As Twilight Falls

But they didn’t need to be killed. In a way, they were already dead, sealed off from the rest of the world. How long before her parents stopped looking for her? So many people disappeared these days, never to be seen or heard from again. In time, they were declared dead and life went on.

Kadie had always felt sorry for the people left behind who never knew what had happened to their loved ones. Did they ever really get over the loss? Ever find any kind of closure? And now she was missing.

Tears stung her eyes as she imagined her father holding back his own tears while he comforted her mother and sister. No doubt they had all imagined the worst, she thought with a bitter smile. But they never would have imagined anything like this place.

She felt a growing sense of anticipation with the coming of nightfall, but again, there was no sign of Saintcrow. Had he left town? Buried himself in the earth again?

She told herself she was better off without him. He was a vampire, a monster. For all she knew, he was the one who had killed Leslie. In his time, he had probably killed hundreds—maybe thousands—of men and women. Perhaps even children.

Her grim thoughts weighed down on her, thick and oppressive, as did the silence, which always seemed worse at night. She dropped a DVD into the player, but couldn’t seem to focus on the movie. Canned conversation did nothing to make her feel less alone.

The house felt empty without him.

The house. Sitting up, she glanced at the staircase. She had only given the house a cursory look.

Rising, she tiptoed up the stairs, then laughed at herself. Why was she being so quiet? There was no one else here.

She went into the first bedroom. She ran her hands over the walls, looking for cleverly disguised levers that would reveal hidden stairways or secret doors, but to no avail.

She bypassed her room and explored the other three. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. Disappointed, she returned to the first floor. In the movies, old houses like this always had concealed passageways. And sometimes a bolt hole. Was he hiding in some hidden closet?

She frowned, then glanced around the living room. There could be a door behind the bookcase, only it was too heavy for her to move. Maybe the fireplace. It was big enough to hold a horse. She pressed one brick after another, hoping to find a hidden lever that would lead to a secret room.

“Looking for something?”

Kadie whirled around at the sound of his voice, a guilty flush climbing up her neck into her cheeks. “Yes, if you must know. I was looking for you.”

“Looking for me?” One brow arched inquisitively. “In the fireplace?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Where have you been?”

“Don’t change the subject. What were you really looking for?”

“A way out.”

“Are we back to that again? I was hoping you’d finally resigned yourself to staying here.”

“That’s never going to happen. I don’t have the luxury of hundreds of years. I only have one short lifetime, and I want to go back home and live it.”

“I’m sorry, Kadie, but you’ll never see your home again, so you might as well accept that fact and move on.”

“That’s not fair! My family and my friends will never know what happened to me! How can you be so cruel? And what about Marti? And the others? They all had lives before they came here. You have no right to keep us against our will!”

She was crying now, her shoulders shaking, her tears coming faster and faster.

Saintcrow swore under his breath, moved by her tears in spite of himself. The others had cried, too, but he’d been immune to their pleas. He was a vampire. As such, he lived outside the rules of humanity. He scarcely remembered what it was like to be human, subject to pain, sickness, fear, and death. Family life was only a faint memory, but it surfaced now. He’d had a wife once. She had died two years after their marriage, and their daughter with her. He had never loved Eleanor, but he had grieved for the loss of his child.

“Dammit.” He drew Kadie roughly into his arms.

Stiff as a board, she endured his embrace, her tears subsiding at the touch of his hand lightly stroking her back, the brush of his lips on the top of her head. His chest was rock hard beneath her cheek. He drew her closer, his thigh pressing against hers.

She looked up at him. His eyes were dark with an emotion that might have been guilt, but before she could be sure, his mouth covered hers, chasing away every thought, swamping her senses, until there was only Saintcrow, his strong arms holding her tight, his whiskey-soft voice murmuring her name as he kissed her again and again.

What was he doing to her? Standing on her tiptoes, she twined her arms around his neck, every part of her yearning toward him, wanting to be closer, closer.

She was drowning in a world of sensation. His lips caressed her neck and she turned her head to the side, granting him access, wanting to give him everything she had, everything she was.

“Kadie, forgive me, but I can’t let you go.”

Let her go? That was the last thing she wanted. She was repulsed by what he was and yet some part of her was attracted to the man he must have been before he became a vampire.

His fangs scraped lightly over her skin and then, with a low groan, he gave in to the need coursing through him.

She moaned softly, her body sagging against his as the world went red. There was no pain and, oddly, no fear, only a remarkably sensual euphoria. She closed her eyes, drifting, falling into velvet blackness that threatened to sweep her away into oblivion.

“Dammit!” Saintcrow knew a moment of genuine fear when she went limp. He scooped her into his arms and carried her to the sofa. Sitting down, he brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek, cursing himself for his weakness. Her face was pale, her breathing shallow, her heartbeat slow and labored. What the hell was he thinking, to drink from her like that? He could have killed her, but never, in nine hundred years, had anything tasted so good, pleased him so much, satisfied him so well.

Biting into his own wrist, he dipped his finger into the blood and slid it past her lips. He repeated it several times, until the color returned to her cheeks, her heartbeat grew stronger.

He stroked her cheek with his fingertips. Her skin was as soft as down, her hair like silk. It grieved him that she was unhappy here even as he fought down an irrational rush of jealousy for everyone she had known before she came to Morgan Creek. He begrudged her every minute she had spent with anyone else, every second of life she had lived before they met.

Bending, he brushed her lips with his, then jerked his head back, his eyes narrowing. Had she had a lover? The thought was beyond bearing. She was his. No other would have her. He would rip the heart out of any man who touched her.