Night's Pleasure

by Amanda Ashley

  Where was she?

  Where was he?

  “Feeling better?”

  Startled, she glanced over her shoulder. He was standing behind the sofa, a glass of water in his hand.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Where are we?”

  “My place.” Taking a step forward, he offered her the glass. “You fainted in the parking lot.”

  “I did?” She had never fainted in her life.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I guess so.” Stalling for time, she sipped the water, her mind reeling. She had to get out of there before it was too late, before he ripped her throat out. He didn’t look like a Werewolf, but then, she had no idea what a Werewolf looked like. Had she imagined the whole thing?

  Eyes narrowed, she studied Rane, but, aside from the fact that he was probably the handsomest man on the planet with his thick black hair and heavily lashed black eyes, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. But looks could be deceiving. He had proved that in the parking lot.

  He lifted one brow. “Something wrong?”

  “Other than the fact that you’re a Werewolf, everything’s fine.”

  “I’m not a Werewolf. I don’t howl at the moon. I don’t turn furry once a month. I just change shape.”

  She didn’t believe him, but she nodded anyway. One should always humor Werewolves and crazy people. Setting the glass on the end table, Savanah glanced at her watch, surprised to see it was almost midnight. How long had she been unconscious? Her father would be wondering what happened to her.

  Struggling to keep the panic from her voice, she said, “I think I’d better go.” Rising, she looked around for her handbag, wondering if he would let her leave, or if someone would find her mutilated body in a ditch come morning.

  “Not yet.”

  “What do you mean?” She didn’t need her handbag, she decided as she glanced anxiously at the door. She just wanted to go home.

  “I’d like to get to know you better.”

  Oh, Lord. A Werewolf and a lech! She stared at him, unable to think of anything to say while her mind scrambled to find a way out.

  Rane dragged a hand through his hair, thinking he sounded like some tongue-tied high school kid. “What I mean is, I’m gonna be in town for another couple of weeks and I’d like to spend some of that time with you.”

  “Oh.” His words, obviously sincere, took her by surprise.

  “What do you say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re bothered by what you saw tonight.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “How long have you been a Werewolf?”

  “I told you before, I’m not a Werewolf.” He couldn’t tell her the truth, not all of it, so he told her a part of the truth. “I’m a shape-shifter.”

  “But…” She dropped down on the sofa again, thinking that a shape-shifter seemed a lot less scary than a Werewolf. “How did it happen? I mean, is it hereditary?”

  “You could say that.”

  “So, your parents are shape-shifters, too?”

  Skirting the truth yet again, he nodded.

  Savanah shook her head. “Amazing,” she muttered, and then frowned. “Can you change into other animals?”

  “Yes.” Rane smiled inwardly, remembering how he and Rafe had often passed the quiet hours of the night by changing into lions and tigers and wolves. They seemed to have an affinity for predatory creatures, though he supposed, given their nature, that wasn’t surprising.

  “Cats? Dogs? Elephants?”

  He could see the wheels turning, knew she was thinking about what a great story it would make. He could see the headlines now: MAGICIAN’S SECRETS REVEALED. STORY ON PAGE TWO. “Remember your promise,” he said. “Everything that happened here tonight is off the record. You can’t write it up.”

  “Who would believe me?” she muttered, and then frowned. Years ago, Werewolves and Vampires and shape-shifters had made the news. She had read about the war between the Supernatural creatures in the morgue files. No one really knew what had started the war, or why it had abruptly ended, but once it was over, the Supernatural creatures seemed to have disappeared. And now Rane was here. If the Supernatural creatures were surfacing again, it could be the story of a lifetime. But a promise was a promise.

  Rane scooped her handbag from off the mantel and handed it to her. “Come on,” he said, “I’ll take you back to the club so you can get your car.”

  With a nod, Savanah followed him outside to where a sleek silver Porsche waited in the driveway. He opened the passenger door for her and she slid into the seat. The leather, as soft as melted butter, seemed to enfold her.

  “I knew it,” she said. “Zero to sixty in nothing flat.”

  Chapter Four

  Savanah’s father was in the living room, reading the newspaper, when she got home.

  “Dad, what are you doing up so late?”

  Folding the paper in half, he tucked it between his thigh and the side of his wheelchair. “Waiting for you, of course.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” Shrugging out of her coat and kicking off her shoes, she padded across the floor and dropped a kiss on his forehead. “I’m a big girl now.”

  “Maybe so, but…” He shrugged.

  “I know, you don’t have to say it. I’ll always be your little girl.” Plopping down in the chair across from his, she curled her legs beneath her. “What did you do this evening?”

  “Oh, the usual. How about you?”

  “I had sort of a date.”

  Her father arched one inquisitive brow. “Sort of a date? Is that something new?”

  “Actually, it wasn’t a date at all. I went to the theater to see Santoro the Magnificent again. After the show, I waited for him in the alley, hoping to get that interview.”

  Her father nodded his approval. “Any luck?”

  “Not really, although we did go out for drinks.”

  “I see.”

  Savanah drummed her fingertips on the arm of the chair. She had promised she wouldn’t write anything about Rane’s shape-shifting ability, not that she could blame him for wanting to keep it a secret. If people knew he was a shape-shifter, it would not only ruin his image as an amazing magician, but it would garner a lot of unwelcome attention from other reporters and curiosity seekers that he would probably rather not have. On the other hand, if he wanted to stay out of the limelight, he had certainly chosen the wrong profession.

  Still, a promise was a promise and she wouldn’t divulge what she had learned, but she hadn’t promised not to tell her father. She was splitting hairs, and she knew it, but she had to tell someone.

  “So, you didn’t get an interview,” her father remarked. “What did you get?”

  “More than I bargained for.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “This is just between you and me,” she said. “And totally off the record.”

  He nodded. “All right.”

  “He’s a shape-shifter.”

  William Gentry leaned forward in his chair. “Did he tell you that?”

  “He showed me.”

  Leaning back, her father swore softly. “So,” he drawled thoughtfully, “that’s how he does it.”

  “Well, it explains how he turns into a wolf. I still don’t know how he just disappears into thin air,” Savanah said, and then frowned. “Unless becoming invisible is part of shape-shifting.”

  Her father frowned thoughtfully. “Could be,” he murmured. “Could be. There might be a moment between one form and the other when he’s invisible long enough for him to vanish.”

  “Maybe. He said he’d like to see me again.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Savanah. In fact, I think it’s a terrible idea.”

  “Why?”

  “In the first place, we don’t know anything about him, and in the second place, he’s a shape-shifter, which means he’s not entirely human.” Her fa
ther shook his head. “I don’t like the idea of the two of you spending time together.”

  Savanah shrugged. “He seems nice enough.”

  “Yeah, well, they said Bundy was a nice guy, too.”

  “Rane’s a magician, Dad, not a serial killer.” Savanah frowned inwardly. Not an hour ago, she had been scared half out of her mind, and now she was defending the very man who had frightened her out of ten years of her life.

  “Rane? Is that his real name?”

  She nodded. “Maybe he’ll give me that interview when we get to know each other better.”

  “Maybe, but I still don’t like it.”

  “You know, Dad, he’s not any more closemouthed than you are,” Savanah muttered. “You still haven’t told me about the story you’re working on.”

  “That’s right, and I’m not going to, not yet, anyway.”

  “It must be something really hush-hush,” Savanah remarked. Her father had worked on big stories before, but he had always shared them with her. This was the first time he had refused to discuss any part of it with her. So far, he hadn’t given her so much as a hint. It was maddening and frustrating. Being a journalist and naturally nosy, it had her curiosity ramped up as high as it would go. “Is it dangerous?”

  “No more than any of the others,” he said with a shrug. “Don’t worry.”

  “Worry?” she asked with exaggerated nonchalance. “Who, me?”

  Gentry snorted softly. “I’m off to bed, honey. See you in the morning.”

  “All right. Good night, Dad.”

  Closing her eyes, Savanah leaned back in her chair and replayed everything that had happened that evening, from the time she’d stepped into the theater until she’d woken up in Rane’s house with no recollection of how she had gotten there.

  He was a world-class magician.

  He was gorgeous.

  He was a shape-shifter.

  She wondered what he was doing now. Was he perhaps thinking of her? Had it been foolish of her to agree to see him again? Her father certainly thought so. Did he know something she didn’t? But that was silly. If her father thought it was really dangerous for her to see Rane again, he would have said so and told her why.

  In her mind, Savanah envisioned Rane transforming into the wolf. It had been a scary thing to see. Scary and beautiful, she thought, the way his body had taken on a sort of shimmery glow as his muscles and ligaments shifted, stretching, realigning themselves, until the man was gone and a big black wolf had stood in his place. Did it hurt when he changed? Where did his clothing go? Questions, questions. Would he answer them when she saw him again?

  Rising, she went upstairs to get ready for bed.

  Later, snuggled under the covers, her eyelids heavy, she stared out the open window, her thoughts turning once again toward Rane. Was he home in bed, thinking about her, or was he in his wolf form, running beneath the light of the moon?

  Ignoring a sudden, inexplicable urge to go out into the night and look for him, she flopped over onto her stomach and closed her eyes.

  Later, hovering on the brink of sleep, she thought she heard a wolf howl beneath her bedroom window.

  Rane prowled the shadowed streets of the city, the lust for blood thrumming through his veins. The hunger was always worse when the moon was full, which he found oddly amusing. He had never known Vampires to be influenced by the cycles of the moon; it was a Supernatural law that applied only to Werewolves.

  Hoping to subdue his hunger, Rane turned his thoughts to Savanah Gentry. She reminded him of someone, but again, he couldn’t make the connection. Pushing the troubling notion aside, he let his thoughts linger on Savanah. The next two weeks should be interesting indeed, he mused, thinking it was almost like he was a mortal man and she was his girlfriend. He laughed at the idea. He hadn’t had a girlfriend since he’d had a crush on Wendy Simpson when he was twelve.

  Rane’s whole life had changed when he turned thirteen. Until then, he and his identical twin brother had been like any other boys on the brink of puberty. They had gone to school, played a harmless prank now and then, switched places with each other from time to time to see if anyone could tell the difference. But the world as they had known it had changed the night after he and Raphael turned thirteen. For one thing, they didn’t wake up the next morning.

  Rane had learned later that his mother had tried to rouse him and his brother, but to no avail. They were sleeping the sleep of the Undead and there had been no waking either of them until the sun went down. He had risen with an unrelenting thirst he didn’t understand. His parents hadn’t known what to do. His father, Vince, had taken Rane and his brother outside and told them what he thought was happening, although there was no way to be sure, since as far as anyone knew, no other Vampire had ever sired children.

  Vince Cordova’s explanation had been simple. He had been a Vampire only a year or so when he had married Rane’s mother. It was Vince’s opinion that he had retained enough of his humanity to sire Rane and his brother. After that brief explanation, Vince had taken his sons hunting. He had mesmerized a young woman and taken a small amount of her blood. As soon as Rane caught the scent, he had known it was what he had been hungering for, what he wanted. Needed. He and his brother had both fed from the woman. The little they had taken had satisfied Rafe, but not Rane. He had wanted more. He had wanted it all. He had made his first kill later that night, a secret he had kept to this day, a secret that gnawed at him even now.

  He and Rafe had been full-fledged Vampires from that night on. Of course, going to school had been out of the question after that, so his parents had hired a tutor who had been willing to teach them at night. Later, after Rane and his brother reached adulthood, their father had brought their mother across.

  “Just one big happy Vampire family,” Rane muttered, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

  Rane had left home shortly after his mother was turned. He had never gone back.

  He had kept up with his family’s whereabouts as best he could since then. He knew that his brother, his parents, and his grandparents had all been involved in the recent war between the Vampires and the Werewolves, a war that might have gone on forever if Mara and the head Werewolf, Clive, hadn’t come to their senses and realized that the war between the Supernatural creatures was a big mistake. A good many Vampires, Werewolves, and hunters had been killed before peace had been achieved.

  Rane had been surprised to learn that Rafe had fallen in love, married a mortal woman, and settled down in Oak Hollow, a town Rane had never heard of and couldn’t find on a map. He grunted softly. Falling in love with mortal women seemed to run in his family.

  The thought brought Savanah Gentry’s image quickly to mind. He had known many women in the course of his existence, some more intimately than others, but he had never let himself fall in love with any of them. Every time he started to care too deeply, the memory of the first woman he had killed burst through the mists of time, reminding him, in vivid detail, that he was a monster.

  Chapter Five

  William Gentry sat in the backyard, a blanket spread over his useless legs, a glass of strong whiskey cradled in his hands. There were times, like now, when sleep eluded him. When that happened, he came out here to try to forget.

  He drained the glass and then refilled it from the bottle on the table beside him. He drank to forget old hurts, old wounds, and usually it worked, but tonight not even whiskey could drive away the ghosts of the past.

  He remembered the day he had met Barbara. He had taken one look at her and known she was the woman he would marry. They had been dating only a few months when he proposed. He had been surprised when she not only refused to marry him, but refused to tell him why. Not one to give up easily, he had sent her flowers and candy every day, called her every night, until she admitted that she loved him, too, but that marriage was out of the question. It had taken another month before she’d told him why.

  “I’m a Vampire hunter, Will,” she’d
said. “I can’t marry anyone.”

  He had looked at her in disbelief. “You’re a what?”

  “You heard me.”

  “But how…why?”

  “It’s in my blood, Will. It’s what I was born to do.”

  He had listened as she explained what she did and how she did it, his stomach churning as she explained, in vivid detail, how one went about staking a Vampire and taking its head. It was a brutal business. She had showed him the kit she carried in the trunk of her car, explained why she always wore a silver cross and carried a small bottle of holy water in her pocket, why she could never have children. He had assured her that none of it mattered. He loved her.

  They were married two months later. In his mind’s eye, he saw her as she had been on the day they wed—a beautiful, vivacious woman filled with the joy of life. They had been happy together, happier than any other couple he knew. He had hated what she did, but it was a part of her, a part she felt strongly about. They never talked about it. He never questioned her on those nights when she went hunting, never let her know how he worried, always afraid that she wouldn’t come home.

  A year passed and then another and another, and their joy in each other grew, spilling over into every aspect of their lives together. Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, Barbara lamented the fact that as much as she wanted a child, she would never have one. She had explained to him that few hunters ever married. Spouses and children could all too easily become pawns in the deadly game of cat and mouse that hunter and hunted played. At those times, William had held her and consoled her, but secretly, he had been glad they remained childless. He didn’t want to share her life with anyone, not even his own child. And then, after five years of wedded bliss, Barbara had announced that, despite all their precautions, she was pregnant. In spite of her determination not to have a child, she had been overjoyed with the news.

  William had pretended to be as happy as she, pretended until the doctor placed a tiny, squirming bundle in his arms and announced that he had a daughter. William had feared that a baby would ruin their lives, but Savanah had drawn them even closer together. Barb had quit the hunt when she learned she was pregnant. Will had never said anything about it—it was her decision, but he had been relieved. He had been busy with his career, but always, in the back of his mind, had lingered the fear that one night Barb wouldn’t come home. But Savanah had changed all that. He recalled how happy he and Barb had been at each new milestone in Savanah’s life—her first smile, her first tooth, her first step, her first word.