Her instincts were veering in a new direction without her permission. Fright speared through her. “Nei,” she rasped. “Nei.” She didn’t want this...whatever it was.
Did she?
An odd sensation, like pins and needles, tingled over the palm of her left hand. She involuntarily squeezed his hand, and his fingers wrapped around hers.
“Nei,” she moaned again. “Ver så snill.” Please.
A whimper, like the sound of an animal in pain, sounded against her throat. His muscles erupted in tremors. With a grunt, his lips released her skin. Curses and yelling echoed off the buildings around them as his tongue dragged over the spot where she’d been bitten, spreading a relieving balm. The flesh there suddenly felt less raw.
He flew back from her. No, dragged. He’d been pulled away. A man stood behind him, arm tight around his neck. Roughly, he hauled him across the open parking space and forced him facedown against the hood of the next car, arms pinned at an almost bone-breaking angle behind his back.
Yet he didn’t resist. He didn’t fight back.
As she watched the bizarre events unfold, twin reactions coursed through her—relief at the rescue, and worry for the vampire that had seconds before drank from her throat. Protectiveness, even.
Why she should feel the least sympathy for him, she couldn’t begin to explain, but she also couldn’t deny the feeling. Nor the fact that her body was more aroused than she could last remember.
Kaira slid down the door of the van until her butt hit the bumper. Shaking so hard she thought for sure there must be an earthquake, she braced her bare feet against the pavement to keep from outright falling. With one hand, she struggled to force the lapels of her coat together. A whirlwind of confusion filled her mind.
God, everything hurt—her head, her throat, her arms, her very skin. The list went on.
Movement in her peripheral vision. A man eased down off the sidewalk with his hands raised—the younger guy she’d seen in the gallery earlier, the one who had yanked Jakob from the room.
“I just want to help you,” he said.
Problem was, Kaira was experiencing something of a mind-to-body disconnect at the moment, and she couldn’t manage to formulate a response. She just stared at him, her eyes watching and assessing his every movement.
“I know what you’re thinking.” He took two slow steps until he stood directly in front of her, blocking her view of the scene on the hood of the car.
“Not...possible. Since I...don’t even know.”
He slipped out of the beat-up black leather coat he wore, leaving himself in only a hooded sweatshirt. “Ja, you do. You’ve been bitten twice. You know what you’ve seen, even if you’re trying to convince yourself it’s not true.” Keeping his bright blue eyes on hers, he held the coat out to her. “Slip your arms in. It will keep you warmer. You’re probably in shock.”
The tips of two longer teeth occasionally appeared as he spoke. He was right, she did know what she’d seen. Vampires. Five of them, no less. It was like she’d stepped out of the gallery and into an alternate universe. She glanced at the coat and shook her head.
The leather sagged in his hand. “Change your mind, you just say.” He glanced over his shoulder. “How’s it goin’ over there?”
Low voices fired back and forth for a moment, as if the pair by the car was arguing. Finally, one of them replied, “Fine, but he’s insisting I not let him up.”
“Do what he says.”
“Is Jakob okay?” she whispered, half hating herself for caring. Half dying to know.
The blond in front of her turned back and frowned. “Jakob?”
She nodded, gesturing to the other men, er, vampires.
“I’m Jakob.”
Dizziness washed over her. She clearly had no idea what the hell was going on. “I asked his name...before...at the gallery. He said Jakob.”
Jakob—the real Jakob, apparently—tilted his head. “I think he was calling me, not answering you.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “My brother’s name is Henrik.”
Brother?
Her feet totally numb from the icy ground, Kaira felt her knees turning to mush. The earlier fever returned with a vengeance, whipping through her like a flash fire. Way she felt, she couldn’t process all these details. There was only one thing she wanted—needed—to know. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Nei.”
He said it so plainly, so matter-of-factly, that something inside told her to believe it.
The smallest sense of safety returned to her and right behind it came a tsunami of post-adrenaline letdown. “Help,” she said a split second before her legs gave out.