“Yes.”
“Of course,” she said, the light dawning. “You have a room there, too, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Deanna’s been bitten by a vampire, hasn’t she.” It was a statement, not a question. She was still having trouble digesting the fact that vampires were real.
“Yes.”
“Will she live?”
“I hope so.”
She started walking, her movements jerky. She felt as if she had become a puppet, a marionette, and wasn’t really moving of her own volition.
As he walked at her side, it occurred to her that he had come in the nick of time.
That he had saved her life.
They were almost on Bourbon Street by then, and there were people everywhere, talking, laughing.
A drunk passed her, and he was wonderful. He was real.
“You’ve been following me,” she said accusingly, stopping and turning on him.
“Whenever I’ve been able to,” he said, stopping, too.
She was tempted to hit him. “You were late!”
“I thought you were at the hospital. I came as soon as I got word that you’d left,” he told her.
She wanted him to hold her. She wanted to crawl into his arms. No, she wanted him to be normal, too. She desperately needed to take a step back.
She opened her mouth to speak. There was so much to say, to demand to know. But nothing came out. She didn’t know where to start.
She took a step toward him, then another. She leaned against him. He seemed solid. Strong. His arms came around her, holding her, and she stood there, shaking.
Oh, God, it was so much better here….
She laid a hand on his shirt, feeling the strength of his body was through the fabric. She had wanted to be near him, but she had been afraid.
Even now, she didn’t dare trust him, even if…
But she needed the clean, male scent of him, the vital strength of his form….
The sound of his voice.
Oh, God, it would be so easy to…
She pulled away from him and started walking again.
They reached the house on Bourbon Street, and all of a sudden the air seemed to be full of birds. Masses of birds. Or bats.
Or winged shadows.
Mark saw them, too, and his face tensed. But he didn’t appear to be afraid. Instead, he looked angry.
“Open the gate,” he said softly.
She did, and the birds or bats,
She and Mark walked up the pathway to the house. The front door opened before they were even half way there. “Come in, come in, and hurry, please,” Stacey said.
It was evident that she’d already met Mark.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“Stephan made his first real play for Lauren,” Mark explained.
“Oh, my God, where? When?” She looked at Lauren suspiciously. “He didn’t…?”
“No,” Mark told her. “But he’s getting bolder. She was right off Bourbon.”
Stacey let out a sigh. “Was he alone?”
“No. He has an army with him, just as I predicted,” Mark said.
Lauren stared from one of them to the other. They were talking as if the city were under siege, and by an enemy they had fought before.
“A regular infestation,” Stacey muttered. Then she saw the way that Lauren was staring at her and smiled, shrugging her shoulders. “I assume now you understand the rule about not inviting anyone in, anyone at all.”
“Yeah, I understand,” Lauren said. Because she did. They were insane. And she was insane, too, because she was seeing what they saw.
