Alex smiled at him, catching him off guard again. She held her hand out to him in invitation.
“When was the last time you walked on the beach in the moonlight?”
209
Returning her smile, a new understanding of the woman before him glowing in his heart, Cole enveloped her small hand in his large one. Once he had firm hold, he wasn’t about to let go.
“It’s been far too long.”
Together they made their way across the gentle slope of the lawn, drawn to the soothing sounds of the ocean. The stretch of pale sand stood sentinel between her yard and the glistening, moon-dappled surf, beckoning them.
For a time, they walked in silence along the water’s edge, no sound between them but the gentle crash of uncounted waves.
When Alex spoke, the sound of her voice reverberated through Cole’s system, sparking emotions he hadn’t suffered for a long time.
Emotions he hadn’t experienced since a far off summer day, many, many centuries ago with a sweetly innocent girl on a clear night similar to this.
Alex finally turned her head to regard Cole with far more scrutiny than he’d ever garnered from anyone in his life, before or after he’d turned. He must have presented a formidable figure against the inky shadow of the night, bringing images of intrinsic mystery and dangerous menace to mind. Yet she didn’t flinch away at his nearness. In fact, she walked close at his side, fearless and sure.
“I want you to understand why I was so resistant to working with you and Stolen 210
Innocence,” Alex began quietly.
Cole cocked his head to the side, his attention centered completely on her. Wordlessly, he waited for her to continue.
“I’ve never spoken of this with anyone—not even Grandpa. I honestly don’t know why, but I feel as if…as if I
need
to talk to you about this. I can’t explain it, I just do,” she expounded.
The words began to flow then, tumbling out without restraint. “I was very young—very naïve—
when I entered the music business the first time.
When I started writing for Angel’s Fury, it all happened so fast. The fame, the money, the band itself… It all overwhelmed me. Thanks to my grandfather, the money wasn’t a problem. He taught me how to invest, made sure that my financial future was secure. The fame and…the band were a little more difficult to manage.
“In the beginning, I tried to fly below the radar for the most part. I just wanted to write.
Then, by degrees, that became impossible. The band began to demand more and more of my time, until I’d completely alienated my friends. My grandpa and I even grew…distant. There’s nothing I regret more than I regret that. I let myself get swept away until I lost sight of who I was…” Her voice trailed away, and he anticipated something more was coming, something he himself might have difficulty dealing with.
Alex drew a deep breath, shuddering. Cole pressed his warm palm against her icy one.
Fingers, callused from years of strumming a guitar—callused from centuries of wielding a sword, smoothed over the backs of her knuckles with a gentleness that belied his extraordinary strength. Smiling up at him, she pushed on.
“I
finally
realized the toll it had
taken…realized I couldn’t continue to live that 211
way. I went to the band one afternoon while they were in their studio to tell them I was finished…” Alex paused, then let it all pour out in a headlong rush. “They were…angry. I guess they saw their sure thing walking out the door. They threatened to sue. They threatened to blacklist me. They…” Alex’s voice grew quiet, detached, as she stumbled through the explanation. “When none of that worked, a couple of the guys thought they could intimidate me. Maybe they thought if I wasn’t any use to them as a writer anymore they could use me for—other things. Two of them held me down while the third… The third one…” Alex drew a breath, forced a swallow. “He would have raped me if their agent hadn’t walked in at that moment and surprised them. I managed to get out somehow, and I never went back.” Cole’s hand gripped hers too hard, she winced.
“Cole, you’re hurting me,” she gasped, tugged at her hand.
Cole immediately loosened his grip, though he refused to release her altogether. Instead, he tugged her around until she stood in the protective circle of his arms, her head resting on his chest.
He held her tenderly, his hands smoothing over her back and arms. He pressed gentle kisses to the crown of her head while she wept bitterly, brokenly, against his chest. All the while, rage seethed inside him, so black and so vicious it threatened to consume him. Images of his Alex—
helpless and at the mercy of monsters far more evil than he—filled his mind.
He could only thank the gods she couldn’t see his face at that moment in time, for the change was upon him, and he knew, beyond a doubt, that he’d never looked more fearsome, more 212
monstrous. He wanted to track the bastards down, to show them what real terror was. He wanted to tear them limb from bloody limb. He wanted to drain them and leave their lifeless corpses to rot like the trash they were.
Instead, he comforted her, until the tears subsided and her breathing returned to normal.
He held her longer still, until he managed to regain control of his physical appearance once more, until he wouldn’t frighten her with his fury.
When at last she leaned back, not completely out of his arms, but far enough to face him in the moonlight, she smiled tremulously up at him and reached up to gently touch his cheek… tenderly, unwittingly touching the beast within. “I don’t know what it is about you, but you make me feel safe…protected. Thank you for that.” Once again, Cole found himself wishing he held within his power the ability to control
her
thoughts. It frustrated him to no end he’d never been able to tap into her will. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to wipe those brutal, hurtful memories from her mind. He wanted to take away her pain, wanted to give her only happiness in return. Frustrated by his own feelings of ineptitude and helplessness, he stared down into her trusting eyes and his heart shuddered, melting.
Slowly, lovingly, he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her face up until silvery moonlight bathed the porcelain perfection of her features. His piercing, glowing stare searched her face, committing every detail to a memory that would last not only her lifetime…but his. Then, without a word, he lowered his lips to hers. Need swelled inside him. Desire swept through him. Yet he kissed her with restraint, offering her comfort and solace, putting her needs 213
and her vulnerability before his own. The kiss was so tender, so filled with emotion his very soul trembled.
And he took the fall…heart first.
****
The Crasher sat back on his haunches and let the foliage fall back into place, concealing his dark shape. Tucking the camera back into his pocket, he eased into the shadows as only one born to the darkness can do. His exceptional hearing had picked up every word of their intimate conversation. Poor little thing. That vicious old band she’d worked with had really done a number on her. Poor, poor terrified dear… No wonder she’d been so reluctant to work with Stolen Innocence.
A sinister smile curved the sensual lines of his mouth. The wicked gleam of fangs flashed in the night and bloodlust glowed in his eyes.
Just wait until she got a load of
him…
He edged from Alex’s yard and moved down the street, no more than an unidentifiable blur of motion to the Human eye, formulating the next phase in his plan. In a few short weeks, it would be time to send his last message. Cole had already figured it out, of course. He hadn’t expected anything less. Cole and Styx had gotten so close at the last kill. They’d almost caught him. Like the music, that narrow escape had only added a certain…spice, a defining thrill to the sacrifice. Oh, he could stop now. His message had gotten through, quite clearly. But where would be the fun in that? Besides, he had a quota to fill.
And he’d already chosen the perfect
messenger.
Sliding behind the wheel, he turned the radio up to drown out the sounds of the city around 214
him, and pulled a cell phone from the pocket of his overcoat. As he eased onto the interstate, he flipped the phone open and pressed speed-dial. A few moments later, an accented voice replaced the ringing in his ear.
“Hey, Styx,” he greeted the drummer with the ease of long-time familiarity. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of Cole. His phone keeps going straight to voice mail.”
“Yeah…” Styx fumbled with something in the background. A metallic clang echoed over the line, followed by a particularly nasty oath. “I think he went into town with Slim. What’dya need?”
“I’ve been going over this list Cole gave me, and a couple dates don’t click with locations. It’d be a lot easier to go over this stuff face to face. He gonna be around later?”
“Dunno, might be,” Styx mumbled. Another clang and a heated Spanish expletive followed.
Irritation laced his voice, and he snapped, “Last I checked, I wasn’t his mother or his friggin’ agent.
Didn’t figure it was up to me to keep tabs.”
“Yeah, well, he wants the information he ought to make sure he can be reached.”
“If I see him, I’ll let him know you’re looking for him,” Styx grumbled. “How soon before you head back out here?”
“Got one more stop to make, then I’ll be out.” He turned off the main strip, into the parking lot of the small, shady photo lab he used. The clerk inside was brainless, requiring next to nothing in the way of effort to control with suggestion.
Fortunate that, as persuasion was an effect he hadn’t quite mastered yet. “I thought I might stop off for a bite on the way.”
He could hear the grinning interest in Styx’s voice. “Hey, I could use a bite myself…something 215
sweet, maybe. Pick up a blonde for me if you can find one.”
He chuckled benevolently. Alex’s long, golden locks floated through his mind, and his grin grew with evil intent. She’d be different from the others. Alexandra Sinclair was worthy. He wouldn’t leave her to bleed out on the pavement.
He wouldn’t waste a single drop of her delectable blood. No, he had special plans for her…plans that would take a long,
long
time.
“Funny, I’ve been craving a blonde myself.” 216
Cole stood at his desk, a pervading sense of doom sent chills skittering down his spine. More pictures had arrived this morning, photos taken at intermittent intervals throughout his outing with Alex yesterday. Lots of them.
That aside, the very idea that someone out there posed a threat to Alex filled him with rage…and fear, never mind the risk of exposure to himself or any of the rest of the races. However, the photos that left him feeling cold as death itself were the ones taken last night on the beach while he held her, while he kissed her. Why hadn’t he scented the bastard?
Every intimate picture had crimson scribbles over Alex’s face. Then the last picture in the stack found its way to the top and Cole gasped in shock, forced to sit down before his knees buckled completely.
It was a candid, close-up of Alex’s face, smiling as she climbed into the passenger seat last night in front of her house. The moonlight painted her in shades of silver and shadows. She was lovely, breathtaking.
Across her beautiful face, garish scarlet lettering boldly announced,
‘Mortals Die.’
And on the side of her neck, in small, scrupulous printing was the number fourteen.
With shaking hands, Cole flipped his cell phone open, his dilated, luminous eyes glued to the glossy photo. In short order, Danny, Deacon, and Styx were once again closeted in Cole’s 217
study, discussing the Rogue. Only this time, the truth of the situation was far more treacherous.
This time, the killer had made it personal.
“Crispin and Tommy are both on their way back,” Cole informed them as the trio settled onto the sofa and chairs. His lips compressed with frustration. “Crispin’s working up a list of Vamps known to be in the area. He’s going to bring it up with him, see if there are any who might be pissed off at me for something or other…anything beyond the fact that I’m hand in pocket with the TFRA.”
“That many, huh?”
Danny’s cool attempt at humor fell shy of its mark, however, when Cole stared at him through flat, icy blue eyes and responded tightly, “You don’t live over eleven hundred and fifty years without pissing a few people o
ff now and again.”
Clearing his
throat,
Danny shifted
uncomfortably in his seat and reached for his beer. He’d known Cole for almost ten years, a long time for a human, barely half a drop in the bucket to an Immortal. It was too easy to see Cole the friend, and forget about Cole the Vampyre.
Deacon cocked his head to the side and stared hard at Cole. “You still ain’t told her yet, have you?”
Cole shot him a quelling look, but his eyes closed and his head tipped back against the cushion as a heated string of Spanish expletives filled the air.
“
Madre de Cristo
,” Styx snarled. “She has a right to know what she’s up against. She’s strong.
She has a good head on her shoulders. Slim can handle it. If she’s going to be staying on with us…if you’re going to
be
with her…you’re going to have to trust her with the truth.” Cole gritted his teeth against the foreign 218
sensation of fear snaking through him. If she found out the truth like this—if she found out what he was and walked away—he didn’t know how he would react. Could he let her go? Would he be able to? He owed her that much—the choice—even if it was the emotional equivalent of walking a tightrope with a flaming pyre on one side, and a flaming dawn on the other.
Grimacing, Cole drained the glass of repulsive cold blood, then set the empty Riedel tumbler down on the coffee table with a resounding thump. With a fierce scowl lining his face, he glared at the elegant
Odhroerir
etched on the side of the glass. Knowing he was making the right decision—that telling her the truth was the right thing to do—didn’t make it any easier to stomach.
Styx shifted in his seat, eyeing Cole speculatively. “What about the premiere tonight?” Cole gazed at the Steinway for a moment.
“You go, take the rest of the guys with you. I’ll tell her tonight—I have a feeling she might take it a little better without the risk of any interruptions.” Danny shrugged. “Sure, why the hell not.” As ever, Deacon nodded, offering little in the way of words.
As a unit, the men stood, three to leave and one to pace.
A short while later, Alex stuck her head inside the study and smiled at Cole. “Styx said you wanted to see me?”
“Come in, Alex.” Cole shuffled the stack of photos into a pile, turning them upside down on the corner of his desk for the time being. Damn Styx…he could have given Cole a little more time to prepare.
“I figured you’d be getting ready. Doesn’t that premiere start in an hour?”
“Styx and the others are going,” he trailed off, 219
watching as she wandered into the room and perched on the sofa—so relaxed, so damned sexy, he had a difficult time remembering what it was that had been on his mind when she’d walked in.
Her confidence had noticeably grown over the last few weeks. Her comfort zone had broadened.
It killed him to know he might very well crush it beneath the weight of the truth and a couple dozen damning photos.
Alex tilted her head. A curious frown creased her brow. “But not you?”
“Not me. I…I have other matters to attend to.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” she teased with a half smile. Then, seeing him frown, she sat up straighter, her tone turned serious. “Cole, if there’s anything I can help with—anything I can do…”
“Actually, I…”
Whatever Cole had been about to say was cut short by the distinctive ring of a cell phone. Darth Vader? Odd choice that. Grimacing, Alex held up a finger and reached for her back pocket in an unswerving, conditioned response. Her face suddenly blanked, but Cole could literally feel the wave of anxiety washing through her.
She looked up at him, a half-hearted smile of apology on her lips. “I’m sorry, Cole. I should take this.” Then her voice trailed away as she muttered beneath her breath, as if she wasn’t aware she was speaking aloud. “If I don’t she’ll only keep calling back until I do.”
“Go ahead, it’s all right,” he assured her, both frustrated and relieved by the interruption.
He retreated behind his desk, striving to make himself as unobtrusive as possible while she paced at the opposite end of the room with the phone pressed to her ear. Her voice, strained and edgy, drifted to him, and he tensed, angered 220
by the resigned submission in her tone.
“Mother, I… Yes, that’s right. I… No, I didn’t stop to consider how my writing music again would make you look to your friends,” she bit out, her voice held the sharp edge of anger fiercely suppressed. “No, Mother… Yes, Mother… I’m well aware of that, I just don’t see why…” Then the silence stretched on. Alex stopped pacing, stood staring at the piano, standing so stiffly Cole feared she might shatter if she took too deep of a breath. Wa
ves of emotion swirled through the room—anger and hurt,
disappointment and regret.
With his extraordinary hearing, he caught snippets of her mother’s portion of the conversation. He blindly balled up the paper in his hand in fury. The woman who should be supporting Alex’s endeavors…encouraging her and praising her…was, instead, condemning Alex for her decisions, selfishly reminding Alex of her failure and embarrassment the last time she’d dragged the Sinclair name through the mud.
Fury seethed through him. He was at her side in a heartbeat. Reaching out, he took the phone from her white-knuckled grip, snapping it closed with a definitive click, just barely restraining himself from crushing the device in his fist. His eyes scanned her face, took in her pale countenance and her miserable eyes, and he could have howled his wrath. Cole cupped the back of her head, drawing her against his chest, absorbing her pain as his own, careful to keep his anger at her mother well contained.
When she withdrew from his embrace, she offered an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t…” he cut her short. “She’s a fool, and I’m here…whenever you need me.” She tilted her head and considered him with 221
something akin to awe in her eyes. Emotions flickered over her face, emotions that sent his good intentions flying right out the window.
Before he could draw her back into his arms, she stepped back, drew a deep breath, and reminded him of his reason for summoning her. “What did you want to see me about?”
Cole’s guilty glance slid to his desk, to the stack of photos, and he cringed inside. How could he tell her about those now, so soon after her own mother had just raked her over the coals.
How could he not, a little voice in the back of his head countered viciously.
And yet, he hesitated.
In the end, he—the fearless Viking warrior—
took the coward’s way out, afraid of pushing her too far. “I only wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Oh,” Alex murmured, her brow wrinkling.
She clearly didn’t believe him. “I… Are you sure that’s all?”
“Yeah, positive,” he replied with a tight-lipped smile, but he turned away, unable to meet her eyes with the lie on his lips. “What else could there be?”
“I’m fine,” she responded after a stilted moment. “Do you need anything else?” Cole retreated to the safety of his desk and shook his head, his eyes lingering on the threatening stack of photos.
“Well, then… Good night, Cole.”
“Night,” he mu
rmured, watching her walk from his study, her shoulders slumping
dejectedly, kicking himself for letting her go without having told her the truth once again.
As Alex opened the door, her sharp gasp brought Cole immediate alert. He was around the desk and halfway across the room before he knew 222
what was wrong.
Tommy stepped into the room, the smile he offered Alex an apologetic and charming smile.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Sinclair. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Cole relaxed, but then frowned. He hadn’t sensed his agent’s approach…in
any
way. Had he been so wrapped up in Alex that someone had actually managed to sneak up on him…so closely? Again? If so, how many times had it happened before? Then he tilted his head and regarded his agent with suspicion. Or was it Tommy in particular? When had he become so stealthy?
And why the hell was he looking at Alex like that? Like she was some goddamned midnight snack…
“Oh, excuse me, Mr. St. James. I didn’t see you there.” Alex mumbled, frowning as she edged around the talent agent.
“You don’t have to leave on my account.” Tommy invited, stepping closer. His eyes fixed on hers with mesmerizing intensity.
Cole growled warning at the poaching agent.
Inexplicably unsettled, he couldn’t resist the urge to get her far, far away from the cocky agent.
“Come in, Tommy. Alex was just leaving.” 223