Wolfsbane and Mistletoe (Charlaine Harris) (Kitty Norville 2.50)

I glanced at the surrounding gravestones, my heart pounding rapidly and the taste of fear in my mouth. I might have faced more than my fair share of bad guys over the years, but I was still human. Humans were easy kills for vampires, even one as well trained as me.

God, Brodie, where are you?

Why had he left me alone? Why hadn't he sensed that our other watcher was still out there? Or had his anger at me being attacked blocked out awareness of everything else?

I blew out a breath, and tried to remain calm. But my knuckles practically glowed with the force of my grip on the stake, and every sense I had was tuned in the direction of the thing that still watched.

Still oozed an evil that was making my senses and stomach squirm.

I rose and walked around the body, heading for the tractor, to make sure we didn't have another victim waiting to be uncovered in the cabin.

I didn't get more than five steps when I sensed the approach of evil. Before I could react, he hit from behind, smashing my face into the ground. Suddenly all I could breathe was dirt, and the panic that had already been stirring surged to new heights. I struggled with all my might, but a hand against the back of my head pressed me down harder. A scream rose up my throat, but it had nowhere to go, echoing through my mind instead.

And then his free hand was on me, tearing at my clothes, caressing my skin, his flesh cold and clammy and horrid. I shuddered, fighting his touch, fighting him, with all my might, twisting and kicking and punching backward.

He chuckled. A heated, lusty, and totally evil sound.

Clothes tore. His fingers forced themselves underneath me, groping for a breast. I shuddered, fighting nausea and feeling more and more desperate for air.

Stake, I thought, and groped blindly around me. My hand brushed against wood, and I grasped it frantically, my fingers tightening around it spasmodically as I lifted my arm and stabbed backward with all the strength I had left.

I hit flesh, felt it give way. He roared in pain and jerked away. Not getting off, but giving me the freedom to move. To breathe. I gulped down air, my whole body shuddering with the effort.

"Bitch!" The sound rode the air, harsh and forced. "For that, I will do you slowly, and then I shall let my brother suck you dry. No easy death for you, little girl. "

"Your brother is dead," came a voice so flat, so deadly and so damn cold that for a moment I didn't even recognize that it was Brodie's, "as you soon will be. "

Then the weight was off me, and I could move. I forced my trembling limbs into action and pushed up, the now-bloody stake still in my hand as I swung around.

Brodie's powerful fingers were around the neck of a thickset man, and he was holding him off the ground by a good six inches or so. That took more strength than I could ever imagine anyone owning, but he didn't even seem to be exerting himself.

The only sign of effort was in the whiteness of his fingers. Fingers that were ever-so-slowly squeezing the life out of my attacker.

No quick death intended there, whatever he might have said.

"Brodie - "

"No one attacks you and lives," he cut in, his gaze not leaving the thickset man's. "No one. "

There wasn't only anger in his voice, but possessiveness. It was the wolf speaking, and the wolf was protecting what belonged to him.

Me.

Normally that knowledge would have made my heart dance, but such a reaction seemed out of place when he was intent on slowly strangling his quarry in the middle of a graveyard. And the fact that this vamp entirely deserved it was beside the point.

"Damn it, Brodie, kill him quickly. You're not him. I don't want you to be like him, or any of the others we kill. " Didn't want him to enjoy it, as the protector within undoubtedly was.

His fingers moved, and a loud crack ran across the night. The vamp went limp, and Brodie released him, letting him drop to the ground like so much rubbish.

"God, I'm sorry," he said, his voice soft and suddenly weary as he turned to face me. And the pain in his eyes, the fear still etched in his face, made my heart ache. "I'm so damn sorry - "

I didn't let him finish. I ran into his embrace. Felt his arms wrap around me and hold me so tight. Arms that were trembling more than I was.

"It's okay, I'm here, I'm safe. "

"I thought my stupidity had taken you from me a second time. " His breath whispered heat past my ear. "I felt your fear echo through me. The thought of a life without you in it hit me, and I panicked. I can't live without you, Hannah. I don't want to live without you. "

I broke free of his fierce grip, and stared into the glory of his green eyes. Seeing the honesty there. Seeing the love. Wanting to return it twofold, but still trapped by the hurt of Christmas past. "Yet you walked away for a year. I can't just forget that, Brodie. " And while I might have told him I didn't want a reason, that was a total lie.