The elderly couple had loved the holidays, and each other, so much. They would be so happy to be together again. Sienna blinked back tears, refusing to feel sorry for herself over being alone. Nana had made Sienna promise to celebrate Christmas. Of course, at the end, her grand mother had said a lot of things that hadn’t made much sense. Had to have been the drugs talking….
Maybe the painkillers had been the reason she’d insisted Sienna keep the ring. She stared down at her right hand, and the finger onto which Nana had slid her engagement ring the day that she had died. The diamond twinkled more brightly than the Christmas lights. Sienna had wanted to bury it with Nana, but the older woman had been adamant that Sienna wear it—on her right hand until she met the man who would slide it onto her left hand.
“You will meet him,” Nana had promised. “You’ll meet the man who loves you with all his heart.”
“Yeah, right…” The last thing Sienna expected to find under her tree this Christmas was a man. A pile of bills, an eviction notice, probably, but not a man. Chuck ling to herself over Nana’s romantic notions, she turned away from the casket, and collided with a tall, hard figure. Her hands trembled as she lifted them to his chest to brace herself. The heat of his body penetrated his black silk shirt, warming her palms and making her skin tingle.
He lifted his hands to cup her shoulders. His deep voice was a low rumble as he warned her, “Careful…”
“I thought everyone had left,” she said. Even the funeral director had gone, with instructions to pull the door shut behind her and it would lock. The holidays were fast approaching, so he had probably wanted to get home to his family.
So this strange man wasn’t an employee of the mortician, and he was too young to have been a friend of Nana’s. Yet something about him was eerily familiar. The deep-set dark eyes, the finely chiseled features and the black hair that hung just past his broad shoulders—all of it struck a chord in her memory. Especially the small diamond-shaped scar near the cleft in his chin.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, and fear cracked her voice as she asked, “Who are you?”
“I think you know,” he challenged her.
Beneath her palm, his heart pounded hard. Realizing she still touched him, she curled her fingers and pulled away her hands.
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head, her mind muddled with confusion and exhaustion—and his distracting nearness. “I don’t know you.”
But a thought, buried in the dark recesses of her mind, tugged at her. Sienna refused to recall the dark memories, though; monsters lurked with those memories, threatening to hurt her. Again. That was why, even at twenty-seven, she still slept with the lights on.
He didn’t release her, his fingers holding tight to her shoulders. “Don’t be sorry,” he said as if it didn’t matter, yet something about his tone suggested that it did. “It was a long time ago.”
She jerked from his grasp, suddenly very aware that they were all alone…except for the dead. “Don’t pre tend to know me when you don’t.”
“Sienna…”
She shivered. He knew her name. But he could have learned it from reading her grandmother’s obituary. “Who are you?” she asked again. “Or should I ask what are you?”
He sucked in a ragged breath. “What do you mean?”
“I know you’re a con man.”
A muscle twitched just above the line of his tightly clenched jaw as anger and pride flashed through his dark eyes. “Sienna—”
“Don’t waste your time with me,” she advised him, “I have nothing for you to con me out of.” Only the ring.
He caught her hand in his, but instead of reaching for the diamond, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist where her pulse leaped with a rush of heat and adrenaline from his touch. “I am not a con man.”
“I don’t expect you to admit that you are,” she said with a short laugh. “You won’t even tell me your name and how you know me.”
“I don’t have time to explain,” he said with a glance over his shoulder.
Sienna couldn’t see what he was looking at; he was so much taller than her, his shoulders so broad, that she could see nothing but him—his handsome face, his muscular chest straining the buttons of his silk shirt. Over the shirt and jeans, he wore a long wool jacket—open, as if the cold outside didn’t affect him at all.
“You’re going to have to trust me.” He stroked his thumb across the leaping pulse point in her wrist.
She swallowed hard, but her throat remained dry with nerves and a sudden rush of desire. How could she be attracted to a man she just met and who frightened her so much?
In protest of her attraction as much as his command, she murmured, “No…” She tried to tug free of him again, but he held her with his dark-eyed gaze and his grasp.
Then he pulled her closer so that her breasts pushed against the hard wall of his chest. “Once I get you out of here, I will tell you everything.”
She shook her head, trying to break the connection between them. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Let me go!”
He tightened his hold and slid an arm around her back, so she couldn’t escape him. “I can’t. I came here for you, Sienna. I’m going to save you.”
I’m going to save you…
The words reverberated inside her mind. And she flashed back to big hands reaching out of the darkness for her, pulling her from the twisted metal that was all that was left of her parents’ vehicle. Staring deep into those compelling dark eyes of his, she remembered now where she had seen him before—when she was seven and had become an orphan.
She grimaced as the old memories pummeled her; the screech of metal as the car struck the guardrail, sparks flying. Then the crunch as the rail broke, and the car tumbled down the hillside, end over end. The screaming—her mother’s screams and hers…echoed inside her head.
She shook her head, trying to wake herself from the night mare. The pain, the fear, the darkness…it was all too much. She clutched at him, pleading, “Make it stop…”
He leaned forward, his mouth nearing hers as if he intended to kiss her. But before his lips touched hers, it stopped. Everything stopped.
JULIAN VOSSIMER CAUGHT her, as her body went limp against his, and he lifted her in his arms, holding her close to his madly pounding heart. Her head settled into the crook of his shoulder and neck, her breath warm and whisper-soft against his skin.
His blood pounded in his veins, not just over the imminent danger she was in—but because of the danger she had put him in. The danger of falling for her.
She had become such a beautiful woman. Her hair, the same honey tone as her skin, bore shimmery streaks of sunshine. Her eyes, although closed now, were a bright blue that had glistened with the tears she’d fought as she told her grand mother goodbye. Those tears had been the only hint of her grief, of mourning. The visitation room for her grand mother was deco rated with red and white poinsettias, lights, pine boughs and a Christmas tree. Instead of traditional black, Sienna wore a red dress in soft velvet that hugged every curve of her tempting body. But he didn’t intend to seduce her; his only intention was to protect her. Yet had he actually hurt her? Or had she fainted just from fear?
If she was this afraid now, what would she be when she learned what he really was?
“She’s fine,” he assured himself. For now. But if he couldn’t get her to listen to him, she wouldn’t be fine. She would be as dead as her grand mother.
Balancing her slight body in one arm, he grabbed up her purse and jacket from a chair in front of the casket. He found her keys then draped her coat over her before slipping out a back door to the parking lot. He couldn’t have wit nesses who could identify him as the man with whom Sienna Briggs had disappeared.
And she had to disappear, in order to save her life.
Her breath escaped in white puffs into the night air, and snow drifted down, falling in wispy flakes onto her beautiful face. The flakes melted and slid down her skin like tears. He sus
pected she had shed a lot of tears in her life. She had lost so many people she loved.
Because of Julian. Guilt twisted his gut. If only…
But he could not change the past. He could only affect the future. And he had to make sure she had one. He wouldn’t be responsible for taking that away from her, too.
Julian pushed the button on her keys, so that the lights on a small SUV flashed on and off while the locks opened with an audible click. He had to take her car, too, so no one would realize from where she’d gone missing. But would anyone realize she was missing?
Few people had showed up tonight to pay their respects to her grand mother, or offer their support to Sienna. She seemed so alone now, as if she had less than when he’d pulled her from that wreckage almost twenty years ago. Regret joined his guilt.
“I’m sorry…” he murmured as he pulled open the passenger’s door and settled her limp body onto the seat.
He should have warmed up the car; her skin chilled, the snow flakes no longer melted on her face, but clung to her lashes. Suddenly light flashed, momentarily blinding Julian as fire sprang up around the vehicle. He hadn’t moved fast enough to protect her.
“No!” he shouted. “Leave her alone!” But he didn’t want her alone, he wanted her with him.
A woman stepped out of the smoke, her eyes burning as brightly as the flames—with hatred and madness. “Vossimer, step back…”
Ignoring her order, Julian reached through the flames and gathered Sienna back into his arms. Clutching her close, he wrapped his coat around them both. “I’m not going to let you kill her…”
“She has to die,” Ingrid Montgomery argued. “I was there. I heard her grand mother tell her the secret.”
“The woman was terminally ill.” As Ingrid knew since she had posed as a hospice nurse. “Sienna won’t believe what she heard.”
“If she’d seen this, she would.” Ingrid pulled a picture from the pocket of her cloak. Across the space separating them, Julian recognized a young version of Sienna’s grand mother and himself. “She’d realize you aren’t human.”
“You don’t know that,” he insisted. “Burn the picture, not her. She won’t repeat what her grand mother said.”
“Like her grand mother wouldn’t repeat the secret? You can’t trust humans,” the woman said, the pitch of her voice rising to the level of a hysterical scream. “You can’t trust them. You know what happens…”
Not as pain fully as she knew. “Ingrid—”
“If we don’t kill her,” the woman persisted, “more of us will die.”
Julian shook his head. “She’s already suffered enough. I won’t hurt her.”
“I figured you were too attached to her,” Ingrid said, “so I brought reinforcements.” Her reinforcements stepped from the shadows, but the darkness remained part of them, buried deep in what ever was left of their souls. He glanced at the three men, all big and burly and more than willing to do Ingrid’s bidding.
Anger coursed through him, vibrating in his voice as he shouted, “Stay back!”
“Let her go and you won’t get hurt,” Ingrid negotiated. “I’ll clean up your mess for you.”
“She’s not my mess—”
“She’s too much to you,” Ingrid said with a snort of disgust, “and she’s too dangerous for the rest of us. You know the rule—no human can learn the secret of our existence and live. She must die, Julian. Now.”
“She’s not a threat—” he turned to the men who inched closer to him “—to any one of us.”
“That’s not what your grandfather says—that’s not what he sees,” Ingrid reminded him.
Julian’s heart clenched with dread. “My grandfather…” That was why Ingrid had posed as the hospice worker, to make sure Carolina Briggs died. Orson Vossimer had threatened to order her death long ago—not because of what he suspected but hadn’t been able to prove she knew—but to reclaim their family honor. “He’s behind all of this?”
Julian wasn’t surprised; he was sickened. How long could the old man hold a grudge?
“Your grandfather’s worried about you,” Ingrid said. “He believes you’ve lost your objectivity, that your pity for the little girl she once was has clouded your judgment. All grown-up, she is a threat to you, but you can’t see it.”
He could see—and feel—that Sienna Briggs was all grown-up now. But a threat? Probably. He would admit that only to himself, though. He shook his head again. “I’m not going to let you kill her.”
Ingrid’s reinforcements eased closer to him and the flames that still lapped around the burning vehicle.
“You’re going to have to kill me first,” Julian threatened, “and I don’t think that would make my grandfather very happy.”
Ingrid gasped, as if shocked by his ultimatum, and her men halted their approach, un certain how to proceed.
Julian took advantage of their indecision. Clutching Sienna more tightly in his arms, he leaped and launched them into the sky. The falling snow, cold and hard, struck his face as he propelled them higher.
The flames rose, licking at the sky and nipping at Julian’s heels. But he flew, cutting through the thick black air. Even though the reinforcements, spurred on by Ingrid’s shouts, chased him, he was too fast and too motivated. He outdistanced them with ease until not even a wisp of smoke reached him.
Sienna shifted in his arms and murmured, as if she was regaining consciousness. She had already been out so long. Perhaps exhaustion, more than fear, had caused her to collapse. He tightened his grip, so that she wouldn’t slip from his hold. He had to get her to safety—had to return her to land before she awakened. She had been frightened of him before— he couldn’t risk her awakening during flight. If she fought him…
If she fell…
Instead of saving her, he might wind up being the one responsible for her death…as he was responsible for other deaths.
CHAPTER TWO
SIENNA’S EYES OPENED—to total blackness. Panic pressed against her chest, and a scream burned in her throat, escaping in a mere gasp of breath.
“Shh,” a deep voice murmured. “You’re all right. Everything’s fine.” Flames flickered as he lit candles. The soft light illuminated the room.
The bedroom. Sienna lay on a soft mattress, a brown suede bed spread pulled to her chin. The drapes, drawn across the windows, were also brown and so thick that they blocked any hint of moon light or street lamps. The candlelight didn’t dispel her panic as her fear in creased. “Wh-where am I? Where did you take me?”
“Home.”
She glanced around at the plaster walls that stretched ten feet to a coffered ceiling. An ornate chandelier hung from the center, but only the reflection of the candlelight shimmered in the crystal and leaded glass.
She shook her head. “This isn’t my home.”
“This is my home.”
“Your bed?”
He nodded, his black hair skimming across his broad shoulders. He’d ditched his jacket and wore only the black silk shirt now, pulled free of the waist of his dark pants. Several shirt buttons had been opened, revealing the sculpted muscles of his chest.
Sienna shivered.
“You’re still cold?”
Her fingers trembling, she lifted the blanket and peered beneath. She still wore her clothes, but the red velvet dress had twisted, the hem tangled around her hips. “You—you didn’t undress me…”
“Did you want me to?” he asked as he settled onto the bed next to her, his hip pressed against hers.
“I— Of course not,” she replied. And she tried to shift away, but he stretched his arm across her and planted his palm atop the blanket on the other side of her, trapping her in the bed—her face just inches from his. She tried to ignore his close ness and tried not to stammer as she demanded, “I want to know why—how—when you brought me here.”
He opened his mouth, as if he intended to answer at least one of those questions. But Sienna needed to know something else first, so
she put a finger across his lips. “Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Julian Vossimer.”
The name meant nothing to her. But the man did—if he really was the one she remembered from that old night mare. Yet everyone had told her that that had been just a dream, her mind playing tricks on her…like Nana’s had been playing tricks on her at the end.
“I don’t under stand,” she said, “why I’m here.”
“We need to talk, Sienna,” he said, his deep voice lowered to a soft whisper. “I have somethings to tell you, somethings you need to hear.”
“I remember.”
“What?” He tensed. “What do you remember?”
The memories didn’t surge back like they had, violently, at the funeral home. They were just there now—like she was just here with him. It hadn’t been a dream or a trick of her mind, no matter what anyone had tried to convince her.
“I remember that night,” she said, “that you were the one who pulled me from the wreckage.” He hadn’t just pulled her, though. He’d had to manipulate the twisted metal, wrenching it apart before he’d been able to get her free. Maybe she had dreamed that part because no man was capable of such strength. Since he had saved her once, she shouldn’t fear him now. “I guess I owe you…my life…”
A muscle flinched in the deep crease of his lean cheek. His face was all sculpted planes and hard lines that tempted her finger to trace and touch. Did it matter what else he was, or why he’d brought her here?
“You’re my hero…”
The muscle jerked again as he shook his head. “I’m no hero.”
“Did you bring me here to hurt me?” she asked, but she already knew that he hadn’t. If she’d felt she was in real danger from him, she would have started fighting to escape him. It wouldn’t make sense for him to have saved her all those years ago to hurt her now.
“No,” he answered her, his dark eyes serious and sincere. “I brought you here to protect you.”
“See, you’re my hero,” she said. Maybe it was his eyes—those deep-set dark eyes that pulled her into his soul. Maybe it was the attraction, quivering inside her, that she’d never felt as intensely for another man. But she leaned forward and lifted her face to his. Her lips skimmed across that diamond-shaped scar on his chin before she kissed him.
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