Robert drew out his gun. "Fuck it, I'm shooting you until you stay dead!"
Isa heard multiple pops, saw a blur of motion…and then she was swinging from Chance's grip. Noises seemed to coalesce into one loud murmur, and her stomach felt oddly hot though the rest of her was chilled. She tried to look down, but Chance's arms blocked her. He had them pressed to her stomach even as she realized with shock that they were somehow outside. On rooftops. Moving at speeds that defied any logical explanation.
Then there was a jarring suddenness as they stopped. Chance loomed over her, his face very close…
Oh God, his face!
Isa screamed. Or tried. It only came out as a wheezing cry of denial. Chance ignored that, whipping a knife out from somewhere on him. Those glowing eyes, his fangs…he's some kind of devil, she realized dully. Cold slithered further up her limbs. In nomine Patris…
Chance stabbed her in the side. Isa did scream this time, a high-pitched wail of agony that wrenched out of her soul. There was another horrible, spine-bowing pain as Chance wiggled the knife, and then mercifully, gray encroached her vision. The pain started to fade even as the cold increased. Isa could barely make out Chance's transformed face as he slashed the blade across his wrist next, and then pressed the cut to her open mouth.
Chance took Isa to her grandmother's. It wasn't far, considering he traveled in a beeline by leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Up here, traffic definitely wasn't an issue.
Isa hadn't spoken a word to him since he'd made her drink his blood to heal her gunshot wound. Digging that bullet out of her side had filled Chance with rage, regret, and fear. He hated hurting her that way, but if he hadn't, her flesh would have knit back over the wound soon after she swallowed his blood. Drinking that small amount wouldn't turn her into a vampire—Chance would have needed to mortally drain her first, and then have her drink far more deeply from him—but it would heal her internal and external damage from the gunshot wound. He wouldn't risk her life by taking her to a local hospital; the bullet had torn through her liver. So close to losing her forever.
As soon as she was safely at Greta's, Chance was going to hunt down the two shooters and kill them. They wouldn't live out the next hour, either of them.
Chance didn't bother going to the front door, in case Greta was being watched. He leapt from the top of the roof down to the side window with Isa clutched in his arms. To anyone casually looking up, he'd appear as nothing more than a hazy blur. Vampire speed defied human ability to track with the naked eye, so he wasn't worried about 911 calls about a rooftop-jumping superman.
One hard jerk broke the lock on her window. It slid up and Chance maneuvered them inside with one fluid motion. Isa blinked at her surroundings for a second, as if she couldn't believe where she was. Then she shoved against Chance's chest. Hard.
"Let go of me."
She had more force behind the push than she normally would have. Her head bobbed around, listening to noises she wouldn't have heard an hour ago. His blood had done more than just heal her. In the quantity he'd given her, almost a half pint, it had also heightened her strength and senses.
Chance let her go. She backed away from him at once, her gaze flicking around like she expected him to attack. For the tenth time, she rubbed her stomach, feeling the smoothness where there had so recently been a bleeding hole.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Isabella," Chance said quietly.
She let out a derisive bark that stated she didn't believe him. Meanwhile, Chance heard Greta stir in the other room. She must have been taking a nap.
"You were shot," Chance told her, knowing with the instant shock her body would have gone into, she might not have realized that. "I had to dig the bullet out. That's why, with the knife…"
Isa backed up until she was almost to the door of the living room. "Who shot me? Robert?"
Chance's mouth tightened. "No. But Robert pulling his gun distracted me from seeing the other two men outside who were taking aim. Apparently the Salucci brothers got tired of negotiating with Robert, and decided a drive-by shooting would be much more efficient instead."
"Those were the pops I heard," Isa murmured, as if to herself. Then she gave Chance a repelled look that pierced his heart. "You're not human."
This wasn't the way he'd intended her to find out, but there was no turning back. Even though he could erase the knowledge from her if he bit her and used his power, Chance refused to manipulate her that way.
"No. I haven't been for a long time."
"What's going on?"
Greta came around the corner, her eyes wide at seeing Chance and Isa in her living room. Hearing the old woman's heart start to beat irregularly, Chance hastened to reassure her.
"It's all right, Greta. Isabella was hurt, but I healed her."
"Isa, what happened?" Greta exclaimed, giving her granddaughter a hug.
Chance saw that while Isa gripped her back, she never took her eyes off him.
"Grandma…he's not human. I'm not crazy and I'm not making this up, but Chance isn't human!"
Greta tssked. "Well, of course he's not, dear. He's a vampire. I wouldn't have gotten him involved if he'd only been human. He wouldn't have been much use then, would he?"
Isa's mouth dropped. She looked back and forth between Chance and Greta like she expected one of them to suddenly yell, 'Surprise, you're on candid camera!'
"You knew this?" she finally managed.
Before Greta could respond, Chance held out a hand. "I have to leave you both now. Greta, don't open the door for anyone, and if there's trouble, call me at once. Isabella, you know how to use a gun, yes?"
"I, um, it's been a long time…" she sputtered.
"Good," Chance interrupted. "If anyone but a trusted friend shows up here, you shoot first before you open the door. There shouldn't be more trouble, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I'll be back as soon as I'm done."
"Done doing what?" Isa asked, taking a step toward him before stopping herself.
Chance let his fangs slide out while vampiric green lit up his eyes. Their glow highlighted Isa's face, and she gasped.
"Killing the Salucci brothers," he said, and vaulted out the window.
Chapter 8
Her grandmother stared at Isa, not speaking. Isa didn't know what to say either. So many things had happened, she felt like her entire world had been pulled out from under her.
"So," her grandmother said at last. "You didn't know Chance was a vampire until I told you, but you knew he wasn't human. How'd you figure that out?"
Isa brushed past her into the kitchen, a brittle laugh coming out of her throat. "Let's see, I started to suspect something wasn't right when Paul almost fainted at seeing Chance, because apparently, last night Paul blew Chance's brains out and sank him to the bottom of the river!"
To Isa's surprise, her grandmother began to laugh. "Oh, I wish I'd been there to see the look on Paul's face when Chance walked in. He must have pissed himself!"
"That's not the point!" Isa said harshly, which made her grandmother sober. "The point is that Chance is a vampire, for God's sake! And it's like you don't even care. How did you ever get mixed up with a vampire, grandma?"