by Cynthia Eden
“Yeah, what did he say?”
Her gaze turned to him. “He owes you. If you ever want to collect, come to L.A.”
He nodded.
She started the motorcycle, felt the powerful vibration of the engine. “The cops will be here soon—we need to be gone by then.”
He climbed on behind her. His arms squeezed her tight.
The humans were talking, murmuring softly. “Will they be all right?”
“They don’t know what the hell happened to them, but they’re alive, so, yeah, other than nightmares for the next year, I think they’ll be fine.” A pause. “What about you?”
She pulled the motorcycle into a long, lazy spin. Smoke filled the air behind them. “What about me?” She’d been bitten, no big deal. The wounds hurt like a bitch, but with blood and rest, she’d be fine.
Her wounds didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that Cammie was safe now. Nassor and Torrence would never bother her again.
Maya had kept her promise. Done her job.
Her work was finished.
“You…saw me. Not many have seen a dragon shift and lived to tell about it.” There was a vulnerability in his voice. A fear.
The big, bad dragon was afraid because she’d seen him go all scaly? Maya laughed. “Ah, Slick, it’s gonna take more than seeing you blow fire to get me scared.”
He relaxed against her. The hard squeeze turned into more of a hug. “Good,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck. “Because the last thing I wanted was for you to fear me.”
The bike took off, flying across the terrain. “I don’t fear you,” she told him, her voice barely carrying over the roar of the motorcycle.
No, she didn’t fear Adam. She wasn’t afraid of the beast he carried.
Or of the man that he was.
But…she was afraid. Of herself. Because she cared about the dragon. More than she’d ever cared for anyone.
And caring would just lead to a world of hurt. It always did.
The people she cared about, they got hurt. Her mother. Sean.
She wouldn’t add Adam to the list.
They rode in silence back to the wolf’s safe house. Streaks of gold began to creep across the sky as the sun fought to rise against the night.
When they got to the house, the wolves were nowhere to be found. Gone. Probably already on their way back to L.A.
She’d be on her way soon, too. Though the thought of walking away from Adam made her feel like she’d taken a punch in the gut. But she had to leave him. There wasn’t a choice.
She’d go once she finished her final piece of business.
Maya strode through the home. Adam followed behind her, his steps slower. She pushed by the guards at Cammie’s door and crept inside the darkened room.
Drawing a deep breath, she moved close to the bed. If the girl was asleep, she’d wait and—
“Maya.” Cammie whispered her name as she opened her eyes. “I was dreaming about you.”
She sat on the edge of the bed. “Good dream, I hope.” Her fingers lifted, smoothed back the girl’s hair.
Cammie nodded. “You were saving me.”
“Was I?”
“You and Uncle Adam.”
Maya glanced over her shoulder. Adam wasn’t there. She could hear the rumble of his voice as he talked to the guards outside.
Cammie yawned and her eyes began to drift closed.
“Cammie.”
The girl’s lashes fluttered.
“You’re safe now, okay? I kept my promise, and you’re safe.”
The girl’s eyes closed, but her lips curved into a smile.
“Have good dreams, sweetheart,” Maya said softly, staring down at her. “’Cause the monsters are dead. They won’t get you ever again.”
Yeah, her job was finished. The case was over.
Time to get back to her old life.
She was going to miss Adam. He’d gotten under her skin.
His life was with Cammie, though. And the kid—Cammie didn’t need someone like Maya in her life. Someone already touched by the darkness.
“You’re just like me.” Nassor’s words whispered through her head. “I knew it. The darkness in us—we’re the same.”
He’d been right. There was a darkness in her. She’d always known that. A hard core that blocked her heart and made her so good at killing the prey she hunted.
A kid like Cammie should never be around that darkness.
Maya stalked to her window. Gazed down at the motorcycle parked below. It had been a hell of a ride for her. Being with Adam, loving with him, fighting with him by her side—yeah, one hell of a ride.
But the ride was over now. She’d never been the type for those mushy good-byes.
She climbed through the window. Dropped to the ground twenty feet below and barely felt her knees buckle.
Her time with the dragon was up, but she’d remember him. For many, many of the long years that stretched before her, she’d remember him.
After all, Adam Brody was pretty damn unforgettable.
She started the motorcycle, refused to glance back, and drove away from the safe house, blinking eyes that were suddenly, inexplicably tearing.
Gone.
Adam gazed through Cammie’s window, watching as Maya rode away from him.
The little vampire never even looked back.
His fingers clenched around the loose curtains.”
No good-bye. No “see you around.”
Nothing.
She’d just run, leaving him in a trail of dust and regret.
No. It wasn’t going to end like this. There was too much he had to say to her, too much she didn’t understand about him, about them.
“Uncle Adam?” Cammie’s voice. Confused. Slurred with sleep.
With an effort, he managed to turn away from the vision of Maya leaving him. He crossed to Cammie’s side. “It’s all right, baby. You’re safe.”
She smiled up at him. “I know. Maya told me. Said I’d always be safe.”
His heart tightened at her words. “You will be.”
She settled back against the bed. “I like Maya, Uncle Adam. When I grow up”—a big yawn that showed all her teeth—“I wanna be like her.”
Adam blinked. Two Mayas? He wasn’t sure the world was ready.
“She’s not…scared of anything,” Cammie murmured, and even with his sensitive hearing, Adam had to strain to hear the whispered, half-asleep words. “Wanna be…like her…strong. Not…afraid.”
His gaze drifted back to the window. Yeah, Maya was strong. No doubt about it. Strong. Brave. But—
Maybe there was something out there that Maya feared.
His lips thinned.
She’d run so fast.
Maybe, just maybe, Maya had lied to him.
Maybe she feared…him.
His hands clenched into fists.
I would never hurt her. Never.
Didn’t she understand?
He stalked back to the window. Maya was barely a speck in the distance now. The sun was rising fast. He hoped she found shelter before it rose too high. And she was weak. She’d been bitten too many times.
If she’d stayed, he’d planned to feed her. To make love to her.
And ask her to spend the rest of her very long life with him.
If she’d stayed.
But she’d run.
“It’s not going to end like this,” he whispered the words, knowing she’d never hear him. “It can’t.”
Maya wasn’t Isabella. She was strong enough to face him and the beast inside.
He wasn’t just going to walk away.
Not without a hell of a fight—and he knew—his Maya loved a good fight.
“Run while you can,” he said. “But then it will be my turn to hunt you, sweet vampire.” As Maya would learn, a dragon was one hell of a hunter.
Run, but I’ll find you.
Chapter 18
She’d managed to track the level-seven demon t
o the boarded-up warehouse in front of her. She could hear the squeak of rats from inside the building’s shell, could smell garbage and the demon’s own stench drifting in the air.
He’d attacked a cop last night. A rookie who’d had the bad luck to be assigned to the wrong neighborhood on the wrong night.
She knew the cop was still in the intensive care unit, his face and chest crisscrossed with deep stab wounds. The doctors had said there was no guarantee he’d make it.
But if he did, she’d be there. She had plans to go and check on the rookie. She’d try to help the guy understand just what the hell had happened to him.
Maya inched toward the building. There wasn’t room in L.A. for an L7 who liked to screw with cops. Hell, the cops had enough trouble fighting the human criminals—they didn’t need to tangle with demons, too.
Besides, that was really more her department.
She studied the building, looking for weaknesses, the best way to sneak in. Hmmm. Maybe she should just kick in the front door, forget being subtle and—
Maya stiffened, her nostrils widening as she caught a new scent of the wind. Hell. “You’ve got to stop following me,” she muttered, turning around to glare at her stalker. “I told you already, Sean, you’re out of this part of my life. No more night hunting, got it?”
Sean slunk out of the shadows, his glasses slightly askew on his nose. Other than looking a bit too pale and a little too thin, he was back to his old self.
His old, sometimes, annoying self.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You knew I wasn’t going to let you go out alone.”
Her back teeth ground together. Jeez—was she not the powerful vampire? And wasn’t he the weak human? “You’ve only been out of the hospital a few days, there’s no way you’re strong enough to—
“And you’re off your game,” he snapped, taking a few quick steps toward her. “Something’s been different about you ever since you came back from Vegas.”
Yeah, so? Couldn’t she get a little tired? A little run-down?
Okay, maybe she hadn’t been sleeping well. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Adam. And when she did manage to catch a few minutes of rest, she woke up, reaching for him.
So she was “off her game”. That didn’t mean she couldn’t still take care of the local assholes. She was more than strong enough to deal with the L7, without Sean.
“I’m not making you a target again,” she told him, her voice fierce. “So walk your butt back down the street, get in your car, and go home.”
But he just shook his head. “No, you need backup, I can’t let you hunt alone—”
“She has backup,” a deep, rumbling male voice drawled.
Maya stiffened, feeling that voice reverberate through her entire body. She hadn’t caught the man’s scent, hadn’t so much as heard his approach.
She turned, just a fraction, and her gaze met Adam’s. Her palms started to sweat. “What are you doin’ here?” He looked so good.
He stepped off the curb, strolled toward her with a confident, almost cocky walk. “Watching you.”
The hair on her nape prickled. She’d had a sense, both last night and this evening when she’d left her safe house, that someone was out there. Watching.
Adam.
“Shouldn’t you be back in Maine, taking care of Cammie?” What in the hell was he doing there? And did he have to look so dark and sexy as he stood there, staring at her with those eyes that saw far too much for her comfort?
“Cammie’s safe—don’t worry about her.” He stopped less than a foot away.
“Oh.” Not a great comeback. She just didn’t really know what to say.
“Who the hell are you?” Sean demanded.
Ah, leave it to her best friend not to be at a loss for words.
Sean tried to step in front of her and Maya grabbed his arm, holding him back and barely managing to hold back an eye roll. The guy just can’t remember he’s the weak one.
Adam’s gaze swept over him and his lip lifted just a bit at the left corner. “Good to see you on your feet, Sean.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“He was with me when I checked up on you at the hospital.” She couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from Adam. She’d missed him. Really missed him. More than she’d thought she would.
She’d felt kind of hollow inside when she got back to L.A., and when she closed her eyes at dawn, she didn’t see her mother’s corpse anymore.
She saw Adam.
Sean snapped his fingers. “You’re the guy she helped in Vegas.”
Adam nodded. Then said, “And I’m the guy who is going to be watching her back from now on.”
Her spine straightened at that one. “I don’t need someone trailing me.” Not him, not Sean.
“Um.” Those eyes were so deep. “You know,” he mused softly, “I really never pegged you for a coward.”
She took that hit straight on the chin.
Sean sucked in a sharp breath of air, then exploded, “Are you fucking crazy? Maya’s not afraid of anything or anybody, she’s—”
“It’s all right, Sean.” She touched his arm lightly.
He glared at Adam, but stopped snarling.
Maya licked her lips. So he wanted an explanation. He’d hunted her down, when she’d just hoped for a nice, quick break that didn’t hurt either of them.
A mistake, of course, because she hurt like hell, but she wasn’t going to tell Adam that fact. “I didn’t run because I was afraid of you.” She thought he’d realized that. “The dragon doesn’t scare me and neither do you.” Sure, he was strong, probably the strongest being she’d ever encountered. So what? He wasn’t going to hurt her, she knew that. The guy would give his life to save her. She didn’t doubt that fact for a minute.
Adam shook his head and the dark locks of his hair brushed across his shoulders. “I didn’t say you were scared of me, sweetheart.”
His words had her eyes narrowing. “Then just what is it you think I’m so scared of?”
“Yourself. The way you feel about me.” He lifted his hand and ran his finger down her cheek. She steeled herself against the touch. “And you do feel something for me, don’t you, Maya?”
Yes. Damn him, she did. “Look, I left Vegas, because the job was finished.”
“But we aren’t.”
Sean watched the byplay between them, eyes wide. She growled, aware of a burn inside that could have been embarrassment. “Go back home, Sean. This is something I need to handle on my own.”
He hesitated. “But the L7—”
“I told you,” Adam interrupted, “I’ve got her back, from now on.”
Sean still didn’t look particularly convinced.
“It’s okay, really,” Maya told him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“And you’ll tell me what the hell’s going on with this guy?” He jerked his thumb toward Adam.
“Yeah.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and marched away. He’d only taken about six steps when he stopped and glanced back at her. “You know, I realized something was different about you, I-I just didn’t realize what it was.” There was a sad slant to his mouth. “I don’t think you’re gonna be needing me anymore after all.”
Then he was gone, heading fast into the shadows and leaving her on the dark street with Adam.
Maya sighed and cocked her head to the right as she studied him. “You had to make this hard, didn’t you?”
He grabbed her arms, pulled her close. “Tell me you don’t care about me.”
Her lips thinned.
“Go ahead,” he said, “lie to me. Try to make me believe that you don’t feel this connection, this need that I do.”
She wouldn’t speak.
“Can’t do it, can you?” He whispered, his lips too close to hers. Too close. “Because you want me, just as much as I want you.”
His words had her temper spiking. “Wanting isn’t everything!” It sure wasn’t
enough for her. She’d wanted her entire life. Wanted her mother’s love. Wanted a normal home. Wanted a husband. A family.
Screw wanting—it got you nothing.
Taking, claiming—that was the way of the world.
“I could feel you, even when you were gone,” he said and his lips pressed against hers in the briefest of caresses. “Smell you on my skin. Taste you on my tongue.”
Maya swallowed as heat rose in her belly. Her sex began to moisten as the lust built with his softly spoken words.
“When I close my eyes, I see you,” Adam told her, before pressing another kiss to her lips.
And she saw him.
“I’ve been alone a long time, Maya, too long. I didn’t want to love another human—humans are too weak. They die too soon. There are too few of my own kind. I had no hope of finding a lover who’d shift like me, and then you—”
What the hell? Maya shoved away from him, rage wrestling with the lust her body felt. “So you wanna be with me because I’m a vamp and I can keep living as long as you do? It doesn’t matter a shit who I am inside—you just want a long-term bed buddy and I’m available?” He was lucky she hadn’t knocked him on his ass. And this was the guy she’d been mooning over?
A thin line bisected his brows. “What? No! Dammit, listen to me!”
“I was listening, you said—”
“What I was saying was that I don’t want anyone else—not another Wyvern, not a human—no one!” His voice was a roar now, shaking the streets.
And, no doubt, alerting the L7.
“You’re the only woman in my life who has looked at the dragon—and still seen me.”
She blinked. Well, of course she saw him. The man’s soul and the dragon’s, they were the same.
“Others in my life have feared me. Ran screaming when they saw my dragon form.” He lifted his hand as if he’d touch her again, but his fingers stopped just inches from her arm. “But not you. You felt the breath of the dragon on your skin, and even then, you didn’t fear me.”
She’d never fear him.
A muscle ticced along his jaw. “You’re rare, Maya. Damn rare. I could look this whole world over and never find a woman with your strength.”
Ah, now he was just bullshitting her.
“You are so fucking strong, but you’re running scared now.”
