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Rachel ached everywhere Her body was a mass of pain and, for onethe flu that had brought her so low But when she opened her eyes, Rachel saw at once that she wasn&039;t bundled up in her bed at home In fact, she&039;d never before seen the roo to understand how she&039;d got there, and where exactly there henher half upright and urging her to drink, though there was no glass to drink froue Rachel also had a flash of aan ax She recalled a horrible pain in her chest, which was followed by a ot the assistant&039;s job and would soon be off the night shift The ood and made her smile as she drifted in and out of consciousness Then Rachel re conversation she&039;d heard--one that had made very little sense to her at the ti to do with life partners and turning Turning what, and how, she couldn&039;t recall All in all, the memories were scattered and lanced around the room It was blue, with a tasteful s and silver lamps on either side of the bed Rachel still wasn&039;t sure where she was or how she&039;d got there, but she was so weak and exhausted she decided she didn&039;t care and would rest The h, she had a flash of an ax swinging at her
Rachel popped her eyes open, and horror consumed her She&039;d been struck down by an ax blow, and she had been sure it was a killing one At least, without aid it would have been But Rachel had a vague recollection of her attacker, then a silver-eyedher to rest and conserve her strength while he checked her wound He had been similar in looks to the man who had haunted her dreams while she had the flu, but this man&039;s hair had been dark where her dream man was blond
Obviously, help had cohts were a little less ht down by the blow of an ax explained the pain in her chest, it didn&039;t explain the pain through the rest of her body It also didn&039;t explain where she was She really should be in a hospital This definitely wasn&039;t a hospital
Rachel peered toward the blinds covering the s They glowed at the edges with a hint of the sunlight atte to enter It was obviously day out She wished the blinds had been left open so she could perhaps figure out where she was
Pushing aside the blankets that covered her, Rachel struggled to a sitting position, then peered down at herself She was co She never slept in the nude, and hospitals generally put those awful gowns on Well, this was a wrinkle, and she had no idea what to lanced down curiously when soht of an IV near the crook of her elbowfro was deflated and eh for Rachel to recognize it as blood She had obviously needed a transfusion
The thought ain in search of her wound She distinctly recalled the ax slan of injury other than a thin scar that marked her chest from her shoulder blade down to the top of one nipple Her eyes widened incredulously on the scar, and she went still as itsstruck her Weeks, perhaps even months, had passed since the attack
"Dear God," Rachel breathed How long had she slept? Had she been in a coma? Was she in a special facility for co, until she recalled the proot at work If she had been in a coht have lost the position to soether But then why the blood? she wondered, and glanced at the e She could understand the need for a transfusion directly after the attack, but if it had been ain now?
Her ed the tube free, leaving the IV itself in place in her arm, then slipped her feet off the bed and tried to stand It took a great deal of effort to do Once she had ave her idea second thoughts It was a very short thinking session As much as her body seemed to want to crawl back into bed and rest and recuperate, it also yearned for soive She didn&039;t knohat it was, just that she had a hankering that needed fulfilling Even if she had been able to ignore that hankering--though Rachel very much suspected she couldn&039;t if she tried--heras well It wanted to knohere the heck she was, along hat had happened to the man who attacked her, and whether the man on the steel table really had been alive as she had suspected, or if she had risked her life for a dead man
It would be just her luck if she had suffered the wound, lost months of time to a co a tad cranky, and strengthened by it, Rachel started for the door, then stopped suddenly as she recalled she was naked She could hardly walk around in the nude
A check of the drawer in the nearest bedside table turned up nothing but a couple of books Rachel had already read Soood taste, or at least taste siaze slid around the shadowed roo out of it There was one to her right along the wall the bed backed onto, and one straight ahead in the wall parallel to the bed, both of which were normal-sized doors Directly across from the foot of the bed, however, was a double set of doors that weredistance away, and while Rachel was sure she could reach it, she would be eht naked halfway there Besides, she had no guarantee that there would be clothes in it
After a ed the bedsheet out froa Then sheit the one most likely to lead to a hall and some answers
As she had hoped, the door led out into a hallway, but it definitely wasn&039;t the hallway of a hospital She appeared to be in a house--a rather well-decorated house Her gaze drifted over the neutral earth tones of the hallith appreciation She had used the sa
But the decor wasn&039;t her main concern at the moment, Rachel reminded herself The room she had just left was at the end of the hall Several doors led off the hallway that stretched before her, but there was no evidence of anyone else in attendance Rachel shifted from one foot to the other in the doorway and considered what to do, but in the end there seemed little choice She could either stay where she was and wait for soet answers to her questions
That hankering she was suffering decided for her Rachelthe hall She didn&039;t think to check the doors she passed The house was so silent, it sees didn&039;t appeardown into the entry below, she frowned at the darkness and silence reaching up to her Surely she wasn&039;t alone in this house? Sos were still a tad shaky, but Rachel was able to e the stairs without incident, then she stood in the entry and peered about Every as covered This part of the house was as shut against the sun as the bedroom Rachel instinctively tried the knob of what appeared to be the front door but found it locked It was an old-fashioned lock, needing a key to open There was no key around, though she checked the table nearby
Giving up on the door, Rachel started along the hall in search of someone, anyone, who could explain where she was She passed unknown rooms full of darkness and shadow, but obviously empty of human inhabitants At the end of the hall, she pushed open the door and found herself in what appeared to be a kitchen There she paused and peered around at the dark shapes of a refrigerator, stove, table and chairs She was about to back out of the roo from under a door on the opposite side
Exciten of so present It was quickly followed by trepidation But she pushed fear aside and moved to the door It led to another stairwell, she noted with disht on Rachel hesitated on the landing, unsure what to do Her strength see It was like the flu, but more intense and pervasive of every portion of her body
"Hello?" she called out hopefully
Of course there was no answer No one cah a dark and eown
"I&039;ve stepped into a Gothic novel," she h It truly felt like she had It hts--like, perhaps she was dead and this was Hell Or it could be Heaven Rachel was relatively sure that she hadn&039;t done anything in her life to land herself in Hell Unless Perhaps she hadn&039;t got last rites The priests said if you died without those
Rachel pushed such depressing thoughts aside and started down the stairs Better to knohat she was dealing with than to not Ignorance wasn&039;t bliss
She h just barely Pain and weakness were really setting in now Her legs were almost rubbery with the combination by the time she descended the last step onto the carpeted basement floor This can&039;t be Hell, she decided as her feet sank into the plush carpeting Surely Hell wasn&039;t so well appointed
Perhaps it was a dream Perhaps she hadn&039;t really woken up yet That idea was a lot easier to accept Rachel even liked it It certainly beat the heck out of being dead Drea as they didn&039;t turn into nightht aside, she allowed her gaze to slide over the doors available to her The first door was open and revealed what appeared to be a laundry rooht that spilled from the hallway The second door opened onto what turned out to be a wine cellar of all things That left the third door, the only one with light spilling out fro breath, then pushed that door open At first glance, the room beyond appeared to be soe L-shaped desk that covered talls There were at least four computers all told, and as many monitors But the idea that it was a security rooes on the screens were not of this house
She es One was a freeze-frae of an old house even creepier than this one The third held a frozen co a cross she held thrust out as if to ward off evil The last nored the rest of the room and moved to stand in front of that e silver eyes She also looked fae "Where do I know you froe ofloose in her mind
"Where do I know you fro thefrom behind her did Rachel whirled, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end There was an old-fashioned coffin along the wall next to the door that she hadn&039;t noticed upon entering, and now its lid was slowly pushed upward until a pale hand propelling it could be seen It continued to creak all the way open, revealing a wrist, an ar to stretch into hours; then Rachel&039;s breath left her in a whoosh and her legs gave out as the coffin&039;s occupant sat up Rachel crashed to the floor, kneeling, ape as the blond man from her dreams peered around until he spotted her
"Oh" He seeht I heard so, but I didn&039;t sense your presence, so I wasn&039;t sure I wasn&039;t siht awake on your own and be afraid"
"Oh, fudge," Rachel breathed as the roo to faint"
"Really?" he asked "You seem to do that a lot"
Rachel dropped weakly onto her butt with a thuhs turned to putty However, she didn&039;t faint, and after aslowed and steadied She was even able to ask, "Who are you?"
"Sorry" He made a face and bounded out of his coffin in one smooth move, then let the lid fall closed "Rude of me not to introduce myself I&039;eneau, at your service"
"You&039;re the dead guy!" Rachel gasped as he moved closer She noted his silver eyes
"You reh she couldn&039;t iine why Rachel certainly wasn&039;t pleased to find herself talking to a dead man--a man who had, in fact, died twice, she realized He was easily recognizable as the gunshot victied to convince herself had been a fever-induced hallucination, but it had taken her a few nize hiht or whenever it was she had stopped the ar his head off, she corrected herself She frowned as she recalled the attack
"Get back, he&039;s a vaaze slid to the coffin, then back to her self-proclaiuy had just leapt out of a coffin and apparently got up twice and walked away from death
"Va Rachel realize she had spoken aloud "Noould lanced toward his coffin Her host followed her gaze, and his expression turned slightly sheepish "Well, I realize sleeping in a coffin hts Besides, you were in my bed and I didn&039;t think you&039;d appreciateyou"
Rachel shook her head No She wouldn&039;t have been happy to aith a stranger in bed with her Especially a dead stranger That was taking the idea of bringing work home with her a bit far Not that she was home, she reminded herself
"Where am I?" That seemed the obvious question at this point
"My home," her host answered promptly "Mother wanted to take you to the fa you here"
"Ah" Rachel nodded as if her question had been answered, then asked, "Your mother?" Did vampires have mothers? She supposed they must They were made, not hatched Or was it turned rather than made? Rachel was a little fuzzy on the point
Aware that he wastoward her, she instinctively reached for the cross that usually hung around her neck It wasn&039;t there, of course Silly to inore such a threat to his well-being Without the cross, she did the only thing she could think of--she ers and thrust them out She was most amazed when it worked and her host paused
He didn&039;t look properly horrified, however Tilting his head, he appeared ht be more comfortable in a chair" Apparently unaffected by her makeshift cross, thethe desk chair with his foot, he tugged it out, and before Rachel could draw enough breath to either protest or screaainst the L-shaped desk "So, tell ested in a chatty tone "I know your naue, but--"