His Dark Embrace

“I’m sorry, Sky Blue,” he said quietly, but it was a lie. The thought of her with another man was like acid in his gut.

She blew out a sigh, then smiled wistfully. “I guess I’ll just have to keep looking for Mr. Right.” She laughed softly. “A nightclub probably isn’t the best place to go looking for a man who’s interested in a serious relationship.”

“Is that what you’re looking for?”

“I don’t know. I guess so. I’m not getting any younger.”

“None of us are,” he murmured.

“What about you? You weren’t married when you lived here before. Has that changed?”

“No.”

“You’ve never married?”

“I never found a woman who could put up with me.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t seem that hard to get along with, although you did scare me half to death one Halloween night.”

“I remember. I’m sorry about that.”

“You should be. I had nightmares for weeks.”

Thorne chuckled softly. He recalled that night all too well. He hadn’t meant to frighten her; he had, in fact, thought it was a couple of teenage boys who had been harassing him earlier in the evening. He would never forget the look of horror on Sky’s face when he opened the door, his eyes red, his fangs bared.

“Even after Granda assured me that vampires didn’t exist, and even after you came over and showed me those fake plastic fangs and red contacts, I still woke up screaming.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“It’s all right,” she said, laughing. “But you sure know how to make an impression on a girl.”

“Hardly the kind I want to make when the girl is as lovely as you.”

His soft-spoken words, the smoldering heat in his dark eyes, stilled Sky’s laughter. A sudden rush of warmth crept up her neck and into her cheeks as a giddy wave of pleasure swept through her.

“Forgive me,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, I’m flattered.”

He arched one brow. “But?”

“It just seems odd for us to be on an equal footing, that’s all. I always thought of you as being so much older than I am, but ...” She tilted her head to the side. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Thirty-nine.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Really? You haven’t aged a day since I saw you last.”

“Comes of living a good clean life and having excellent genes, I suppose.”

“Hmm, I guess that would explain it,” she replied thoughtfully. “Some people never seem to look any older.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Well, Granda said he wanted to find the secret to eternal life... .”

Thorne laughed softly. “And you think he found it and gave it to me?”

She laughed, too. “It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, doesn’t it?”

“Well, you can’t blame him for trying. Most people would give anything to be immortal, or at least young forever.”

“Maybe. I don’t know,” she said, her brow furrowed. “Would you want to live forever?”

“Definitely,” he replied. “If I could spend eternity with you.”

His words pleased her as much as they surprised her. Sure, she’d had a teenage crush on him, and there was no denying that he was still drop-dead handsome, but she had never seriously considered him in a romantic way. At least, not until now.

Her cheeks grew warm as his gaze moved over her. There was no mistaking the look in his eyes.

He wanted her.

There was no mistaking the excited flutter in the pit of her stomach, either.

The one that meant she wanted him.

Chapter 2

Afraid his self-control was weakening, Thorne pushed his chair away from the table. “Perhaps I should go.”

Sky stared at him, her thoughts scattering like leaves in a high wind. She didn’t want him to go, but she wasn’t sure she wanted him to stay. Maybe she had misread the heat in the depths of his dark eyes. Maybe she was imagining things that weren’t there.

He stood, his gaze meeting hers. “Thank you for lunch.”

“Please, stay.” The words spilled out before she could stop them. “I looked around in Granda’s lab today.”

Thorne dropped back into his chair. He couldn’t leave now, not until he heard what she had to say. “And?”

“I didn’t find anything that looked like a recipe or a formula for a drink. Do you have any of it left?”

“A small amount.”

“Why don’t you just have it analyzed?”

“I tried that. It contains a number of herbs and roots in varying amounts.” He’d had the potion analyzed by several different scientists. Each time, the report had been the same.

“Like what, for instance?”

“Fennel, sage, lavender, absinthe, rosemary, yarrow, bloodroot, henbane—”

“Henbane!” Sky shook her head. “You must be mistaken. That’s poisonous.”

Thorne shrugged. “Perhaps one of the other ingredients counteracts it.”

“So, if you know what’s in it, why do you need the formula? Can’t they just duplicate it?”

“No. There’s another ingredient in it, something none of them have been able to identify.”

“That’s odd.”

“Perhaps I could help you go through Paddy’s files. I might be able to find something you’ve missed.”

“Sure, if you want. Just let me clear the dishes.”

Minutes later, Thorne followed Skylynn down the basement stairs to Paddy McNamara’s lab. Thorne had been there before on numerous occasions, had sat in a chair, hands and feet bound with silver, while Paddy experimented with one concoction after another until, miraculously, the old man had found one that worked.

Thorne raked a hand through his hair. Paddy must have written the formula down somewhere. Dammit, he must have!

While Sky went through her grandfather’s journals, Thorne sat at the old man’s computer and went through the files. As Thorne had feared, it was a waste of time. None of the files were password protected. None of them contained the information he was looking for.

Thorne glanced over his shoulder at Skylynn. “Did Paddy have an external hard drive or a jump drive?”

“Not that I know of. He only used his computer for research and correspondence. He never kept any of his important stuff on it. He said it was too easy to hack into computer files.”