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?