His Dark Embrace

Booting up the computer, she sat down, and began to write.

Dear Sam~

You’re not going to believe this, but I’m in love with a vampire.

Stop laughing. It’s true, and he’s a real vampire and you know him. Are you ready for this? It’s Kaiden Thorne! Okay, you can laugh now. I have to wonder, though. All those years ago when we went trick-or-treating at his house, did you really know what he was? And if you knew, how did you have the nerve to go there in the first place?

I don’t know where our relationship is headed, or how long it will last. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, that I love him, fangs and all (ha-ha). Of course, we’re going to have problems. All couples do. I guess the biggest one is that I’ll get old and he won’t. I don’t know what to do about that one.

Or children. I don’t know if he even wants them ...

Her fingers stilled on the keys. They hadn’t used any precautions. She could be pregnant even now. Lordy, if she had a baby, would it be half vampire? Would she have to feed it blood and keep it out of the sun? Would it be born with fangs? Ouch!

Her letter forgotten, she went to look out the window again.

Kaiden rose with the setting of the sun. In spite of his eagerness to see Skylynn, he took time to shower and wash his hair. The luxury of hot running water was something that he never took for granted, not even after 471 years. He knew a lot of vampires lived in the past, lamenting the loss of the eras they had known, but Thorne wasn’t one of them. There was little of his old life that he missed. Given the choice, he much preferred the conveniences of the twenty-first century—fast cars, hot water whenever he wanted it, flush toilets. He remembered all too well the stink of bedpans and water closets, of people who rarely bathed. But the humans of today, ah, most of them smelled sweet indeed.

And Skylynn was the sweetest of them all.

Drying off, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a black sweatshirt. The clothes of today suited him far better than the garments of four hundred years ago. They were more comfortable and certainly easier to care for.

And easier to get women out of.

Grinning, he pulled on his boots and left the house, wondering how long it would take to get Sky Blue undressed and into bed.

Chapter 25

He fought down his terror as one of his captors dropped a thick black hood over his head. With his hands lashed behind his back, there was no way to defend himself. In any case, he had no hope of defeating four men armed with enough weapons to start a small war.

Someone poked him in the back and he stumbled forward. Where were they taking him? Fear coiled in the pit of his stomach like a snake ready to strike. He had seen news coverage of Americans being beheaded. Was that to be his fate?

He swallowed hard as unseen hands lifted him into the back of what he thought was a truck. He heard the sounds of shuffling feet, had the sense that he wasn’t the only prisoner there. When he started to speak, someone—one of the guards?—punched him in the stomach. The low rumble of an engine and the vehicle lurched forward, bouncing over the rough terrain.

Bowing his head, he tried to pray, but he didn’t remember any prayers. He didn’t know if he had ever been a praying man, didn’t know what, if anything, he believed. Didn’t know if there was anyone, other than himself, he should pray for.

It was stifling under the hood. The truck wasn’t enclosed and the desert sun beat down on his head, shoulders, and back. Sweat beaded across his brow and dripped down his neck. How long had they been traveling? How long before they stopped? What would happen when his captors reached their destination?

Questions pounded in his head as the miles slipped by and his fear and frustration grew. Where the hell was he? How had he gotten there? Where were they going?

And why couldn’t he remember who he was?

Chapter 26

Skylynn was putting the last of her dinner dishes in the dishwasher when the doorbell rang. She closed the appliance’s door with a bang, then hurried into the front room. At last, the sun was down and Kaiden was here!

Butterflies were going crazy in her stomach as she unlocked the door. “Kaiden, why are you ringing the ... You!” She stared at Desmarais in horror. Momentarily stunned, she seemed to have lost the power to think or act and then, too late, she tried to shut the door in his face.

When his foot kept it from closing all the way, she took a deep breath. He was a vampire. He couldn’t come inside without an invitation, something he had apparently forgotten. She almost laughed at his look of surprise when he tried to cross the threshold and couldn’t. It was one of the most amazing things Sky had ever seen. Try as he might, he couldn’t get in. Each time he tried, she felt a tremor in the air, like an invisible electric current.

He stared at her, his eyes filled with malevolence. She was sure it was her imagination, but it was almost as if he was trying to hypnotize her.

Let me in.

She heard his voice in her mind, growing stronger, more insistent. Some instinct she didn’t even know she possessed warned her not to look into his eyes.

Crying, “No!” she tore her gaze from his.

Swearing vociferously, Desmarais turned on his heel and vanished from sight.

Skylynn sagged against the doorjamb. Waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal, she thought about the strange tremor she’d felt when Desmarais tried to enter the house. It was the same vibration she had experienced last night when Kaiden tried to enter the house. He had looked at her askance.

“What’s wrong?” she had asked, wondering why he didn’t come in.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t?” She had stared at him in confusion. “Why not?”

“You tell me.”

It had taken her a moment to realize what he meant, and then she remembered she had revoked her invitation. “You really can’t come in?”

He shook his head.

“How does that work? What keeps you out?”

“Thresholds have mystical power.”

“But all buildings have thresholds.”

“It’s only effective in homes, to protect the inhabitants. It doesn’t work in places of business, only where people live.”

“So, it’s like some invisible force field?”

“That’s as good an explanation as any.”

“Amazing.”

“So?”

She had grinned up at him. “Mr. Thorne, won’t you please come inside?”

Sky was still standing in the open doorway, bemused by the whole can’t-cross-the-threshold-without-an-invitation thing, when Kaiden walked up the porch steps.