Immortal Redeemed

He used his power of suggestion to convince her of this, adding, “Open your eyes. See me and believe that what I say is true.”

She obeyed. Her sapphire-blue eyes blinked slowly.

“That’s good,” he said. “Now take a deep breath and push back the fear. It’s over. You’re all right.”

Again she obeyed, taking one steady breath after another. Her face was ashen. So were her lips. “Window,” she said. “He came through the window.”

Kellan nodded. “He probably thought no one was home.”

McKenna coughed as she shook her head. “No. I think he came for me.”

“It’s all right now,” Kellan repeated. “Your cop friend will see to that. And so will I.”

He ran a hand over her throat, noting the red marks where the monster had nearly squeezed the life from her. There were no punctures. No visible bite marks. She’d been reached in time to ward off that rueful fate.

Inwardly, Kellan chastised himself for allowing Detective Miller to keep him occupied on the street. That was what he got for being a good guy in a world gone bad. Any longer of a delay and he might have lost the one thing he needed most. McKenna.

Miller squatted down beside him. “Do we need an ambulance, Mac?”

She shook her head. “An ice pack would be nice. And a stiff drink.”

Miller’s relief was obvious and spoke volumes about the love he had for McKenna, no matter the status of their current relationship. His attention had been on her, and only her. Still, Miller couldn’t protect McKenna if monsters had got wind of a developing relationship between McKenna and a Blood Knight, even if they didn’t understand what a Blood Knight was.

He had to consider the possibility that his presence had played a part in drawing the vampire to McKenna’s apartment, without the vampire realizing it.

Could this be a case of monsters recognizing on some level another monster’s prey? Fang calling to fang, no matter how distant and seriously diluted the connection might be?

Miller offered McKenna a hand and she took it. She didn’t look at Kellan again until she was sitting in a chair.

“Tall. White-skinned. Dark eyes. Black coat and boots. Black thinning hair,” she said. “Maybe thirty years old.” Wincing, she added, “With very bad breath.”

“Good. What else?” Miller said after repeating that list to whoever was on the other end of the phone line he’d kept open.

“I think he might be sick.”

“A junkie, possibly looking for drugs?” Miller asked.

“That’s a good possibility,” McKenna agreed, shifting her questioning gaze to Kellan. “Thanks for coming back in time to get him off me.”

Kellan nodded.

Miller grunted an unintelligible remark, but Kellan searched McKenna’s face for signs that she might know more about this intruder than she was willing to mention to the detective. The puzzled, frightened gleam in her eyes suggested she thought she’d seen a monster and was trying to come to terms with that.

“We’re searching the area now,” Miller said, pocketing the phone. “If the bastard is anywhere around here, we’ll find him. In the meantime, it might be best if you stayed at my place. I’ll drive you there myself. We’ll want to go over this room for clues to this sucker’s identity.”

McKenna continued to study Kellan, as if deep down she was wondering if he had something to do with the attack. Did she believe he had been here to case the place so his accomplice could finish the job once he’d gone?

“No,” he said to her, in case he was right about her thoughts. “Don’t entertain ideas that I could harm you like that.”

Of course, his statement was a half-truth at best, since there was also a chance the vampire had come here for him and had got distracted after sensing McKenna’s tired state. Vampires were too often hard to predict.

Also, since he was pretty certain McKenna was the special being he sought, he had no idea what might happen to her when he opened her up to the hidden soul inside her. Would she survive that opening? If she did, would she wake in a state vulnerable to every kind of predator on the planet?

He had to consider all the options, all the directions of his next moves.

“I can go back to the hospital,” she said to Miller. “There’s no need to put you out.”

Kellan felt Miller’s attention swerve back to McKenna. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go,” Miller said. “But you know you’re always welcome at my place. In fact, I’d feel a lot better if you would take me up on that.”

Kellan stood up. “I guess I’ll take my leave.”

“I’d like a word,” Miller said to him pointedly.

“It might not be a good idea to leave McKenna alone.”

“We can talk in the hallway with the door open. Mac, are you good with that? Just for a minute? Then I’ll get you that ice pack.”

After looking back and forth between Miller and Kellan, McKenna nodded.

Miller gestured for Kellan to precede him out. Kellan withheld a sigh, not liking the part he had to play in order to get along with these mortals. He was anxious to go after that vampire on his own. He needed to lose the biker’s mortal semblance and get down to business with a fledgling vampire too willing to cross the line with someone else’s treasure.

His anger was on the rise. That anger would soon become dangerous enough to burn away his calm exterior.

In the hallway, Miller lowered his voice. “I suppose thanks are in order for helping McKenna again. You ran up those steps like you were superhuman. But thanking you would mean I don’t believe in the possibility of you having something to do with this incident. You do get that?”

“I’m not the bad guy here,” Kellan said.

“I suppose that’s a matter of opinion. So I have to ask some questions. The first one is, who are you?”

“I’m just a guy passing through.”

“And you just happened to meet my...meet McKenna?”

“Yes. Near the hospital. She couldn’t drive and asked me to take her to you.”

That stumped Miller for a minute because he knew this was quite possibly true.

“Why didn’t you leave her with me?” Miller asked.

“The lady changed her mind.”

“So you brought her here.”

“I followed her directions, yes.”

“Maybe you can see how odd it is that this attack happened at the same time?”

“Our return could have interrupted the bastard’s plans. McKenna probably would have been safe as long as I was there with her.”

“It’s entirely possible we have differing definitions of the word safe. You’ve known her for, what? Five minutes?”

“I’ve known her long enough to know I wouldn’t want any harm to come to her.”

“Maybe so, but I don’t like this. I’m going to ask you to stay in the area until we figure things out.”

Staying in the area went right along with Kellan’s plans, though being part of a police investigation was never good. He didn’t need the attention, or anyone scrutinizing his ID. He certainly didn’t intend to play along with this detective for much longer. He had a vampire to catch and the timing was tricky.

He had to use more of his power of persuasion.

“I’ll be going now,” he said, sending the thought straight into the detective’s mind, where it encircled everything else with the force of a command, urging Miller to let this biker go without a fuss.

“Okay.” Miller raised his hands and stepped back. “I’ll be in touch.”

Fat chance of that, Kellan thought, since the cop didn’t even know his name.

Catching a whiff of fetid air, Kellan turned his head for a quick look, able to detect the vamp’s escape route from where he stood as easily as if the bloodsucker had left a trail of bread crumbs.

With one more glance over his shoulder to McKenna’s open doorway, he headed for the street.

Chapter 7

McKenna stood in front of the bathroom sink, staring at her image in the mirror. She looked peaked, she thought, and gray. She was sporting an angry red ring of finger marks around her throat that would soon be a circle of bruises. Swallowing was difficult.

What she really didn’t need was another miserable reminder of some asshole’s evil intent.

Her gaze flicked to the scar on her temple. She touched the line of raised white flesh with her fingers before turning on the tap. Hot water felt good, soothing. She closed her eyes and let the water run as exhaustion again threatened to overtake her. Exhaustion aided by another close encounter with death.

She was finding it hard to breathe. The room was starting to spin, sending her stomach into free fall. Placing her hands on the sink, McKenna fought for enough breath to fill her lungs while attempting to get a handle on her wits. As a cop, she’d seen break-ins go bad on a daily basis. This one just happened to be hers.

“Mac? Are you ready?”

Her eyes found the image in the mirror of the man standing behind her. She wasn’t sure why she’d expected someone else, but her heart lurched in anticipation of a face that didn’t show up.

Derek had gathered ice cubes in a kitchen towel for her throat.

“I’ll stay here,” she said. “Unless you think I can’t remember how to keep out of the way when everyone shows up.”

Derek knew better than to argue. He said, “You won’t get any rest if you stay, and you look like you could use a little first aid and a lot of sleep.”

“I can take a day off tomorrow and sleep then.”

He nodded solemnly. “How about the ice pack?”

She took it from him.

“Does it hurt, Mac?” His voice was a gentle reminder of old times, which made the idea of her attempted bedroom liaison with the stranger seem even stranger. She knew that Derek still loved her. Finding a guy in her apartment must have surprised him. He hadn’t been able to hide the hurt in his eyes.

“It doesn’t hurt much, thanks to you and...”

Wise to that telling hesitation, Derek’s face became a mass of worry lines. “Seriously, McKenna? You don’t know the guy’s name?”

She didn’t answer that question. How could she? Offering a weak shrug, McKenna turned off the water, hoping to avoid more personal scrutiny.

“You’ll fill me in, Derek? You will let me know what the guys find?”

“I will,” he replied after a beat.

She wanted desperately to get away from Derek’s accusing expression.

“Maybe...maybe you can drive me back to the hospital? I’ve changed my mind about staying here. I’ll find a bed somewhere. You can do your job here, and having you in charge will make me feel better.”

Derek’s face registered relief. “Great. Grab your coat. You can’t touch anything else here. I’m sorry for that.”

McKenna turned to face him. “Thanks. I know the drill.”

What she didn’t dare mention to an ex-lover was that she doubted if she’d ever be able to forget the gorgeous stranger who had rescued her twice in the span of an hour, and that she hoped to God she’d never see the biker again. Because owing someone your life was awkward. So was the fact that her body desired his heated touch, even now.

* * *

Kellan’s arms were steamy beneath rivers of nerve-induced burn. His mind twisted with a new feeling of elation. He had found a contender for his search for the lost soul in Seattle. Her name was McKenna, and he knew where to find her.

He just had to make sure the vile creature that had attacked her would never bother McKenna again.

Where there was one vampire, there was usually another creature of the night. Monsters clung to others of their kind, believing in the power of numbers. This attack on McKenna might bring more danger to her doorstep.

There were many freaks amassing in the dark spaces that viewed humans as a kind of tasty dessert. And while ferreting them out wasn’t the reason for this Seattle visit, he now had to take an unplanned detour. His current objective was to save McKenna Randall—he’d noticed her last name on her lobby mailbox. Save her for himself.

Her image wavered in Kellan’s mind like a mirage. He could almost feel the softness of her smooth white skin. He rewound events for a replay of the look in her eyes when she appreciatively ran her hands over him, liking what she found.

He heard the lingering echo of the soft, sexy sounds McKenna made when they kissed, and the way she pressed against him. He revisited the look of anticipation on her face when he’d tucked his fingers inside that little scrap of blue lace crossing her hips, and how those hips moved to help him find what she needed.

He contemplated that rose tattoo on her arm.

If given more time, he could have discovered if the thing he sought lay curled up inside her.

Police cars were arriving at the curb to assess the situation in McKenna’s apartment. Since his presence was no longer wanted or necessary, Kellan climbed on the bike and took off, heading down the long block and around a corner, where he stopped to search the shadows with his highly defined senses.

The vampire that had hurt McKenna had landed and run, leaving in its wake a stomach-curdling mixture of odors: dried blood, dirt and the faint scent of lavender, picked up from its brush with McKenna’s things.

Broken window glass couldn’t have harmed this vampire. Vamps didn’t bleed. Their ability to heal miraculously when injured was another one of death’s creepy little bonuses.

This bloodsucker had been brazen, as most fledglings were. Hunger ruled them. Nothing else mattered but their need to feed. They weren’t aware of the fact that one mistake on their end could create another bloodsucker, and so on. All it took to make a nest of them was a couple of drops of undead blood on a mortal tongue.

Or maybe they did know this.

As always, if the shadows were allowed to spread unchecked, mortals would soon become outnumbered and overpowered by the dark side. Not many people believed in the existence of monsters. They made excuses for the injuries and horrific deaths around their cities, failing to recognize the real danger until it was too late, if ever.

Fact was, it took a monster to find a monster.

“And it just so happens that I’m your guy.”

Once he’d tuned in to the vamp’s frequency, Kellan saw the atmosphere shift with a phosphorescent green glow. Anything moving with unnatural speed left a similar residual imprint in the air. Kellan supposed that he did, as well.

“Got you.”

On foot, he followed the trail between buildings and into a narrow alley lit only by a small shaft of moonlight.

Carefully scanning the walls above him, Kellan called out a taunt, knowing he’d be heard. “Wouldn’t you prefer to pick on somebody your own size for a change?”

There was a hissing sound, followed by the clatter of a can. Kellan perceived three vampires hiding out in this area. Obviously, none of them were willing to show themselves. Seemed that his reputation had preceded him and that these suckers were at least aware of the extraordinary strength he possessed.

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