"I am sorry for your loss."
"It was a long time ago."
"But the pain is still there. How does one become a hunter? I always thought it was like a rite of passage, passed on from father to son."
"I took classes from a school in Los Angeles." Rigorous classes, she recalled. At the time, she had thought she had learned everything there was to know about vampires—how to detect them, how to render them helpless, how to destroy them. Only after meeting Santiago did she realize she still had a lot to learn. "I passed the test and received my credential as a hunter. A year later, I was hired as an investigator for the police department."
"A test?" he asked, his eyes glinting with wry amusement. "What kind of test?"
"Nothing like what you're thinking," she replied tartly. But close. Students had practiced staking and beheading on dummies that were all too lifelike. Three students had fainted the first time they had to take a head. She prided herself on the fact that she hadn't been one of them.
Santiago looked at her through heavy-lidded eyes, the weight of his gaze like a physical caress as it moved over her face, touching on her lips before moving down to her throat, sliding downward to linger on her br**sts before returning to her lips.
"Ah, Regan," he said, his voice low and enticing, "you have no idea what I'm thinking."
To the contrary, she knew exactly what he was thinking. It was there, in the sudden heat of his eyes, in the lazy sensuality of his voice, in the way his arm tightened around her shoulders.
He laughed softly as her breathing became erratic. "Perhaps I was wrong." He leaned toward her, his intentions clear. "Perhaps you do know."
She stared at him, confused by the conflicting emotions that plagued her. He was a vampire, Nosferatu, Undead. She shouldn't want his kiss or his caress. Why didn't he disgust her the way others of his kind did? Why didn't she find his very existence repulsive? She had met other vampires. They had all been handsome and charming, and yet their very nature had repelled her. She didn't know why Santiago should be any different, but he was. He enchanted her with a look, mesmerized her with a smile, and enraptured her with a kiss. Why was he the exception to the rule?
All her questions and confusion were wiped away when his mouth closed over hers. His tongue seared her lower lip and she opened for him, hungry for the taste of him. Her tongue met his, tentative and uncertain, but only for a moment. Desire unfurled deep within the very innermost part of her, unleashing a shiver of pleasure as he kissed her again, and yet again, each kiss deeper and more intimate than the last. His hand moved up and down her back, massaged her nape, tangled in her hair. His thigh pressed intimately against her own.
There was a roaring in her ears. Images flitted through her mind. Images of the two of them locked in a torrid embrace. Images that were so real, she felt herself blushing.
He drew back, his eyes hot. "Isn't that what you were thinking about?" he asked, his voice husky with desire.
She nodded, her cheeks burning under his probing gaze. She only hoped he didn't know that she had been thinking of something far more intimate than kisses. She took a deep breath. It was time to end this now, before things got entirely out of hand.
Taking another deep breath, she said, "How soon can we go look for the shaman in the Hills?"
His look said he understood her tactics all too well. "We will go to your house tomorrow night so you can pack whatever you need. We will leave the night after that."
"But how… I mean, it's a long way to the Black Hills. What will you do during the day?"
"Sleep, I should imagine."
"But… Are we going to fly?"
"No, drive." He could cover short distances at remarkable speeds, but South Dakota was beyond even his ability. Planes made him claustrophobic. AirTrains and AutoBuses were overcrowded and offered no protection from the sun. Behind the wheel of his own car, he was in control. "There will be motels along the way." He looked at her, his expression sober. "I am trusting that you will watch over me while I rest."
"Watch over you? You don't mean you want me to watch you… sleep?"
"No. Only to stay inside and make sure no one disturbs my resting place."
She didn't like the idea. A blind man could have seen that. But she didn't argue, and he hadn't expected her to. She had a great deal at stake.
They left at dusk two nights later. Regan felt a rush of excitement as Santiago handed her into his car, a sleek black convertible Speedster equipped with every possible luxury one could imagine, and then some.
She sank back in the remarkably soft leather seat as he pulled away from the curb. They were going to look for a shaman who reportedly had a cure for lycanthropy. If they didn't find him, or if they found him and he had no cure, what then? She had asked Santiago to take her life if she turned fanged and furry, but she didn't want to die. She tried to imagine herself as a werewolf, her life revolving around the phases of the moon. She couldn't conceive of such a thing, couldn't picture herself as a wolf, couldn't imagine what it would be like to hunt for prey or to rend human flesh. Who would have thought that her whole life could turn upside down in such a short time? It seemed too bizarre to be real. If only she would wake up and find it had all been a bad dream.
She looked over at Santiago as he pulled onto the highway. "Do you like being a vampire?"
He glanced at her, one brow raised. "Are you thinking of embracing the Dark Trick?"
"No, of course not! I was just wondering…"
"What it is like to be different from the rest of the world? To prey on mankind?"
"Yes." It sounded much worse when it was put into words.
"I have been a vampire far longer than I was a mortal man," he said. "I scarcely remember my other life."
"If you could choose, would you rather be a vampire or a werewolf?"
"A vampire, to be sure."
Glancing out the window, Regan considered the similarities and differences between the two. Werewolves were ruled by the pull of the moon; vampires were repelled by the sun. Both killed indiscriminately. Both had remarkable powers of regeneration and healing. Both were, for all intents and purposes, immortal. But werewolves were living creatures. Vampires were not.
She looked at Santiago again. "Doesn't it bother you, that you're… you know? Dead."
"Do I look dead?" he asked, a note of amusement in his voice.
"No, but…"