Ruthless Heart

by Emma Lang

  The milk steamed in the cold morning air as it hit the bucket. She finished as quickly as she could to get back into the cabin before Grady woke. The coffee and biscuits were probably ready as well.

  She left the barn, and the cold made her eyes nearly freeze. It was colder than she ever remembered it being, and the air was sharp with the threat of snow. The gunmetal sky had gotten darker. As she stepped onto the front porch, a snowflake landed on her nose.

  Christmas snow was special, a blanket of white to bring in the day where there was peace and joy everywhere. Eliza stepped into the cabin and closed the door against the icy cold.

  “Snowing yet?” Grady sat at the table with coffee and a biscuit, with his shirt unbuttoned and barefoot. He looked good enough to eat.

  “Just started.” She slipped off her boots, coat, hat, and scarf, then went to stand by the fire to warm her hands. Her skin prickled from the sudden heat, and she rubbed them briskly. Grady came up behind her and pressed his body against hers. He jumped when they touched.

  “Jesus Christ, Liz, you’re colder than a wi—um, really cold.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her. “I can warm you up.”

  Although they’d made love the night before, her body was instantly and completely aroused. Her nipples peaked against her chemise, a silk one he’d insisted she wear because it was sexy.

  “Oh, I think I’d like that.”

  He kissed her neck up to her ear.

  “Do you find yourself with any regrets?” She couldn’t help but ask because she’d been wondering.

  “Not one.”

  “Restless perhaps?”

  “No, there’s too much to do around here, and you keep wanting to get me into bed.”

  Eliza smiled. “You did give up your life and career.”

  He turned her around until she could stare into his beloved dark eyes. “No, I gave up nothing. When I married you, I started my life.”

  Eliza’s heart skipped a beat at the honesty and love in his gaze. “Me, too. Are you happy?”

  “Damn happy.”

  She giggled. “Me, too.” Christmas day was too far away, she had to tell him. “I have a gift for you.”

  He kissed her while he continued to rub his body against hers. “Tomorrow is for gifts.”

  “I can’t wait until tomorrow. I want to give it to you now.”

  Grady looked at her with a puzzled expression. “Okay, if you really want to.”

  She couldn’t help the smile on her face, so wide it actually hurt her cheeks. “Grady, we’re going to—”

  A knock at the door stopped her. He scowled at it. “Who the hell is that?”

  Eliza kissed him quick. “It’s Christmas Eve, be nice. Now get yourself dressed while I answer the door.”

  “Fine, I’ll get dressed, but I only have to be nice to you.” He pinched her fanny as she walked away from him.

  Laughing, she opened the door to find her sister on her doorstep. She hadn’t seen Angeline since the night in the woods more than a year earlier.

  “Merry Christmas, Eliza.”

  Eliza turned to look at her husband who stood there with a gun in his hand. Her sister had almost ended their relationship, and now it appeared she would step back into it.

  “Merry Christmas, Angeline.”

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  The music was terrible, the food was shit, and the crowd of dancers were all but screwing on the floor.

  Dee leaned against the bar, trying to ignore the throbbing in her temples and letting her gaze sweep past the throng inside Onyx.

  This was the eighth club she’d been in since she’d hit the streets. Humans only. Well, mostly humans. Onyx catered to the unaware, and that made the place perfect for vamps. So much easier to pick up prey when the humans didn’t realize the danger they faced.

  They didn’t realize it, not until their dates stopped seducing them and started feeding from them.

  By then, it was too late to scream.

  Her nails drummed on the bar. Zane lounged in the back corner, his emerald gaze sweeping over the room. Some big-breasted blonde was at his side. Typical.

  Jude hadn’t made an appearance yet. But he would soon. She’d use his nose to sniff out the place. See if he could detect the rot of the undead and—

  “Let me buy you a drink.”

  She’d ignored the men beside her. Greeted the few come-ons she’d gotten with silence. But that voice—

  Dee glanced to the left. Tall, Dark, and Sexy was back.

  And he was smiling down at her. A big, wide grin that showed off a weird little dent in his right cheek. Not a dimple, too hard for that. She hadn’t noticed that curve last night, not with the hunt and kill distracting her.

  Shit, but he was hot.

  Thanks to the spotlights over the bar, she could see him so much better tonight. No shadows to hide behind now.

  Hard angles, strong jaw, sexy man.

  She licked her lips. “Already got one.” Dee held up her glass.

  “Babe, that’s water.” He motioned to the bartender. “Let me get you something with bite.”

  She’d spent the night looking for a bite. Hadn’t found it yet. Her fingers snagged his. “I’m working.” Booze couldn’t slow her down. Not with the one she hunted.

  Black brows shot up. Then he leaned in close. So close that she caught the scent of his aftershave. “You gonna kill another woman tonight?” A whisper that blew against her.

  Her lips tightened. “Vampire,” she said quietly and dropped his hand.

  He blinked. Those eyes of his were eerie. Like a smoky fog staring back at her.

  “I hunted a vampire last night,” Dee told him, keeping her voice hushed because in a place like this, you never knew who was listening. “And, technically, she’d already been killed once before I got to her.”

  His fingers locked around her upper arm. She’d yanked on a black T-shirt before heading out, and his fingertips skimmed her flesh. “Guess you’re right,” he murmured and leaned in even closer.

  His lips were about two inches—maybe just one—away from hers.

  What would he taste like?

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  “Excited about your trip?” he asked, stepping out of the shadows.

  He was a rough looking man but still attractive. A light beard shadowed his strong, square jaw. His dark hair was shorn close to his head, revealing a scar twisting up the left side of his neck.

  As a surgeon, she could tell that whoever had stitched up what she guessed to be a knife wound hadn’t been to medical school. As a woman she guessed that Laz hadn’t minded, since if the wound hadn’t been stitched up he probably would have died.

  She’d been single for almost two years now, but this man wasn’t like any of the men she’d dated. An aura of danger hovered about him. It might be due to the fact that he led a crew of men who looked like they’d be better suited to crew Johnny Depp’s Black Pearl in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. Or maybe it was due to the fact that when he looked at her, she had the feeling that he looked past the confines of her profession and saw the woman underneath.

  “A little nervous, actually.”

  He laughed, a rough sound that carried on the wind. “Somalia—hell, all of Africa—has that effect on people.”

  The sea around the tanker seemed calm, and on this moon-lit night with no one else on deck, she felt like…like they were alone in the world.

  “On you?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine this man being nervous in any situation. He radiated the calmness she always experienced when she was in the operating room. It was a calmness born of the fact that he knew what he was doing.

  “Nah. I’ve been around this part of the world for a long time.”

  “Why is that? You’re American, right?”

  “Yes, I am
. But I was never one for staying put. I wanted to see the world.” There was a note in his voice that she easily recognized. It said that he was searching for something that he hadn’t found. Something that he might never find. She understood that now.

  It was funny, but before her divorce she would have thought he was unfocused or didn’t know himself well. But now she understood that sometimes life threw a curve and dreams changed and your way was lost. Hers had been. She’d been drifting without a focus, and she hoped this summer in Africa would help her to find her way back to who she had been.

  Did this rough looking man have dreams? Dreams that she’d be able to relate to? At one point in her not-so-distant past she would have seen Laz as a man she had nothing in common with—a man whose dreams would make absolutely no sense to her. She no longer looked at the world in the black and white terms she used to, and she guessed she had to thank Paul and his philandering ways for that.

  “Well, you are certainly seeing parts of it that are off the beaten path,” Daphne said.

  She’d spent all of her life taking the safe route. College followed by medical school. Marriage to an up-and-coming lawyer who morphed his successful career into a successful Senate bid. She’d had two children with Paul Maxwell and raised them to be very successful teenagers before Paul decided that it was time to trade her in for a newer model. A microbiologist named Cyndy who didn’t have stretch marks.

  She shook her head. She wasn’t bitter.

  Really.

  It was just that when Paul had walked away from their marriage he’d broken something that she’d always claimed as her destiny. He’d broken her dreams of a fifty-year wedding anniversary party. Her dreams of being married to the same man for her entire life. And she was still trying to figure out who she was if she wasn’t going to be Mrs. Paul Maxwell.

  She realized she’d let the conversation lag while she’d been lost in her thoughts of her ruined marriage. She looked over at Laz.

  “Our group goes to the places that really need aid,” she said.

  He gave her a half-smile that showed her the dangerous looking man could also be sexy in a rough-hewn sort of way.

  “Good for you.”

  She glanced over at him; it was hard to see much of his features in the dim lighting. “Are you being sarcastic?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. I admire people who walk the walk.”

  She had no idea if he was sincere or not. But she’d always tried to be honest about who she was and what she wanted. She heard the sound of another engine. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I think you should go below,” Laz said, standing up straighter. He tossed his cigarette over the railing.

  “Why?”

  “Pirates operate in these waters, and Americans are some of their favorite targets. Go below where I know you’ll be safe.”

  She hesitated for a moment but then saw him draw out a handgun. Moonlight glinted off the well-polished steel of his weapon. His entire demeanor changed. He no longer wore an aura of danger. He was danger. She’d think twice about talking to this man if she saw him on the street back home. In fact she’d do her best to avoid him.

  Keep an eye out for BEDDING THE ENEMY

  by Mary Wine, coming next month…

  He was staring at her.

  Helena looked through her lowered eyelashes at him. He was a Scot and no mistake about it. Held in place around his waist was a great kilt. Folded into pleats that fell longer in the back, his plaid was made up in heather, tan and green. She knew little of the different clans and their tartans but she could see how proud he was. The nobles she passed among scoffed at him but she didn’t think he would even cringe if he were to hear their mutters. She didn’t think the gossip would make an impact. He looked impenetrable. Strength radiating from him. There was nothing pompous about him, only pure brawn.

  Her attention was captivated by him. She had seen other Scots wearing their kilts but there was something more about him. A warm ripple moved across her skin. His doublet had sleeves that were closed, making him look formal, in truth more formal than the brocade-clad men standing near her brother. There wasn’t a single gold or silver bead sewn to that doublet but he looked ready to meet his king. It was the slant of his chin, the way he stood.

  “You appear to have an admirer, Helena.”

  Edmund sounded conceited and his friends chuckled. Her brother’s words surfaced in her mind and she shifted her gaze to the men standing near her brother. They were poised in perfect poses that showed off their new clothing. One even had a lace-edged handkerchief dangling from one hand.

  She suddenly noticed how much of a fiction it was. Edmund didn’t believe them to be his friends but he stood jesting with them. Each one of them would sell the other out for the right amount. It was so very sad. Like a sickness you knew would claim their lives but could do nothing about.

  “A Scots, no less.”

  Edmund eyed her. She stared back, unwilling to allow him to see into her thoughts. Annoyance flickered in his eyes when she remained calm. He waved his hands, dismissing her.

  She turned quickly before he heard the soft sound of a gasp. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath. It was such a curious reaction. Peeking back across the hall she found the man responsible for invading her thoughts completely. He had a rugged look to him, his cheekbones high and defined. No paint decorated his face. His skin was a healthy tone she hadn’t realized she missed so much. He was clean-shaven in contrast to the rumors she’d heard of Scotland’s men. Of course, many Englishmen wore beards. But his hair was longer, touching his shoulders and full of curl. It was dark as midnight and she found it quite rakish.

  He caught her staring at him. She froze, her heartbeat accelerating. His dark eyes seemed alive even from across the room. His lips twitched up, flashing her a glimpse of strong teeth. He reached up to lightly tug on the corner of his knitted bonnet. She felt connected to him. Her body strangely aware of his, even from so great a distance. Sensations rippled down her spine and into her belly. She sank into a tiny curtsy without thought or consideration. It was a response, pure and simple. Her heart was thumping against her chest and she felt every beat as if time had slowed down.

  A woman crossed between them, interrupting her staring. It was enough time for her mind to begin questioning what she was doing. Fluttering her eyelashes, she lowered her gaze, forcing herself to move through the court on slow steps. She ordered herself to not look back. She was warm, warmer than the day warranted. The reaction fascinated her but it also struck a warning bell inside her mind. She should not look back.

  But a part of her didn’t care for that. It clamored for her to turn and find him again. His eyes were as dark as his hair but lit with some manner of flame. She wanted to know if he was still watching her, wanted to know if she glimpsed the same flames in his eyes that she felt in her cheeks.

  Ah yes, but fire burns…

  Helena smiled. She enjoyed the way she felt, a silly little sort of enjoyment that made her want to giggle. The reason was actually quite simple. The way he looked at her made her feel pretty. Court was full of poetry and lavish compliments, but none of it had touched her. His eyes did. The flicker of appreciation was genuine.

  She had never felt such before.

  “Good day to ye.”

  She froze. The man must be half specter to move so quickly. But she wasn’t afraid of him. Quite the opposite. Her gaze sought his, curious to see if his eyes continued to fascinate her up close.

  She was not disappointed. Her breath froze in her lungs, excitement twisting her belly. His gaze roamed over her face and a pleased expression entered his eyes. In fact it looked a bit like relief.

  She was suddenly grateful to Raelin all over again for having freed her of the heavy makeup. The way he looked at her made her feel pretty for the first time in her life.

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  Copyright © 2010 Emma Lang

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  ISBN: 978-0-7582-6098-7