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Easing down on the mattress, he closed his eyes and in a rare moment of weakness, let himself dream of home
Chapter Thirty-Two
Clive punched in Roc’s cell nu softly when all he received was a recordedthat he had nothing to report Clive had instructed him to stay near the house and to call in every hour, sooner if there was any change in the situation That had been nine hours ago Since then, nothing
After throwing the cell phone across the rooan to pace the floor Four possibilities occurred to him: Roc had lost contact with the woet into the house, but hadn’t been able to find the books; he had found the books and had decided to either keep them or demand some kind of a reward; or he was dead
For Roc’s sake, Clive hoped it was the latter Those who betrayed hi
Chapter Thirty-Three
Savanah stared out the , her elbows resting on the sill as she watched the windblown rain slash through the trees Lightning speared the lowering gray clouds; thunder ru stir-crazy It had taken her hours to fall asleep last night, and when sleep finally came, her dreams had been populated with Va dark tunnel She ran until she couldn’t run anyed and she was alone in a theater, watching a handso black cape She knew a ician disappeared and a huge black wolf stood in his place With a lol, the wolf sprang fro only inches from her face, so close she could feel its hot breath on her cheeks, see its fangs Just when she thought it was going to rip her throat out, the wolf changed again, and noas Rane bending over her, his eyes blood red, his fangs dripping blood
She had stared up at him “You told
“I haven’t,” he had replied with a feral grin “Yet”
Once again, the sound of her own cries had awakened her
How er did he expect her to stay iet out soon, she would go insane
She tapped her fingertips on the sill as she considered her options Her life was in danger, there was no doubt of that She could either stay here, hiding away like soo home and face her fears Her er They had both hunted Vampires
Yes, a little voice murmured in the back of her ht she should stay here, but as the point? The Werewolf’s appearance proved that her whereabouts were no longer a secret Whathome? Another Werewolf could show up here tomorrow Mara could return at any tiht for theht have other ideas about an uninvited ood and well that she was no o ho to do She would fortify her house as best she could and let the chips fall where they may She had made her first kill, and while it had sickened her, she had proved she could do it Her parents hadn’t shunned the fight, and neither would she
Her decision brought with it a sense of peace When she saw Rane, she would tell hi softly, she went into the kitchen toit with her, she went down to the rec roo when Rane would wake Until then, she needed so to occupy her ti in front of the bookshelf, she scanned the titles Mara had a vast library, everything from the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, and Milton to Erma Bombeck and Gary Larsen It would have taken several lifetimes to collect so many books Had Mara read them all, Savanah wondered, or did she just like to collect thehts from the shelf, Savanah curled up in one of the chairs and opened the book, only to stare into the distance, thinking about last night She hadn’t said anything to Rane, but he had knohat she was thinking Big surprise The man could read her mind He had told her he hadn’t killed anyone, but the way he said it…Maybe he hadn’t taken a life, but she would have bet everything she owned that he had wanted to
She nibbled on the sandhile she tried to iine what it was like to be constantly at theShe was addicted to chocolate; there was no doubt about that What woo without it if she had to And if she ithout it long enough, the craving went away She had gone a ithout any chocolate once, just to see if she could do it, and she had survived with no ill effects But Rane’s insatiable lust for blood never went away No er was still there the next day and the next, and if he didn’t feed, the hunger grew a little worse each day until the pain becahts, she looked down at the book in her lap Where were her ive theht was exciting and repulsive at the sa done it, she felt the need to record it If she only knew the Werewolf’s name, she could enter it in the book And her name beside it as the hunter who had destroyed it
Rane woke late in the afternoon Staring into the darkness, he assessed his injuries The bites and scratches inflicted by the Werewolf had healed; the flesh burned by the sun pained him only a little less than it had the day before It would be days, perhaps weeks, before the worst of his injuries were fully healed He had forgotten how painful the touch of the sun’s light could be, but he would willingly endure that and h escaped his lips He hadn’t done such a great job of protecting her Now that whoever was after the books knehere she was, she wouldn’t be safe here any longer She was a sirl No doubt that fact had already occurred to her
He took a deep breath, and Mara’s scent filled his nostrils He had felt the brush of her ht No other Vampire he knew of possessed the power to reach across continents and oceans Truly, Mara was a law unto herself, a creature with Supernatural abilities that bordered on the divine The inhabitants of the earth could count themselves fortunate that she had no desire to dominate them