Midnight Rising (Midnight Breed 4)

Or was there...?

No sooner had she thought it than the thin stream of light shooting up to the ledge began to flicker. It dimmed steadily, then went utterly dark.

"Shit," Dylan whispered low under her breath. She banged the barrel on her palm a couple of times before somewhat frantically attempting to turn the damn thing on again. Despite fresh batteries installed before she left the States, the light was dead. "Shit, shit, shit."

Engulfed in total blackness, Dylan felt the first twinge of unease.

When she heard the scrape of rock overhead, every nerve in her body went tense. There was a long beat of silence, followed by the sudden crunch of booted feet hitting solid earth as whoever - or whatever - had been hiding in the shadows above now dropped to the floor of the cave beside her.

She smelled like juniper and honey and warm summer rain. But beneath all that was a sudden, citrusy spike of adrenaline now that he was near her. Rio circled the woman in the dark of the cave, seeing her perfectly while she stumbled in the abrupt lack of light. Her feet carried her backward...only to connect with a wall of stone at her spine.

"Damn it."

She swallowed audibly, pivoting to try another tack, then swore again as her useless flashlight slipped out of her fingers and clinked on the hard floor of the cave. Rio had burned precious energy in mentally extinguishing the device. Manipulating objects by thought was a simple Breed talent, but in his current weakened state, Rio didn't know how long he could hold it.

"Um, you're probably not in the mood for company," the woman said, her eyes wide in the darkness as they darted left and right, trying to locate him. "So, I'm just going to leave now, okay? Just gonna...walk right out of here." A nervous moan caught in her throat. "God, please, where is the frigging way out of this place?"

She took a step to the right, edging along the cavern wall. Away from the exit, although Rio saw no point in telling her that just yet. He kept moving, trailing her deeper into the cave, trying to decide what to do with his repeat intruder. When he'd first awakened, startled to find he was still alive and not alone, he'd reacted on instinct - a vulnerable beast fleeing to the safety of the shadows.

But then she'd started talking to him.

Coaxing him out, even though she could not have known how dangerous a proposition that really was. He was furious and half-mad in the head, a deadly enough combination on its own, but being near the female now reminded him that even though he was broken, he was still very much male.

To his marrow, he was still Breed.

Rio breathed in more of the female's scent, finding it hard to resist touching her pale, rain-dampened skin. Hunger flooded him - hunger he hadn't known for some long time. His fangs surged from his gums, the sharp points jabbing the soft flesh of his tongue. He was careful to keep his eyelids low over his eyes, knowing the topaz-colored irises would soon be awash in the glow of fiery amber, his pupils thinning to vertical slits as the thirst for blood rose in him.

That she was young and beautiful only deepened his desire to taste her. He wanted to touch her...

He flexed his hands, then fisted them at his sides.

Manos del diablo.

He could hurt her with those hands. The strength given him by his vampire genes was immense, but it was Rio's other skill - the terrible talent he'd been born with - that could do the most damage here. With a centered thought and a simple touch, he could draw away human life in an instant. Once he'd come to understand his power, Rio had managed it with judicious, rigid control. Now anger ruled his deadly gift, and the blackouts he suffered since the warehouse explosion had made it impossible for him to trust himself not to do harm.

It was part of the reason he'd left the Order, and part of his eventual decision to stop hunting for blood. The Breed seldom, if ever, killed their human Hosts while feeding; that was all that separated them from the worst of vampire kind, the Rogues. It was the blood-addicted Rogues who knew no better, who had so little control.

As Rio stared with feral, thirsting eyes at the woman who'd wandered into his hellish domain, fear of losing control with her was the thing that kept him at heel.

That, and the simple fact that she'd been kind to him.

Unafraid, if only because she couldn't see the beast he really was.

She gave up on following the wall and moved toward the center of the small cave. Rio stood right behind her now, so close the curling ends of her flame-red hair brushed his ragged shirt. That springy strand of silk tempted him sorely, but Rio kept his hands at his sides. He closed his eyes, wishing he had stayed on the ledge above. Then she might still be talking to him, not stiff and panting with rising anxiety.

"You shouldn't be here," he said finally, his voice a rough growl in the darkness.

She sucked in a quick breath, spinning around as soon as her ear had triangulated his location. She backed away, retreating from him again. Rio should have been glad for that.

"You do speak English," she said after a long moment. "But your accent...you're not American?"

He saw no reason to say otherwise. "You are, evidently."

"What is this place? What are you doing up here?"

"You need to leave now," he told her. The words sounded thick to him, hard to push out of his mouth for the obstruction of his extruded fangs. "You're not safe here."

Silence hung between them as she weighed the warning. "Let me see you."