Courted by the Vampire (2 page)

“It is not important how I know.” He shrugged. A tiny grin lifted the
corners of his mouth. “I used the patio door as an entry point.”

A coil of fear wound its way up the base of her spine, cold and joyless. She
’d just locked that door so how did he get in... unless. Of course he couldn’t materialize through walls. That thought alone terrified her, but the more urgent issue was what did she do with him now? He paced around her small living room, his attitude a mix of rampant boredom and barely restrained excitement.

“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? Or better yet, why don’t you
leave, maybe send me an email? I don’t appreciate being stalked, and I have to warn you I’m a fairly loud screamer.” She scanned the immediate area for a weapon. Would she be able to fend off an attack with an extendable duster?

“I am hardly stalking you, Hannah Weybourne.”

“How did you know my last name?” Her nerve endings tingled. She sat down at the edge of the recliner to glare at the man then frowned at the fresh mud stains on her beige carpet. “I guess bounty hunters don’t wipe their feet.”

He ignored her sarcastic comment. “Your name is symmetrical, a
palindrome.” His statement brooked no further conversation. “It is the same forward and back. It is good luck.”

His formal
speech pattern was an annoyance, but now he had a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder on top of it all? Hannah mentally rolled her eyes. “What do you want, and so help me if you make another move, I’ll beat you senseless with this.” She pulled a small, handheld vacuum from its resting place behind the sofa and brandished it before her like a sword as her heart raced.

“I will not harm you
.” The tiny grin vanished as he took a seat on the sofa.

“What do you want?” She dropped the small vacuum in favor of her
purse. “You’ve got ten seconds to tell me or I’ll call the police.” She scrabbled in her bag for her cell phone. She couldn’t locate it quickly enough for her peace of mind and knew it had probably slipped to the bottom.

“You will accompany me to see the Witch of the North Forest.”

“Who?” Her cell forgotten, she gawked at him. “I will do no such thing. Besides, I don’t believe in witches.” His unexpected presence at the bookstore had dredged up hidden memories, and made her second guess herself. She knew other worldly beings did exist. It didn’t matter if a person believed in them. They were still true. “And even if I did, there aren’t any forests around here.” Her initial fear began to fade the longer she talked with him. Yes, he was a stranger, but something about his eyes gave her pause, a hidden gentleness maybe.

“It does not interest me whether you believe in the magical world or not.
You will come with me.” He rose to his feet, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Hannah tried to resist his gaze, but he had some sort of magnetism about
him that compelled her to stare into those icy blue depths as he took another two steps toward her. “I think we need to talk about that.”

She
’d had the chance to look directly into a whirlpool once while her family went on a sailing trip. As she peered into Edwin’s eyes, she experienced the same sort of hypnotic effect. She fell into the blue depths with a mixture of excitement and exhilaration. Hannah gasped for air, tore her gaze from his only to have it land on the dimple on his left cheek. Why didn’t he have a matching dimple in the other cheek? That dimple was definitely going to pose a problem. She had a weakness for them. “Who are you?”

With a frustrated sigh, Edwin extended his right hand. The plain band on
his fourth finger caught a flash of light. “I am Edwin Mason. My family has been in the vampire hunting business for the last two centuries. I need your help.”

Against her better judgment,
she shook his hand, startled when her fingers tingled where they’d touched his. Carefully controlled power originated from deep within him. It had been a very long time since she’d felt something even remotely similar, and it had never occurred since she moved to this tiny town. “Why me? Why search for me?” She swallowed past the lump of anxiety in her throat. “I’m nobody.”

“You have been chosen because you possess a supernatural ability. Your
grandmother refers to it as a Gift. You have distinctive talents of the mind, but you are afraid of that power.”

“No, that’s not true.” She wished she could stick her fingers in her ears
and not hear what would probably be a long discussion on what she tried to keep bottled deep inside.

“It is. In fact, you are an energy conduit of sorts, a power enhancer if you
will.”

“You’re wrong.” Denial had always worked well. No reason not to stick
with it now.

“Because of your unique ability, you are in grave danger—not only in the
paranormal world, but also in this one. I suspect your grandmother told you to never tell anyone of your power because then people would hunt you all over again.”

“I…
I do move around a lot.” She refused to admit his words as the truth.

That part of her was long gone.

“That is cowardly of you. People with paranormal ability will always be drawn to each other, especially when they know what you are.” He drew a small leather-bound book from a pocket of his jeans. As he flipped it open, he flashed a wallet-sized photo. “This is your grandmother, correct?”

Her gut clenched when she recognized the gray
-haired woman in the picture. Around her neck, she wore the same pendant that now rested around Hannah’s. “Yes.” Cold sweat trickled down her back.

“The family resemblance is unmistakable. She once commanded the same
power that you do, which spurred her protectiveness. It is commendable on her part; however, even she knows destiny will always find its way.” He pocketed the slim volume. “No further information is needed. We must go.”

“No.” Hannah shook her head, her common sense finally kicking in. She
sprang from the chair to pace the room. Her stomach churned. “I don’t have this Gift. You’re mistaken. Things like that oftentimes skip a generation. Possibly, even two generations, who can say?” Her laugh was tight and forced. “Genetics are a funny thing.”

She needed to get away from him. Obviously, he was dangerous. People
like him just didn’t break into houses and raise kittens on the side. Fear clogged her throat until she thought she’d choke. She couldn’t be associated with the paranormal world. Not again.

His sigh was barely audible. “You cannot deny that which is within you,
Hannah.”

As he
approached, the energy in the air hummed between them. “I don’t have a special talent or anything else for that matter, so you can just leave.” Closing her eyes, she bit the inside of her lip and wished he would go away. She hoped he was a gorgeous bad dream.

He wasn’t. He was still there when she opened her eyes.

“You do. It is for that reason I needed to find you. I do not know why you deny the truth.”

Hannah shook her head then attempted to skirt around the enigmatic
man. He laid a strong hand on her arm that stopped her cold. “Fine. I might have some powers,” she conceded, reluctant to meet his gaze. “I don’t understand them, and I don’t want to. My Gramma tried to train me to strengthen them, but my mom freaked out and we moved away.” She jerked her arm from his grip and scuttled to the far side of the room. “When I was brave enough to mess around with my ability, someone got hurt. Almost killed, in fact. I will
not
put another person in jeopardy.”

“You must learn how to use your power properly. It is not a toy or parlor
entertainment. If you consent to join me, I will teach you how to harness yourself as an enhancement conductor and when necessary, meld those powers with my own.” He crossed the cozy room then drew her to the sofa and sat beside her. “My great-grandfather was a vampire with recessed tendencies. He possessed a soul and fangs but ultimately he was only a gene carrier. He would, on occasion, drink blood and become sensitive to sunlight. Most popular fiction is untrue. Vampires do mix freely through society, and they hold normal, mundane jobs.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And?”
She scooted down the length of the sofa, glad to get away from his warmth. “Is there more?” There was always more.

Edwin sighed. “As my family progressed, more and more human genetics
mixed into the bloodline. The family hoped those dark genes would remain dormant.” The grin he turned on her almost knocked her over with its sheer brilliance. What would it feel like to bask in a smile with the full wattage? “As you can probably surmise, some of those genes have surfaced in me.”

By that time, one sofa cushion separated them. “I’m sorry for your bad
luck, but you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

He
ran a hand over his face in apparent exhaustion then scratched his stubble-covered cheek with elegant fingers. “I am contracted to track a rogue vampire named Duncan. For whatever reason, he has killed several people and will require prosecution. I need your help to find him. If, for some reason, he is beyond rehabilitation, he will have to be dispatched.”

Hannah’s hand shook as she raked her fingers through her hair.
“Dispatched as in killed?”

“Yes. However, recently, I have been aware of other, more powerful
disturbances through the paranormal world and cannot ascertain whom or what is responsible. This troubles me.”

“What does? The fact you haven’t found the source or that you can’t?”
Anxiety roiled in her stomach, and doubled in intensity as he stared at her, unblinking. Ranking at the top of her class in college hadn’t prepared her for banter with paranormal beings. “If you’re a hunter, don’t you already possess the skills to track this Duncan person?” Nervousness skittered through her chest. “Why do you need me?”

He assumed an air of a parent explaining a relatively simple concept to a
child for the third time. “As I explained before, my vampire genes are too diluted. If a vampire or other being’s bloodline is true, they can elude me quite easily. I can sense when they are in the general vicinity. I am able to use telepathic power to subdue them. I have the ability to neutralize a weakened vampire or any other being I track. You have a specific Gift and you possess certain other paranormal skills that are useful to me.”

“That doesn’t help me.” Paranormal skills. She curled her fingers into fists
until her nails bit into her palms. “I refuse to open myself up to that again.”

“Let me put it in the simplest terms I can. Pretend someone is an
electronic device that runs on batteries. That device can only do so much on its limited power. Now, imagine that you happen to walk by that person and suddenly, the small power they harness is multiplied a hundredfold because you enhanced it, much as if they plugged themselves into you as an electrical outlet. Do you understand now?”

Oh my God.
It was worse than she thought. “Yes.” The urge to run grew strong. She made a move to leave, but he trained his icy blue eyes on her and she paused.

“It took me two years to find the one mentioned in my grandfather’s
prophecy. I will not give up because that woman is afraid of exploring her full potential.”

Hannah shivered and tamped down the hysteria in her brain. Words like
power
,
prophecy
, or even
vampire
caused fear to choke her throat. “I’m going to have to disappoint you, Mr. Mason. Whether or not I have this Gift is none of your concern. I certainly don’t command any sort of power.” She stood on shaky feet and hoped he couldn’t read her churning thoughts. “I would like to say it’s been a pleasure but that would be an outright lie. Good luck with your quest.” She moved to the door and worked the locks. The task seemed to take forever. “Good luck.”

“What are you afraid of?” Edwin stood, his
very presence filled her apartment with strength, power, and raw masculinity. “Your name has been woven into the tapestry of Fate. That tapestry must be finished. Your grandmother told you this long ago.”

Surprise filtered through her confusion. “My grandmother is… different.”
She paused over the word and found there could be no other way to describe Gramma Eileen. She couldn’t, would
not
, get involved in this issue.
I refuse to be responsible for another disaster.
She refused to open her mind to the unspeakable force that had traumatized her life five years ago.

“Hannah.”

Her thoughts tumbled to a halt by the authority that coated his silky voice. Her gaze lingered on the broad sweep of his shoulders and the unmistakable way his jeans clung to the curve of his rear.
Damn
. Why did he hunt vampires when he could be doing a handful of other things, specifically wooing the world’s most beautiful women? “Please leave.” She heard the hysterical edge to her own voice and wished she were brave. “I can’t go back to that world again.”

“Quiet.” Edwin cocked his head to one side, a finger to his lips. His movement swift, he extinguished the lamps. As he twitched the
curtain aside to stare down into the street, a frown marred the exquisite line of his lips. “We must leave this place immediately.”