Midnight Rising (Midnight Breed 4)

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."

Rio scowled at the pretty, peach-freckled face that searched the gloom for him. She reached out as if to find him with her hands now. He recoiled from her sweeping arm, but only barely.

"Do you know what they say in town?" she asked, a note of challenge in her voice now. "They say there's a demon living up here in the mountains."

"Maybe there is."

"I don't believe in demons."

"Maybe you should." Rio stared at her through the overgrown thicket of his hair, hoping the long hanks would conceal the glow of his eyes. "You have to go. Now."

She slowly lifted the backpack she was carrying and held it in front of her like armor. "Do you know anything about this crypt? That's what it is, right - some kind of old crypt and sacrificial chamber? What about the symbols on the walls in here...what are they, some kind of ancient language?"

Rio went very still, very silent. If he thought he could let her simply walk away, she'd just proved him wrong. Bad enough she saw the cave once, now she was back and making assumptions about it that were far too close to the truth. He could not permit her to leave - not with her memory of the place, or of him, intact.

"Give me your hand," he said as gently as he could. "I'll show you the way out of here."

She didn't budge, not that he expected her to obey. "How long have you been living on this mountain? Why do you hide up here? Why won't you let me see you?"

She asked questions one after the other, with an inquisitiveness that bordered on interrogation.

He heard a zipper rasp on her pack.

Ah, hell. If she pulled out another flashlight, he wouldn't have the mental strength to douse it - not when he'd need all his concentration just to scrub her memory.

"Come," he said, a bit more impatiently now. "I'm not going to hurt you."