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  She stopped at the street and was a little disgusted when Veronica sat right down on the curb. She was making Dawn look like a bitch who thought she was too good to cop a squat and comfort her own friend, but the ground was wet with the thickening snow. She’d be damned if she got street sludge on her jeans. Just sit there and be quiet, she willed her friend.

  She gave her blond coiffure a quick fluff, and as surreptitiously as possible reached into her bra and perked up the sweater-puppets a little, hoping for some not-so-subtle cleavage. She heard his footsteps behind her. Damn, no time for lip-gloss.

  "Hi. How are you ladies doing tonight?" He only looked at Dawn.

  "Well, she’s had better days, but my night is looking up. And yourself?" she said, thinking her night wasn’t the only thing they could get up, and stole a glance his crotch. It was always the best when she could get them hard with only strategic conversation.

  He smiled. "Can’t complain. A little thirsty."

  "Me too. You should have bought me a drink."

  "I’m Sabian." He held out his hand. It was cold, but so was hers. The temp must have dropped to the teens. She hoped it was making her cheeks all rosy. Her blush would have worn off by now.

  "I’m Dawn. This is my friend Veronica."

  Veronica, slumped over with her back to them, only raised a hand in a halfhearted wave to acknowledge the introduction.

  "You better watch out, Sabian. You caught us on an evening reserved for man hating." She curled her lips in what she hoped was a sultry smile, and then started blowing steam-rings from her breath into the arctic air. Anything to call attention to her lips.

  A white Honda pulled up at the curb, and Veronica quickly hopped up and took shotgun. Good. Dawn was beyond through with the pity-party. She wanted this guy, and Veronica was fucking it up.

  "Let’s go. Snow’s going to get worse," said their friend, a plain-looking brunette named Jackie dressed only for door-to-door service. Jackie should have been the one to take Veronica out. She had the stomach for the whining, but to hell with that. Dawn had even less desire to be a designated driver than to listen to Veronica’s shit, so she’d called dibs on drinking buddy.

  Dawn had to act fast. Jackie was an impatient bitch sometimes. Dawn was wondering if she should suggest she and Sabian get to know each other better somehow when he reached out and took her chin in his hand, ensnaring her with his eyes. He didn’t say a word, but she knew what he wanted. Never in her life was Dawn so hot, so fast.

  She ran over to the passenger side window of the Honda. "I’m going to stay."

  "Hell no." said Jackie.

  "I’ll get a ride."

  "With who? Mr. Euro?" Dawn looked back at Sabian—Jackie was right. There was something a little Euro about his style, but goddamn he wore it well. He had a slight accent, kind of British. Maybe he was as sexually progressive as Europeans were, too. She hoped so.

  "I thought you were staying with me tonight," said Veronica. "Just get his number."

  "Just because you got dumped doesn’t mean I should suffer, too."

  "You’re such a bitch, Dawn," said Veronica. "Go ahead, get raped and murdered. Good luck with that."

  Jackie hissed, "How about no. I have a better idea: get his number, get in the fucking car, and call him on the road. I’m not leaving you in the middle of Denver in the snow with some guy you just met."

  Sabian gently pushed Dawn aside. She liked it when a guy manhandled her just a little. She stayed close to him as he leaned down to the window, letting her breasts rub against his shoulder. God, she was into this. All she could think about was his fingers down her pants. He probably gave a phenomenal hand-job.

  Then he spoke to her friends. "Neither of you saw Dawn tonight, did you?"

  Both girls shook their heads no.

  He looked at Jackie. "You didn’t see Dawn at all today, and tomorrow you’ll have no idea how she spent her night." This set off an alarm with Dawn, but he looked at her again, and concern washed away with the incoming tide of lust she felt.

  Then he looked at Veronica. "You spoke with Dawn earlier, but she blew you off, didn’t she?"

  Veronica nodded, transfixed.

  Now discomfort sidled right on up next to lust. He wasn’t even almost the typical loner in the bar. He was dangerous, and she was just getting around to noticing. He turned back toward her and shook his head only slightly as if to say, "Oh no you don’t."

  Then he looked at Veronica meaningfully, and whispered, "This, too, shall pass. You are a good soul, and always have been. I can see you. I’m sorry he couldn’t."

  The car pulled away from the curb, and he turned toward Dawn, took her by the elbow, and they slowly straightened. He gave her a lopsided grin that exposed his fangs.

  "I know what you want. I’m here to give it to you."

  Chapter Ten

  Dawn Pearson yelped as Sabian took her by the hair and dragged her across the street toward a dark alleyway. The serenity she felt when he looked in her eyes moments before was gone, and she should be terrified. She was terrified, wasn’t she? Hard to tell with the ache between her legs.

  As the slushy street receded from her, Dawn noticed there were no others braving the cold, not one witness now that her friends had been sent away. She couldn’t think of a single scenario in which being dragged down a dark alley was sexy.

  He looked at her as they approached the end of the dirty corridor, and his eyes were two oceans of hate, but she couldn’t look away. It was the strangest sensation of her life. She was apathetically terrified—yes, that was it. She felt the emotion, but didn’t feel it at the same time, full on detachment.

  And above all else, she was horny. Even as she surrendered command of herself and lost all interest in her fright (which was as potent as ever), she wanted his thumb on her clit. She acknowledged the certainty that she was about to die with intellectual indifference, and she still wanted his hand down the front of her pants. She was able to follow the directions her reptile brain was sending without any psychological investment, processes beyond her consciousness preparing for this fight, infusing her blood with manufactured strength to wage her defense; she bit, flailed, did anything she could to sustain life, and still she wanted to fuck.

  "Shh," he whispered as he turned her head around using the fistful of hair. "I know what you want, and I’ll deliver. Do you know what I want?" His canines were fully exposed.

  She couldn’t answer, just didn’t have the faculties. If she had to describe how her attention was divided in that moment, she would have used a pie chart. Most of it, a good ninety percent, would have been colored green to represent how bad she wanted to get off, how much she wanted him to rub her senseless. Green for horny, every red blooded American kid knew that. Another sliver, maybe nine percent, she would have colored white—white for the blinding terror she just couldn’t make herself care about. And the last tiny bit would have been brown to account for the minutiae of details her brain catalogued for no apparent reason, like the graffiti on the backs of the doors leading from establishments into the alley, or the way the snow was sticking, even the chipped paint on the dented dumpsters.

  "I wonder if you’ll taste as bitter as your soul."

  "Please, please," she wept, a clear line of snot dripping from her nose and coming close to freezing before it hit her jacket.

  "No," he said. "No mercy. Where was your mercy for your friend? Where was your survival instinct when you ditched her for ten minutes of lust with a stranger?"

  Dawn stopped begging, mainly because she had no response. That little sliver of white that held her fear had grown to something more like eighty percent—she still wanted him to do things to her, though. Jesus, she was almost hoping he would defile her while he killed her—and he would kill her, that was a done deal. Now that the fear was dominant, though, struggling gave way to paralysis.

  "You traded friendship tonight for pleasure, yes?" he asked, and when she only choked out sobs, he said with more autho
rity, "Yes?"

  "Yes," she yelled back.

  "Well, you’ll have it; I can give you that much. But you’ll get as much mercy as you’ve given. Normally, I’d take measures, dull your awareness, but I think not tonight. I think I’ll have you rare."

  She was just about to scream when he wrenched her head back, and ripped open the flesh on her throat. The urge to scream gave way to moaning and a different kind of itch. She wanted to crowd up against his leg and hump him, get herself off if she had to.

  I’m dying. She felt about as passionate about this as she might an algebra test. But it was okay because she was exploding with a full body orgasm. This killer was the best lay of her life, and he didn’t even touch her parts.

  She panicked for a moment when he withdrew his fangs and roared a guttural snarl, his mouth crimson with her dripping blood. He looked back at her, focused on her throat, and plunged his fangs back into the gore. Even as she swam toward the darkness, lost in the sea of ecstasy, she just couldn’t find the will to give a shit about any of it.

  When Sabian bit into Blond Dawn (as he’d begun to think of her quite dispassionately), he gave a quick thought to allowing her the consideration of his own special brand of anesthetic, but rejected the impulse. This particular dog didn’t deserve his compassion. How could she have been so insensitive? He felt her desire oozing out of every pore and mucus membrane; to his advanced senses, she actually stank of it. None of his talents were necessary; anyone would get her drift. And right in the face of her heartbroken friend. Who does that?

  He lost himself in the frenzy of her blood, her narcissism a catalyst for the release of frustration he felt the past month while he’d stalked Marley, never sure when he’d lose discipline and out himself.

  The confidence the blonde carried with her had given way to a kind of ecstatic terror, betrayed by the moan that escaped her lips. She was in the nirvana of bloodletting by a vampire, rapture in the throes of passion at the moment of death. And Sabian was drunk with the elixir created by the competing emotions of fear and lust in her blood. The effects were almost instantaneous.

  After a minute or two, he became aware of the rag doll in his arms. He let her roll to the ground where she would lay crumpled on the wet concrete of the alleyway until the following morning when a shopkeeper disposing of his rubbish would find her beneath ten inches of snow.

  The regret was immediate. How could he have been so careless? Now the high of this vulture’s blood would be strong in his body for hours—he could feel it. He had put Marley in mortal danger by doing the very thing he set out to do in order to protect her. Sabian needed to be sure he wasn’t thirsty, but even that was preferable to getting stoned.

  He’d fed from a grazing deer after Marley left the trail earlier that day, hoping to assuage his need, but it wasn’t enough. That much was apparent within the first ten minutes alone with her in her bedroom. He was thirsty for her blood specifically, and he’d made that mistake before. Feeding before continuing their conversation should have taken the edge off his thirst, but killing a toxic bitch like Blond Dawn only brought a new variable to the equation. Instead of taking the edge off, this feeding only whet his appetite.

  Now what? Every option before him looked like a dead end, and the potential for the literal meaning immobilized him. If he went to Marley now, Sabian just didn’t know if he could trust himself to control the beast within. If he postponed seeing Marley again, and allowed the blonde’s blood to metabolize completely, he would have more control over his emotions but less over his thirst.

  Could he drive his darkest impulses back beneath the surface? Taking from her as he had in her apartment while she was asleep and unaware (and therefore unable to react) was one thing. Uniting without the shroud of entrancement? Quite another. It was almost too much to think about, certainly too much to risk. He failed once before. How could he be sure it wouldn’t happen again?

  In the end, though, there really was no choice for Sabian. Of course he would take the risk, even with fresh human blood trickling through the vast network of his tissue. He needed to be with Marley, a burning need that emanated from his soul. It was simple physics, the Law of Attraction.

  The compulsion to get to her was almost painful, and he let loose the full capacity of his immortal speed. As he picked his way back to the foothills to head north, anyone he encountered on the streets only registered his passing as a sudden gust of wind accompanied by a bone deep chill they would attribute to the oncoming blizzard.

  In less than an hour he was back on the streets of Fort Collins. It was quiet outside, but Marley’s lights were still on even though it was almost midnight. He searched for her energy, finding the soothing warmth he wanted to wear like a blanket. She was asleep inside.

  He was so drunk from his hunting foray he could barely stand up straight. Sabian reached for the knob—would it be locked? Was he unwelcome? Would he have to let himself in? She hadn’t seemed too pleased about that earlier.

  He wrapped his hand around the knob, breathed in, and said, "Please." He turned, and it twisted with no effort. Sabian smiled, knowing it meant she was hoping he would come back, that he had done no permanent damage to the ancient relationship he was hoping to forge anew.

  He silently locked the bolt behind him and sat down on the couch beside her, all his concentration centered on remaining still so that his body and muscles did not spread the dead blonde’s blood any further through his system than necessary. Since his heart no longer beat in death as it had in life, it wasn’t a process of digestion that delivered blood to his tissue, but rather an act of anatomy; his musculoskeletal system worked the blood through his body. The run back to Marley had already moved more of the tainted blood across and through his tissue than he wanted, perhaps even bathing every suspended cell with the blonde’s poison. Even so, he went into statue-mode just in case, his drunken logic directing him toward prudence that was already too late.

  Statue-mode lasted all of ten seconds before Sabian had to feel the heat of her flesh. He touched her face, and graduated just as quickly to stealing kisses from her parted lips.

  Blond Dawn’s bounty seeped through his last fibers. The high was always a bit different, as unique as the signature of DNA in the blood of his victims. The closest comparison tonight was a hit of Ecstasy, and every tactile experience, already heightened in immortality, was enhanced tenfold.

  As he battled his urges (and gave in to some of the lesser ones), he watched Marley sleep. She would want to touch him somehow when she woke up. She’d have that human need for reassurance even though she’d done nothing wrong. Or maybe she would be angry and push or slap him. Either way, arousal was imminent. What could he do? In all probability he’d let loose his reserve of sexual tension, turning it into the reckless—and violent—abandon of pure desire.

  God help this woman, he almost hoped she slapped and clawed.

  "Marley, my love, wake up."

  Marley opened her eyes and Sabian was there—like right there—only inches away from her face. He wasn’t some hero from her mother’s trashy romance novels, arriving just in time to save an unconscious damsel in distress from a pack of angry rapists. And Marley certainly wasn’t said damsel, eyes all aflutter with oodles of time to come around to consciousness. No, Marley was instantly lucid, like she’d mainlined espresso, bugged-eyes of a deep see creature brought to the surface for a quick howdy-doody.

  She scooted into a sitting position and watched his gaze slide to her neck. The look of guilt that washed over his face was brief, but entire.

  Ho-ly-shit. It was true. It had to be.

  He reached for her. She didn’t stop him, helpless to even if she had the gumption. What the hell was that, anyway? It scared the shit out of her.

  His graceful fingers moved to her skin, and he stroked the healed puncture wounds with the gentleness of a mother caressing her newborn. He looked at her again, and she couldn’t breathe. His hand began a slow slide from her neck to her shoulder
as he leaned in. When he was only an inch from her lips, he stopped.

  "May I?" he breathed.

  The logical answer was no. The safe answer was no. Under no circumstances would any other answer do.

  But Marley didn’t object, desperate to jump off that cliff, frantic for him to ignite the fire in her lips. It was not the most effective method of self-preservation, but she could no more stop herself from wanting this than stop the storm coming over the Rockies. She wasn’t looking at his eyes anymore; now it was his cherry lips that held her captive. Marley’s breath came in stuttering huffs. Finally, after what she would have clocked as forty-five years of hesitation, he closed the distance, and their lips touched.

  At first neither one of them moved, their lips like smooth Velcro. She felt him draw in a breath, his lips parting only slightly, and God, Marley wanted in. She had to have this man, and here he was, dangerous and cryptic as ever, close enough to taste. She let her tongue slip into his warmth, sampling, sliding against his fangs, and oh man, they were so much bigger than she’d ever have imagined. Feeling what made him the monster he was blew her mind.

  An erotic sound came out of his throat as the kiss deepened. Every sound he made and sigh that escaped was permission to take it a little further. Never for a moment parting their lips, Marley wriggled into a kneeling position on the couch as her arms slithered around his neck. Her body settled on top of his, and when he yielded to her weight, accepting her heat, she gave the kiss everything she had. It was a run on the bank, and she withdrew every flick of the tongue and grind of the hips from savings.

  But every muscle in his body was tense, unlike hers. She was so damn hot for this man her bones were jelly. Finally, Marley felt his arms encircle her waist, and she was up close and personal with his need…for about three seconds. Then the sonofabitch pushed her off.

  "You have to give me some space."

  Marley was mortified. Sure, the occasional guy turned her down, but never in the middle of the bump-and-grind. She knew he wanted her; his gotta-have-it damn near poked a hole through his pants to get at her.