Before she could finish the thought, he said, “Okay, if we’re going to do this hunt together, we need to be straight with each other. You’re a pretty hot chick, and a couple times back in the room I thought you might be into me—then you freaked out and locked yourself in the bathroom. What’s going on?”
Damn! So much for hoping. But she couldn’t help preening over the fact that he’d called her “a pretty hot chick.”
“Thanks for the compliment, but I think you’re overanalyzing our . . . situation.”
“I’m not analyzing,” he said, glancing toward her with a scowl. “I need to know what condition your head is in.”
She shook her head, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how you panicked when I had you pinned on the motel room floor.” He cut her another glance, and she quickly glanced away. She didn’t want to see the question that might be burning in his eyes.
“Nyla, were you ever . . . attacked by a man?”
“I’m a hunter. I’m attacked by a lot of men, not to mention women and things I wouldn’t consider either men or women.”
“That’s not what I meant, and I think you know it.”
Yeah, she knew exactly what he meant. She had panicked, but she wasn’t about to tell him it was because when he was on top of her she saw herself ripping off his clothes and making love to him right there on the floor.
No, Nyla had never been attacked by a man, or more specifically, she’d never been raped by any. She had, however, had sex with several of them for all the wrong reasons. She’d had sex with strangers to please the pantherian queen, or to appease the Heat riding her body. She’d never had sex to share love, to actually take the time to involve her emotions into the act. If she were to ever have sex for the right reasons, she wanted it to be with Jake.
Unfortunately, the Heat was an uninvited third party. And following on the heels of the Heat was her vampiric need to feed.
“No, I’ve never been attacked the way you’re suggesting,” she finally answered, keeping her tone carefully neutral and focusing her gaze out the window. “I just wanted you away from me because I felt sick and, well, kind of claustrophobic.”
“Claustrophobic?”
“Yeah.”
“Should you be going down in a grave with me?”
She cocked her head, thinking it over. She could handle being in a deep hole, surrounded by dirt walls, but she couldn’t handle the close proximity to Jake. The blood she’d savored from her dinner had taken the edge off of her hunger, but it was still there. She needed fresh blood, something warm and flowing.
She couldn’t, however, tell him that, so she said, “To tell the truth, Porter, I’m not that keen on the idea of digging up Janie Paxton. The girl died horribly, viciously. We should let her rest.”
“She is resting. We’re just digging up her shell,” he said, his tone matter of fact.
Nyla shook her head. “I know you’re not that insensitive, Jake.”
“I’m not being insensitive.” He made a slicing motion with his hand. “Janie Paxton is dead. Wherever she is right now, she isn’t using that body. It’s not the flesh and bones that make us live. It’s that spark of something inside us. The body is just a shell. If someone wants to dig up my body once I leave it, so be it. Believe me, Janie Paxton could care less what we do with her body. Hell, if it helps us catch the psycho who murdered her, she’ll probably cheer us on.”
“Do you really believe that? You think she knows what we’re doing?”
He shook his head. “No. It was a figure of speech.”
“Then what do you believe?”
He sent her a scowl that told her he was tired of the conversation and definitely not happy about the subject matter. Anyone else might have taken that look as a clue that they needed to shut up, but not her. He’d held her for years, telling her his secrets, but he’d only gone so far. There were things she’d wondered about him, but could never ask. Now that she was with him in her human form, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ask those questions.
“Where do you think we go after we die?” she prodded when he didn’t respond.
He shrugged, turning his head so his gaze fell back on the road before him. “Don’t know, don’t care. As long as they don’t stick around as vengeful spirits, it’s none of my business what happens to people after they keel over.”
“You don’t believe there’s a heaven or a hell?”
He kept driving, never taking his eyes off the road. If not for the subtle clenching of his jaw, she’d have thought he didn’t hear her.
“Do you believe in God?” she prodded again.
He swerved, cursed viciously, then straightened the car before they hit the curb. “Dammit, if you’re going to do all this psychoanalysis shit, you can get out of my car!”
Nyla was stunned by the vehemence of his tone and the trembling in his hands as they wrapped around the steering wheel. The rest of his body was rigid, as if struggling to contain his anger. The only time she’d ever seen him this angry was when he was scared. He tended to use it as a security blanket, as though if he could stay angry, the fear couldn’t get to him.
“You’re scared of dying; really, truly, terrified,” she said, amazed. “I never realized that.”
Jake turned the steering wheel hard, swerving toward the curb, and slammed on the brakes, screeching to a stop a block away from the cemetery. The heated glare he directed at her was enough to make a weaker person tremble.
“What do you mean you never realized that? We’ve just met, so you don’t know a damned thing about what I think or feel or anything else about me, for that matter.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she fumbled miserably for words, coming up short. She couldn’t believe she had said something so stupid. Why didn’t she just wear a sign saying, Hi, my name is Nyla, but you know me as Alley, your pet cat. Why don’t we talk about this before you kill me?
Before she could come up with an appropriate response, he growled, “Just how long have you been stalking me?”
She swallowed hard. “I’ve been following you, not stalking you.”
“Same difference. How long? Obviously long enough to think you know me, but you don’t fucking know anything about me!”
Nyla was truly shocked, not by his anger, but by the truth of his words. Did she really know him? How much could you know about a person by engaging in conversations in which only they spoke? And yes, she’d observed him for years, but she’d never believed that asking him such a simple question would have sparked so much rage inside him. If she truly knew him, shouldn’t she have known that?
“I’m sorry, Jake,” she finally managed to say. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not—”
“Upset, angry, pissed—whatever is the manliest term,” she interrupted, her own anger rising to the surface. But was she angry at him or at herself? “I’m sorry, all right? I apologize.”
“You haven’t answered my question. How long have you been following me?”
She sighed. “A long time.”
“How long?”
“Long enough.”
He shook his head, anger still burning behind his eyes. “Why?”
Nyla let out a long breath and tried to think. He obviously wasn’t going to let his anger be assuaged easily, and they had a job to do, preferably before daybreak. So what was the best way to diffuse the situation they were in?
She decided to go with the absurd. “What if I followed you because I thought you had a nice ass?”
His eyes widened for a second, then he chuckled roughly in defeat, shaking his head. “Is that the best answer I’m going to get out of you?”
“Without torture, yeah.”
“Don’t give me any idea
s, sweetheart. I’m not that nice a guy.”
“You can be when you want to be.” She raised her hands up in surrender against his heated glare. “I’m not analyzing. I’m just saying that we can all be nice when we want to be.”
He shook his head again, letting out a breath while he continued to drum his fingers along the steering wheel. “I don’t know why I’m keeping you here. I don’t know if it’s because my gut says to keep you, or if it’s just my own fucking curiosity.” He eyed her up and down and said, “Or maybe I keep you around because of that perfect round ass of yours, but don’t make me regret letting you stay. And don’t analyze me. I don’t like it.”
“I gathered that.” Nyla released a breath of relief, feeling as though the end of their partnership had just narrowly been avoided. Without a word, he put the car back into drive, pulled away from the curb, and completed their trip to the cemetery.
“We’re not going in through the front gates, are we?” Nyla asked when they neared the cemetery’s front entrance. Cave Hill Cemetery wasn’t one of the small, unsecured cemeteries she’d been at with Jake numerous times before. It was surrounded by gates and had security guards, as evidenced by the security station placed at the entrance.
“I’m just getting a feel for it, figuring out our best option for entrance.”
Jake skidded to an abrupt stop before the main gates, his head tilted to the side. She immediately tensed. Several times she’d seen him tilt his head like that just before a vampire attack. It was as though he could hear voices telling him danger lay ahead.
She started to warn him that stopping in front of the security guards wasn’t a good idea, but the warning died when she stared through the gates and realized that wouldn’t be a problem. The small security office was located just inside the gates. She should have seen a guard sitting before the window and looking out at the street, but all she saw was a foot sticking out the open door—and a puddle of blood around it.
“Someone’s taken out the guards,” she said.
“Some thing has taken them out,” Jake corrected her, his head still tilted, his eyes dark and serious. He was in combat mode. “Vampire, newly changed over, female, well-fed. She’s not killing for food. She’s killing for battle.”
“Where is she?” Nyla asked, shrugging out of her jacket so her weapons were more easily accessible. She didn’t bother asking Jake how he knew such specifics. It was a talent he had, and she didn’t question.
“In the cemetery. No . . .” He tilted his head further, as though the voices in his mind were yelling something different at him. “. . . she’s coming to us.”
Nyla searched the area she could see out the window. Nothing. She drew in a breath, and the smell of the guard’s blood reached her, but she fought against its pull. She was here to protect Jake, not to go on a vampire feeding spree.
“I don’t see her. Are you sure she’s coming?”
Something landed on the roof of the car with a loud thud.
“Ding-dong, the wicked bitch is here,” Jake singsonged, as he clicked off his gun’s safety.
Chapter Nine
“TRY NOT TO SHOOT any holes in my car,” Jake said, watching the ceiling of the Malibu, both hands clasped around his gun.
Nyla risked a quick glance at him, just long enough to determine if he was serious. He was.
“Of course. I see how the safety of your vehicle is the priority here,” she responded, not bothering to hold back the sarcasm, while mimicking his action with her own gun. Both of her hands were holding it, trigger finger in place. The vampire was on the car’s roof; they knew that much. The question was, from which direction was she going to strike?
If it was up to Nyla, she’d just shoot the bitch through the roof, but it was Jake’s car and therefore, his call.
With her finger itching to press against the trigger, she glanced from above her to the side windows, the rear, and back to the ceiling.
“Come on,” she said, her patience wearing thin.
“Relax,” Jake murmured. “I think she wants us to make the first move and actually exit the car.”
“You really think she expects us to make such a dumb-ass move?”
“I didn’t say she was smart. She expects us to behave like normal people, and normal people would run screaming, leaving a trail of piss along the way.”
“You got a point, but I’m getting antsy.”
“Step on out then.” He chuckled.
“Bite my ass, Porter.”
“Oooh, can I spread chocolate syrup on it first?”
She risked going off high-alert long enough to give him the glare he deserved, growing increasingly irritated by his calm, not to mention cocky, demeanor. It was the same attitude which had nearly gotten him in trouble during several hunts she’d been on with him. He’d get cocky and think he could take out more vamps than any one sane person would attempt to handle alone. Fortunately, she could shift forms in a nanosecond and hold her mist form long enough so he never saw his pet kitty sneaking in to help save his ass.
She switched her gaze upward. “You know what? If she doesn’t show herself, I’m just blowing holes through the roof.”
His eyes widened, all traces of humor vanishing. “All right, don’t get your little black panties in a twist.”
“I see someone’s been in my drawers.”
A rough sound came from Jake’s throat as he choked back a laugh. “Gee, when you put it that way, it sounds so much more fun.” He raised a finger before she could form a comeback and gestured upward. “Evil bitch on the roof, remember? Let’s get her good and dead before we get into another round of witty barbs.”
Nyla simmered in silence, readying her trigger finger as Jake leaned his head back and yelled, “Hey bitch, er, I mean, witch. Witch, bitch, vampire, I can’t seem to tell the three apart. Anyway, why don’t you just show your ugly face so we can blow it off and go about our business?” He waited a few minutes, then yelled again. “If you make me blow holes through my car, I promise to make your death long and excruciatingly painful. Do yourself a favor and rear that ugly face of yours.”
“She’s not going for it, Jake.”
He tilted his head to the side again, doing that strange “psychic” thing he seemed to have going for him, and his body suddenly stiffened. “It’s a trap!”
“What?” Nyla tightened her hands on her gun, frantically trying to look in all directions at once.
“It’s a trap, and more are coming. Her job was to keep us here. Bloodsucking bitch,” he added, firing his gun through the roof of the car.
“Oh sure, you get to blow holes through the roof,” Nyla muttered, watching the vampire’s body roll down the front of the car, jerking in seizure-like spasms. “What’s she doing?”
“Get out and get ready,” Jake commanded. “We don’t want to be trapped inside!”
Knowing better than to argue with him, Nyla followed his barked order, but watched the vampire while she exited the car. The brunette’s body jerked on the ground, then her skin started to rot away, murky liquids oozing out while a golden light glimmered from inside her. She screamed through it all.
“Told ya it’d be painful, bitch,” Jake said before turning his back on the vamp, obviously feeling no threat from her. “Here they come,” he called out to Nyla.
She turned so the car was at her back, same as Jake had done, and readied herself as vampires appeared in the night sky. “Oh, hell. They’re fliers!”
“Yeah, I kind of noticed that,” Jake responded, his voice strained with tension. “Wait until they get low enough and then start capping them.”
“I don’t have those nifty, little sun-in-a-capsule bullets you have, Jake.”
“You can still slow them down.”
Oh, peachy, Nyla thought, watching in growing dread as th
e three flying vampires started their descent toward her. She didn’t dare turn to see how many were closing in on Jake. He was better protected. He could handle it.
If only she could turn into a panther. Unlike a lycanthrope, she didn’t retain human features when she shifted. She turned into an actual animal, and the speed of the transition tended to stun the unholy piss out of attackers, dumbfounding them long enough for her to rip out a nice, life-ending chunk of their throat. She’d just have to rely on her feminine wiles this time. In her case, feminine wiles meant uppercuts, spinning kicks, and excellence in weapon handling.
The three vampires came at her in an arrow formation; one in front, two in back. She shot the first one in his face the second he came into close enough proximity, which sent him reeling backward, eventually crashing to the ground.
If she shot the second one, she’d never get a bullet into the third. Knowing she was faster than any gun, she took it in her left hand, extracting her sword from its spine sheath with her right.
The second vampire swooped down on her as the sword cleared the sheath. She swung her arm in an arc, beheading the second vampire in midair and cutting a good-sized slice out of the third one’s shoulder.
She’d turned the rest of her body with her arm, effectively spinning around to face the third vampire as he fell to the ground. Once he finished sliding down the side of Jake’s car, she staked his heart with her sword, then quickly sliced off his head.
Unfortunately, the move left her back exposed to the first vampire she’d shot. Unlike Jake’s special UV gun, hers was loaded with regular bullets. It would cause some pain to a vampire, slow him down, but never deliver a fatal blow, unless it was a big enough round to blow off the whole head or take out the heart.
She heard, rather than felt, him approaching . . . fast. She’d barely begun to turn when an object whizzed past her shoulder, finding a home in the approaching vampire’s chest.
She watched in horror as he convulsed violently. Blood and other substances spilled out his mouth and eyes as his skin rotted from his body. The same thing would be happening to her if that bullet had been even a fraction of an inch off the mark.
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