Jared (8 page)

Those long elegant fingers settled on his arm. “For
the good I hope.”

He stopped as he realized it actually hadn’t been bad.
He still had his brothers, still got to work with the horses he loved, and
while he’d had to say good-bye to the century and the woman he’d loved, he
would have had to do that anyway. Something Allie had been pointing out to him
relentlessly for the last six months. She had a real problem with the hostility
between he and Caleb, and just couldn’t accept that they were comfortable with
it. Since the day she’d met his brother, she’d been picking at the fabric of
their relationship. She’d be thrilled to know her persistence was paying off.
“It stayed pretty even, if you must know the truth. Just a couple kinks in the
wire.”

He straightened.

She looked up at him. “What kind of kinks?”

“My brother and I had issues.”

She frowned. “That is not good. Have you settled
them?”

“We’re working on it.”

“You have been a vampire for almost as long as I have,
and you are just working on it?”

He shrugged, feeling an unwarranted flick of
discomfort under her frown. “It was never a priority before.”

“How could it not be?”

He held out his hand. She took it. He pulled her up.
“You sound like Allie.”

That cute frown deepened along with her accent. “Who
is this Allie?”

“My sister-in-law.”

The frown cleared. “Then I don’t mind the comparison.”

That piqued his curiosity. “Why not?”

“Because you admire her.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The way your expression softens when you speak of
her. Is she a fun person?”

He pulled her to her feet. “She’s a pretty little
thing with more courage than one woman should have and a sense of humor that
keeps everyone around her laughing.”

“You like her.”

“It’s hard not to.” He bent to pick up his rifle. “She
makes my brother happy.”

Bark sprayed off the tree above Raisa’s head. A
explosion of sound trailed the spray of bark. A force on her arm yanked her
down. She fell on her back, landing on a rock, the fall knocking the wind from
her. She no sooner got it back than Jared threw himself over her, squashing her
flat, his shoulder pressing into her jaw. Above her head, she saw more bark
splintered off the tree and heard another explosion. A snowflake landed in her
eye. She blinked. Realization dawned. “Good God! Someone is shooting at us!”

She pushed at Jared’s shoulders. He pushed back. “Stay
down, you little fool.”

The next bullet hit lower down the trunk. The next
wouldn’t miss. Her pushing became frantic. “The fool in this situation would be
the one setting himself up as target practice.”

“Roll.”

His arms came under her, and then up was down and down
up as they rolled into the shadow of the trees. He took the brunt of everything
on his elbows and knees, sheltering her with his big body as the echo of the
gunshot reverberated around then. Before she could catch her breath, Jared half
lifted, half tossed her behind a tree. He handed her the rifle. As her fingers
closed around the stock, he said one word: “Stay.”

And then, with animal-like grace, he spun around,
fading into the shadows.

She could feel his energy fanning out, encompassing
the forest around them, feel his hesitation as he found what he was looking
for, felt the tension fine-tune the flow, and then he was heading off,
perpendicular to where the shots had come from, easily traceable to her. But
then, everyone was easily traceable to her. She had a talent for following
energy that others couldn’t see or feel. She sent a thought out on his trail.

Be careful.

His response was short and to the point. Be quiet. And
then as if in apology to the harshness of his order, there came a stroke of
calm.

Raisa sighed. He was a very nice man, and if things
were different, she might have just lingered in his company for the uniqueness
of the experience, but Miri was relying on her. Miri, with her incredible
strength and absolute belief that her mate could save her from the Sanctuary’s
torture if only Raisa could find him and let him know she lived.

For a moment, Raisa felt the weight of responsibility
weighing her down. She didn’t know anything about being a hero, didn’t know
anything about this war she was caught up in. She’d spent the last two hundred
of her almost three hundred vampire years experimenting with the changing times
and cultures. Relishing the freedom to learn all that had been denied her as a
virtual slave. In between avoiding the lecherous pursuits of the rogue male
vampires who saw her as an opportunity to be exploited, that is.

She’d learned very early on that she was different,
lacking the skills that put female vampires on an equal footing of sorts with
the males. Blood did strengthen her, but just marginally, and every time she
drank it she got so sick for so long that she put off doing it until there was
no other choice. The best she could make out, she was actually allergic to
blood. Animal or human, it made no difference. The more she drank the sicker
she got, but if she didn’t drink it at all, she’d die faster. And she hadn’t
reached the point where suicide looked good.

She grabbed the rifle. With a last glance in the
direction Jared had gone, she mouthed a good-bye and headed down the mountain,
taking care to mask her presence. Her muscles were still tired but since “down”
was working on a new set of muscles, she made good time. Part of her scanned
for other energy, part of her stayed locked to Jared. She just needed to be
sure he was alive. She stumbled when his energy cut off. An abrupt cessation of
hope.

“No.” She leaned against the tree, sucking air into
her lungs only to have it catch on a sob. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t.

“I’m not, but in about five minutes you’re going to
wish I was.” Jared! She spun around. He stood between two towering pine trees,
looking as dark and as imposing as the forest as he glared at her. Yanking the
rifle up, she slammed the stock into her shoulder, hoping he’d believe she
would actually shoot him. She couldn’t let him take her away from her mission.
The Sanctuary had to believe she was doing what they had ordered her to do.
Otherwise, they would kill her, and if she died, so did Miri’s hope of rescue.
“Stay back.”

“I don’t think so.” With his hat pulled low over his
brow, his eyes still glowing red from the heat of battle, Jared looked every
inch the dangerous outlaw he was. “Put the gun down, Raisa.”

“No.” She didn’t ever want to hurt him, but especially
when he looked like this, the twilight emphasizing the breadth of his
shoulders. The rising moon cast a faint light that glinted off the faded
patches on the thighs of his jeans and drew her eye to the strong muscles
beneath that flexed with the step he took toward her. She tightened her finger
on the trigger. “Don’t make me shoot you, Jared.”

“You won’t shoot me.”

“I won’t like it, but I will.”

Another step. “What makes you think a little bullet’s
going to hurt me anyway?”

“Because you brought it to hunt Sanctuary vampires. I
guess it must have some efficacy against vampires.”

“Not only pretty, but clever.” Another step. His
energy reached out and surrounded her—calm and soothing, beckoning. The
bastard. “You can’t trick me.”

His head cocked to the side. “I wasn’t aware that I
was trying to. If you pull that trigger, watch the recoil.”

“Thank you.”

She couldn’t let him come any closer. She searched up
and down his big body, looking for a target. His head was out. She could never
shoot anyone in the face. That left his torso or his legs. She lowered the
muzzle. Over his broad chest, down the center line of his abdomen, hesitating
when she got to the waistband of his jeans. Worn almost white, they followed
the lines of his narrow hips and strong thighs with loving detail. Jared was a
man—vampire—in peak condition, and it showed in the easy way he moved and in
the way the well-honed muscles of his thighs pressed against the pale blue
denim of his jeans. She lowered the gun some more, angling over the creases of
his jeans until she reached the toes of his scuffed boots. Maybe if she shot
his toe, it would slow him down.

“Give it up, Rai. You don’t have it in you to shoot
anyone.”

She brought the gun back up just as slowly, counting
time in heartbeats, her courage in breaths. She couldn’t afford to be swayed by
a handsome face and handsomer manner. She had to get away, finish what she had
started. Locking on Jared’s energy so she’d know if he moved, she closed her
eyes and remembered one of the few happy moments of her childhood, before the
famine had taken her father and her mother’s laughter. Before hunger had become
her companion and loss a constant. Remembered back to when she’d finally
mastered swimming after months of trying. She’d been such a slow learner, but
every day when she’d gone out, her mother had given her a hug and
encouragement, and on the day she’d finally—finally—paddled four strokes to
shore, her mother had held her face between her hands and whispered, pride in
every word, “I told you, Raisa, you can do anything if you want it badly
enough.”

With her mother’s words echoing in her head she opened
her eyes and stared at a point over Jared’s shoulder. Courage welled with the
memory. “You’re wrong. I can do anything.”

Before he could answer, she pulled the trigger.

JARED launched himself at Raisa before the bullet hit.
For a critical spit second, incredulity that she’d pulled the trigger clouded
his realization that she’d aimed over his shoulder. Behind him there was a
thud, in front of him Rai, her face white as a sheet, horror in her eyes as he
flew at her. She dropped the gun and threw up her arms up to protect her face.
He took her down easy, twisting to absorb the shock of impact, rolling to get
her out of the way in case whatever she had shot at was still moving.

He leapt to his feet, spinning around as he did,
talons at full length, fangs fully extended. He cast out his energy, feeling
for a threat, finding none, even though he could clearly see there before him,
in the snow, lay a man—a were—blood spilling from a wound high on his shoulder
and pooling on the frozen ground in a dark, spreading splotch. Snowflakes
drifted into the pool of blood, disintegrating in the heat. His senses should
be screaming. They weren’t. That was not good.

Jared grabbed the rifle, levered another round into
the chamber and put it on Rai’s lap. Her fingers closed reflexively around it.
Meeting her wide gaze, he ordered, “If anything else moves, pull the trigger.”

She blinked. “But what if—”

He cut her off. “No what-ifs. Pull the trigger, and
I’ll sort out anything that needs sorting later.”

Another blink and then those incredible lips firmed. A
quick nod and she got her elbows under her. Satisfied Raisa would do as he’d
told her, Jared turned back to his attacker. The attacker that shouldn’t have
gotten within a hundred feet of him without his presence being telegraphed by
his energy.

“Did I kill him?” Rai called.

She didn’t sound too excited by the prospect. He
remembered the horror in her eyes and the way she’d begged for the vampires
who’d attacked her. Unlike him, killing what needed killing wasn’t something
she probably did on a daily basis. “No.” He nudged the paralyzed were with his
toe. “Just winged him.”

“Winged him? How could I just wing him from that
close?” She sounded both horrified and disgruntled in one breath.

“Talent, sunbeam. Pure talent.”

“What does that mean?” She had a penchant for worrying
about the wrong things at the wrong time.

“Nothing for you to get your tail in a twist about, so
be quiet a second and let me concentrate.”

“And what, exactly, do you need to concentrate on?”

The edge to her voice and the nervous twitch of her
energy warned him she was going to go all soft on him again. “Nothing you need
worry about.”

The sound she made was a ladylike version of his own
snort of disbelief.

He gave the were another nudge. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
he asked the chemically frozen were. “Having your own technology used against
you?”

The were couldn’t answer, immobilized as he was by the
paralyzing agent loaded into the bullet, but the antipathy rolling off him in
waves spoke volumes. “Slade thought that Sanctuary cocktail should be spiked a
bit to include weres in its effects.” He bent and started checking the assorted
pockets of the man’s camouflage jacket. “I can’t say that I disagree.”

“Who is he?” Rai asked.

“Just an overly friendly were, sugarplum.”

He let her stew over the nickname while he removed the
pistol from the were’s shoulder holster.

“What are you going to do with him?”

“Kill him eventually.”

She gasped but hushed for a second. A trickle of
energy teased his mind, knocking gently. When he wouldn’t answer the knock, she
slid in, utilizing that neat way she had of circumventing his defense. You
can’t kill a defenseless man.