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The receptionist s a welco expression Honor tried to smile back, because the rational part of her knew that all vampires weren’t the same, but her face felt as if it had been frozen into place Instead of forcing it, she concentrated on keeping herself together on the most basic of levels

“She’s nonresponsive Catatonic”

“Prognosis?”

“No way to tell I know I shouldn’t say this, but part ofinto the dark in a futile effort to fight the rancid horror that stalked her dreaht, but tonight thething that caught her by surprise

I’ht to take that from me

Her astonishh the elevator ride—trapped in a se with a vampire ore an Armani suit and had an aura of contained power that said he was no ordinary guard

When the doors opened to deposit the walls painted the saht shade, she sucked in a breath There was a sexual pulse to this place that hummed barely beneath the surface—the roses were lavish and bloodred against the ht where they stood in their crystal vases atop sant tables of lustrous black, the carpet too lush to be old

The artwork along one as a fury of red that drew her with its cruel ferocity

Sensual

Beautiful

Lethal

“This way”

Blood pounding through her veins in a way she kneasn’t safe in the couide—so she’d have warning if he swiveled, went for her throat Her gun was tucked into a shoulder holster concealed under the faded gray of her favorite sweatshirt, her knife in a sheath openly on her thigh, but she had two more hidden in sheaths strapped to her arainst a vampire who instinct and experience told her had to be over two hundred, but at least she’d go down fighting

Stopping in front of an open door, he waved her through before turning back toward the elevator She took a step insideand froze

Dlass desk, the Manhattan skyline glittering at his back, his head bent, strands of silken black hair caressing his forehead as he scanned the piece of paper in his hand Her mind rolled back Beforebeforeshe’d been fascinated by this one vah she’d only ever seen him from a distance or on the television screen She’d even made a scrapbook of his movements—to the point that she’d started to feel like a disturbed stalker and burned the whole thing