Night's Pleasure

by Amanda Ashley

Trapped in the darkness, unable to move, she closed her eyes and waited for death, only to be jarred to full awareness when, with a vile oath, he pushed her away. Confused, she scuttled out of his reach, her hand lifting to her neck. And then she felt it, the cool touch of the silver chain that had belonged to her mother.

  His curses continued to fill the air.

  And suddenly, in spite of his earlier warning, she knew what she had to do. Gaining her feet, she backed up until she stood in the hallway. “Come to me, Rane.”

  Mocking laughter tinged with pain and despair rang out.

  “Rane, come and drink.”

  She jumped when he suddenly loomed over her.

  “Are you courting death, Miss Gentry?” he asked, his voice harsh. “Isn’t one close call a day enough for you?”

  Squaring her shoulders, she met his mocking gaze. His T-shirt was in tatters, there was blood smeared across his mouth and splattered across his chest and arms and down the front of his jeans. His skin was blistered wherever the sun’s light had touched him. He looked scary as hell.

  She took a deep breath, and then lifted the silver chain over her head and stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans.

  Rane stared at her through narrowed eyes as she tucked the cross out of sight. What the hell was she doing? Not long ago, he had told her to put it on and keep it on. She might be dead now if she hadn’t followed his advice.

  “Savanah, no.”

  “You need blood.” Brushing her hair away from her neck, she turned her head to the side. “Take what you need.”

  He clenched his hands into tight fists. “Dammit, Savanah, do you know what you’re doing?” He closed his eyes, trying to control his hunger, to breathe through the pain that burned through him with every breath.

  “I’m not leaving. It’s my fault you’re hurting. If I’d listened to you…”

  He stroked her cheek, his gaze moving to the hollow of her throat.

  “I’m not leaving,” she said again.

  “All right.” Taking her hand in his, he turned it over, then stroked the vein in her left wrist with his fingertips. “Don’t let me drink for more than a few minutes.”

  Savanah frowned at him. “But…” She lifted a hand to her throat. “I thought…”

  He shook his head. He could take more, faster, from the vein in her neck, but he didn’t trust himself to stop. Drinking from her wrist would take longer and be less satisfying, but it was safer for her.

  He could hear the fierce pounding of her heart, smell her fear.

  “Tiger heart,” he murmured, and lifted her wrist to his lips.

  Chapter Thirty

  Deep in the fertile earth of the Nile Valley, Mara stirred, then woke, all her senses alert. Werewolf blood had been spilled at her lair in the mountains. Closing her eyes, she reached out into the universe, her preternatural senses narrowing, sharpening, focusing on her mountain retreat. Rane was there. A mortal woman was there. And death was there.

  She knew a rarely experienced moment of fear. Had Rane been destroyed? But no, she would have felt an emptiness deep inside if he had ceased to exist.

  She concentrated on the blood link that bound them together, let herself experience what he was feeling. He was wounded, in agony from the touch of the sun’s light on preternatural flesh. Stubborn, foolish man. Had he not denied the gift she had once offered, the sun would have no effect on him. She wondered what he had been doing outside during the day, wondered if she should go to him.

  Intending to rise, she gathered her power around her, only to realize there was no need. He had found nourishment in the woman. And, more than that, he had found love. Perhaps the woman would heal the hurt in Rane’s soul and take him home.

  Love…The word lingered in her mind. She closed her eyes and the image of a man she had known aeons ago rose from the depths of her memory. Hektor. She banished his image and forced herself to think of Kyle instead. Hektor was past history, but Kyle was here, now. He would be waiting for her this evening when the sun set. Perhaps tonight she would discover why her skin tingled whenever they touched. It could be nothing more than physical attraction, she mused, but something told her it was more than that.

  Nothing perked up an affair like a hint of mystery.

  Smiling faintly, she drifted away into the darkness of oblivion.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Pleasure flowed through Savanah as Rane eased his thirst. Odd, that it didn’t hurt, that she wasn’t more repulsed by what he was doing. She should be shocked, horrified. She should be trying to kill him.

  If she didn’t stop him soon, he would kill her. “Rane, that’s enough.”

  He looked up at her, his mouth still pressed tightly against her wrist.

  “Rane, stop.” She pulled the cross from her pocket and lifted it so he could see it.

  With a hiss, he released her arm, and then turned his back to her. He took several deep breaths, his shoulders shaking.

  Savanah stared at what she could see of his back through his ruined shirt. Blood was supposed to heal the Undead, but as far as she could see, there didn’t seem to be any improvement. His skin was still red and puckered in some places, singed and black in others.

  Puzzled, she asked, “Why didn’t it work?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why aren’t you healing?”

  “It takes longer to heal the effects of the sun,” he replied, still refusing to look at her.

  She grunted softly, thinking she still had a lot to learn about the Undead. “Are you all right?”

  “I will be.”

  “Rane?”

  “I need to get cleaned up.”

  She nodded even though he couldn’t see her. She wondered if he was angry with her, and then realized that he was ashamed, embarrassed because she had seen him at his worst.

  Savanah watched him walk away, noting again that he moved soundlessly across the floor. She stood there long after he was out of sight, wondering what effect this last incident would have on their relationship. After slipping the chain over her head, she rummaged through the linen closet for a sheet. She was about to go outside and cover the body in the patio when her good sense reasserted itself. He could rot out there for all she cared.

  Dropping the sheet over the back of a chair, Savanah folded her arms under her breasts. She wasn’t going out there alone. The way she felt now, she might never go outside again. Moving to the kitchen window, she stared at the body. It was grotesque. In movies, dead Werewolves always reverted to their human state. But this wasn’t a movie. The Werewolf lay sprawled on his back, his face set in a rictus of pain. Hair still sprouted on the backs of his hands, grew thickly on his forearms. His face and clothing were spattered with blood. What if he wasn’t really dead, but playing possum? What were they going to do with the body? Should she call the police? Maybe she should discuss it with Rane first.

  With a sigh, she grabbed a dish towel, and began scrubbing the blood from the tile.

  Rane stripped off his bloody jeans and ruined T-shirt and stepped under the hard spray of the shower. Closing his eyes, he relived the last hour.

  He had been resting in Mara’s lair when Savanah’s terrified cry had reached his ears. Reacting on instinct, he had flown up the stairs and, following the sound of her heartbeat, he had run out the back door in time to see a giant of a man slam her against the side of the house. Oblivious to the sun’s light and his own danger, he had pulled the Werewolf off of Savanah. Had the sun been down, there would have been no contest between them. He would have killed the Werewolf with no more thought or energy than it took to swat a fly. But the sun had been high in the sky, its light burning his flesh, leeching his strength, leaving him weak and vulnerable. He had ignored the pain of his singed flesh, the threat to his own life, his only thought to save the woman he loved.

  He laughed humorlessly. In the end, it had been she who had saved his life. Foolish woman, he had almost killed her in return. Had it not been for the heavy
silver chain around her neck, there was every chance that she would now be dead, another victim of his insatiable thirst.

  He had sworn to protect her. How could he face her again after what he had done? Stepping out of the shower, he reached for a towel and went into the bedroom, only to stop short when he saw Savanah sitting cross-legged in the middle of Mara’s bed.

  She looked up when he entered the room. He noticed she had changed her clothes. His blood had undoubtedly ruined what she had been wearing earlier.

  He had rarely been at a loss for words, but they failed him now. What could he say to her after what he had done, what she had seen?

  “I didn’t thank you for saving my life,” Savanah said, her gaze not quite meeting his.

  “I think you’ve got that backward.”

  “Maybe we saved each other.”

  “Yeah, and then I tried to repay you by ripping your throat out.”

  “Rane, you’re exaggerating.”

  He shook his head, the pain thrumming through his singed flesh as nothing compared to the self-loathing he felt for what he had tried to do, what he would have done if his fingers hadn’t brushed the thick silver chain circling her slender neck.

  He stilled when she rose and walked toward him. “Don’t.”

  She stopped, her brow furrowed. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t come any closer.”

  “You’re still hurting, aren’t you? Is there anything else I can do?”

  He groaned low in his throat. Was the woman insane? Not thirty minutes ago he had tried to kill her and she had still given him her blood, and now she wanted to do more. There was only one thing that would help. Surely she knew that.

  Savanah’s heart went out to him. She knew he was hurting, and not just physically. She could see the guilt in his eyes, knew he was berating himself for what he had done. She couldn’t deny that he had frightened her badly, that for a moment she had been certain he was going to drain her dry, but even as scared as she had been, she had understood what drove him. He was like an addict, driven by a need he couldn’t always control.

  Knowing her nearness was making him uncomfortable, she backed up and sat on the edge of the bed. “What are we going to do about the body?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said, his voice terse.

  “Should I call the police? I could tell them he attacked me and I shot him in self-defense.”

  Rane shook his head. “No. I’ll take care of it.”

  She nodded, thinking it was too bad that Werewolves didn’t just vanish in a puff of smoke and ash, the way old Vampires did.

  “The sun,” she said. “You could have died out there.” Had the day been brighter, had there been no cover over the patio…It sickened her to think about what could have happened to him, and all because she had made one stupid mistake. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

  “Stop worrying.” He glanced at the bed. “I need to rest until dark, and then I’ll be going out for a while.”

  His words pierced her heart like a dagger. She knew why he was going out. He needed to feed. She knew it was necessary, knew it was foolish to envy whoever he chose to drink from, but she couldn’t help it, and with that jealousy came concern for his prey. Rane needed blood, a lot of blood, and he couldn’t take any more from her. Would he take all he needed from one unsuspecting mortal, which would most likely leave his prey dead, or would he drink from many?

  With a sigh, she went upstairs, familiar thoughts tugging at her mind. It still amazed her that her life had changed so dramatically, that in only a few short weeks, her world had turned upside down and her once ordinary life was now anything but ordinary. The world as she had known it no longer existed; the cocoon her father had wrapped her in had burst with the knowledge that her mother and father had been Vampire hunters. Even more earth-shattering was the fact that she had fallen head-over-heels in love with a Vampire.

  Could her life get any more bizarre?

  Clad in black from head to foot, his wounds aching with every move he made, Rane hunted the outskirts of the town for prey. Hunger and pain made him impatient; the fact that the streets were virtually empty increased his anger. He understood why Mara made her lair in this quiet part of the world, but at the moment he wished they were in her home in the Hollywood Hills. There was no end of vagrants and winos on the back streets of Los Angeles. Had he been stronger, he would have transported himself to a city, but the loss of blood, combined with the weakening effects of being out in the sun, had undermined his strength. Hauling the Werewolf’s body out of the backyard and carrying it up to the top of the mountains hadn’t helped any. He had dumped the Werewolf’s remains in a deep ravine where it was unlikely to be found, and if it was discovered at some future time, so be it. There was nothing on the body to connect it to Savanah or himself.

  Cursing softly, Rane made his way toward the nightclub on the corner of the town’s main street. He had hoped to find a transient, someone who wouldn’t be missed should he be unable to stifle the urge to kill, but the streets were empty, and he was tired of looking, tired of hurting.

  The club was dark inside. A lone couple danced in a far corner, their bodies pressed so closely together, it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Three middle-aged men sat at the end of the bar, bragging about their love lives. Two women shared a table near the front window.

  At the bar, Rane ordered a glass of wine, hoping it would help to ease his thirst though he knew it was a vain hope. Only blood, and lots of it, would satisfy his hunger and ease his pain this night.

  Turning, with his back resting against the edge of the counter, he eavesdropped on the women’s conversation. Both schoolteachers, they appeared to be in their early thirties. They had come to the mountains on vacation. The redhead was single; the brunette recently divorced. Both were childless. Rane grunted softly. That was good. There would be no husbands or children to miss or mourn them.

  Opening his senses, he sent his thoughts to the two women, the redhead first and then the brunette. When they looked in his direction, he pushed away from the bar and headed for the door, confident that they would follow.

  Outside, he linked his arms with theirs and walked down the street until he came to an alley that dead-ended between two windowless buildings.

  Certain that no one would intrude, he admonished the brunette to sit down and close her eyes. After she had complied, he took the redhead in his arms, felt his fangs lengthen in anticipation. He hadn’t made a kill in decades; the thought of doing so now filled him with exhilaration. The first taste was like ambrosia on his tongue. This was what he was, what he had always been. Why had he denied himself for so long?

  Closing his eyes, he drank, eager to take it all—her hopes, her dreams, her memories. Her heartbeat slowed, and in that instant, he imagined Savanah was there, watching him, her eyes filled with sorrow as he surrendered to the darkness within him.

  With a cry of despair, he put the redhead away from him. After taking several deep breaths, he commanded her to sit down and rest her head on her knees and then, with more force than necessary, he grabbed hold of the brunette and yanked her to her feet.

  He drank quickly, his enjoyment gone as guilt rose up in its place. He drank as much as he dared, then escorted both women back into the nightclub. At the bar, he ordered them each a large glass of orange juice and bid them drink it, and then he spoke to their minds, telling them to go home and get something to eat, preferably a steak. When he was certain they understood, he stalked out of the club and into the night.

  Outside, his hands clenched against his sides, he drew in a deep breath. Eager for a fight, needing an outlet for his anger, he turned into the wind, hoping to catch the scent of a Werewolf or some other predator, animal or human, even though it was doubtful that, in his current condition, he would survive such an encounter. But the air carried only the smells of earth and pine, and although he knew it was little more than wishful thinking on his part, he imagin
ed he detected the warm womanly fragrance that was Savanah’s.

  She was sitting in front of the hearth when he returned to Mara’s place. She didn’t move, didn’t say a word, but the question was there, unspoken, in the air between them.

  It stoked the fires of his anger.

  He held her gaze for several taut moments before he said, “Dammit, stop looking at me like that! I didn’t kill anyone.”

  Her relief was patently obvious and only served to make him angrier. Muttering an oath, he stalked out of the room and took refuge in Mara’s lair.

  With a sigh, he sank down on the edge of the bed. In spite of the blood he had taken, he was still weak, his wounds still painful.

  Easing down on the mattress, he closed his eyes and in a rare moment of weakness, let himself dream of home.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Clive punched in Roc’s cell number for the second time, cursing softly when all he received was a recorded message. Roc had called earlier that afternoon, reporting that he had nothing to report. Clive had instructed him to stay near the house and to call in every hour, sooner if there was any change in the situation. That had been nine hours ago. Since then, nothing.

  After throwing the cell phone across the room, he began to pace the floor. Four possibilities occurred to him: Roc had lost contact with the woman and was afraid to report it; he had managed to get into the house, but hadn’t been able to find the books; he had found the books and had decided to either keep them or demand some kind of a reward; or he was dead.

  For Roc’s sake, Clive hoped it was the latter. Those who betrayed him lived to regret it, but not for very long.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Savanah stared out the window, her elbows resting on the sill as she watched the windblown rain slash through the trees. Lightning speared the lowering gray clouds; thunder rumbled in the distance.

  She was going stir-crazy. It had taken her hours to fall asleep last night, and when sleep finally came, her dreams had been populated with Vampires and Werewolves that chased her through a long dark tunnel. She ran until she couldn’t run anymore and then, suddenly, in the way of dreams, the scene changed and she was alone in a theater, watching a handsome magician clad in a long black cape. She knew a moment of relief and then, with a wave of his hand, the magician disappeared and a huge black wolf stood in his place. With a low growl, the wolf sprang from the stage, landing only inches from her face, so close she could feel its hot breath on her cheeks, see its fangs. Just when she thought it was going to rip her throat out, the wolf changed again, and now it was Rane bending over her, his eyes bloodred, his fangs dripping blood.