The first guy pushed the covering off his weird head. “We don’t want to hurt you, Faith Cooper.” His voice was gritty and harsh.
She swallowed, chills skittering along her exposed skin. “What do you want?”
“Just information about Ronan Kayrs. The Butcher. Where is he?” asked the second guy, also pushing his hood off to reveal those weird purple contacts.
She set her suitcase down in case she needed to run. “Okay, guys. You’re taking this game or whatever it is way too far. You get that, right?” How many nutjobs were involved in this role-playing world? Ronan had killed one. It was too real. Unless somehow it had all been staged. She just didn’t know. “I think I saw Ronan kill your cohort. He’s sustained a head injury of some sorts, and he thinks this is genuine. That the threat is real.”
The first guy kept his gun trained on her. “The prison world has shattered? Ronan. It was really him?”
She shook her head. Prison world? “Guys. Come on. Knock it off.”
“He’s not here,” the other guy spat. “I can’t sense him. Where has he gone?”
So, they were going to continue with the delusion. Maybe this was some sort of illicit game where it was okay to kill. Her legs stiffened and adrenaline pumped into her system. If so, they might murder her. She edged closer to the door.
“Stop,” ordered the man with the gun.
She halted. “Listen,” she burst out, her stomach heaving. “I left Ronan in the middle of town last night, and I have no clue where he went. He’s gone. I can’t help you to find him.”
The gunless guy tilted his head. “You’re Enhanced. I can feel it.”
Oh, man. “Nope. No enhancement.” That must be part of the game.
The other guy nodded. “The report said that the vampire had created a full Kayrs marking on his palm.”
Her mind scrambled for a way to somehow reach them so she would survive. Maybe play a part in their delusion. It couldn’t hurt. “I’m already mated. Ronan must have some other…um… mate.” Whoever had written this game should just be bitch-slapped. Mated. Come on. She swallowed. If she screamed, would the guy shoot her? Or would they run? She was going to have to make a choice and take the chance. “Would you just leave? Please?”
“You misunderstand,” the armed man said. “The Butcher is dangerous in ways you can’t imagine. He shouldn’t be free from the prison containing him. Help us and we will protect you.”
Faith coughed, searching for an escape.
“We should take her with us,” the unarmed man said.
Her head went back. Before she could scream, the balcony doors burst open, striking both men, shoving them forward. Ronan stood there, fury darkening his face.
The first guy rolled and came up quickly, grabbing her. She went into fight mode, clawing down his face and kicking at the same time.
“Sorry about this. No choice. Have to get you to safety.” He grabbed her by the throat and yanked her down, cutting off her ability to scream. His bony hand was incredibly strong. She struggled, fighting with her knowledge of anatomy but not succeeding, her vision going dark.
Suddenly, he was ripped away.
She rolled over, coughing, trying to suck in air. Tears slashed down her face.
The sound of rapid punching penetrated her consciousness and then…nothing. It was all over in a matter of seconds.
“Faith?” Gentle hands turned her over. “Are you all right?”
She blinked, her vision focusing to find Ronan’s hard face set in concern. “Ah, shit.”
“We really must work on your propensity for vulgarity,” he said, his full lips compressing into a white line. His face was pale and sweat dotted his upper lip.
She snorted. This was unreal. “You’re nuts.” The entire world had gone crazy. He frowned, making the sharp angles of his face look even more forbidding. Deep aqua eyes watched her. Man, even struggling, he was good-looking. Rugged features, sharp eyes, rigid jaw. Why did the hot ones have to be crazy? She sat up, taking in the two unconscious white-faced guys. “Tell me you didn’t kill them?”
“No.” He assisted her to stand. “Though these are also just scouts. I am not at full strength and must recuperate before I take on any trained soldiers. It is imperative.”
She looked closer at the nearest guy and then moved toward him, crouching down to feel his pulse. His head was angled oddly. Nothing. His chest wasn’t moving, either. He was dead. Dots impaired her vision and she quickly cleared it. “You broke his cervical vertebrae and must’ve damaged his spinal cord.”
Ronan nodded. “Yes, but he’s not dead.”
She slowly stood and then backed toward the balcony. Were the cops out front? The fight had been fast, but shouldn’t they have heard something? Could she survive a jump from the fifth floor? Probably not.
“Faith? I need something to cover their mouths. Do you have a cloth that would work?” Ronan asked, watching her carefully.
The spit in her mouth dried up.
Blood had arced across his scrubs, making him look murderous. Even with huge, sparkly, multicolored size-sixteen shoes on his feet.
He caught her gaze. “They were the only pair in my size. I was told they were the…what was it… the rage?”
Her throat hurt and her breath was wheezing out. But she could still scream. It was her only chance. Just as she sucked in air, the dead body moved.
She jerked.
The dead Cyst groaned and moved his head. Bones loudly popped back into place.
No. He was dead. She’d felt for a pulse. She was a doctor, for goodness’ sake. “I…this can’t be…no.”
Ronan sighed, walked forward, and kicked the Cyst beneath the jaw hard enough to kill. The man’s head flew back, his neck breaking loudly and no doubt injuring the spinal cord. Again. The body went silent.
Faith shook her head. Her knees trembled. “No. I mean, that’s not. No.”
Ronan looked around and walked into the kitchen, yanking open drawers. He frowned and pulled out duct tape, pulling a piece off. “Excellent.” He circuited the kitchen island and strode forward to quickly tape both of the Cysts’ mouths shut.
The dead guy started to move again.
It was too much. Faith opened her mouth to scream and Ronan rushed her, clamping his hand over her mouth.
How had he moved so quickly? That was impossible. She lifted her gaze to his, and his eyes changed from the sparking aqua to the fiery blue again. A whimper escaped her. This wasn’t right. Wasn’t possible.
He leaned down several inches until his face was much closer. “I know you are having difficulty believing reality right now, so I am going to prove something to you. I am very sorry about this.” He winced, removed his hand, and slapped tape over her mouth.
She sucked in air, shocked, and struck out.
His mouth tightened and he wrapped the duct tape around her wrists, effectively binding her.
She struggled, kicking at his legs.
“Do not make me bind your ankles,” he said, looking down at the roll in his hand. “This material is amazing.” He gently pushed her into her pin-striped blue chair. “Sit here and just watch. The Kurjans and their Cyst cannot survive the sun.”
The doors outside were still open, showing the sun shining down on her wicker furniture. Ronan grabbed both soldiers by their braids and pulled them out into the sun. He quickly divested them of their clothing, leaving both in matching gray boxers, their skin bizarrely pale in the day.
As the sun hit the bodies, fire instantly ignited along their skin.
Faith gasped from behind the tape, her brain sparking. How was this happening?
Ronan stood back, away from the burning masses, watching impassively.
The bodies burned hotly, not awakening, quickly dissolving into piles of ash. Faith shook her head. That was impossible. Huma
n bones didn’t burn.
Of course, those weren’t humans. Couldn’t be. Bile rose in her throat and she gulped it down, terror slashing through her.
Ronan moved inside and gently—oddly—shut her damaged door. “Are you believing me now?”
She watched him, trying to make sense of what she’d witnessed. She’d seen a white-faced monster come back from the dead, twice…and then be burned by the sun. Vampires. Occam’s razor. Sometimes the simplest explanation was the truth.
Ronan dropped to his haunches and gently removed the tape from her mouth. “I am sorry about this. Your guards are still at the front of this abode, and I could not allow you to scream.” Then he slowly unwound the tape from her wrists.
Her body refused to move.
He gently brushed her hair back from her face. “You are in danger now, and you cannot stay here.” Stress cut lines into his mouth and fanned out from his eyes. “I need to get away from . . . this.” He swept his arm out. “From the cars, the tall buildings, all the people.” Vulnerability glittered for the slightest of moments in his intriguing eyes. “Is there a place we could go? Where I could start a search for my people?”
She swallowed, her throat still aching from the Cyst’s attack. “Vampires. The sun kills them.” Jesus. Urban legend was actually true. She calculated everything she’d just seen. Yeah. True.
“No.” He frowned and gently rubbed a red mark on her wrist. “I am mainly a vampire. We are fine in the sun. It only kills Kurjans and their Cyst sect.”
A vampire. She gasped as electricity shot from his soft touch. “Why do they call you the Butcher?”
He winced. “They are my enemy. We fight to the death.”
This was crazy. “I don’t want to be a vampire.” Would he bite her and change her? She tried to think through all the movies she’d seen as a teenager. Oh, crap. Would he want to take all her blood? “Ronan?”
His lip curved. “You will not become a vampire.”
“Promise?” she asked, having no choice at this second but to trust him. A little.
“Yes. We are just a different species from humans. You cannot become a different species.” He helped her to stand and drew her over to the kitchen, where the cats were huddled against the far cupboard. “Do you believe me now?”
She looked up well over a foot to his face. “I’m trying not to, but I don’t see any other possible explanation for this craziness.”
“Understandable.” He took a knife from her block.
Her stomach dropped. “What are you doing?”
“Finishing the proof.” He slid the blade against the inside of his wrist. “For some reason, you are unaware that vampires exist. My people must have decided to go dark when society grew. Here is your proof.” He sliced his wrist before she could stop him.
“Ronan!” She grabbed a kitchen towel to stem the blood, and he prevented her with a hand on her arm.
Then the wound stopped bleeding. As she watched, his skin slowly stitched itself together and then healed, leaving his wrist perfectly healthy. He swallowed, growing a little paler. “That should not have cost me any energy, and yet it has. I need time to rebuild.”
She reached out and ran a finger over his skin. “That’s incredible.” Just think of the specialized cells that allowed him to do that. Could they somehow be mutated to help humans? To assist coma patients to regain consciousness? To help Grace? The thoughts zinged so quickly around Faith’s mind, she couldn’t grasp just one. Well, maybe one. “I believe you.” About the vampire part, anyway. But what had the Kurjan meant about a prison?
He nodded. “Good.”
She looked at the marking on his palm, where a K was surrounded by jagged lines. “What exactly is that?” Tingles winged through her abdomen.
He looked at the design. “This is a marking that appears on our palms when our mate is near.” He pulled his arm back and set the knife in the sink.
“Mate?” she asked, her voice breathless.
“Yes.” His eyes morphed to the sizzling blue again. “You, Faith. You are mine.”
Whoa. That he belonged to a different species was one thing…the whole mating thing another.
“That’s nuts.”
“We can mate Enhanced humans such as yourself. You must be empathic? Psychic? Telekinetic?”
She gulped. Her weird ability—the one she’d always had and then had honed after her sister had gone into a coma. “No…”
“You are denying it. How odd,” he murmured, his gaze hot.
She shook her head. “That marking supposedly appears when a vampire meets his mate?” There had to be a logical and scientific reason that had nothing to do with a sexy word like mate.
He lifted a shoulder. “Well, no. Vampires actually do not have a mating mark. They just mate with a good bite and sex. I am primarily vampire, because we Kayrs males only take one true form.” He sighed. “However, I am part-demon. Demons have a mark.”
She blinked. Once and then again. “You—you’re a demon.”
He grinned, his fangs sliding down again. “Just half.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Ronan finished reading the vehicle manual as Faith drove off the busy interstate. Finally, trees and nature began to appear on either side of them. “Fascinating,” he said again, setting the manual down. “Engines. What a lovely concept.” Yet he did miss his horses. “Thank you again for trusting me and telling the police officers that you were leaving for a vacation.” Ronan had slipped off the balcony without their being the wiser.
Faith kept her attention on the road ahead. “With your ability to heal, I think you can help my sister. Also, thanks for giving me time to settle my cats with a neighbor instead of just kidnapping me again.” She glanced his way, her pretty eyes covered by what were called sunglasses. So clever. “You know my sense of reality has completely been skewed, right?”
He nodded, fully understanding. His had taken a direct attack as well. Perhaps they were both on a reconnaissance mission at the moment. “I’d hoped the hour driving with perfect quiet, except for that radio, would assist you to comprehend.” This new way of speaking with contractions, as evidenced by the people on the radio, intrigued him. It made speaking go much faster.
“I appreciate the time to think.” She slowed down as she came upon a battered truck going very slowly on the old road. “I do have questions.”
No doubt. “Please ask them, and I will answer. Then perhaps you can return the favor.” He needed to know her better before he could woo her.
She breathed out, her gaze on the truck ahead of them. “How many species are there on earth?”
Perfect beginning question. He smiled. His woman was brilliant. He’d always liked intelligent women. “We have vampires, demons, witches, shifters, Kurjans, fairies, Enhanced, and humans.”
She blinked. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.” He’d caught the slang from the radio and he liked it.
“Okay.” Her delicate throat moved as she swallowed.
His fangs tingled, and he had to banish thoughts of her being his mate. Somehow. After centuries, to be so close to her and not touch her was torture. But there was no doubt he’d have to ease her into the reality of what they were to each other. He was a patient male, after all. “You said you are a doctor. A healer. Why did you choose that calling?”
Her head tilted just a little. “I always liked science in school, and the human body, especially the brain, fascinated me.”
There was more to her reasons, but she was wise not to give her trust so easily. “What else?” he asked gently.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. The brain and how it works intrigues me, so I went into neurology. But I didn’t start researching and working with coma patients until my sister was injured two years ago.” She kept her voice level, but a thread of pain wove through the unde
rcurrents.
Ah, his woman was a sweetheart. He let her compose herself. “Your next question?” he asked.
“What makes the immortal people different species? It must be a chromosomal difference. How old are you?”
He blinked. “I’m fourteen hundred years old. We’re all just different. Vampires are strong and deadly, demons are calculating with extra abilities like teleporting, witches harness the elements and can make fire; shifters change into feline, wolf, bear, or dragon, Enhanced are special, like you, and can mate immortals, and humans are just human.”
Her eyebrows lowered in a very cute line. “What about fairies?”
“Oh, they’re crazy. They mostly live outside Dublin—at least they used to—and everyone steers clear of them.” Maybe fairies were different these days, but he doubted it. He asked the question he’d been trying not to agonize over. “Why are you not married or betrothed?”
She glanced at him, her eyebrows lifting. Amusement glimmered in her eyes before she turned back to the road. “I’ve been rather busy raising my sister, attending med school, and becoming a neurologist.” She grinned. “The world is a bit different these days from what you’re obviously accustomed to.”
That was clear. Yet her amused confirmation that she was unattached filled his heart with the first peace he’d experienced since awakening.
Her voice softened. “Why are you here now, Ronan? What happened? What is this about a prison you escaped?”
He sobered, his chest hurting. “I am the first prong of the shield surrounding a prison, and my world failed.”
She put on her blinker and pressed on the gas pedal, zipping around the slow truck. “I don’t know what that means,” she said.
He swallowed. “Of course.” How could he explain this to somebody who was unaware of his world? “Is there another instruction manual I could read? Maybe one on buildings or life? Something about world history?” Surely there was a book he could read that would help him explain.
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