Dark Secret

looks like a dragon breathing fire, and when a vampire is close, or a hunter, or even one of the human puppets, it burns.'

Colby inhaled sharply and touched her left side. 'Where did it come from?'

Natalya shrugged. 'I was born with it. It's saved my life on many occasions.'

Colby rubbed her thigh, just below the laceration, in hopes of easing the pain. 'There's a vampire in the area and Rafael says he's different than others, more powerful.'

Natalya frowned. 'Can they kill him?'

'I don't know. Rafael was injured and the vampire got away. I think Rafael hurt it, though.'

Natalya sighed. 'I kind of liked it here. I didn't really want to leave yet. I haven't learned to kill a vampire yet. They keep coming back. Watching Dracula movies all the time isn't all that helpful.'

'Rafael and his brother, Nicolas, are originally from the Carpathian Mountains. You might find help there,' Colby suggested. 'Nicolas told me they have to be incinerated. It was pretty gross. He said they rip the heart from the chest and incinerate that as well.'

Natalya straightened up slowly. 'I wish I hadn't asked.'

She looked at Colby. 'Are you sure you're all right? Can you handle this? It's been hard for me and I don't want you to feel as alone as I've been.'

'I honestly don't know. He talks about conversion.'

Natalya scowled. 'Bringing you over? Can they do that? I know the vampires usually kill. They often keep women around for a while, enjoying their fear, but they always kill them. I've tried a couple of times to rescue them, but they're insane. They want to bite me and they try to drink blood and I've even seen them try to eat human flesh. I don't know, Colby, it sounds dangerous.'

'It feels dangerous. I'm having trouble with the sunlight, and without the Chevez brothers-they came from Brazil with Rafael-I wouldn't be able to keep up with the ranch work. I have to sleep during the day now.'

'Do you want to get away from him?' Natalya asked.

Colby sighed, feeling close to tears. 'I don't think I can. I don't honestly know what I want. I'm very afraid, but I'm so obsessed with him. If I'm away from him, he's in my mind until I think I'm going insane.' She looked at Natalya. 'I don't have a craving for any kind of food, let alone human flesh.'

'He isn't a vampire,' Natalya assured her, 'but these hunters are dangerous. He isn't human, Colby, and no matter how much he relates to you as a human, he is still different, with an entirely different set of rules.'

'I'm afraid,' Colby admitted in a low voice, astonished at just how afraid she really was. Rafael had deliberately seduced her. He had brought her partway into a world she knew nothing about, and he'd taken her partway out of the world she was familiar with. It was terrifying and yet she couldn't imagine her life without him. And that in itself was what was so frightening.

'You can come with me, all of you,' Natalya offered. 'It isn't much fun running alone. And we might all be safer together.'

And I would find you. There is nowhere to go that I cannot find you. There was a bite to Rafael's voice, a warning. Colby felt a shiver run down her spine.

'He can hear me.' Natalya pulled away instantly, looking warily around. 'I have to go. I don't dare stay here. Good luck.' She backed away from the truck.

Colby fought down the urge to grab her hand and keep her there. 'Be careful, Natalya,' she called, shoving the small piece of paper with Natalya's cell phone number on it into her pocket. She wanted to run away too. There was fear in Natalya's eyes and an absolute resolve to get away. Whatever the vampires wanted from her, she wasn't going to give them. Colby just wished everything would magically return to normal. She closed her eyes again and counted to ten, knowing Paul had run into one of his friends and was talking instead of rushing the pain medication back to her. So much for his concern.

'Don't tell me Annie Oakley fell off of her horse!' Tony Harris leaned into the truck, his handsome features mocking.

'You're just what I needed to make my day complete, Tony,' Colby told him tiredly.

'What happened?' He moved closer to stand in the open doorway, his weight across her body as he bent to examine the thick, rather bloody bandage. He was pinning her against the seat, his arm pressed tightly and very deliberately into her waist. He whistled, glancing up at her, his dark gloating eyes revealing his enjoyment of her predicament. 'Maybe I should take a look at this; it seems to be bleeding.' His hand was on her thigh, fingers pressing into swollen flesh.

'If I scream, Tony, half this town will come running.'

'No one can see with me blocking the view,' he said. 'Scream away, I'll just say your leg hurt and I was trying to help.'

'As if they'd believe your word against mine. Go to hell, Tony. And get your hands off me.' Colby swung at him, but her movements were hampered by the lack of space.

He dodged the blow and laughed at her. 'You leave your rifle at home, Colby? What's wrong, where's all that cold haughty disdain you love to dish out?' His hand was back at the bandage, hovering there while he watched her closely, enjoying her helplessness.

'Shut up, Tony, and get out of here.'

His fingers inched closer to the wound on her leg, pressing that little bit harder.

'This isn't funny, Tony.' Colby tried to not to look at his hand.

'Oh, yeah, I think it's really funny. You always thought you were better than me, haven't you, Colby? So now you've got your rich man and you think that proves you're too good for someone like me, but you know what I think? I think you're nothing but his paid whore. I'm going to show you what a real man makes you feel like.'

Before she could elude him, Tony bent down, clamping his mouth to hers, deliberately grinding her teeth against her soft inner lip. One hand remained on her leg, right beside the swollen laceration in warning.

Colby forgot everything, her weariness, the pain in her leg, the fact that she was parked on the main street of town. It was one thing to put up with Tony's sick innuendos and bullying; it was an altogether different proposition for him to physically touch her. Their feud had started in the schoolyard when Tony, two grades ahead of her, had been unmercifully teasing a boy in her class. She had hit him right in front of everyone. When he had retaliated, Joe Vargas, Ben, and Larry Jeffries had all instantly jumped to her defense. Over the years Harris had threatened and harassed her, but he had never laid a finger on her.

Her right elbow slammed into his solar plexus and her left hand caught the back of his curly black hair in a wicked grip, in an attempt to jerk his head away from her. To her horror he was suddenly catapulted from the truck as if unseen hands had lifted him bodily and thrown him down. Then she was staring into Rafael's black, black eyes. She caught her breath at the stark menace concentrated there. Tiny red flames were glowing, fierce and unnatural. He looked a demon, a predator, vicious, cunning, more animal than man. Nothing in her life had ever frightened her like the grim emptiness revealed in his eyes. She was looking at death. And she knew he could very easily kill Tony Harris.

No! No, Rafael, you can't. Deliberately she used the more intimate means of communication to call the man back into his body, his brain. She was looking at a natural predator. He was already turning away from her, back to Harris, who lay sprawled in the street.

'Rafael, let it go,' she called aloud, struggling to slide off the seat, her heart pounding in a kind of terror. She swore softly under her breath as her leg took her weight, jarring her entire body.

Tony leapt up, doubling his fists as he spat in the street.

Rafael coolly and quite brutally slapped Tony Harris open-handed, a hard, powerful blow that staggered the man as he rushed forward. Rafael continued to slap him, delivering blow after powerful blow, walking the cowboy backward down the street. Each blow had Tony stumbling off balance, a jarring, humiliating punishment. Colby had witnessed a thousand brawls, but this was completely different. It was a savage, yet cold-blooded attack, a brutal display of power that held everyone motionless, standing on the sidewalks simply gaping at the drama.

Colby went hobbling after them, anger beginning to smolder as her heart accelerated at the realization that Rafael could have dropped Tony Harris with one blow. This was a public punishment. Rafael would have killed Tony, coolly and without remorse. He preferred to kill him, but refrained because Colby would never have condoned murder.

It didn't help that she was drinking him in, her body flaring to life. She could feel every cell, every fiber of her being reaching for him, needing him, craving him like a drug. She