“Hmm. I’m not sure that’s a truth we should ever tell anyone.”
“Exactly. Which means that as hard as it is, we can never let the guys know who we really are. Every hunter and vampire in the country knows Edna Turner and Pearl Jackson killed the McDonald sisters.”
Edna sighed. “Things seem to be moving so fast with me and Jim . . . I’m not sure what to make of it.”
“I know what you mean, dear. I think I’m falling in love with Monroe and it’s only been a few days.”
“When are we going to open the motel?” Edna asked, abruptly changing the subject.
“I’m not sure. We’ll have to hire someone to run the place during the day, you know.”
“Maybe one of the guys can recommend someone?”
“Maybe. We need to install some heavy-duty security doors on our apartment and new locks on all the windows right away. We should have done it before we moved in.”
“Do you really think we’re in danger here? I never even heard of Dune, New Mexico, before.”
Pearl nodded glumly. “I hate to say it, dear, but I think we’ll be in danger of one kind or another for as long as we live.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Abbey leaned on the shovel and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. She didn’t mind cleaning up after the horses. She didn’t mind the smell of the manure or find the task unpleasant. Usually, she enjoyed it because it gave her time alone to think about things. But today, she didn’t want to think, yet her mind seemed determined to replay her conversation with Nick.
What would she do if he turned her against her will?
Would she hate him forever?
Or wonder why she hadn’t asked him to do it sooner?
Dragging her thoughts from Nick, she thought about her father, the warlock. She had tried several times to summon fire, but never with any success. Reading Nick’s mind seemed to be her only supernatural power.
Glancing at the hose coiled by the side of the corral, she focused her thoughts on the faucet, willing the water to turn on and fill the horse trough.
A minute went by.
Two.
Five.
Chiding herself for being an idiot for trying again, she went back to mucking out the stalls and spreading fresh straw.
When she finished her chores, she saddled Freckles. Several days had passed since her conversation with Nick, and she hadn’t had a peaceful moment since. One day she decided being a vampire wouldn’t be so bad and the next, she was certain it wasn’t for her. Not now. Not ever. On the other hand, being eternally young and never getting sick might be a fair trade for what she would have to give up. Plus, she would be making life easier for Nick. He would no longer be tempted to feed from her . . . or drain her dry.
But when she thought about the blood, about hunting for prey like a wild animal . . . why was accepting that so difficult? It was what her whole family did. She knew it, although they had always shielded her from that part of their existence. Was it as horrible and gross as it was in the movies and on TV? She just couldn’t imagine her mother dragging some hapless person into the shadows and ripping their throat out. She had often wondered why movie vampires were such sloppy eaters, blood dripping from their fangs, staining their clothes.
It wasn’t horrible when Nick drank from her, Abbey thought. He was very gentle, very . . . very tidy. Of course, maybe it was different when he hunted. She had never seen him search for prey. Or feed. Not that she wanted to.
To her chagrin, the idea suddenly held a strange, morbid appeal.
Shaking off her troublesome thoughts, she stepped into the saddle and urged the mare into a lope. A nice long ride was just what she needed to clear her head.
Abbey was about two miles from home when a pair of riders emerged from the woods to her left. As they drew closer, she could see they were both women, and not accomplished riders, judging by the way one woman held the reins and the other clung to the saddle horn.
One of them, dressed in jeans and a red flannel shirt, waved to her. “Hello, there! Can you help us? I’m afraid we’re lost.”
Wary of strangers, Abbey reined Freckles to a halt a good distance away. “Where did you come from?”
The second woman, clad in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Back that way. I don’t know how we ended up here,” she said, laughing. “Wherever ‘here’ is.”
“You’re on private property,” Abbey said. “I suggest you turn around and go back the way you came.”
“Sure. Thanks,” the woman said, but she wasn’t looking at Abbey, she was watching something in the woods beyond.
Freckles snorted and shook her head.
Abbey turned to look behind her, let out a cry as a dart embedded itself in her left shoulder. Belatedly, she realized it was a trap, but by then it was too late.
Too late to run away. Too far from home to cry for help.
Her vision narrowed and grew dark as she toppled from the saddle.
When Nick woke late that afternoon, he knew immediately that Abbey wasn’t in the house. Guessing that she had stayed late to visit her parents as she often did after taking care of the stock, he willed himself into the city in search of prey.
He found new pleasure in hunting these days. Odd, he thought, how being without his preternatural powers for a short time had given him a deeper appreciation of them when they returned.
Eager to see Abbey again, he fed quickly, then willed himself to Rane’s house, thinking to drive back home with Abbey.
A quick sweep with his preternatural senses told him no one was home.
He willed himself to the barn, thinking Abbey must be working late.
But she wasn’t there, either. And neither was her horse.
Nick frowned. It wasn’t like her to ride so late. Leaving the barn, he sought the bond between them, grunted thoughtfully when he couldn’t find it. What the hell? Was she blocking him?
It seemed unlikely. Expanding his preternatural senses, he sorted through the myriad scents that surrounded him—dirt, grass, trees, hay, straw, the horses in the barn, the cattle in the corral—until he found Abbey’s unique scent. It guided him unerringly out of the yard. With preternatural speed, he moved past the tree line and into the pasture beyond.
Nick uttered a vile oath when he spied Freckles grazing on a patch of tall grass, reins trailing. There was no sign of Abbey and that worried the hell out of him. No way on earth would she have gone haring off on her own without looking after her horse first.
Where the devil was she?
Walking toward the mare, he caught the scents of two other women. A glance at the ground showed the tracks of three shod horses heading south.
Nick approached Freckles slowly so as not to startle her. Taking up the reins, he swung onto the mare’s back and followed the trail of the other three horses. The fear he’d kept tamped down fought free when he neared the tree line and caught the scent of a man.
Genuinely worried now, he kicked the mare into a lope.
Abbey’s scent led him unerringly to the service road that paralleled the southern boundary of Rane’s property. He found a horse trailer parked there. Three horses were tied in the back. The vehicle that had towed the trailer was gone.
Abbey’s scent, and those of the other three people, ended at the side of the road.
Nick sat there a moment, his arms crossed on the pommel as he tried to contact her through their shared link again.
Abbey? Abbey, love, where are you?
He had no sense of her and that scared the hell out of him.
Either she was unconscious.
Or she was dead.
Rane and Savanah were home when Nick returned.
“What do you mean, she’s missing?” Rane glared at Nick as if it was his fault.
“Just what I said. I found her horse in the south pasture. There was no sign of Abbey. I located the tracks of three horses. Abbey’s scent was mingled with that of two other
women and a man. I followed their trail to the service road and then it just disappeared.”
“She wouldn’t go off like that without letting us know,” Savanah said, worrying a lock of her hair. “And she certainly wouldn’t leave Freckles loose in the pasture without removing the tack.”
“Someone’s taken her,” Nick said. “And it doesn’t take three guesses to figure out who it was.”
A muscle throbbed in Rane’s jaw. “Hunters.” He spit the word as if it tasted bad.
“Right the first time,” Nick muttered. “How many people know about those damn books?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“We don’t know that this has anything to do with the books,” Savanah said, glancing anxiously from one man to the other.
“That’s true,” Rane agreed. “But it’s a pretty good bet.”
“I don’t give a damn what they want,” Nick said, his frustration growing with every passing second. “All I know is she’s gone.”
Savanah clasped her hands tightly in her lap, her face paler than usual. “You don’t think it’s the same hunters who came here before, do you?” she asked.
Nick shook his head. “It’s unlikely the compulsion Rane used has worn off. Besides, I didn’t recognize the scents of the three who took her.”
“Let’s go,” Rane said. “We can follow the car that took her.”
Nick shook his head. “I already tried that. I followed it as far as I could. The kidnappers ditched the truck that pulled the horse trailer near a freeway on-ramp. There’s no way to tell what car or truck they transferred to.”
“What about the horse trailer?” Savanah asked. “Any clues left there?”
“No. I made a call to the police department. It was stolen from a lot in town, along with the horses.”
Rane swore again.
“What do we do now?” Savanah glanced from one man to the other.
“We wait until Abbey regains consciousness,” Nick said, his voice ice cold. “And then I find her. And rip the heart out of whoever the hell kidnapped her.”
Chapter Forty
Voices.
Darkness.
Her head ached.
She felt sick to her stomach.
With a groan, Abbey rolled onto her side and vomited her breakfast.
“What the hell!” A man’s angry voice. Rough hands jerked her upright. “Clary, get over here and clean this up.”
“Do it yourself.”
Abbey blinked to clear her vision. She was lying on a cot. A length of heavy cord was knotted around her ankles. The woman, Clary, stood on the far side of the room. She cradled a mean-looking rifle in her arms. Abbey recognized her as one of the riders she had seen in the pasture. Where was the other woman?
Muttering under his breath about women’s work, the man grabbed a towel and clumsily mopped up the mess on the floor.
They were hunters. The knowledge scudded across Abbey’s mind. And then she frowned. How had she known that?
“What if he doesn’t come?” the rifle-toting woman asked.
“Don’t worry, he’ll come.” The man wadded up the towel and tossed it in a corner.
“And if he doesn’t?” the woman persisted.
“Let’s not look for trouble.”
Still feeling a little groggy, Abbey wondered who they were waiting for, and what would happen when whoever they were expecting showed up. What would happen if no one came? What if it was Nick? Nick! Of course it was Nick. Or her father.
And she was the bait.
Abbey glanced at her surroundings, looking for something she could use as a weapon. They were in what appeared to be a bunker of some kind. There was a sink, a hot plate, two chairs, and the cot she occupied.
The man glanced out the window. “What the hell’s keeping Berta? She should have been back here by now.”
Clary shrugged. “Maybe the takeout place was busy.”
“Maybe she chickened out and decided to cut and run.”
“My sister wouldn’t do that,” the woman retorted, though her tone lacked conviction. “She’ll be here.”
Abbey felt a tremor deep within her, as if someone—or something—had touched her very soul. Nick?
I’m coming. Are you all right?
Yes.
Sit tight, love. I’ll be there soon.
Abbey smiled, her former fears evaporating. Hunters or not, these two would be no match for Nick Desanto, vampire extraordinaire.
The man looked at her sharply, his little pig eyes narrowing. “What have you got to look so friggin’ happy about?”
“Who, me?” Preternatural power whispered through the room. At first, Abbey thought it was coming from Nick, but then she realized it was coming from inside herself. It reminded her of Nick’s power, but it was different somehow.
The man felt it too. Frowning, he glanced around. “What the hell! Clary, do you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“I’m not sure.”
Abbey stared at him. She should have been afraid, she thought, afraid of the power unfolding within her. Instead, she found herself embracing it, molding it, shaping it. In her mind’s eye, she imagined picking the man up and throwing him against the wall. To her amazement, the thought no sooner crossed her mind than, with a startled cry, the man flew backward and slammed into the wall.
The woman raised her rifle, her worried gaze sweeping the room. “Who’s there?”
“Maybe it’s a ghost,” Abbey suggested. She focused her will on the woman, sending her stumbling across the floor to stand beside the man. “Or a witch,” she murmured, astonished by the strength thrumming inside her.
A moment later, the door crashed against the wall as Nick and her father burst into the room.
Abbey’s heart skipped a beat when she saw her rescuers. She looked at Nick, thinking how surprised he would be when she told him what she had done.
As soon as she stopped concentrating on the man and the woman, her hold on them broke.
The woman quickly raised the rifle to her shoulder. At the same time, the man reached for the pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans.
Faster than the eye could follow, Nick jerked the rifle from the woman’s hands and tossed it aside. A quick twist broke her neck.
Rane didn’t move quite as fast as Nick. The hunter squeezed off a round, striking Rane in the shoulder, before Rane plucked the gun from his hand and shot him in the chest. The man stumbled backward as a bright red stain blossomed across his shirt front.
Nick knelt in front of Abbey, his hands deftly untying the rope that bound her ankles. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, unable to take her gaze from the bodies on the floor. It had happened so quickly. Alive one minute. Stone cold dead the next. Her nostrils filled with the acrid smell of gun smoke, the coppery scent of blood.
“Nick, get her out of here,” Rane said. “I’ll take care of these two.”
Rising, Nick swept Abbey into his arms and carried her out of the building.
She stared up at him, her face pale. “I think I’m going to . . .”
“Faint,” Nick muttered as she went limp in his arms.
Well, who could blame her?
Abbey ran through a nightmare landscape. It wasn’t night and yet there was no sun. A river of blood followed her. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t outrun the crimson tide. Faceless people sprang at her, their eyes hollow and empty of life. Blood poured from hideous, gaping wounds in their throats. Shadowy creatures hovered out of reach, their bony fingers reaching for her, their mocking laughter like the whisper of dead leaves rustling across tombstones.
She tried to cry out, to call for help, but she couldn’t speak. She opened her mouth again, knowing that if she didn’t wake now, she would die a horrible, lingering death.
“Nick!” His name was torn from her throat.
“Abbey! Abbey, wake up, I’m here.”
Light flooded the room when he switched on t
he bedside lamp. Moments later, his arms gathered her close.
She clung to him, sobbing incoherently.
“Shh, hush, love, it’s all right now. I’m here.”
“Nick!” Her arms tightened around him. “Oh, Nick, I had the worst nightmare!”
He stroked her back. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“There was blood. So much blood. And it followed me.” She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “And there were people . . . with dead eyes . . . bleeding . . . And shadows . . .” She buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder, some of her terror fading as his familiar scent tickled her nostrils. His skin was cool against her cheek, his hands gentle as he stroked her back, his voice soothing as he assured her there was nothing to fear.
He rained butterfly kisses on the top of her head. When she looked up at him, he covered her mouth with his, his tongue sweeping across her lips as his hand slid up and down her back.
She moaned softly, her nightmare fading, forgotten, in the magic of his touch.
“Abbey?”
She nodded, her hands moving over him, drawing him down on top of her.
In moments, her nightgown was gone and she was naked in his arms, reveling in his touch. “Take me,” she whispered. “Taste me.”
She closed her eyes, pleasure flowing through every nerve and fiber of her being as his tongue stroked the side of her neck. Moments later, he thrust into her. She moaned softly when his fangs pricked her flesh, the sensation sending her to heights of pleasure she doubted few humans were ever lucky enough to know.
“What do you think my nightmare meant?” Abbey asked sometime later.
They were sitting side by side, their backs against the headboard, Nick’s arm curled around her shoulders.
“I doubt if it means anything. You had a good scare this afternoon,” he remarked. “It was probably just your mind’s way of dealing with it.”