LITMIR.BIZ

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good,” he said. “Now take a deep breath and push back the fear. It’s over. You’re all right.”

      Again she obeyed, taking one steady breath after another. Her face was ashen. So were her lips. “Window,” she said. “He came through the window.”

      Kellan nodded. “He probably thought no one was home.”

      McKenna coughed as she shook her head. “No. I think he came for me.”

      “It’s all right now,” Kellan repeated. “Your cop friend will see to that. And so will I.”

      He ran a hand over her throat, noting the red marks where the monster had nearly squeezed the life from her. There were no punctures. No visible bite marks. She’d been reached in time to ward off that rueful fate.

      Inwardly, Kellan chastised himself for allowing Detective Miller to keep him occupied on the street. That was what he got for being a good guy in a world gone bad. Any longer of a delay and he might have lost the one thing he needed most. McKenna.

      Miller squatted down beside him. “Do we need an ambulance, Mac?”

      She shook her head. “An ice pack would be nice. And a stiff drink.”

      Miller’s relief was obvious and spoke volumes about the love he had for McKenna, no matter the status of their current relationship. His attention had been on her, and only her. Still, Miller couldn’t protect McKenna if monsters had got wind of a developing relationship between McKenna and a Blood Knight, even if they didn’t understand what a Blood Knight was.

      He had to consider the possibility that his presence had played a part in drawing the vampire to McKenna’s apartment, without the vampire realizing it.

      Could this be a case of monsters recognizing on some level another monster’s prey? Fang calling to fang, no matter how distant and seriously diluted the connection might be?

      Miller offered McKenna a hand and she took it. She didn’t look at Kellan again until she was sitting in a chair.

      “Tall. White-skinned. Dark eyes. Black coat and boots. Black thinning hair,” she said. “Maybe thirty years old.” Wincing, she added, “With very bad breath.”

      “Good. What else?” Miller said after repeating that list to whoever was on the other end of the phone line he’d kept open.

      “I think he might be sick.”

      “A junkie, possibly looking for drugs?” Miller asked.

      “That’s a good possibility,” McKenna agreed, shifting her questioning gaze to Kellan. “Thanks for coming back in time to get him off me.”

      Kellan nodded.

      Miller grunted an unintelligible remark, but Kellan searched McKenna’s face for signs that she might know more about this intruder than she was willing to mention to the detective. The puzzled, frightened gleam in her eyes suggested she thought she’d seen a monster and was trying to come to terms with that.

      “We’re searching the area now,” Miller said, pocketing the phone. “If the bastard is anywhere around here, we’ll find him. In the meantime, it might be best if you stayed at my place. I’ll drive you there myself. We’ll want to go over this room for clues to this sucker’s identity.”

      McKenna continued to study Kellan, as if deep down she was wondering if he had something to do with the attack. Did she believe he had been here to case the place so his accomplice could finish the job once he’d gone?

      “No,” he said to her, in case he was right about her thoughts. “Don’t entertain ideas that I could harm you like that.”

      Of course, his statement was a half-truth at best, since there was also a chance the vampire had come here for him and had got distracted after sensing McKenna’s tired state. Vampires were too often hard to predict.

      Also, since he was pretty certain McKenna was the special being he sought, he had no idea what might happen to her when he opened her up to the hidden soul inside her. Would she survive that opening? If she did, would she wake in a state vulnerable to every kind of predator on the planet?

      He had to consider all the options, all the directions of his next moves.

      “I can go back to the hospital,” she said to Miller. “There’s no need to put you out.”

      Kellan felt Miller’s attention swerve back to McKenna. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go,” Miller said. “But you know you’re always welcome at my place. In fact, I’d feel a lot better if you would take me up on that.”

      Kellan stood up. “I guess I’ll take my leave.”

      “I’d like a word,” Miller said to him pointedly.

      “It might not be a good idea to leave McKenna alone.”

      “We can talk in the hallway with the door open. Mac, are you good with that? Just for a minute? Then I’ll get you that ice pack.”

      After looking back and forth between Miller and Kellan, McKenna nodded.

      Miller gestured for Kellan to precede him out. Kellan withheld a sigh, not liking the part he had to play in order to get along with these mortals. He was anxious to go after that vampire on his own. He needed to lose the biker’s mortal semblance and get down to business with a fledgling vampire too willing to cross the line with someone else’s treasure.

      His anger was on the rise. That anger would soon become dangerous enough to burn away his calm exterior.

      In the hallway, Miller lowered his voice. “I suppose thanks are in order for helping McKenna again. You ran up those steps like you were superhuman. But thanking you would mean I don’t believe in the possibility of you having something to do with this incident. You do get that?”

      “I’m not the bad guy here,” Kellan said.

      “I suppose that’s a matter of opinion. So I have to ask some questions. The first one is, who are you?”

      “I’m just a guy passing through.”

      “And you just happened to meet my...meet McKenna?”

      “Yes. Near the hospital. She couldn’t drive and asked me to take her to you.”

      That stumped Miller for a minute because he knew this was quite possibly true.

      “Why didn’t you leave her with me?” Miller asked.

      “The lady changed her mind.”

      “So you brought her here.”

      “I followed her directions, yes.”

      “Maybe you can see how odd it is that this attack happened at the same time?”

      “Our return could have interrupted the bastard’s plans. McKenna probably would have been safe as long as I was there with her.”

      “It’s entirely possible we have differing definitions of the word safe. You’ve known her for, what? Five minutes?”

      “I’ve known her long enough to know I wouldn’t want any harm to come to her.”

      “Maybe so, but I don’t like this. I’m going to ask you to stay in the area until we figure things out.”

      Staying in the area went right along with Kellan’s plans, though being part of a police investigation was never good. He didn’t need the attention, or anyone scrutinizing his ID. He certainly didn’t intend to play along with this detective for much longer. He had a vampire to catch and the timing was tricky.

      He had to use more of his power of persuasion.

      “I’ll be going now,” he said, sending the thought straight into the detective’s mind, where it encircled everything else with the force of a command, urging Miller to let this biker go without a fuss.

      “Okay.”

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