Leaning forward, she quickly read the article under the headline VAMPIRE IN THE CITY? According to the article, the body of forty-year-old Ira Selkirk of Granite Falls, Washington, had been found in the alley behind Chin Lee’s China Palace, the victim of an apparent robbery. A broken neck was listed as the cause of Mr. Selkirk’s death. According to the coroner’s report, the man had also lost a pint or two of blood, though there were no injuries to the body other than the one that had killed him. His companion, Julia LaHood, who reported Mr. Selkirk missing and identified the body, said she had last seen Mr. Selkirk at Nosferatu’s Den the night before. She had no memory of leaving the club with Mr. Selkirk, and no information regarding his death.
Stunned, Sheree sat back. Drained of blood? Last seen at Nosferatu’s Den. She and Derek had been at the Den last night. Had there been a vampire there, too? Stars above, she and Derek could have been the vampire’s victims. It was a sobering thought.
Lifting a shaky hand to the side of her neck, she remembered Derek asking if she had considered the danger in looking for a vampire, his warning that creatures of the night were born predators.
If the article in the newspaper was to be believed, he’d been right. The thought troubled her. Blinded by her determination to prove vampires existed, she had blithely ignored the danger. A very real danger.
Suddenly, finding a member of the undead community didn’t seem like such a bright idea.
Maybe it was time to stop looking for creatures of the night and turn her attention to something a little less life threatening, like walking barefoot on hot coals or jumping out of airplanes without a parachute.
Sipping her tea, she wondered if Derek had seen the morning paper.
With an irritated sigh, Mara tossed the newspaper on the floor.
“Bad news?” Logan asked, peering up at her through narrowed eyes.
“Some stupid editor splashed the word vampire in the headlines.”
Logan uttered something unintelligible from under the sheets.
“Derek should have dumped the body where it wouldn’t have been found.”
“Yeah, and maybe he would have bled out while he was at it.”
Mara glared at her husband even though he couldn’t see it. The man could be infuriating. But, what was even worse, he was right. Vampires healed almost instantly from most wounds, but there were exceptions. Injuries caused by silver or by wooden stakes dipped in holy water tended to be more painful and last longer. Of course, she was immune to such things, but her son wasn’t, though he would be when he was older.
Taking a deep breath, she slid under the covers and curled up against Logan’s side. She ran her hands over his back and shoulders. His skin was cool and smooth. She knew every inch of it as well as she knew her own. He was the most incredible lover she’d ever had. She draped one arm over his waist, her fingers running back and forth over his belly, grinned when he sucked in a ragged breath. “You don’t really want to go to sleep, do you?”
“It’s why I’m in bed.”
She ran her tongue along his spine. “There are other things to do in bed.”
In a move that would have been a blur to anyone but Mara, he rolled over, ripped the nightgown from her body, and tucked her beneath him. “Is this what you had in mind, woman?”
She grinned up at him, then batted her eyelashes. “Why, you sweet ol’ thing,” she purred in her best southern drawl, “however did you guess?”
Derek woke with the setting of the sun. Kicking off the sheet, he sat up, listening to the sounds of the house. There was no one home.
After rising, he showered and dressed, then went downstairs.
The newspaper was waiting for him on the coffee table in the living room, folded in half so that the first thing he saw was the story about Selkirk’s death. “Subtle, Ma,” he muttered.
He read the story, then tossed the paper aside. He should have dumped the body where it wouldn’t have been found. It was one of the first things his mother had taught him, but hell, he’d been bleeding like a stuck pig.
He’d been smart enough not to drain the man dry, had sealed the wounds in his neck so there’d be no trace, and figured that was good enough.
Apparently not. Damn reporter!
He’d have to worry about it later. Right now, he needed to feed.
Leaving the house, he paused beside his car and glanced skyward. Two things hit him at the same time: the moon was going to be full tonight, and he had a sudden craving for a thick steak, rare.
Damn. He was a teenager the last time he’d hungered for a steak. It had worried the hell out of his mother, but the cravings had stopped after his first hunt.
He slid behind the wheel, then headed for a popular steak house on Hollywood Boulevard.
The waitress looked a little perplexed when he told her he wanted a thick slice of prime rib, red in the middle, and nothing else.
“No salad? Potato? Rice?”
“Just the steak.”
“And to drink?”
“Just the steak,” he growled.
After the waitress left to turn in his order, Derek sat back in his chair, aware of the covert stares of some of the other diners. When he stared back, they quickly looked away.
When the waitress returned with his order, Derek had second thoughts. He hadn’t eaten solid food in more than ten years. The steak was thick, swimming in red juice. Hoping he could keep it down, he cut a small piece, took a bite, and chewed it carefully, ready to bolt from the restaurant if it threatened to come back up.
It didn’t.
He ate the whole thing, savoring every bite, and wondered what was happening to him.
After paying the check, he strolled down Hollywood Boulevard, hands shoved in his pockets. Hollywood was an interesting place, filled with an assortment of interesting people.
A myriad of sounds and sights and smells pressed in on him from every direction. It had taken some getting used to, at first, the constant overload of noise. In time, he had learned to shut most of it out. But the scent of blood was always there—warm, tantalizing, almost irresistible.
And with it, the urge to hunt, to feed, to kill.
His mother had taught him early on that he didn’t have to take a life. He’d asked her once how many she’d taken.
“It doesn’t matter what I’ve done,” she said. “I did what I had to do at the time. What matters now is what you do. What kind of man you want to be.”
The thing was, he wasn’t a man in the usual sense of the word. Never had been. Never would be.
“Hey, good lookin’, are you lookin’ for me?”
He paused at the sound of a woman’s voice. Turning, he saw her standing under the awning of a hotel. It was hard to tell how old she was under the layers of paint, but he guessed she wasn’t more than twenty, if that. She had a mass of curly brown hair. Her clothes proclaimed her for what she was—a hooker.
“I can show you a good time,” she offered.
“I’ll bet you can.”
Smiling, she moved out from under the awning and linked her arm to his. “My room’s just down around the corner, honey.”
He let her lead him down the street until he drew her into a parking lot.
She balked when she realized where he was taking her. “No way!”
“What’s the matter? Change your mind?”
“Yes. Let me go!”
“Not just yet.” Keeping a firm hold on her arm, he led her into the shadows.
“What are you going to do to me?” She whipped her head back and forth, hoping to find someone to help her, but the parking lot was empty.
“Relax. This won’t hurt a bit.”
She looked up at him through brown eyes wide with fear. “Please let me go. I have a little boy. He needs me.”
“Yeah? Then why aren’t you home with him?”
“I’ve got to earn a living!” She was trembling now.
When they reached the back of the parking lot, Derek folded her
in his arms, felt his eyes go red as the hunger rose within him, the brush of his fangs against his tongue.
“No.” She stared at him. “No, please!”
Holding her immobile, he lowered his head to her neck, his fangs pricking her skin. Her blood was clean, though heavily flavored with tobacco and alcohol.
He had intended to drain her dry, but guilt rose up within him when his mind brushed hers. She really did have a son, a four-year-old named Danny. Her mother looked after the boy while Star worked the streets.
Lifting his head, he ran his tongue over the tiny wounds in her neck, then wiped the memory of his bite from her mind.
She blinked up at him, her eyes unfocused.
“How much do you charge for your time?” he asked.
“What?”
“What do you charge?”
“Forty credits for an hour. A hundred for the night.”
“What’s your name? I’ll see that you get it.”
“St . . . Star Anderson.”
“Look at me.” Capturing her gaze with his, he said, “You’re going to go home now. You won’t remember any of this. Tomorrow, you’ll go look for a new job, one that lets you be home nights.”
“Yes.” She nodded, her expression blank. “Tomorrow.”
He walked her to his car, then drove her home, noting the address as he walked her to her door. He released her from his spell when she stepped inside.
Bemused by his unexpected benevolence, Derek slid behind the wheel, only to sit there, staring into the distance.
And then he drove to Sheree’s house.
Chapter Eleven
Pearl and Edna stepped out of the restaurant’s shadow. “That proves it!” Edna exclaimed, nodding.
“He ate a steak, dear,” Pearl said, strolling down the sidewalk. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“Do I need to draw you a diagram? Vampires don’t eat, not anything! Ever! Don’t you see? The only explanation is the werewolf gene.”
“Or maybe it’s just that he’s half human, and the human part is kicking in. Did you ever think of that?”
“No.” Edna shook her head. “No, I don’t believe that.”
“Well, the moon is full and he didn’t shift, so let’s go home.”
“Not yet.”
“Why not? Why are you so obsessed with his becoming a werewolf? It’s not like he’d be the first vampire/werewolf in all of recorded history. Remember Susie McGee?”
“Of course.” Edna tapped her forefinger against her lower lip. “I wonder what ever happened to her?”
“She was both.”
“But not at the same time,” Edna said smugly. “She was a werewolf who was turned into a vampire. Derek could be both at the same time. It’s . . . it’s unprecedented!”
“So, what? You want to see him get furry, is that it?”
“Exactly.” Edna smiled. “We need to buy a camera!”
“And what if he rips our throats out while we’re watching?”
“Oh, stop being so dramatic. That isn’t going to happen, and you know it. I just have to know if he’ll go back to being a vampire once he turns into a werewolf. . . .”
“Assuming he becomes a werewolf,” Pearl interjected dryly. “The change might be permanent, like it was with Susie.”
“Well, that’s probably more likely,” Edna admitted. “But, whatever happens, I want to be there to see it.”
They were in a residential area now. Pearl stopped to peek into the window of a large house. Inside, a young man and woman were sitting side by side on a long white sofa. A large calico cat lay curled up next to the woman, purring softly.
“What are you looking at?” Edna asked, coming to stand beside her friend.
“Nothing, dear,” she said, a wistful note in her voice.
Edna tilted her head to the side. “They look cozy, don’t they?”
Pearl nodded. “Do you ever miss being married?”
“Sometimes late at night, I wish I had a man to hold me,” she said, sighing. “It’s been so long, I’ve almost forgotten what it was like being held, being loved.”
“They’re in love,” Pearl remarked. “You can tell by the way they look at each other.”
“Yes.” Edna sighed again. “Have you ever thought that we might be able to . . . Never mind.”
“Edna Mae Turner! Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking? At our age?”
“I might look old,” Edna said with a shrug, “but I don’t feel old anymore. I feel younger, better, than I did at twenty.”
Pearl clucked softly as she started walking again. She had to agree with her friend. She felt terrific. In all her years as a vampire, she had never met one who had been turned in their seventies. Most vampires tended to be turned in their youth and, naturally, turned others of a comparable age. After all, no one wanted to look eternally old no matter how good they might feel once the deed was done.
“We look awfully good for our ages,” Edna opined. “Some nice mortal, elderly men might find us attractive.”
Pearl stopped again, her gaze moving over Edna’s face. They had been turned over a quarter of a century ago. She had been with her friend every day since then, but had never really looked at her until now. Edna looked her age, and yet, in some remarkable fashion, the lines in her face were hardly noticeable. There was a radiance to her skin that belied her years. Her hair was thicker than it had been before she was turned, her brown eyes sparkled with vitality. “You know, dear, you’re really quite lovely.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
Edna regarded her friend for several minutes. “You know, so are you,” she said, smiling. “You look your age, and yet you don’t. Why, I bet we could find a couple of good-looking men in their fifties to keep us company.”
“Do you really think so, dear?”
“Why not?” Linking her arm with Pearl’s, Edna continued down the street. “There are lots of good-looking men in Hollywood. No reason why we can’t get ourselves some fancy new clothes and look for some nice gentlemen friends while we wait for the next full moon, is there?”
Chapter Twelve
Curled up on the sofa, Sheree wiped the tears from her eyes. Sad movies always made her cry. Of course, most people didn’t think it was sad when Dracula was destroyed, but she couldn’t help feeling sorry for the monster.
Who was she kidding? She wasn’t feeling sorry for the vampire. She was feeling sorry for herself. She had finally found a man she wanted and she’d lost him before she had him.
She felt like a fool, crying her eyes out over a man she hardly knew. Maybe she should just go home, visit her parents, and give Ralph and Neil a second look. So, they weren’t tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious. They were settled. Her parents approved of them. Both men came from the same background as she did. She knew what to expect with them—boredom, she thought, sniffling. No matter how she tried to convince herself to give Neil and Ralph a chance, she just couldn’t do it. She wanted an alpha male, like Derek, not some wimp in a white button-down shirt and tie.
Earlier, she had considered going to the club to see if he was there, but her pride held her back. She wasn’t going to chase him, though she couldn’t help wondering what had happened between them the other night. One minute they’d been kissing like a couple of horny teenagers and the next he was driving her back to her car.
Sighing, she turned off the movie, switched off the lights, and went up to bed.
As he had once before, Derek sat in his car outside Sheree’s house. It was a nice place, two stories high, made of red brick with white trim and a bright yellow front door. A white picket fence surrounded the tidy front yard; colorful flowerpots filled with cacti sat on a ledge in front of the windows.
He stared up at her bedroom window. He didn’t have to see her to know that she’d been crying, that she was in bed, asleep. That she was dreaming of him, a strange dream, the jumbled images switching quickly from one scene to another. But, thro
ugh it all, a tall, dark-haired man shrouded in a long black cape whose face sometimes resembled his own, and at other times that of actors who had portrayed Dracula, played a major part.
He found that disturbing on several levels. Was it merely her reaction to the Den? To the article in the morning paper? Or had she somehow sensed that he was not the man he pretended to be?
Gradually, the images slowed, became less chaotic, until it was just the two of them, alone on a dark moor, making love beneath a midnight moon.
Gathering his self-control, he jammed the car in gear and stomped on the gas, quickly putting some miles between them before he did the unthinkable, like materializing in her bedroom and making her dreams come true.
At home, he slammed into the house, his nerves on edge, his urge for Sheree riding him hard. Rationally, he knew he was in no condition to be with her. He paced for an hour, then slouched into a chair. Staring into the fireplace, he took slow, deep breaths in an effort to rein in his lust.
He was still seething inwardly when his mother and Logan appeared.
“You’re home early.” Logan removed his jacket and tossed it over the back of the sofa. Moving to a side table, he poured himself a glass of wine.
Derek grunted his reply.
Mara tossed her wrap on top of her husband’s jacket. Lifting her head, she took a deep breath. And frowned. She glanced at Logan, who nodded, indicating he smelled it, too.
Derek shifted in his seat, his gaze still on the fireplace, his hands clenching and unclenching.
Tension sizzled in the air.
Glancing from mother to son, Logan drained his glass. “I’m going up to bed.”
“I’ll be up soon,” Mara said.
Nodding, Logan left the room.
Mara regarded her son for several moments before asking, “What’s worrying you?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said sharply.
Derek scowled at her. One of the first things she had taught him was how to block others from reading his thoughts. It was a talent he rarely used at home, but he was grateful for it tonight.