A quick flash of emotion crossed Tynan’s face as she concentrated, forcing the fog in her mind to lift a little. She saw both anger and bewilderment clear as day in the split second he let them show before schooling his expression into inscrutability.
Her blood turned to ice, but her fear, unwelcome though it was, anchored her that much more firmly in reality.
“Look,” he said slowly, holding her gaze with his own. “I’m sorry for the other night. I wasn’t trying to scare you, and I shouldn’t have run off so quickly. But I didn’t realize…” He trailed off, seemingly at a loss as to how to continue.
Lily just watched him silently, while in her mind she began gauging how quickly she could get to her car, open the door, and lock herself in.
He seemed to know.
Tynan sighed, an irritated little hiss of air through his nose. “You’re not really hearing me at all, are you? It’s always fight or flight with your kind, never any room in
between.” He closed his eyes for a moment, obviously grasping for whatever patience he had.
“I’m not a bloody negotiator,” he muttered to himself.
Well, you don’t look like one either
, she thought, watching him warily as she began to edge toward her car, which was tantalizingly close, though not quite close enough. Without his strange eyes locked on her own, she felt freer to move again, more in control of herself. Right at that moment, all she wanted was to go home and forget Tynan MacGillivray ever existed. Because even now, when she knew he had
stalker
written all over him, she couldn’t help but stare at him, appreciating the jagged, masculine beauty of him.
Couldn’t help but want him.
It terrified her that she could feel this kind of desire for someone who was probably going to kill her in very short order. But she couldn’t seem to turn it off any more than she had been able to banish the images of him from her mind since the night they’d met. Which meant only one thing for certain: she had to get out of here as quickly as she could and call the cops.
His eyes opened again to refocus on her with laserlike intensity. They were as silver as she remembered, and some trick of the light made them seem to glow faintly as he watched her, unblinking. As soon as his gaze touched her again, she felt her limbs go liquid, and a queer sense of calm tried to smother all of her misgivings and inhibitions.
“No,” Lily said softly, the sound of her own voice in the thick, heavy atmosphere surprising her. But she could immediately tell that Tynan didn’t like the simple refusal, so she shook her head and said it again. “No.”
His eyes narrowed, and in that instant Lily saw clearly that beneath the dark, attractive veneer was something predatory. She took another step backward, testing her luck. He didn’t move a muscle, but when he spoke, he didn’t sound happy.
“If you haven’t figured it out by now, woman, I’m not going to attack you. I could have ripped out your pretty throat a hundred times over by now if I’d been inclined that way. But you
are
going to hear me out, one way or another. There are some questions I need answered.”
“We have nothing to talk about,” Lily said. Another step. The night had gone still and silent around them, as though they were the only two people on Earth. Had he really just said he could rip her throat out? Who
said
things like that? And with every step away from him, from that strange pull he exerted, Lily felt reality returning, along with emotion undulled by Tynan’s influence. Fear crept in, intensified. And began to pulse in time with her heart, which sped to a trot, then a full gallop.
It was then that she saw another emotion on his face, so raw and primal that it was all she could do not to turn and run.
Hunger.
“Don’t,” he said softly, his voice little more than a growl. “I don’t blame you for your fear,
mo bhilis
. But you’ll have to learn to hide it if you want to survive. Blood that runs so hot and fast is a temptation many won’t even try to resist.”
She stared at him, horrified, and this time Tynan couldn’t hold her gaze. He looked away, a pained expression tightening his features.
I want to go home,
she thought, her breaths shallow,
panic beginning to rush through her system like a drug.
I just want to go home.
“I need your help,” he said. “I don’t have any more say in this than you do.”
“I don’t have any help to give.” Her voice sounded thin, breathless, and she despised the weakness in it.
Tynan’s eyes sought hers again, catching them, holding her captive.
“Oh, I think you do. In fact, I’m now sure of it.”
“Well, you’re wrong. And if you don’t get the hell out of here in about two seconds, I’m hitting the panic button. They’ve got good campus security. And antistalking laws with actual teeth, if you think you’re going to keep following me around.”
For some bizarre reason, he seemed to think that was funny, which only confirmed to Lily that not only was this guy dangerous, but he was also crazy. His grin flashed in the darkness, as quick and beautiful as lightning in a summer sky. He was a terrible waste, Lily thought, hating herself for the hot twist of lust that coiled deep in her belly at that gorgeous, fleeting grin. Then it was gone, leaving no indication that he was anything but deadly serious.
“You can make this easy or hard, Lily. But the end result will be the same. Your choice.”
“Then I’m choosing not to have this conversation,” Lily replied, thumbing the panic button on her keychain. She knew she ought to just hit it and send him running, but something stopped her. Despite everything, despite her heart pumping like she had just run a marathon, some small, twisted part of her wasn’t quite ready to let Tynan vanish again. But she had to make this stop, she knew. The stress, the return of her insomnia, and then the nightmare…
Somehow she knew it had all started again because of his appearance in her life. Whatever he wanted to say to her, whatever help he wanted, Lily needed to walk away from it now, on her own terms. Because all of her instincts were telling her that to stand here any longer was to invite madness.
She’d spent too long building walls against such things to let it in now.
“I’m leaving now, Tynan. If that really is your name,” Lily said. “If you try anything, I’ll set off the alarm. If you try to contact me again, I’ll call the cops. Find somebody else to fixate on. I can’t help you.”
His dark brows drew together as she backed toward her car, not stopping now. Her heart still thundered in her ears, but she tried to keep her breathing steady, tried not to stumble.
“Lily,” he began, his voice full of warning, and she knew she was going to have to push that button after all. But just as she felt the comforting bulk of her car against her back and began to grasp frantically for the door handle, Tynan’s head snapped to the side, almost as though he’d heard someone calling his name. The movement was so abrupt, so unexpected, that even Lily paused for a moment to see what he had heard. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it.
“Bloody hell.”
When he looked at her again, the change in him was stunning. Lily felt a scream welling in her throat, trapped only because the look on his face had stolen her breath completely away. His eyes were as bright as the moon, filled with unholy light. His lips were peeled back in a feral snarl over teeth that glinted long and sharp. He looked like a—
“Go home. Now,” he said, his posture tense, waiting, as though bracing for an attack—or preparing to launch one. “Lock the doors and windows. Let no one in. I’ll meet you there.”
She stared, astounded at the instructions. What kind of fool did he think she was?
“You actually think I’m going to—”
“I think you’ll do as I say if you want to survive, Lily Quinn. There are far worse things stalking the night than me, and it seems I’m not the only one who’s found you. If you want to live, do as I say. Go home. Now. And don’t even think about running to anyone else, unless you want to be responsible for losing them.”
Her legs trembled beneath her, even as her fingers wrapped around the door handle. She couldn’t contain her sob of relief as she managed to pull it partway open. She turned, nearly falling to the pavement in her haste to get in. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think at all, really. There was only Tynan’s voice, his terrible words, ringing in her ears. And coupled with everything she’d seen, everything she’d felt, they rang horrifically true.
The night had thickened around her to the point where any movement felt as though she were pushing through water. Even the lights, normally so bright, seemed to have gone dull and dim. As she threw herself into the car, shaking so badly she could barely disentangle herself from her bag enough to get the door shut, a low, menacing noise was vibrating through the darkness.
Growling.
She finally got the door shut. Lily slammed the key into the ignition and turned it, hearing her own shaking moan as the engine started only distantly, as though someone
else were running her body and she was only an observer. She threw the car into drive, gripping the wheel so hard her hands ached. And still she couldn’t stop herself from looking one last time at the man—the creature—who had just laid out a choice between letting him into her life or dying at the hands of who knew what. Probably something like him.
He had hunched his back, reminding her of a cat giving its last warning before attacking. His head was turned as he looked somewhere off to the side of her, out toward the athletic fields. And he was so still he might have been made of stone. But he must have sensed her gaze on him, because, although his eyes never left whatever he was tracking, he spoke, and the word he snarled was so loud he might have been in the car with her.
“Go!”
Lily slammed her foot down on the gas and tore out of the parking lot, tires squealing. This time, she didn’t look back. Whatever lay ahead was bad enough.
T
HE NIGHT AIR
stank of death. And still, the coward did not show himself.
Ty didn’t even turn to watch Lily leave; the squeal of her car’s tires on the pavement was enough to give him some small amount of relief. But the rest of what churned within him was raw fury, all the more potent because it wasn’t just a meal that some other vamp had decided to encroach upon. It was his mission, his
future
. And whoever had decided to try poaching was about to get a very nasty lesson in how to conduct oneself around a Cait Sith.
The animal within Ty stirred uneasily, reacting the same way any beast does to an approaching storm. Cold whispered over the ground, the temperature dropping twenty degrees in a matter of seconds. Even Ty’s breath, though not as warm as a mortal’s, escaped his mouth in a small cloud of vapor.
“Come on, you bastard,” Ty growled, staring unblinkingly at the darkened sports fields where he knew the interloper
was hiding. His cat’s eyes picked up nothing, no hint of movement. But intuition, honed over long, hard years of experience, had never failed him.
Nor would it now, Ty thought, deadly anticipation beginning to course through his veins as he watched one particular patch of shadow divide itself in two, half of it pulling away into a shape that was unmistakably human. Even from this distance, Ty could see the red eyes glinting at him. Bright, murderous red. The sign of a vampire so hungry it was near starvation.
Ty fought the urge to recoil. There had been a time when such hunger was common to see. He had felt the knife’s edge of it many a time when he was younger and newly sired, hiding in shadow, living in fear of being discovered and brutally destroyed. The memories were nothing he cared to revisit.
“Fight me, then,” Ty snarled, his incisors elongating farther, his fingers hooking into claws. His stance was rigid, but his muscles were loose and limber, ready to spring. In truth, he savored the thought of making a kill. It was the only way he could think of to release the tension that had been building in him since he’d first seen Lily standing in the moonlight.
The red eyes watched him, glowing balefully, and the shadow tipped its head slightly to one side, considering him. Finally, a voice escaped it that sounded as though it had been dragged through gravel. The words it spoke were clear as day, delivered in a cockney accent that brought back memories of London’s dirty streets long ago.
“It’s not you I want, kitty cat. Don’t fancy getting a hairball. The pretty one, though… she’s quite the prize.”
Ty’s lip curled. “She’s off-limits.”
There was a harsh chuckle. “Says who? This ain’t your territory. Your lot don’t
have
territory. Gutterborn, bunch o’ filthy strays. I’ve known many a good lowblood, but someone shoulda drowned
your
line at the first.”
Ty let the words slide off his back like water. It was nothing he hadn’t heard before. He wanted to get this done, to get the kill.
“This place is no one’s territory, coward. And the woman is mine.”
“The woman is worm’s meat, kitty. And you will be, too, when I’m done with you.” The breathing grew audibly harsh, and the man’s voice changed then, sending a chill down Ty’s spine that surprised him. “I’m just… so…
hungry
…. ” he wailed, his voice turning high-pitched and piteous, childlike, making Ty remember similar wails in darkened alleyways, the stench of flesh and garbage.