“No. Just a heartless human. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you. I should’ve brought you home, instead of going to the cabin. I thought it would be safer away from the house.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m the one who ran off alone.”
“But I should’ve—”
“What? What could you have done? Vampires were trying to kill you. Vampires! Everyone knows they don’t even exist.”
He shrugged and tried for a grin. “If it makes you feel better, we didn’t know about them until a few weeks ago. Vampires were supposed to have been wiped out centuries ago.”
“You knew there were vampires and didn’t tell me?”
Would she ever trust him again? “We knew vampires existed, but we didn’t know they were tracking you. Not until we saw the fang in Nina’s house.”
“Fang?”
“That piece of ivory you found was a broken fang. You hit a vampire in the mouth.” It made him sweat just thinking about it. He thought about her moving like a streak of light, fighting those creatures with more prowess than he had, and that made him sweat too. What was she? “How did you kill that vampire?”
“I don’t know. It’s like I heard the word
“But how did you even see where to strike?”
“The movies say go for the heart,” Shay said.
“That wasn’t a bloody movie. How’d you know where its heart was? It was moving so fast, it was a blur.”
“What blur?”
“You didn’t see a blurred streak of light?”
“No. I just saw men… vampires. They looked blurry to you?”
“Aye, when they were running, and you ran just like them. How’d you do it?”
“I don’t know. I just ran after it. How’d you do what you did? You looked like some kind of Ninja Terminator. You ran halfway up the side of a tree and then flipped through the air.”
“All warriors can do that,” he said, waving a dismissing hand. “You must have inherited something from Edward.”
“It didn’t do me any good with Ellis.”
“Where was he?”
“After I killed that vampire, I turned around, and Ellis was there. He put a rag soaked in chloroform over my nose and mouth before I could move. I woke up in a cabin in Front Royal. I thought I was going to die. He had me tied to the bed, naked, and he had a scalpel.”
Cody went hot and cold at her words. “I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again.”
“Thank you, but you can’t do it all for me. I have to fight too. I’m tired of hiding behind locked doors and false names. Whatever this is, I’m going to confront it. Then I’m going to kill it.”
He shuddered. If he didn’t keep a close eye on her, she would do something dangerous. Even if she could move like one of them, she had no idea what lengths those creatures might go to. No one did.
“I heard about the note Ellis’s boss found,” Shay continued. “He came in right after I called you. All those people dead because of me. Renee, Mr. Calhoun, Mrs. Lindsey, and Nick. I still don’t know why he was following me, but he didn’t deserve to die. And that poor woman in the woods, he killed her just because she looked like me. Can you imagine how her kids felt, if she had any, knowing their mommy was dead, never coming home, because she looked like some woman they’ve never heard of? How can I live with that?”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“But it happened because of me. Everyone who comes near me gets sucked into this nightmare. You could die. Your brothers and the other warriors could die.” She leaned her head on Cody’s chest, tracing the outline of his battle marks. “I can’t lose you.”
“You didn’t lose me. I’ll always be here.”
“I guess I owe Ellis’s boss lunch. What’s his name?”
“Anson Masters.” He captured her hands, trying to still them. He couldn’t take much more or he would throw her down here in the hay, which wasn’t what she needed.
“Sounds familiar.”
Her hands somehow wiggled free, or was he not trying hard? They dipped lower, brushing his stomach, drawing circles around his navel, making his whole body ache. She raised her face to his, and he saw the hunger there, but he didn’t want her coming to him because she needed to feel alive or because he had a mark on his neck that said she had to. She immediately regretted it when they made love at the cabin, thinking of the baby they lost. Did he dare make love to her now,
“Shay, you need to stop touching me.”
She looked up at him. “Why?”
“Because I’ve thought about you touching me like this every day for the past nine years. Especially since the night at the cabin, and I’ve spent the last several hours thinking you were dead. I’m so damned glad to see you alive, I don’t trust myself.”
***
