Well, she wasn’t going to let a little thing like a locked gate deter her now that she had finally found the courage to approach him. Turning to the left, she followed the block wall along the property line and there, at the back of the house, she found a tree with branches that extended over the wall.
Taking another deep breath, she reached for the lowest branch. It had been years since she had climbed a tree and now she knew why. She hadn’t worried about falling and breaking a leg or, worse, her neck, when she’d been a little girl, but the possibility of either or both occurred to her now. And then she shrugged. A broken neck would be a quick, reasonably painless way to go.
Shaking the thought from her mind, she gained the top of the wall, swung her legs over the other side, and dropped to the ground in the back yard.
The house looked as forbidding from the back as it did from the front. The grounds were in dire need of attention. The lawn hadn’t been mowed in weeks, perhaps months. There were weeds that needed pulling, trees that hadn’t been pruned in a long time, a wrought-iron bench in need of paint. It was a big yard, one that could have been beautiful. It seemed a shame to let it get so overgrown. If she lived here, she would plant flowers along the walkway and rose bushes in the weed-infested gardens. She’d put a covered swing in the corner, maybe a gazebo near the gardens.
But it wasn’t her house. With a shake of her head, she walked around to the front porch. Her palms were damp, her mouth as dry as the Sahara in mid-summer when she finally summoned the courage to knock on the door.
Minutes passed.
She knocked again, harder. And then once more.
So, was he sleeping in his coffin, or just not at home?
She was about to turn away when the door opened and she found herself staring up into the face of the man she had been following. She had never been close enough to see the color of his eyes. Now she saw that they were black. As black as death. The words whispered through the corridors of her mind even as she felt the warmth of the late afternoon sun on her back. Danger emanated from him like heat rising from summer-hot pavement.
He couldn’t be a vampire.
He couldn’t help her.
She was going to die.
Tears burned the backs of her eyes and dampened her cheeks. She didn’t want to die, not now. She was only twenty-four. There was so much she wanted to do, so many places she wanted to go, so much of life she had yet to experience. And she was afraid. Afraid of the pain, afraid of dying.
His hooded gaze met hers, cool and direct. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
“Who are you looking for?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Have you a name?”
“Shannah.” She wiped her tear-damp cheeks with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry I bothered you. Goodbye.”
She tried to turn away but her legs refused to obey. Caught in the dark web of his gaze, she could only stand there, her arms limp at her sides, staring up at him while hot tears trickled down her cheeks. She had never really noticed how handsome he was. Not in the way that the blond, bland young men in Hollywood were handsome, but in a dark, mysterious and forbidding sort of way. He had short thick eyelashes, a fine straight nose, a strong jaw line. He looked like a man who knew what he wanted in life and wouldn’t hesitate to take it by fair means or foul.
“You’ve been following me for the last five months,” he said brusquely. “Who did you think I was?” He glanced past her to the wrought-iron gate. “And how the hell did you get in here?”
She felt a rush of heat climb up the back of her neck as she searched her mind for a convincing lie but his gaze continued to hold hers captive and she suddenly lacked the will to lie to him.
“I thought you were a vampire,” she said, thinking how foolish the words sounded when spoken out loud.
One dark brow lifted. “A vampire?” he murmured. “Indeed?”
She nodded, embarrassed now. “But it’s still daylight, you know, and you’re awake instead of closed up in your coffin so I guess I was wrong …” She bit down on her lower lip, aware that she was babbling like an idiot. “I’ll be going now. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
Shoulders drooping with discouragement, she turned away, took a few wobbly steps and with a small moan, tumbled down the porch stairs.
Ronan stared at the girl sprawled at the bottom of the steps, at the thin trickle of crimson oozing from a shallow cut in her forehead. He took a deep breath as the intoxicating scent of her blood was carried to him on an errant breeze. Was there anything in the world that smelled as sweet?
Muttering an oath, he turned on his heel and went back inside the house, only to emerge a moment later swathed in a heavy black hooded cloak that covered him from head to heel.
Bracing himself for the pain to come, he flew down the stairs, swept the girl into his arms, and darted back into the house, kicking the door shut behind him.
Eyes closed, he stood in the entryway for a moment, panting heavily, his skin tingling and tightening in a most unpleasant way. When the worst of the pain receded, he glanced down at the girl in his arms. She was unconscious, her breathing labored, her cheeks ashen. She
