retreated to the bathroom and locked the door behind me as fresh tears fell and my stomach rolled once again.
I glanced around the tiny motel bathroom. The window above the toilet was small, but so was I.
I needed to get back home, strip off these clothes, and let hot water from a long shower put some semblance of order back into my life. Or at least figure out what to do next. Staying in unfamiliar territory, with Raven, didn’t seem like my best option, no matter how much he stirred desire in me.
Stepping onto the closed toilet lid and peering out the tiny window showed me I was not in a cheap motel but a rustic cabin. Secluded and without any other place in sight. I wondered how far it would be to the nearest road. Surely there had to be a car nearby. Raven had to have driven me here.
Unless he could fly. I knew so little about supernaturals, only that I should fear them.
Oh, God, can vampires fly? Is he reading my mind? He probably knows everything I’m thinking. What happens when he gets hungry?
My instincts shouted, “No!” I wasn’t afraid of Raven. If he
’d wanted to hurt me, he would have done so already.
Regardless, unless he’d left the keys in whatever car he’d driven here, I was going to be leaving on foot. I looked down to my bare feet. While I still wore the clothes I’d had on before I’d come here, my shoes were missing.
I climbed down and sat on the edge of the tub. Lack of shoes and direction were the least of my problems.
Where could I go? Someone was trying to kidnap me. Did it have anything to do with my past?
I couldn’t—no, wouldn’t—take this anywhere near my parents. They’d protect me with their lives, and I wasn’t about to let them do that. Doubtful that it would be safe at home, either, my only choice was to run, and keep running until I could find a way to disappear.
“They tracked her to the cabin.” Raven’s voice from the other side of the door startled me. It was soft yet filled with menace, and for a moment I thought someone else was in the room. “There’s a price on her head, they want her alive and unharmed.” There was a long silence. Ah, he was on the phone.
“Amateurs, it was too easy to take them down,” he continued. “But if what they said was true, I’m going to need to get her there as soon as possible.” Another pause. “Tonight…What the hell do you mean, not yet?”
Turning away from the door and the half of the conversation that I could hear, I pushed open the small window as quietly as possible, shimmied through the opening, ignoring the myriad of spider webs that brushed against me, and dropped to the ground. Tears streamed hot down my face, and my feet pounded on the cold, hard ground. I swallowed back the conflicting emotions overwhelming me. I’d been mugged, saved, kidnapped, and then kissed.
It disturbed me more than I wanted to admit that it was that last part that upset me the most.
Oh, I’d been kissed before. It just wasn’t—like that. It wasn’t warm and fierce, and it certainly never pulled at something that deep inside me before. Raven’s first kiss had lingered in my mind so long that now that I’d had a second, I wanted more. But he was a vampire, the very thing I’d been taught to fear, and at the moment, intent on keeping me against my will.
Heading for the line of trees, I contemplated the many times I’d had to run in the past.
Always in my sleep, it wasn’t real. Not the heart-pounding-out-of-my-chest-lungs-burning-beneath-my-ribs as I ran fear that I had now. In my dreams, I’d never reached a destination.
Apparently, I wouldn’t now, either.
“Zen.” Raven spoke my name low and with an undercurrent of warning as he stepped into my path. Instinctively, I put my hands in front of me and shouted, “No! Leave me alone!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Zen.” The sincerity in his voice surprised me.
I hung my head and crumpled to the hard ground. “Why? Why can’t you let me go? What the hell do you want from me?”
“To keep you safe,” was all he said before he hauled me off the ground and started walking me back to the cabin. He stopped in the shadows of a small strand of trees. “We’ll have to do something about your shoes,” he commented with a wry grin on his face. “But for now, we must leave. Hold on to me, my way of travel is…unconventional.”
I didn’t have an opportunity to protest before the world went dark. My body sizzled with electricity, muscles stiffening as the dark consumed me. I could feel arms around me but could see nothing. Kicking, punching, scratching any surface I could find as I fought my way out of the black, suffocating darkness. Feeling as if I was Alice and I’d fallen through the rabbit hole with nothing but pain waiting upon my descent. I screamed until my throat was raw.
Words that were not my own tried to break into my world, but I would have none of it.
I wanted to wake up from this nightmare to find myself sweat-covered and alone in my own bed, for surely this must be a dream, like the countless ones before it.
Finally, what seemed like hours later, when I could scream no more, I felt my stomach twist in a familiar warning.
The light returned behind my closed eyes. Cool hands soothed my face and swiped the stray hairs from my face.
“Zen. Zen,” I heard Raven’s deep voice roar. It seemed he was at a great distance and closing in fast. His calls became louder and more insistent until I lifted my eyelids.
His face was etched with concern that creased his forehead and darkened his eyes. “Shit. I should have warned you.” He thrust a glass of water in my hands as I struggled to sit up in the bed. The same bed I’d just been in.
“Not possible.” I took a drink of the cool water, feeling its journey all the way down to my stomach. “I was in the dark for hours. How can it be that we’ve only made it as far as the cabin?”
“You should already know the answer to that question.” He swept a frustrated hand through his hair.
“Know what?” My voice scraped out of my throat.
“What you are. What we are. Zen.”
What I am? “I’m nothing. Just a woman, it’s all I’ve ever been.”
“You’re a ShadowWalker,” Raven said.
The term nagged at something in the back of my brain, increasing the pain I already felt there.
“I-I don’t understand,” I stuttered. “You took me into the dark, and I was falling…” My eyes widened against my will. “Oh my God! You can fly!”
It was Raven’s turn to look shocked, his square jaw dropped, and his dark slash of brows came together. “Fly? Zen, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Vampires can fly.”
Amusement sparkled in his eyes, and he let out a short laugh. “Fly? Oh, hell. I’ve heard some good ones in my day but flight? No, Zen. Vampires cannot fly. But I can ShadowWalk.”
“I couldn’t see.” My voice trembled. “It was dark for so long.” My heart had finally slowed enough that I no longer feared it would leap from my chest.
He swept his hand through the tangle of black hair on his head. “It was only a few moments, Zen.”
Mustering up all the dignity I could and casting my eyes to the floor, I confessed, “I’m afraid of the dark.”
“I gathered.” Raven spoke on a long sigh.
That left the problem of getting out of the area and away from whoever else may have tracked us to the cabin.
“How did you get me here?”
“I brought you through the shadows.”
“How does that even make sense?”
“I can,” Raven shook his head, “walk into any shadow that’s big enough to cover me just by stepping into them. “ When I simply stared at him, he blew out a breath and said, “I’ve never really tried to explain it before. Picture a shadow as a veil. Watch.”
He moved to a dark corner of the room and simply disappeared. I blinked, and then blinked again. Forcing my feet to cross the room, I tentatively reached toward where he’d disappeared, hesitating before I plunged my fingers into the darkness and feeling…nothing. I waved my hand through the shadow, fully expecting to find Raven. “Are you in there?” I felt both silly and confused. I was standing in an empty room talking to a dark corner that I’d just seen Raven walk into.
“Wow,” I breathed. “That’s kind of cool.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Raven’s voice behind me dragged a screech from my throat as I jumped around to face him, standing in the opposite corner of the room.
“How did you do that?”
“I simply walked from one shadow to the other.” He swept his hand out, indicating the dark circle on the edges of the room. “It’s how I got you to the cabin, only…”
“I freaked out in the dark.”
“Yeah.” I’d call bullshit on that if I hadn’t just witnessed it for myself. The whole concept was confusing. Something for me to chew over in my mind later, but right at that moment, I needed to get out of here—with or without Raven.
Since it didn’t look like I was getting away from him, I’d focus first on getting someplace populated.
“Knock me out,” I suggested.
“What?” Shock registered on Raven’s face.
“Hit me.”
“I will not! What I need to do is make you sleep, then I can ShadowWalk.”
“You can do that?” I asked skeptically.
“Falcon, my brother, can make you sleep, laugh, whatever. That is his ability, not mine, and the last I heard, he was flying to Colorado.”
“So vampires can fly!”
Raven laughed loud and hearty.
“I’m glad I amuse you,” I scoffed.
“Yes, Zen.” Raven struggled to contain his grin. “Falcon can fly—in an airplane or helicopter, just about anything with wings. He’s a pilot.”
“Oh, well, do you have a better idea?”
Something dark flashed in his eyes, and his lips curved into a devilish grin. “I could always tie you up on the bed for safekeeping until I get back with a car.”
Shit!
“Um, no.” I felt my eyes go wide when I saw that he wasn’t joking. Thinking fast for something to make him not do exactly that, I sputtered, “What if those guys weren’t alone? What if someone comes after me?”
“If I leave you alone, we both know you won’t be here when I return.”
I couldn’t think of a lie fast enough to make him leave. I would flee the moment Raven left. “You can’t leave me defenseless!”
The glint left his eyes, and I knew I’d won that argument. “We’ll walk,” I suggested.
“It’s miles to the nearest town, and you don’t have shoes.” He glanced at my bare feet. “Not that the spikes you call shoes were conducive to walking, anyway.”
“I didn’t exactly plan on any of this,” I countered.
“Let me carry you.” Raven placed his hands on my hips.
“Um, no.”
“I insist.” He hoisted me up.
“Put me down, Raven. I can walk.”
With a sigh he set me back on my feet.
* * * *
On foot and shoeless, I trudged through the forest guided only by the thin strips of moonlight streaming through the towering pine trees and occasionally, Raven’s hand. Every direction was shrouded in the tall stoic shadows of the trees, and once again I wondered why I felt no fear. The forest floor was littered with dead pine needles that cushioned my steps and crunched softly beneath me, lending the only sound, save for an errant rustle as the wind caressed the tree branches.
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