Kiss of Crimson (Midnight Breed 2)

"Sleep tight, you psychotic son of a bitch!"

* * *

Tess leaped back from her attacker, breath heaving out of her in a raw, rapid pant. She could hardly believe what had just happened to her. Or that she had managed to escape the crazed intruder at all.

Thank God for the tranquilizer, she thought, relieved that she'd had the presence of mind to remember the syringe in her pocket. Not to mention the opportunity to use it. She glanced at the spent needle, still clutched tightly in her hand, and winced.

Shit. She'd plugged him with the entire dose.

No wonder he dropped like a ton of bricks. He wasn't going to be waking up anytime soon either. Eighteen hundred milligrams of animal tranq was one long kiss good night, even for a massive guy like him.

A sudden pang of worry stabbed her.

What if she'd killed him?

Unsure why she should be concerned about someone who seemed bent on tearing her throat out with his teeth just a few minutes ago, Tess inched her way back to where the man lay.

He wasn't moving.

But he was breathing, she was relieved to note.

He was sprawled flat on his back, his muscular arms flung out on the floor where they'd fallen. His hands--those large mitts of brutal strength that had held her in a vise grip as he'd attacked her--were slack and still now. His face, which had been concealed by the fall of his dark hair, was almost handsome at rest.

No, not handsome, because even unconscious, his features held their stark angles and knife-edge planes. Straight black brows cut dark slashes over his closed eyes. His cheekbones were razor sharp, giving the slope of his face a lean, feral quality. His nose might have been perfect at one time, but the strong line of its bridge had a faint jag in it from an old break. Maybe more than one.

There was something strangely compelling about him, although she was certain she didn't know him. He wasn't exactly the kind of guy she'd associate with, and trying to picture him coming into the clinic for pet care seemed absurd.

No, she had never seen him before tonight. She could only pray that once she called the cops to come and collect him, she'd never see him again either.

Tess glanced down, and her gaze caught on the glint of metal concealed beneath his sodden jacket. She moved the leather aside and drew in her breath to see a curved blade of steel sheathed under his arm. An empty holster on the other side seemed to be missing a gun. Other hand-to-hand implements studded a wide black belt that wrapped around his slim hips.

This man was a menace, no doubt about that. Some kind of thug, who made the hard-asses down here on the riverfront look like rank poseurs. This man was hard and deadly, everything about him throwing off an air of violence.

His mouth was the only bit of softness on him. Wide and sensual, lips parted slightly in his drugged state, his mouth was profanely beautiful. The kind of mouth that could wreak havoc on a woman from about a hundred different angles.

Not that Tess was counting. And she hadn't forgotten about those wicked canines either.

Moving cautiously around him despite the heavy dosage of tranquilizer that was swimming through his system, Tess reached out and lifted his upper lip to get a better look at him.

No fangs.

Just a row of perfect pearly whites. If he'd been sporting costume teeth when he attacked her, they'd been pretty damn convincing. Now those huge fangs seemed to have vanished into thin air.

A fact that made no sense at all.

A quick visual scan of the area around her came up empty. He hadn't spat them out somewhere. And she sure as hell hadn't been imagining them.

How else would he have been able to pop her throat open like a soda can? Tess brought her hand up to the bite wound in her neck. The skin felt smooth beneath her fingertips. No blood or stickiness, no trace of the holes he'd chewed into her jugular. She probed the whole side of her neck with her fingers. The area wasn't even tender.

"That's impossible."

Tess got up and hurried into the nearest exam room, flipping on all the lights. Smoothing her hair away from her neck, she walked up to a mounted paper-towel dispenser and peered at her reflection in the polished stainless steel. The skin on her neck was clear, intact.

Like the terrifying attack had never happened.

"No way," she told her stricken expression. "How can that be?"

Tess stepped back from the makeshift mirror, astonished.