He placed the bloody knife on the table and continued toward her. 'Kinnard was waiting for me in the stables.'
Her gaze skated down his body then rose again. 'You're okay?'
'Yes. He merely came to give me a warning.' He stopped in front of her, cupping her cheek with a hand. 'You have to leave.'
She rolled her eyes. 'Please, we've been through this a hundred times before.'
'I don't give a damn if we have. Kinnard intends to come for you at midnight, and I'm not going to risk him getting past me.' He brushed his thumb across her lips and gave her a crooked smile. 'I may not be able to remember your name, but I know I could not live without you.'
'Nor I you.' She leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his lips. She tasted of honey and butter and all the good things in life he'd longed for since his turning, and he had finally found them.
'But I can't—' 'You can, and you will.'
'Michael—' 'No. If what you say about the ceremony is true, then by simply leaving, you destroy Dunleavy's plans.'
'If I leave, he will begin killing off Circle members.'
Dread clenched his gut, even though he wasn't entirely sure why. 'What?'
She blew out a breath, puffing the blond-brown strands of fringe away from her forehead. 'You and I are members of an organization known as The Damask Circle. Dunleavy has gotten hold of a list of our people. If I leave before the ceremony, he'll start killing the people at the top of that list and work his way down.'
It was on the tip of his tongue to say he didn't give a damn about the list or the people on it, but he just couldn't force the words out. Because he did give a damn, even if he couldn't remember why.
'So he holds all the aces.'
She shrugged. 'He thinks he does. Me, I think we're in pretty damn good shape.' She hesitated, her gaze dropping to his thigh. 'Well, I am, anyway.'
He smiled and wrapped a hand around her waist, pulling her close. Her body was warm and familiar, the rapid beat of her pulse a siren's song that called to the man in him rather than the vampire. With her breasts pressed so snugly against his chest, he couldn't help being aware of her arousal, just as she was no doubt aware of his. He wished they were home—wherever home might be. Wished he had the time to give in to passion's flame and love her as thoroughly as she deserved.
But that wasn't an option right now. Not when there were a couple of madmen running around…
Or were there?
He remembered what she'd said earlier, remembered what Kinnard had just said, and frowned. 'Have you seen Dunleavy at all?'
Her sigh was a sound of frustration. She stepped from his embrace and reached for the still steaming cup on the kitchen bench. 'Once,' she said, 'Just after he'd kidnapped you.'
'But not since then?'
She shook her head and leaned her hip against the bench. The sunlight streaming in through the window behind her lent warm highlights to her hair, and in that moment he realized her natural color was brown rather than the blonde he kept seeing.
'Why?' she asked.
He crossed his arms. 'Because I think it's odd we haven't seen him at all.'
'I thought we'd decided that all this magic happening around us had him drained and basically immobilized?'
'We did. But what if that's what we were supposed to believe?'
She sipped her coffee and said, 'Even if that were true, how come we haven't seen him?'
'Maybe we have. Maybe we just haven't realized it.'
'You're the one who said you'd be able to see Dunleavy if he was around. Are you telling me now that's not true?'
'No. I said if Dunleavy was here, I should be able to see him, because you cannot hide the basic energy readout of a vampire.'
'And Dunleavy is definitely a vampire, so why haven't you spotted him?'
'Didn't you say Dunleavy was also a shifter?'
'And a sorcerer. So?'
'So, what if he's a type of shifter we've never seen before? His energy pattern wouldn't be the same as most vampires, because most vampires come from human stock rather than nonhuman races, such as shifters.'
'But even if that is the case, wouldn't you have noticed the difference? There's only us, those people down in the town, and Kinnard here.' She shuddered. 'And whatever Kinnard is, he's definitely not human.'
'No. He's that slug thing we saw taking advantage of the woman.'
Blood drained from her face. She took a quick drink of her coffee, but it didn't bring the color back to her cheeks. 'I knew he was a slime bucket, but I didn't suspect—' Another tremor ran through her.
'Yuck.'
'Indeed. But I'm beginning to suspect he's a whole lot more than just a nasty little creature.'
'Meaning?'
'When I was talking to Kinnard in the stable, he said and did some things that got me thinking.'
She took another sip of her coffee, then said, 'Like what?'
'He said we'd seen Dunleavy more than a dozen times already. He also said that Dunleavy was a shifter with several forms.'
'I told you that yesterday.'
'You told me he could be a shifter like his brother, able to take the shape of anyone he has consumed.
What I'm saying is that I think Dunleavy is restricted to two other forms.'
'Kinnard's obviously said something else to make you think that.'
'It isn't so much what he said, but what he did.'
'And that was?'
'I threw the knife at him and got him in the shoulder. Blue fire erupted across his body.'
She nodded. 'That's consistent with silver being used against a shifter.'
'Yes, but when I attacked him, he used magic to escape.'
She stared at him for a moment, and then her eyes widened as what he was implying hit her.
'Yes,' he confirmed softly. 'I think the man we know as Kinnard is actually Dunleavy himself.'
Chapter Twelve
Kinnard and Dunleavy one and the same? As much as Nikki didn't want to believe it, it did make sense.
It would explain why Dunleavy was nowhere to be seen, and why Kinnard had been able to cross the pentagrams unaffected. It had been his magic rather than that of his so-called master's.
'I should have cindered the little maggot when I had hold of him earlier,' she muttered. Instead, all she'd succeeded in doing was warning him that she had some abilities that weren't under the control of his magic. No doubt he'd now try to counter that.
She rubbed her arms. Michael caught her hand and pulled her back into his embrace. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to the slow but steady beat of his heart. She wished her own would follow suit. In many ways, this was her first official assignment for the Circle—something she'd been wanting for months now. And yet here she was, so damn scared it felt like her heart was going to gallop out of her chest.
'That's natural,' Michael said softly, 'if only because it is your first mission.'
She pulled back enough to look him in the eye. That's not the reason I'm scared.
No?
