“You have to take me home,” she said. Her voice was husky. She could feel tears clogging her throat. This was all a fantasy. Reality was stark and ugly. Her presence here would get this beautiful man killed. He would pay the ultimate price because she had looked upon him with longing. Because he had been kind enough to help her.
Lucian glided across the room so swiftly, she actually didn’t see him move. He was a tall, muscular man, elegant in every way, silent when he walked, but she still should have seen him. All she had done was blink, and he was standing over her, reaching for her chin with two fingers. He tilted her head up, forcing her to look into his black eyes. At once she felt herself falling forward, into him, a part of him, warm and safe.
“There is no need for your distress, honey. I cannot have it. You actually make my heart ache.” His thumb was feathering back and forth across her skin, sending waves of heat racing through her bloodstream. “No one can harm you.”
“I’m not worried about me, you idiot.” Jaxon was provoked. He didn’t seem to understand the danger he was in. He really was arrogant.
Suddenly his demeanor changed completely. His smile faded, and his eyes became as cold as ice. He turned his head toward the window. She clearly saw the predator in him then. The hunter. There was no gentleness, no softness; he was a warrior without any conscience to hinder him.
“Stay here, Jaxon,” he murmured almost absently, clearly expecting obedience. “I will be back soon.”
And just like that, he was gone. Another blink, and he was no longer in the room. She sat there, unerringly finding her gun beneath the covers. Her hand wrapped around it—an extension of her arm, it was so familiar. She felt now what Lucian had felt, the darkness stealing into their world. It crept in slowly, seeping into her mind so insidiously that, at first, she hadn’t recognized it. Danger had found them in this place of safety.
The feeling was overwhelming, so much so that Jaxon almost couldn’t breathe. Whoever was stalking them was wholly evil. She was certain Tyler Drake had found her once again. He was relentless in his pursuit. Invincible. No one had so much as come near enough to him to even wound him. He killed at will.
Once, since he had murdered her family and then her foster family, it had been a neighbor of hers, one Jaxon enjoyed having coffee with—a young woman in a wheelchair with a zest for life and a ready smile. Jaxon had never allowed herself to have a real friend since. Even on the job she made certain it appeared as if she changed partners often. In public she never smiled at them or socialized with them, not wanting to trigger Tyler’s killing rage. This situation—Jaxon alone in a man’s house—was the perfect scenario to provoke Tyler once more, a vengeful maniac determined to murder Lucian.
Lucian clearly didn’t appreciate the extent of Tyler’s Navy SEALs training. He was a chameleon, blending into any landscape. He was a superb sniper, capable of taking out a target from an extraordinary distance. Jaxon recognized Lucian as a dangerous man. It was in his eyes, in the set of shoulders, the confidence in his walk, the way he moved. But that didn’t mean Tyler Drake couldn’t get to him just as he had gotten to her equally well-trained father and foster father, Russell Andrews.
Jaxon tossed back the covers. She was wearing only a man’s silk shirt. As she was short, the shirt fell well past her knees, and, in any case, modesty was the last thing she was worried about. The feeling of danger was now stronger than ever. Lucian was in trouble, and she needed to go to him. He didn’t know her that well, didn’t realize the extent of her training and what an asset she could be.
Standing was more difficult than she’d thought it would be. She hadn’t been in an upright position for days. Her legs felt rubbery, and she was terribly weak. Ignoring the way her body protested, she moved toward the door, careful not to make a sound She didn’t know the layout of the house, and, judging by the size of her room, the building was huge, but she was confident she could find Lucian. She felt connected to him. She wouldn’t allow anything to happen to him. To Jaxon, it was that simple. She would not let him be hurt for any reason, least of all on her account.
Her bedroom opened out into a long, wide landing with a sweeping staircase on either end. The carpets were thick and looked brand new. Every detail about the house looked ideal. Jaxon noticed it all because it was so perfect, as if Lucian had lovingly brought in every item personally. Each painting, each sculpture, the wall paper and carpets and stained glass—it was everything she had ever dreamed of, right down to her preference in antique furniture.
Jaxon went by it all silently, her bare feet making no sound as she began her descent down the stairs. Halfway down, she spotted an alcove cut into the wall, an ornate glass door leading to a small balcony. She opened the door, taking great care to do so in complete silence. At once the rain drenched her, the wind so cold she began to tremble. She barely noticed. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness, seeking her target.
At first she could see nothing. A jagged bolt of lightning arced across the sky, lighting the courtyard below. She could see Lucian standing completely motionless in the very center of the immense patio. Several yards away from him a second figure cloaked in along black cape stood in deeper shadows. She found that her eyes seemed to adjust quickly to the lack of light, giving her excellent night vision, and her acute hearing, new and odd to her, picked up the strange conversation between the two men.
Lucian’s voice was even more beautiful than usual, pitched low and with a velvet purity that crept beneath the skin and seeped into the mind. “I can do no other than oblige you, Henrique,” he said, “when you have come so far to call on me with so blatant a challenge.”
“I did not know it was you, Lucian.” The second voice was a horrible, scratchy noise that grated like fingernails on a chalkboard. “You have been thought dead these last five centuries. Indeed, it was believed you had joined our ranks.”
The figure turned, and Jaxon could see him perfectly. The sight was horrifying. His head was a mere gray, pitted, bullet-shaped skull, with a few strands of long hair straggling across the top. His eyes glowed crimson, and his nose was no more than a gaping hole. His gums were receded, his teeth jagged and stained. When the creature lifted a hand, his long nails were like talons. He looked hideous.
Jaxon wanted to cry out a warning to Lucian. The stranger tried to sound ingratiating, but she could feel the strong waves of hatred radiating from him. Deep inside where she knew things others didn’t, she knew the monster facing Lucian had every intention of attacking him at the first opportunity.
“The trouble with listening to gossip, Henrique, is that it can be so completely wrong. I am the dispenser of justice for our people. I have always been loyal to our Prince and always will be. You have chosen to break our Carpathian laws and those of all mankind.”
Lucian’s voice was so beautiful, Jaxon felt completely caught up in it. She had to shake her head several times to keep her mind on what was important. The biting cold helped considerably, as did the driving rain. She sighted down the barrel of her gun, the weapon rock steady in her hands. She was going for a head shot, taking no chance that the stranger might be concealing a weapon of his own.
Henrique began to move slowly, his feet weaving a strange pattern on the cobblestones in the courtyard. He looked like a stick figure, ugly and evil, something out of a horror film. Lucian seemed not to turn, yet he remained facing Henrique at all times. Jaxon found the movement of the stranger’s feet fascinating. She leaned farther out over the wrought-iron railing in order to see better. The rain plastered her shaggy mop of hair to her head. Raindrops hung on her long eyelashes, and the wind blew water into her eyes. But once more the weather served to help Jaxon free herself from the strange enthrallment the stranger’s movements produced in her. The gun was once more aimed steadily on the stranger’s head. Should he make a move, he would not have the time to hurt Lucian.