She flushed at his compliment. “You like the night, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure. It suits you somehow.”
A wry grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. She had no idea, he thought. “What about you? Are you a night person?”
Not until I met you. Aloud, she said, “I’m more of a morning person. Sunrises and early morning walks. Dew on the grass. The sense of newness that comes with each day.”
“I guess opposites do attract.”
“So they say.” Silence settled between them. Sheree looked out over the valley. “It’s a long way down. I remember reading about some man who accidentally drove over the edge and fell five hundred feet.”
“Don’t worry,” Derek said, slipping his arm around her waist. “I won’t let you fall.”
The trouble was, she was falling already. Falling for a man she scarcely knew, but desperately wanted to know better.
His arm tightened around her waist, drawing her closer to his side. When she looked up at him, he lowered his head and claimed her lips with his in a searing kiss that made her toes curl with pleasure. He had kissed her before, but never like this. Surely no one had ever been kissed like this.
His tongue skated across her lower lip and hers darted out to meet it, eager to taste him.
Murmuring her name, he drew her into his arms, holding her body flush against his. They had danced together but he had never held her so tightly.
When he drew back, she released a deep, shuddering breath. “Wow.”
He smiled down at her, his dark eyes glittering in the moonlight. “Wow, indeed,” he agreed, and kissed her again.
He was breathing heavily when he released her. Taking a step back, he turned away from her, his hands tightly clenched at his sides. Her nearness aroused his hunger, tempting him almost beyond bearing. His whole being ached with need, urging him to take what he wanted. She was close. Too close. The steady beat of her heart, the scent of her blood, her desire. It was almost overpowering.
“Derek? Is something wrong?”
“No,” he said, his voice oddly thick. “I just need a moment.”
She stared at his back. Even in the darkness, she could see the tension in his shoulders. She reached out to him, then withdrew her hand. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No.” He took several deep breaths before he turned to face her. “Sorry.”
Confused, she murmured, “It’s okay.” Was he apologizing for kissing her?
“We should head back,” he said. “It’s late.”
Nodding, she got into the car as he held the door for her. What the hell had just happened? What was he sorry about? Had she said something wrong, done something that offended him? She replayed everything that had happened in her mind, but could find no reason for his odd behavior. She knew he was attracted to her, knew he’d been just as turned on by that kiss as she had.
He said little on the ride back to the Den. Lost in thought, she hardly noticed.
When they returned to the club, it was closed. Sheree glanced at her watch. How had they gotten down the hill so fast?
Derek handed her out of the car, walked her to her own, and kissed her lightly. “Good night, Sheree. Sweet dreams.”
“You, too.” Sliding behind the wheel, she started the car, then pulled out of the parking lot. A glance in the rearview mirror showed Derek standing on the sidewalk, hands shoved into his pockets, as he watched her drive away. “Weird,” she muttered as she turned the corner toward home. “The whole evening was just plain weird.”
Derek watched Sheree’s car until it was out of sight. What must she think of him, kissing her like there was no tomorrow one minute and then taking her home with no explanation? But he couldn’t very well explain that the scent of her blood had been driving him crazy, or that it had taken all his willpower to keep from sinking his fangs into her throat.
Well, it was over and done, he thought, as he strolled down the street to a dive that was open for another half hour. Plenty of time to find what he was looking for.
He paused inside the doorway. The crowd was thin, with only a dozen men and women. Several couples were wrapped in each other’s arms on the dance floor. The music was slow and heavy, darkly sensual.
Derek made his way toward the bar, aware that the three women seated there watched his every move. One was on the verge of passing out. One looked way too young to be in the place. But the third . . . she was older, not pretty, but striking. And bold. She met his gaze without blinking.
Intrigued, Derek made his way toward her. “Do we know each other?”
She laughed, a deep, throaty laugh. “Surely you can come up with a more original line.”
“I could, but I don’t have time. The club’s about to close.”
“Maybe you could think of a better one while you drive me home,” she suggested.
“Fine by me,” he said. Anything to get her outside.
Smiling, she unfolded from her chair in a sinuous movement that caused the slit in her skirt to part, revealing a glimpse of her leg from ankle to thigh.
“Shall we?” he asked.
“We shall.” She took hold of his arm and they left the club. “Where’s your car?” she asked in a sultry purr.
“Right here.” He turned his back toward her to open the door, heard the soft swish of a wooden stake slicing through the air.
He cursed himself for being careless as he darted to the side, hissed as the stake pierced his flesh, mere inches from his heart. Spinning around, he drove his fist into the woman’s jaw.
She dropped like a stone.
The faint snick of a gun warned him the woman hadn’t been alone. Moving faster than the eye could follow, Derek whirled around, jerked the gun from the man’s hand, and tossed the weapon aside. A quick twist broke the hunter’s neck.
Grimacing with pain, Derek jerked the stake from his back, then tossed it into the storm drain. Breathing hard, he glanced up and down the street. There was no one in sight.
Never one to let a meal go to waste, he buried his fangs in the man’s neck. Most vampires shrank from drinking from the dead. But he wasn’t most vampires. The woman’s blood, sweeter than the man’s, served as dessert.
The scent of fresh blood drew Mara downstairs. She found Derek in the kitchen, rummaging in one of the drawers. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he said brusquely. “Go back to bed.”
“Nothing? You’re bleeding.” She ran her hand over his bare back. “Someone stabbed you. Who?”
“I don’t know. Some woman I picked up in a bar.”
Mara pulled a dish towel from one of the drawers. “Not that little blonde I saw you with!”
“No. A stranger. We left the club together. When I turned my back on her, she stabbed me. There was a man with her.”
“Hunters.” Mara wet the towel in the sink, and wiped the blood dripping steadily from the ragged hole in her son’s back. The wound should have healed by now, she thought, frowning. “Does it still hurt?”
“What do you think?”
“I think a part of the stake is still lodged inside.”
“Well, don’t just stand there. Get it the hell out.”
Reaching into the cupboard over the sink, Mara withdrew a large brown wooden box. Inside, among other odds and ends, was a stainless steel probe. “Hold still.”
Derek hissed, then swore as she began to explore the wound. “Geez, woman, what are you doing in there? Digging for gold?”
“Hold still! I’ve almost got it.”
Moments later, she tossed a long wooden sliver into the sink, along with the probe. Wetting the towel again, she washed the blood from his back. And smiled. The wound was already healing, the deep gash knitting together seamlessly, leaving no scar behind.
“About the hunters,” she said, wiping her hands. “I trust you cleaned up the mess.”
Derek nodded. He had taken the man’s ID and left his
body in an alley. The police would assume he’d been the victim of a robbery, or a drug deal gone bad. After dumping the body, he had wiped his memory from the woman’s mind and left her in her car, lucky to still be alive.
“I don’t like this,” Mara said, tossing the bloody towel into the sink on top of his ruined shirt. “I haven’t heard of any hunters in the area. Did you get their names?”
“The woman’s driver’s license identified her as Julia LaHood, thirty-six, with an address in Porterville. The man, Selkirk, was in his forties. Home town in Washington.”
“LaHood.” Mara hissed out a breath. “From Porterville.”
“You know her?”
“No, but I killed a hunter named LaHood about thirty years ago. She could be his daughter.” Leaning against the counter, Mara crossed her arms. Her family had left Porterville twenty-five years ago. She might have thought it was coincidence that LaHood came from that part of the country, except she had never believed in coincidence.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Derek said. “Forget it. There’s no way anyone could find you after all this time. We’ve all been careful.”
“There’s always a way,” Mara retorted. “I haven’t lived this long by making assumptions.”
The barb stung, but he couldn’t argue with her. He had been damn lucky tonight. If his reflexes had been a shade slower, it might have been his body lying in an alley.
“You’re forgetting one thing,” he said. “They weren’t after you. They were after me.”
And with that parting shot, he went upstairs to bed.
Mara glanced at the arched doorway that led into the kitchen. “You can come in now.”
With a wry grin, Logan sauntered into the room. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Mara smiled, thinking how lucky she was to have him in her life. He’d had doubts about being a father, but she had no complaints. He had been firm with Derek, stern when necessary, but he had never interfered between mother and son.
“You heard what happened?” she asked.
Nodding, he gathered her into his arms. Being a vampire, it was hard not to eavesdrop.
“Why would hunters be looking for any of us after all this time? We’ve kept a low profile since before Derek was born. Our old enemies are no longer a threat. We haven’t made any new ones.” She looked up at him, thinking, as always, that he was the most devastatingly handsome man she had ever known. And she had known many. “Have you nothing to say?”
He shrugged. “Unlike you, I don’t see conspiracies around every corner. Derek was at a vampire club. What better place to look for a vampire? Like you said, we’ve kept a low profile. Hell, I doubt if anyone who would care even knows that Derek exists. I think it was just bad luck that a hunter found him.”
“But you have to admit, destroying my son would be the perfect way for someone to avenge themselves on me.”
“You think the LaHood woman intended to kill Derek to avenge her father’s death?”
“It’s possible.”
“Anything is possible,” he murmured. “A meteor could wipe out life as we know it. A tsunami could sweep us all out to sea.” He lifted a lock of her hair and let it sift through his fingers. “Or I could take you to bed and make love to you until sunrise.”
“I’ll take door number three,” she said, leaning into him.
Logan swung her into his arms, then carried her swiftly up the stairs to their bedroom. He was undressing her when she grabbed his hands, her brow furrowed.
“All of our old enemies aren’t dead,” she said, a hint of red glowing in her eyes.
Logan frowned, and then nodded. “You’re thinking about those two old ladies, aren’t you? The ones who were with Ramsden.”
“Edna and Pearl,” Mara said, her voice edged with malice. “I should have killed those troublesome creatures years ago.”
Chapter Eight
“I told you I could find him,” Edna said, her voice ringing with triumph.
“I know, dear. I never doubted you for a minute.” Pearl kicked off her shoes, then sat back in her chair and picked up the glass of wine on the table beside her. It was a lovely room, done in shades of green and gold. “Who do you think that girl was?”
“I have no idea. His next meal, perhaps?” Edna sank into the other chair. “He certainly turned into a handsome specimen, didn’t he? So tall and dark. Makes me wish I’d been turned at thirty.”
Pearl rolled her eyes. “You always were boy crazy.”
“You don’t think he’s attractive?”
“That’s beside the point, dear.”
“We should have said hello.”
Pearl stared at her friend. “Have you lost your mind? What would you have said? ‘Hi, Derek, you probably don’t remember me, but I helped kidnap you when you were a baby’?”
“Don’t be absurd!”
With a huff of annoyance, Pearl said, “Now that we’ve seen him, I think we should leave town.”
“Leave? Why?”
“Because he’s not here alone, you twit. Mara is here.”
“Mara?” Edna glanced around the hotel room, as if she expected to find the ancient vampire standing behind her. “Are you sure?”
“I caught her scent inside the club. Didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t paying attention to anything but Derek.”
“Boy crazy, like I said,” Pearl remarked with a sigh. “Could you tell if the werewolf gene has kicked in?”
Edna shook her head, her brow furrowed. “No. We need to stay until the full moon.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“How else are we going to find out if he’s both vampire and werewolf?”
“What possible difference can it make?” Pearl asked irritably.
“None, perhaps, but wouldn’t you like to know if he can reproduce? What if it was the werewolf gene that allowed Bowden to impregnate Mara? Derek carries Mara’s blood and the werewolf gene. . . . We could be looking at the beginning of a whole new race of vampires!”
Pearl stared at her friend, her mind racing with possibilities, but, in the end, her fear of Mara made her shake her head. “True, dear, but, like I said, what difference does it make?”
Deflated, Edna sat back, hands folded in her lap. “What are we going to do if we go back home? You were the one who wanted to put some excitement in our lives, remember?”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but the idea of meeting Mara face-to-face is more excitement than I had in mind. We not only kidnapped her son, for goodness’ sake, we fed on her child’s father. Everyone knows she’s never been very big on forgiveness, or are you forgetting what she did to Dr. Ramsden?”
Edna chewed on her thumbnail. Word of the doctor’s death had spread quickly through the vampire community. It had carried Mara’s warning loud and clear: mess with my family and you mess with me. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
Edna tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair, then sprang to her feet. “We’ll just have to stay out of Mara’s way,” she exclaimed.
Pearl shook her head. “And if we can’t?”
“Now who’s being negative?” Edna chided. “We can avoid her until the full moon,” she said, patting Pearl’s shoulder. “And then we’ll go home.”
Chapter Nine
Louise McDonald sat at her desk, idly thumbing through an old scrapbook. She found it hard to believe she had been in the vampire-hunting business for over thirty-five years. She had made a lot of kills in her long career. In all that time, she’d only let one get away. Mara. The so-called Queen of the Vampires.
Grunting softly, Lou sat back and propped her feet on the edge of her battered desk. Even though it had happened twenty-five years ago, she still recalled her meeting with Kyle Bowden, the foolish mortal who had fallen in love with Mara. Bowden was the only person she had ever met who hired her not to kill a vampire, but to locate one.
She had charged him extra f
or that. Good thing, too, she thought with a wry grin, since he’d still owed her money when he’d gotten himself killed.
She would have given a month’s pay to know the full story behind that odd relationship, and twice that to know what had happened to Mara, and whether her baby had been a boy or a girl, human or vamp or both. The kid would be grown now.
Lou glanced around her office. Tomorrow was supposed to be her last day. She was fifty-four. Time to retire. Vampire hunting was a young man’s game, or woman’s, as the case may be. But thinking of Mara gave her pause. Taking out the Queen of the Vampires would be a hell of a last coup. Something future hunters would talk about long after Lou was gone.
She reached for her phone, then punched in her sister’s number. Cindy answered on the second ring.
“Hey, Lou, what’s up?”
“Have you ever wondered what happened to Mara and her brat?”
Cindy snorted. “Where would you even start to look after all this time?”
Lou pulled the morning paper from the pile on her desk. She subscribed to most of the big-city papers. It had long been predicted that newspapers would disappear, and they had, for a few years, but had recently made a comeback. “Three hunters have been killed in the last few days, one of them here, in California. You remember Julia LaHood? She’s mentioned in one of the L.A. papers.”
“LaHood? Wasn’t her old man a hunter a while back?”
“Yeah. I heard Mara got him, although there was never any real proof. What if Julia got wind of Mara’s whereabouts and decided to avenge her father?”
“That’s a big stretch after all this time.” Cindy paused. “You’re not thinking of going after Mara, are you?”
“One last hunt,” Lou said. “For the biggest game of all.”
Chapter Ten
Sheree sat at the breakfast table, the morning paper spread before her as she sipped a cup of English tea. Having little interest in the latest Hollywood scandal or the president’s upcoming vacation, she skimmed the headlines until the word vampire caught her eye.