Page 5 (1/2)

The roo awakened her Rachel lay still for a hts It wasn&039;t completely silent Outside, it was obviously windy She could hear the soft rush, the battering of the building and the rustle of blown branches Those were the only sounds, however; there was nothing to signal where she was--nothing except theher

ThoseThey came to her in order this ti with the burn victi her she&039;d earned the position she&039;d sought Then, she recalled her confusion at the burn victi into the roo into her Yet now she was feeling no pain

She wanted to believe her feeling of health was because she&039;d been given so up earlier,the handsome blond man with silver eyes Etienne He was the same man who had haunted her dreams while she&039;d been sick the week before the ax attack She distinctly recalled waking up and hi her his extendible teeth Which should only convince her that all hers as vampires, after all

Rachel shifted cautiously where she lay, h her chest from the wound she&039;d sustained, but there was none The hospital had obviously given her so her confused as well as warding off the pain she should feel

A or healthy in years At least, not since she&039;d started working the night shift

Moving carefully to avoid disrupting the IV she could feel trailing out of her ar the surrounding dark shapes into better focus The rooer than a hospital roo over this when she realized that, from the shadows and shapes she could make out in the darkness, the rooht had been on then, revealing a draped bed and blue decor She recalled creeping down through an empty house to a basement where that silver-eyed man had risen from a coffin

Definitely a dream, she decided

Unable to see herself in the darkness, Rachel ran her hands over her upper body She wore no clothes, and there was no sign of injury--just as it had been in her dream Had she been hurt at all? What was drea a little panicked, Rachel thrust the blankets aside, hardly noticing as the IV tore froh to feel around for the bedsheet, which she had been lying on top of rather than under Pulling it froain? She was suffering a definite sense of d¨¦j¨¤ vu

Don&039;t even think like that, Rachel ordered herself firmly, suddenly desperate to find soue recollection of the setup of the room, but since she had already decided it was a dreao by it Instead, she crept along the bed toward the wall it should back onto, arms extended

Once she felt the wall, Rachel eased her way carefully along it in search of a door

The first thing she found was a piece of furniture Actually her knee found it--with a crack to her shins Rachel paused to rub her aching leg before she felt the outline of the item was a chair

"Nice place for it," she muttered irritably, then forced herself to pause and take a deep breath She should have turned on the bedside lamp But, then, she hadn&039;t felt one, or even a bedside table Of course, her arms had been extended and she&039;d probably missed it because of that Every room had bedside tables, didn&039;t they?

Rachel briefly considered returning the way she&039;d co way back In the end she decided to keep going and eased around the chair to continue forward Her breath caught at the sudden feel of wood beneath her fingers Then she found a doorknob and quickly turned it She thrust the door open Black yawned before her, more absolute than that of the roo the wall until she found a switch She flicked it on

Light exploded fro her to close her eyes When she could open the in the doorway of a bathrooe sauna tub lay directly before her There was also a toilet and a bidet The owner of this establishment obviously had European taste, which provedthat she was definitely not in a hospital Unless it was a hospital in Europe

Which was a possibility, Rachel supposed She h the bathrooe hospital bathroom, and she didn&039;t think that European clinics--even expensive European clinics--would waste this kind of space on a comatose patient Besides, Rachel&039;s health insurance wouldn&039;t cover such expensive care, and her faant accommodations

More confused than before, Rachel started to turn away but paused as she gliht, she eased closer until the vanity counter halted her progress

She stood for several ood Her hair was shiny and vital--a dark red with its natural wave and not the usual flyaway orange-red that needed a good oil treater The fast-paced, stress-filled life of University, then the working world had not been kind Her face was flushed and healthy noever, hardly the co froed at her lips Vampires had no reflection She was not a vampire

Not that she had believed she was, Rachel assured herself She grimaced then admitted, "Okay For one minute I was afraid those drea me I&039;d been &039;turned&039; to save irl," she chided But she also lifted her lips into a snarl so that her teeth showed They were normal, and Rachel could have sobbed with relief "Thank you, God," she breathed

Sucking in a fortifying breath, she unwrapped the sheet she wore for the final test She found her upper chest and the mounds of her breasts smooth and unblemished Shoot Not that she wanted to be wounded, but it would have been better for disproving the validity of her dreams

It was then that Rachel also realized the sheet she as the same pale blue as she&039;d dreamt A moment of panic swamped her, but she forced herself to control it

"Okay Stay calm," she ordered "There is a perfectly sensible, sane explanation for all this You just have to find it"

Reassured a little by the sound of her own voice, Rachel turned away fro back into the bedrooht Her heart sank It was indeed the roo was mostly empty, but as before there was a drop or two of red liquid re Blood

"Oh, jeez" Rachel shifted from one foot to the other, then walked to the other door and out of the bedroom She had to knohat lay beyond Surely not the hall from her dream?

"Da, e spooky Taking a deep breath, she tried for rational thought Okay, so the hallway and even the bedrooh to explain Perhaps she hadn&039;t been totally comatose when she&039;d been transferred here Perhaps she&039;d been seh to see and re any flaws in that reasoning, Rachel stepped out into the hall and walked to the landing In what she had thought was a dream, the entry below had been dark and eht spilled out of one of the adjacent rooms, and she could hear the faint rumble of voices

After a hesitation, Rachel moved down the stairs She squeezed her toes into the hardith each step, an effort to prove to herself that this ti

"You told her it was a dream?"

Rachel slowed as that question came clearly to her ears A woman&039;s strident voice continued, "Etienne! What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that she needed to rest, and that this was the easiest way to calhtly defensive tones "She was a bit freaked out, Mother"

"Understandably so," came another voice, similar to that of the dream man who had claimed to be her host, but deeper, more solemn somehow, despite its present a in that coffin of yours"

"Oh, Etienne!" the woman exclai?"

"I don&039;t normally sleep in it"--he was now definitely defensive--"but I&039;ve had so in that coffin, Mother Besides, she was sleeping in my bed"

"Well, surely you have other beds here, son You have finally gotten around to furnishing the spare rooms, haven&039;t you?"

Etienne&039;s ansasn&039;t really audible fro she had stopped, she eased herself forward to stand outside the door Then she hesitated, waiting until the wo around the door fra to have a lot of explaining to do when she comes in here, Etienne And now that you&039;ve already lied to her, sheyou say" The woman sounded annoyed She also looked perturbed, Rachel saw, as she gaped at the speaker The woman was beautiful, incredibly beautiful, the kind of woman other woe of the wo wavy hair, large silver eyes, a pouty mouth

Mother, the man named Etienne had called her? Rachel shook her head in denial This woman looked to be in her late twenties Thirty at the most She was definitely not the blond man&039;s mother Mother had to be a nickname, perhaps chosen because she was a worrier and a fusser

"I know"

Rachel glanced to the speaker, Etienne The woaze roamed over his perfect face and tawny hair He was theIf her dreahts of stairs as if she weighed nothing Yes, he was definitely strong

"And she has negative notions of e are, of course," Etienne continued

"Of course she does," the second h the two ative?" The woman sounded wary