by Linda Howard
BY LINDA HOWARD
A Lady of the West
Angel Creek
The Touch of Fire
Heart of Fire
Dream Man
After the Night
Shades of Twilight
Son of the Morning
Kill and Tell
Now You See Her
All the Queen’s Men
Mr. Perfect
Open Season
Dying to Please
Cry No More
Kiss Me While I Sleep
To Die For
Killing Time
Cover of Night
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Up Close and Dangerous
Death Angel
BY LINDA JONES
Untouchable
22 Nights
Bride by Command
Prince of Magic
Prince of Fire
Prince of Swords
The Sun Witch
The Moon Witch
The Star Witch
To Robin Rue and Beth Miller,
for their unfailing support and enthusiasm
FOREWORD
The warriors have always been with us; they’re the ones who were willing to die to protect the ones they loved, the ones who were honored to live another life afterward, and who had the courage to stand watch even from the other side, ready and willing to once more step into danger if they were needed. Once the warriors who live beyond this world were accepted, even revered. Then, for a long time, they weren’t needed and they became myth, their stories passed from father to son, from mother to daughter. Now they are forgotten.
Immortal Warriors live in a very real world much like this one, a world far away and at the same time close enough to touch. Some think they are ghosts, or spirit guides, or even angels. But they are none of these things … yet all of these things. Some among us—blood descendants of these warriors—can see them, can hear them when they call. But how do you hear someone who has been forgotten? How do you understand why they are calling?
Each warrior once walked this earth. They lived, loved, and went to war. Now they fight forever, sacrificing their eternity in order to preserve the human race.
But only if they’re called. Only if we learn to hear.
PROLOGUE
Los Angeles, California
She was losing her mind. There was no other explanation.
She hadn’t slept more than thirty minutes at a stretch for the past three days. How could she, when the dreams were so vivid and came so quickly, one after the other, startling her awake every time her name was called? Some of the details were murky, but two things she always remembered very clearly: the man, and the way he called to her.
It wasn’t fair. She was twenty-three years old, healthy, unattached—at the moment—and living in the bustling and exciting city of Los Angeles, far from the family she’d left behind in Missouri. She should be having the time of her life, the way she had been just a few days ago, and not dragging herself around in a stupor of fatigue. Normally she wouldn’t complain about vivid dreams of a very large and muscular, mostly naked, dark-haired hunk who felt so real there were moments she actually forgot he was the product of a dream, but she needed her sleep.
Now it was getting worse; he was invading her waking hours, too, though, to be fair, for the past three nights it seemed as if most of her hours had been spent awake. She’d started hearing him at different times, and the way he called her name was getting more and more urgent. Hearing him! Really, truly hearing him. It might be a whisper of her name as she walked down the hall, or a very faint yearning call as she stepped into the shower. She wasn’t imagining the voice. It was real.
Only it couldn’t be real. She didn’t do drugs, so that meant she was losing her mind. It was the only explanation. Fine. The mind could go, so long as she could get some sleep.
She’d been sitting slumped at the table, picking at an ordered-in meal, but she was too tired to eat and finally she gave up on the effort. Dragging herself to her feet, she cleaned off the table and tossed what was left of her supper into the garbage can. As soon as she lifted the lid, the strong, sour odor of several uneaten meals hit her right in the nose. Shit, she should’ve taken the garbage out before it got dark. Not that she was afraid of the dark, and the Dumpster for the apartment complex was in a well-lit area just a few yards from the end of the stairwell, but she’d already changed into her at-home grubbies, she was barefoot, and if she dared leave the apartment looking like this the odds were she’d bump into some really hot guy who’d take one look at her and decide she was about as attractive as her garbage. That was the way life worked. On the other hand, did meeting at the complex Dumpster qualify as “meeting cute”?
She could wait until tomorrow to take out the trash, but that would mean waking up to that smell. And that was assuming she actually got some sleep tonight. She was so tired, she didn’t think anything could keep her awake, not even a naked dark-haired hunk.
She tugged the plastic trash bag out of the can and tied the top, tested the knot to be certain it would hold, then trudged out the door, down the flight of stairs just outside her apartment door, and around the corner.
“Johanna!”
Her hair stood on end as her name echoed both in her head and from somewhere around her. It was spooky, the way the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. It made her want to run home like a scared little kid, to hide her face in her mother’s lap.
And that was the last thing she wanted to do, considering how dead set her mother had been against her moving away. Things hadn’t changed since then, either. Her mother was always warning her to be careful. L.A. was a big city. She hated the idea of her daughter being in such a heavily populated place. So many people! The lecture was delivered on a regular basis: Lock your doors, don’t go out alone at night, watch out for strangers. Yeah, right. That last one was a hoot. She was a hair stylist, so she met new people every day. Moreover, she was fairly new to the area, which meant almost everyone she met was a stranger. Why bother to live in L.A. if she was going to close herself off in her apartment every night? She was here to make her reputation as the hair stylist to go to if you had a special event, someone who could make you look both elegant and edgy. One of these days she’d be stylist to the stars.
The strange sound came again. There was an urgency in this latest call of her name, as if it were a warning.
“Leave me alone,” she whispered, focusing on the Dumpster straight ahead. The faint sound of her own voice made her sharply aware that there was no one in the parking lot of the small apartment complex at this time of night. People who had to be at work early were already asleep, probably having perfectly ordinary dreams. Those who worked at night weren’t home yet. All she saw were a few cars, including her own, a lamppost, and the winding sidewalk that led to the pool. It was all comfortingly familiar. This was her home now; there was nothing to be afraid of, except the possibility that she was going nuts.
She tossed the bag of garbage into the Dumpster, turned, and stifled a shriek as she lurched backward, almost bumping into the trash container. A tall man with long blond hair stood right behind her, reflective sunglasses making his eyes look like giant insect eyes, with the lights reflecting in the lenses. “Shit!” she exclaimed, then put her hand over her heart as if she could physically calm its frantic pace. “I almost jumped out of my skin!”
He paused, his head tilting to the side. “Interesting,” he said. “I didn’t know humans could do that.”
She would have laughed if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with catching her breath. Where had he come from? She hadn’t heard a sound, though he had to have been following almost in her footprints. Surely she should have heard him leave his apartment, he
ard his door open and close.
She’d been right about something like this happening, she thought in disgust. Her hair was a mess, she didn’t have a trace of makeup on, and she was dressed like a bag lady, so of course a trip to the Dumpster would bring her face-to-face … well, face-to-chest … with a hunk. He was dressed all in black; he had a serious Johnny Cash vibe going on. Still, she should have seen him, heard him, but she supposed she could only blame her foggy state of mind.
She tipped her head back to look at him. What was with those pretentious sunglasses? It was night. Not that there wasn’t a more than fair share of pretentiousness in L.A., where everyone was a star or about to become one. This guy was no star. She would’ve remembered this face if she’d seen it before. Wowza, she thought dazedly. He could give her dream stalker a run for his money in the looks department.
Like she was in any kind of shape to admire handsome strangers.
“Run!”
The voice was the one in her dreams, and for a moment she was stunned that he’d said anything other than her name. Then the urgency in the faraway voice seeped into her weary mind and uneasiness chilled her spine.
“Excuse me,” she said, stepping to the side to allow him access to the Dumpster. He moved, too, his action mirroring hers, and like a slap in the face she realized he wasn’t carrying any trash. The taste of copper filled her mouth. Every cell in her body seemed to tense as a rush of alertness seized her, but before her brain could quite send the message to scream he lifted his hand and used one finger to pull his sunglasses down so she could see his blue eyes … his glowing blue eyes.
The scream never came. She felt herself sinking into that gaze, and the odd thing was, she didn’t want to tear herself free. The growing fear of a moment ago vanished as if it had never existed; instead, she was filled with a sense of warmth and pleasure. He was beautiful. She wanted to please him, to do whatever he wanted.
“Oh,” she said in a voice of wonder, reaching out as if to touch his face.
He caught her hand instead, lifting it to his mouth in an elegant and old-fashioned salute. The touch of his lips was warm on her fingers. “Good-bye,” he said, and slid eight inches of a knife blade between her ribs and into her heart.
That hurts, she thought, but without any urgency. “I don’t want to leave,” she said, faintly bewildered. “I want to stay with you.” Why was it so hard to talk? Why did she feel as if she couldn’t draw a breath? She blinked at him, trying to formulate an argument, but thoughts kept slipping away from her and time faded away. She became aware, on some distant level, that somehow she wasn’t standing in front of him any longer but was lying on the ground in front of the Dumpster. That wasn’t right. She would never … too many germs … she should get up.
And there he was again, the man in her dreams, as vivid as he had ever been. He said her name once more and this time he sounded so sad and angry. Then he faded away … and so did she.
Sorin stared down at the girl’s body. He didn’t rejoice in her death, but he did regret that he couldn’t feed from her. The conduits had to be killed in a normal fashion—that is, a normal human fashion, to keep from raising the alarm. This one had been very pretty, so pretty that, under other circumstances, he’d have liked to spend some time with her, feeding and fucking. She would have awakened the next day feeling unusually weak but otherwise in good health, and all she’d have remembered was having a really great time. Instead, an accident of birth had signed her death warrant.
He could mark her name off his to-do list.
Northeast Alabama
Melody leaned against the passenger door of a black pickup truck, and relaxed in the warm evening air. A breeze kicked up, blowing warm Alabama air that smelled of honeysuckle across her skin. And there was a lot of exposed skin for that breeze to caress. Even back before she’d been turned, when she was just a silly human teenager, it hadn’t taken her long to realize that men were suckers for big boobs, a flat tummy, and long legs. She had all three and didn’t mind displaying them if it got her what she wanted.
She smiled as the door before her swung open and a couple walked out of the bar. Wouldn’t be long now; it was getting late and there were only a few customers left. Before the door swung shut again Melody caught a glimpse of the men lined up at the rustic wooden bar, their beers or whiskeys sitting before them, their gazes cutting to her. They knew she was here. Well, he knew she was here, and that was all that mattered.
The conduit caught her eye just before the door closed. She managed to tip her chin in way of a greeting. He was cute—dark-haired and rugged, fit and tall. He had workingman’s hands and nice eyes. It was his truck Melody was leaning against, and she was waiting for him.
Less than a minute later, he walked out of the bar. His stride was long; his jeans were faded and nicely snug. His pretty green eyes were tired.
“Why don’t you come back in?” he asked as he walked toward her.
“I don’t really care for alcohol,” she said.
“Then why are you here?”
Three nights in a row she’d visited this bar, coming and going quickly, getting a sense of who this man was. She had to be sure.
“I dropped in that first night by chance,” she said. “Since then I came here for you.”
He looked a little surprised but not shocked. A good-looking man who had a decent job had to be in demand in this little town, which was seriously in the middle of nowhere. Melody smiled. She knew there was no one around here who could hold a candle to her when it came to blindsiding men. They were so predictable, so easy.
“Take me home,” she said simply. “I can’t stay around much longer. I have places to go, a job to do. But damn, I don’t want to leave without getting a taste of you.”
He was definitely interested, but still wary. “I’m not looking for anything serious. I got divorced just six months ago and the last thing I need—”
“I just want your body,” she said, and that was the truth. “Why don’t we go back to your place?”
He flinched a little, and said, “I don’t want to go home.”
There was a fear in his eyes that told her she had the right man.
She looked around, blew out a huff of air. “It’s been a long time since I had a man in a truck, but you’ve got an extended cab and the windows are tinted, so I suppose we can give it a shot.”
The keys were out of his pocket in a flash. Melody stepped out of the way. It was a shame, really, but she had no choice. The conduit was a soldier in a war he didn’t even know he was fighting, but he was a soldier all the same.
A gentleman to the end, he took Melody’s hand and helped her into the backseat. They’d be in cramped quarters, but that didn’t matter. They wouldn’t be here long. He joined her, closed and locked the door behind him, and she moved in.
Occasionally she’d been chastised by her elders for playing with her food, but her elders weren’t here, and Melody didn’t see any reason why she couldn’t make the end pleasant. It wasn’t his fault that he was a conduit, that he had the bad fortune to have the blood of an Immortal Warrior in his veins, that he’d been contacted. She’d give the good ol’ boy a little fun, in his final minutes.
He could die now or later, but he was going to die.
There was a little bit of light coming through the tinted windows, just enough for him to see her face, though of course she could see his very well whether there was light or not. She smiled at him. She’d been turned in 1956, which made her all but a fledgling in the vampire world, but being so young—relatively speaking—meant that she still clearly remembered what it was like to be human, with all the flirting and drama that humans attached to sex. She still enjoyed some of those silly rituals. With vampires, it was fuck if you felt like it, and that was about as complicated as it got. Not that vampires didn’t make great lovers—there was a lot to be said for both practice and stamina—but humans could be so sweet, both figuratively and literally. Why give that up when she
could have both? She’d actually heard that some of the really, really old vampires eventually gave up sex completely, but she couldn’t imagine that. She sure as hell wouldn’t ever make that sacrifice.
Hell, she’d had to give up ice cream and sunbathing, and that was enough sacrifice for her.
The conduit was exhausted, robbed of sleep night after night by his warrior trying to contact him, but he wasn’t so tired that he couldn’t appreciate the view as Melody shimmied out of her clothes. When she was entirely naked she took his hand and guided it to her breast, where he held it as she slowly peeled his clothes off and trailed her mouth over each section of his body as she bared it. The anxiousness she’d seen in him for the past three days faded, replaced by desire.
She straddled him, took him in, closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of coming together. Their position was awkward, thanks to the small space. His bed would’ve been better, but he didn’t want to go home. Home was no longer a sanctuary for him, poor thing.
Home was where contact with one’s warrior began, and sometimes ended. At home, alone, safe from uninvited visitors and the turmoil of public places, the conduits began to see or hear or simply sense the presence of their warriors. No wonder the poor boy had been sleeping on friends’ couches and in this very truck, where he could have a few hours of peace.
The sex was fast and sweaty and satisfying for both. There was a touch of awkwardness that was almost endearing. He was manly but also shy. He wasn’t a smooth operator with the ladies and never had been. If she hadn’t made the first move, he never would’ve spoken to her.
When they finished, for a long moment they lay awkwardly tangled, sweating and sated. Melody lifted her head, shook back her thick blond hair, and looked him in the eye. Even in the dark, he saw her … and she saw him. She caught his gaze, pushed, and his mind was hers. She was charmed by how easy and pliable he was. She’d be tempted to keep him for a while, if she didn’t have a job to do.