Holly wanted him to succumb. She really, really did. The power inside of her whispered urgently. It offered seduction. It offered all the warmth she needed if only she would set it free. Winters would be hers if she let the predator in her take control, but…she wanted more.
Holly drew her face back and opened her eyes.
Winters looked down at her. His eyes were heavy-lidded and molten-copper hot. She saw them clearly, but she couldn’t read the emotions that swirled there. Desire? Fear? Need? A hunger that almost matched her own? His expression was heated, but it was also mysterious. The layers of brown in a myriad of shades—from amber to chocolate—hid what he was thinking. She wondered if his thoughts were as varied and changing as the sultry irises of his eyes.
She wanted more than heat and vampire-fueled seduction. She wanted more than a successful hunt. She wanted more than blood lust and capitulation. She wouldn’t be the beast. The predator was not going to take control because she was still a woman and she wanted Winters to want her, free and clear of influence.
She had the power to make him want her. She didn’t know where it came from. If she was a superstitious person, she’d say it was some kind of magic humming beneath her skin. Because she was a little less melodramatic than that, she figured it had to be super pheromones or something. Whatever. The power was there and she could have him, but she wouldn’t.
Her tiny cricket conscious must be hopped up on radiation or something ’cause it suddenly seemed fifty feet tall.
She looked into Winters’ eyes and let him see the desire in her eyes come under control.
She.Was.Not.A.Monster.
“Well, now, this looks like an interesting dance. Mind if I cut in?”
Holly’s triumph was short lived. She didn’t have time to see if Winters knew she had controlled herself. She was wrenched from his side and whipped into a mad parody of a waltz that whirled higher and higher into the air. The air? She wasn’t given a moment to take in the new revelation that her Maker could fly.
Dillon’s arms were flesh-covered steel around her. If she were a rabbit she would gnaw off her foot and fall twenty feet to the ground below that’s how desperate her instinct was to escape. As it was, she was worse than trapped because her body warred with her instinct. Her body wanted to be in his arms. Her previous moment of pride faded as if it had never been. Would she ever be fully in control again or was she doomed to be always at the mercy of the beast? The beast who held her and the one that lived beneath her skin joined in unspoken jubilation. Their mutual pleasure mocked her fear.
Her heart betrayed her. That traitorous organ leapt to match, beat for beat, the one that resided in Dillon’s chest. It was pain, but it was also pleasure to feel the beats synchronize, to feel them throb in time with one another.
Her skin betrayed her. It trembled, as her very cells seemed to take life from his touch. His hands slid beneath her sweater and they were well-fed warm. Each finger spread heat in their wake, seeming to nourish and replenish the hungry, empty cells as he caressed lonely flesh that responded despite her protests.
Moonlight played over his angular face. It kissed him, caressed him, until she didn’t know if the wicked gleam in his eyes came from the spotlight of the moon as they spun or if he was just glad to hold her again.
Insane, but that’s what it felt like. As if he was a long-lost lover and this was a reunion. Her body was too close to his, but not close enough. Although part of her wanted to break free and fall away, her body denied it. It wanted to stay in this wonderful place forever.
There was an overwhelming sense of imminent salvation. His lean, hard form fit perfectly against hers, bringing with it endless promise. The muscled planes of his chest seduced her small breasts with visions of fullness. His hands on her back smoothed over the ridges of her spine and brought forth the feeling of firm, healthy muscles. His legs twined with hers and suddenly she knew her limbs could be strong and supple again, if only she would let him give her what he offered.
But, hidden in the lover-like embrace and the offer of salvation, was a challenge. Every flex of his muscles schemed to dominate, to subdue. The very literal way he had swept her off her feet seemed calculated to steal her free will away.
The gleam in his eyes and the wide, wicked grin on his face said louder than words that he expected to sweep away her resistance as easily.
Only, resistance was the only thing she had left.
Her body wanted him. It was obvious he owned it. Her heart longed for him. He was a walking pacemaker for God’s sake. But, her mind, her soul, some deep, deep part of her wouldn’t give in.
And the vestiges of the blood that Winters had given her seemed to help.
She was able to push Dillon away…an inch, then two. She thought he was surprised because they dropped several feet. She tried not to be woozy as she felt the drop in her stomach. They were so far above the ground that Winters was invisible. Night fog or clouds misted between them. She tried not to imagine falling through the white mist.
“Mmmmmm, darlin’, you have been a naughty girl,” Dillon spoke through a fang-framed grin. He ignored her struggles and plunged his face in the curve of her neck. He took a deep breath as if he could discern her darkest secrets through the scent of her skin.
“So naughty. The blood of a killer is heady stuff ’course I prefer innocents myself.” He was such a part of her by now that she felt his laughter inside her own head, her own chest, her own stomach. “Just remember, his blood will strengthen and sustain, but only mine will satisfy.”
His mouth opened and it was hot, impossibly hot, against her night-cooled, fear-cooled skin.
Holly couldn’t prevent the inevitable. No amount of willing it not to be would have given her the strength to stop him. Dillon’s fangs sank into her skin and her back arched as pleasure ripped through her body. It was a murderous electric shock frying her nerve endings and sizzling her brain. It was an Icarus-flying-too-close-to-the-sun burn. If that could be called “pleasure” then that’s what she felt. But, it didn’t end there.
He held her, almost tenderly, afterward, when an inner floating sensation mirrored the one that kept them suspended above the ground. She was empty. She was fading. If she let go now, it would be finished. No more fight. No more fish to fry or gathering firewood or being tempted to play with fire.
“No, love. You won’t take the easy way out.”
Easy? Nothing was easy about doing what she had to do. Nothing was easy in knowing that her enemy knew her so well. Dillon had known she wouldn’t give up and he had manipulated the situation so that only one option was left to her.
The skin of his neck was salty sweet and that was somehow wrong. It should be bitter. It should have seared her lips.
It didn’t.
It was too easy and natural to bite down and drink. She did it for her mother, for the memories of her father and sister. She did it for Winters too. He needed her though he’d probably never admit it. She wouldn’t take the easy way out, but she despaired to find that drinking from Dillon wasn’t as hard as it should have been.
His chuckle vibrated against her lips before she tore away. But his face followed hers and he didn’t let her pull back far. He claimed her lips with a kiss for long seconds as she was hit by a swoon so powerful that her body shook. Physical rapture and mental anguish kept her frozen as his mouth slid intimately against hers.
“You. Are. Mine.”
The words were a breath against her open lips and a threatening promise that echoed in her mind. Holly and the universe around her seemed to pause as Dillon swept wildly away. Then, the universe started again, gravity and all. The air around her was thick with fog, but not thick enough.
She fell.
Not like an immortal fiend. More like a rag doll who could scream.
Chapter Seven
She came to on a bed of pine needles. For the second time, she awoke warm and satiated. Only this time, she felt like she’d wallowed in a Thanksgiv
ing dinner and it made her mentally cringe to realize that the detached way Winters had helped her had been more like a side salad with low-fat dressing in comparison.
Her stomach was going to rebel any second now, she knew it, but she pushed the thought away because Winters was cradling her head in his lap.
“Holly? Holly? Can you hear me?”
Distantly, she heard him call her by name. She smiled as she imagined concern in his eyes and fear for her safety in his voice. So good. So nearly normal. Never mind that she’d drunk monster blood and her body had liked it. Never mind she felt like she’d consumed a bottle and a half of tequila because of the high and chewed on the worms because of the nausea.
“You must have fallen several stories. I couldn’t even see you.”
It was odd to be happy right now considering what she’d been through, but she couldn’t help it. This. Was. Nice.
A sudden shift in her awareness must have registered with him. He cleared his throat. If a kneeling man could step back, he would have. She felt the difference. As near to drunk as could be and still she noticed his obvious withdrawal.
“Why did he let you go?”
From concern to suspicion in sixty seconds. Must be a record that.
“’e’s playin’,” she tried and hiccupped on a giggle when the words wouldn’t come out right. She tried again. “He’s playing with me.”
“Why?”
Winters rose abruptly, but took care not to drop her head. From firm, warm thighs to prickly pine needles in sixty-five seconds, she was too groggy to protest.
“Why the theatrics? I’ve never seen it before. They kill. They eat. They go on. What does he want from you?” Winters ran a hand through his perpetually rumpled hair.
“Cap-capitulation. S-surrender. Ador…ation. Who knows? I…” Holly swallowed. She fought the dizzy. She fought the dawning sense of shame and fear. She’d done it. She’d actually bitten… Nausea threatened, but everything she’d taken from Dillon had gone straight to her veins, her heart, her head. Her stomach was as empty as ever. She swallowed again.
“He wants to prove he can make me give in.”
Winters stalked around her, oddly highlighted under the trees. Shadow. Light. Shadow. Light. She searched for his face each time it disappeared, strangely reassured when moonlight touched his features once more.
“And again, I have to say, why? Why don’t you give in? What makes you…?”
“Different?”
He turned away from her as she slowly sat up. His shoulders were tense. She could practically taste his unease in the air and it reminded her of a snake flicking its tongue, which totally sobered her up.
“Different,” she said again, as much to reassure herself as to get a response from Winters.
“You may be different now, but in the end…”
“You’ll kill me,” Holly whispered. She didn’t know why she was hurt by something that had been a promise between them from the very start.
“In the end, you’ll be nothing but a vampire I have to exterminate like the rest of them. And I’ll kill you.”
Winters walked back toward the neon lights of the diner and every step away from her was a promise to keep distance between them, an assurance he wouldn’t get sidetracked from his life’s work.
He was so sure, so certain. Holly suddenly realized they could spend months collecting wood for a bonfire and it wouldn’t matter. Nothing was going to put off their confrontation in the end. No amount of kissing was going to make Winters forget what she was. Fish to fry, indeed.
She rose up on her knees beneath the trees, beneath the stars. “You’ll try,” she said through clenched teeth. She was living in hell and Dillon had definitely upped the thermostat, but she could stay on purpose as well as Winters.
She had to face facts. She wasn’t a college student anymore. She didn’t have the luxury of longing after pecan pie or her friends. She wasn’t free to pine for kisses or smiles.
Dillon was out there. Every time she was near him things got worse. Yet they planned to follow him, hunt him and purposefully track him down.
Winters was right here. He might be a necessary risk, but he was a risk. She couldn’t forget it for a moment.
Holly took a step and almost stumbled. A bottle and a half of tequila? Make that two. Still, she steadied herself, mentally and physically. A fight wasn’t just coming. The fight was already here.
***
He headed straight for the men’s room, banging open the door like it was going to try and hold him back. He moved toward the chipped, streaky row of mirrors like he wanted to see his reflection. He didn’t. Not at all.
There he was, Jarvis Winters, vampire killer. Only, not so much. Not anymore.
He gripped the edges of the sink and leaned forward. He refused to drop his gaze. There was the mop of hair his mother used to make him cut twice a month. Now, out from under her influence, it brazenly grew to brush his collar. There was his father’s military jaw, as set as the Marines had ever made his dad’s. There was the unshaven stubble so unlike his father who had always looked like he carried a razor in his back pocket. The stubble, the shadows under his eyes and the scar were all fairly new. Newer still was the haunted quality in his expression and that was what he hadn’t wanted to see. That was pure post-Holly for sure.
Winters twisted on the cold water and bent to splash his face. He knew it for the moment’s reprieve it was. He forced himself to meet the mirror again. The water hadn’t washed her away.
Two things had him…there was no better word for it…freaked.
He had not had a chance of stopping Dillon tonight.
And he cared.
When Holly had been pulled—no ripped—from his arms he’d been seconds away from a huge mistake. If they hadn’t been interrupted he’d be a husk right now, a happy husk, but a husk nonetheless. He should be furious with himself for going there, again. But he was actually frustrated and angry because, right when he’d been tempted to let go with Holly, Dillon had been able to take her so easily. Too easily.
He had called. He had cursed. He had drawn his knife even though it was useless against empty air. The one thing he hadn’t been able to do was will two huge angel wings to sprout from his shoulder blades. He hadn’t been able to leap into the sky and drag the monster to the ground and bury him under it where he belonged.
Haunted. That wasn’t the half of it. He’d been helpless to help her and that’s what was making him shake. It hadn’t been about his duty or his oath to Jim’s memory. It wasn’t even about reliving that horrible night when Jim had been killed. It was about Holly. And him wanting to save her.
She was gone in a flash with nothing in her place but savage laughter trailing back through the mist and he’d wanted to fly after them. He’d wanted to tear Dillon to shreds for daring to take Holly from his arms.
It smacked of knight in shining armor and he couldn’t understand where the feeling was coming from. Not when, in this case, the damsel in distress might drain the knight dry when the rescue was over.
Winters met his gaze in the mirror. Was he sinking further under her thrall? He’d already almost offered to be her all-you-can-eat buffet. Was it getting worse? Was he beginning to care if she lived or died? And how did that work if she was already dead?
He took a deep breath. The acrid scent of disinfectant burned his nose.
He had heard her.
That was the worst part. He had heard her words behind him in the night. “You’ll try.” And he hadn’t turned around to plunge his blade through her heart.
He moved his coat aside and pulled out his knife. In the fluorescent-tube glow of the diner’s restroom, the blade was almost black. He had carved it from the leg of Jim’s mahogany desk.
Jim had been ribbed about that desk for years. In a bank of cubicles filled with nothing fancier than dented metal, the rich mahogany of Jim’s desk stood out like royalty in the slums. He’d always thought the desk kind of represented how
Jim, himself, stood out. Strong and complex, sturdy and steadfast, his partner had always been there, always a little better, faster, more committed than the other officers on the force. A shiny mahogany antique among dented metal that needed to be replaced every few years. That was Jim.
Jarvis had taken the last couple of hours of his last day at the precinct to kick the left leg out from under that desk. It hadn’t been easy or quick or quiet. He supposed his efforts to break off the leg of Jim’s desk had only proven his need for a psychiatric evaluation to his chief.
He didn’t care.
While it was carved, the knife was tempered with bitter, angry tears. Their salt had soaked into the wood long before blood.
Winters slipped the blade back inside its sheath and covered it with his coat once more.
He hadn’t cried when his father had died somewhere in the desert during the first Gulf War. In fact, his father had taught him to take action not to take a tissue.
When he’d cried for Jim, they’d been tears of fury as well as grief and that was okay, a sort of righteous cleansing. When Holly had fallen back to earth, when he had heard the thump as her limp body connected with the ground, he’d felt a burn behind his eyes.
That, more than anything, told him it was no longer safe to assume he was totally in control. That and the fang marks on her neck.
She had come to with a smile on her lips and a slur in her speech. Not to mention lush curves beginning to fill out even as he supported her head on his thighs.
He wasn’t stupid. He might be falling under a vampire’s thrall. He might be losing the edge that had kept him alive for a year of blood and ashes and death, but he wasn’t stupid.
He knew what had happened in the clouds.
As he looked in the mirror at his haunted eyes, it was time to decide. What was he going to do about it?
Chapter Eight
Holly didn’t know if it was worse to fall from the height of a skyscraper without getting hurt, or fall for a vampire killer who was definitely going to try to hurt you. The first was just another nail of evidence in the I’m-not-human-anymore coffin. The lid of that thing was not going anywhere soon. The second was just asking for heartache because a romance that could only end in ashes to ashes and dust to dust wasn’t much of a romance in her opinion. She had never been big on Romeo and Juliet.
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