“Yes, I’m fine.” But she gripped the shopping cart tightly, grateful for its support.
When it came time to check out, he helped her unload and place her selections on the moving belt. The cashier looked at Stryker like she’d just taken a pillow to the face…stunned, but happy about it. He certainly was aptly named.
After she paid, Holly waited patiently, noting with a wry smile that the cashier lingered over his purchases just a little too long. They walked out to their cars together.
It was the middle of summer in one of Canada’s favorite vacation spots, so many of the people walking about were vacationers. Flip-flops were the footwear of choice and too often people revealed more flesh than was necessary, but Holly had lost that frenzied, gotta-get-it-done-now attitude she’d had in the city. It had taken her time to shed the sharp city edge. When she finally did, it was like she’d lost fifty pounds of anxious weight. An easy going approach made life so much more pleasurable and Holly had decided that was the way she wanted to live her life. Walking beside Stryker, Holly marveled at how easily he’d shattered her complacency. Thirty minutes with Stryker Cain and she was a nervous wreck.
Stryker loaded up her car then opened the driver’s side door for her. Holly’s heart beat insistently in her chest and her hands shook a little as she waited for him to ask for her phone number or something, anything to indicate that he wanted to see her again. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Surely he could feel the chemistry between them. During their short acquaintance he’d looked at no one else. Stryker had kept his full attention on Holly, making her feel like the only woman within a fifty mile radius. He even ignored the come-hither glances from an artfully exposed woman with obvious fake boobs.
Could she have misread the situation? Such potent physical attraction was a new experience for Holly. Had her own extreme reaction to him clouded her judgment? When it came time to take her leave, she got nothing from him except a rather stiff, “Drive safe.” The self recriminations began. Had she done or said something wrong? Anything was possible. During their short time together, she’d hardly been in control of her tongue or her response to him. For a moment he simply stared at her, his eyes held such intensity it surprised her that they didn’t sear a hole in her skull. How was it she didn’t burst into flames on the spot? The silence between them was pregnant with tension. But he said nothing more. He tapped the top of her car twice as if taking frustration out on the metal. Without another word or a backward glance he turned away.
Disappointed, yet highly charged, Holly sat frozen in her car as she watched him walk off. God, he moves so effortlessly. She blinked and in that split second he walked twenty paces, covering the distance to his car surprisingly quickly given the ease with which he moved and his unhurried gait. Like a mirage, one moment he turned away from her and the next he was unlocking the trunk of his car parked at the other end of the lot. Strange.
Holly still felt the effects of her contact with him, but forced her fingers to marry the key with the ignition and start her car. As she drove away, she looked for him in her mirror. He’d already finished stowing his groceries. Damn, the man moved faster than the speed of light, but not once had he appeared to rush. Maybe that was what so intrigued her about him. Holly knew she was grasping at straws. Stryker Cain was an unknown quantity, a man like none she’d ever encountered and her reaction to him was startling. She shook her head. Remembering how he’d smiled at her, she got hot all over. With a flick of her wrist, she turned the air conditioning full on.
Making a careful left turn, leaving Stryker behind at the supermarket, a feeling of deep disappointment settled around her. “Snap out of it,” she muttered to herself. “It was nice while it lasted, but it’s over. He said goodbye, made no move to prolong the encounter. What’s that saying? He’s just not that into you.” She sighed heavily. “Probably married. Figures.”
* * * *
When Stryker finally sat behind the wheel of his SUV, he let his breath out slowly and wondered at the beating of his heart. It felt strange, but far from unpleasant. He liked it. It pounded in every pleasure point in his body. He congratulated himself on his self-control. Stryker’s strength was almost legendary, a fact he took great pride in, and it had taken every drop of his iron will to resist her. Yet another testament to his control; despite his instant and overpowering attraction to her, he’d been a perfect gentleman. Every instinct he possessed told him to take her on the spot, claim her as his, but he’d resisted. How’s that for evolved? His brother Declan would be so proud. As usual he’d managed to override his primitive side, but that didn’t stop his imagination from running wild. Not for the first time, his body reacted to the mental image of her in his bed, beneath him, moist and ready. The thought made him grit his teeth and pray for restraint.
The moment the door had swung open and he’d walked into the supermarket Stryker had known she was inside somewhere. He could feel it in his teeth. His bloodmate. Her near-faint had been his fault and he knew it. Unfortunately, while reining in his reactions, he’d projected some of his own overpowering physical response on to her. He’d have to watch that in the future. And in that moment he knew there would be a future. She wouldn’t be accustomed to the kind of energy he wielded. He’d have to use caution. He didn’t want to knock her out cold.
Smiling as he remembered the look of her, he started the car. She wasn’t beautiful in the modern sense, but Stryker saw her with more than his eyes. He’d examined her with every one of his supercharged senses and found her divine. He conjured an image of her in his mind. Dark brown hair framed her delicate face so lovingly he was just a little jealous of it. She had eyes the color of the finest chocolate and the brightest smile he’d ever seen. Her whole body reacted when she smiled. Hell, his whole body reacted when she smiled.
Her scent was impossible to describe, unlike anything Stryker had ever known. It filled him like thick maple syrup dripping over a warm waffle. Her essence had lingered on his hypersensitive skin. Touching the tip of his tongue to the palm of his hand, he tasted her. One taste and he wanted more, more, more. She had a husky but smooth voice that spoke to him beyond his sense of hearing and communicated directly to his sex drive. He refused to think about how it felt to touch her skin and feel her heated blood as it pulsed just below the surface. He was strong, but not that strong.
Imagine meeting her at the grocery store of all places. He clenched his jaw as if biting down hard on a bullet in an effort to control his body’s instinctive reactions. The more disciplined and detached part of his mind warned him that now was not the time to indulge his own desires. He had a job to do. His responsibilities had to take priority because so many counted on him. Their enemies would do anything, risk anything to stop them. One misstep on his part could spell disaster for them all. Damn it, he couldn’t afford the distraction he knew Holly Seaton would prove to be. Other lives were at stake, not just his own and now that he’d found her, the last thing Stryker wanted to do was endanger Holly in any way. He knew it was not fair of him to even consider pulling her into his business and starting something with her. Too late, he’d seen the bewildered interest in her eyes. Of course she’d felt it. It was far too potent to be ignored, but she had no idea what she was getting into.
His hands gripped the steering wheel making deep indentations on the leather and he forced his emotions back under control. Fate had dealt him a hand he had no choice but to play and he prayed his brief self indulgence hadn’t doomed them both. Instead of resisting her unconscious siren’s song, he’d been weak. Unable to rein in the pull of his senses, he’d entered the store and set his hungry eyes on her. Hell, the energy their first meeting had generated almost knocked her to the floor. For better or worse, they’d met and from this point on there could be no going back. As strong as he was, even he’d never forget her now. Bloodmates. Oh so rare. Many had ceased to believe they even existed anymore, a side effect of too much outcross breeding. The last bloodmates he’d heard of were his ow
n parents. He’d never even considered the possibility that it could happen to him of all people. Finding his bloodmate was a complication none of them had anticipated, but on an elemental level he knew without a single doubt there was nothing he could do about it. He had to claim her.
* * * *
The woman had to die. A few of the faint hearted thought that since she was human she should be spared, but he’d silenced those voices with a ruthless finality. He was merely protecting his own. Mankind had fought too long and too hard to lose all they’d gained simply because there were those who refused to stay the course. The creatures were an abomination, a plague infecting the earth and anyone who assisted them had to be destroyed as well. He’d seen to it before without pause or regret. He’d see to it again. It was his destiny.
Chapter 2
“You never know, maybe he isn’t married,” Avery said.
Holly rolled her eyes. “He didn’t even really flirt with me.” She laughed. “Not that every unmarried man flirts with me. It’s just I got the impression he was unavailable to me in some way, like he was holding himself back.”
Avery waved a slender arm and said, “Ah! That’s where you’re wrong. Every unmarried man is hot for you. You just never notice. Wait and see. I think we’ll be seeing Stryker Cain again in the near future.”
Holly shook her head. Her reaction to the man had been so extreme maybe it was safer if she never saw him again. She didn’t tell her friend that though. Avery was thrilled that she’d finally shown an interest in a man. “When are you going to stop trying to find me a man?” Holly asked.
“Never. It’s become a habit I can’t break, but seriously I don’t want to see you close yourself off from the possibility. You’ve been alone too long.”
“Sure, you’re so blissfully happy with Stephen, you want the same for me. But I don’t care. I’m absolutely fine as I am.” Or at least she was until Stryker Cain showed up.
Avery held up a hand in defense. “I know you’re happy and that’s great, just don’t shut out what could be a very fulfilling part of your life.”
Holly knew she’d never win this argument. No one won an argument with Avery. She wasn’t a belligerent person who always had to be right. She was just right most of the time.
Still reeling over the encounter with Stryker and not yet ready to talk about its intensity, Holly tried a little distraction. “Quite the name, eh? So soap opera studly.”
Her friend laughed. She checked the clock on the stove and said, “I’ve got to get the kids from camp. You wanna come?”
“No. I’m going back home. I feel that itching in my left hand and you know what that means.”
“Do you want a ride to your place, or are you going to walk?” Avery looked at her friend with dawning concern. Sometimes if Holly didn’t answer that peculiar itching she grew weak
“Actually, would you mind?”
She wasn’t sure she had the energy to walk even the short distance between their homes as the itching in her hand suddenly grew in intensity and made her start to twitch. Her nerves were frayed to begin with and her left hand, the one she used to draw with, had begun to tingle during their conversation. Now it was getting critical.
Avery reacted immediately. She grabbed keys and walked Holly to the car. Avery’s very quick mind had the reflexes to go with it and she handled the vehicle with speed and ease. Holly was home in no time.
With obvious regret and concern in her voice, Avery said, “I wish I’d asked Stephen to pick up the kids. I don’t want to leave you alone.”
Holly cocked an eyebrow. “You know better than anyone, there’s nothing to be done until it’s over. There will be no pain. Go, go get the kids before someone else takes a fancy to them and spirits them away. Stephen would be so put out.”
Avery sent her one last look over her shoulder. “I’m coming over as soon as Stephen gets home. No arguments, kiddo.”
After Avery left, Holly sat down at her dining room table with some drawing materials. Just like always, it struck swiftly when it finally came upon her. Of its own volition, her hand picked up the pencil and began moving across the page feverishly. She didn’t look down at the paper. Blankly, Holly stared straight ahead at nothing in particular.
Her father called them seizures and had taken her to more doctors than she could recall. Prescribed anti-seizure medication at six years old, Holly had weaned herself off as soon as she’d grown old enough to be responsible for her own health. She refused to think of these spells as something to be feared and prevented at all cost. They didn’t hurt and she got plenty of warning, so they weren’t dangerous. She just visited another place for a time and brought back a little something with her, in the form of a detailed drawing…of the future. Sitting quietly in her comfortable home, Holly breathed deeply and let the spell take over.
Unexplained abilities tended to make people uncomfortable, so Holly rarely owned up to them in casual conversation. Refusing to treat it as a parlor trick, she’d never been particularly good at describing the phenomenon. She’d once told Avery it was like having someone switch off her consciousness and focus her unconscious mind for an undetermined time period. While creating one of her premonitory automatic drawings, Holly was completely unaware of her immediate surroundings, and when it was over, she never remembered where her mind had been during the time away. Time passed unnoticed.
Sitting alone at her dining room table, Holly’s breathing finally returned to normal and her hand stopped its frantic scribbling. As always when she finally came out of the fugue state, her arm ached and her drawing hand felt cramped. Shaking off her mental haze, she blinked rapidly. Curious, she looked down at what she’d created, expecting to see the usual harmless sketch drawn in her familiar style. She was sadly unprepared for what greeted her gaze.
This was no innocuous picture. Not this time. Holly gasped in horror, shocked at what she saw. One brief look at the picture frightened even the woman who’d drawn it. The image that met her eyes was so graphic it made her blood run cold. With a feeling of sick certainty, Holly knew she was seeing what was to come. As usual she’d drawn the future, but this time the future was grim indeed.
A gory crime scene, there was no other way to describe it. She shuddered violently, horrified that she’d been able to so accurately capture such carnage. Usually, Holly created perfectly mundane scenes like her father’s latest cook making a mystery meal, or her sister snagging a pair of pantyhose, but unless she did something to prevent it her automatic drawings came true without fail. A lump formed in her throat and her stomach heaved. What was depicted in her drawing hadn’t happened yet, but it would if she didn’t do something to stop it.
Maybe the drawing was wrong this time, but Holly knew wishing it so wouldn’t make it go away. Taking a deep breath and steeling herself, she examined what she saw on the page.
An older woman was slumped over a kitchen table, her eyes open, but lifeless and empty. A puddle of blood soaked the tablecloth and her head rested in the middle of it. On her neck were deep puncture wounds. What made it most macabre was that except for the dead body, the scene looked perfectly normal. Mugs, bowls and cutlery were drying in the dish rack and a bag of chocolate chip cookies lay open on the counter. Nothing else appeared unusual. It didn’t even look like there’d been a struggle.
Holly hadn’t used color and was thankful for small favors. In graphite, the scene looked vivid enough, color would have made it positively lurid. The old lady had been playing cards. Even in death, her hand still clutched half the deck as it rested on the blood soaked table. The woman greeted her maker with an everlasting expression of frozen terror.
Swallowing her revulsion, Holly examined the drawing critically. Created in her unmistakable style, it was incredibly detailed, as were all her automatic drawings. She glanced at the clock on the wall of her own kitchen. The whole thing had taken under an hour.
Holly didn’t recognize the woman. She’d drawn the painful death of a complete
stranger. What to do with it? Go to the cops? They’d think she was crazy. Maybe even believe her homicidal...think she’d committed the murder.
Could she prevent the death of this woman? Should she? Was it right to interfere with fate?
She berated herself for the question immediately. Wouldn’t that be easy? Ignore it. Tempting but cowardly. Of course she should try to interfere. Why else did she create the image? Holly wasn’t a fatalist. She believed a person had to do whatever they could to make the world a better place. Yes, some things were inevitable, but that didn’t mean you give up trying. But how to find the woman? Sighing, she fetched a loop…the kind photographers used to view contact sheets. Through the magnifying lens, she examined the details more closely. She’d been mistaken. The cards laid out on the table were not regular playing cards, but tarot cards.
Six cards were positioned on the table in what looked like a star formation. Each individual card was well worn, but still vivid. The last card, the one still clutched in the dead woman’s hand would have made up the top of the star. The Hanged Man. Holly identified the figure as the Titan, Prometheus, hanging upside down from a rock, while an eagle circled above.
Lousy with numbers, but pretty good at classical history, Holly possessed a workable knowledge of myths and legends that helped in her work as a children’s book illustrator. She knew that in Greek legend, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. As punishment he was sentenced to hang from a mountain and have his liver pecked out every day. Like so many mythological stories it was gruesome, but with a grimace Holly acknowledged that her drawing was equally gruesome. Fitting.
Bent over the recycling bin, she fished out her copy of the local newspaper. In the classified section a number of fortune tellers placed regular ads. Holly had seen them before, but never really paid them much mind. Could the woman in her drawing be one of them? The tarot cards would suggest so. With a shaking hand she circled the most likely candidates with the pencil she’d used to create the drawing and grabbed the phone.
Drawing Blood Page 2
