In her mind, Savanah envisioned Rane transforming into the wolf. It had been a scary thing to see. Scary and beautiful, she thought, the way his body had taken on a sort of shimmery glow as his muscles and ligaments shifted, stretching, realigning themselves, until the man was gone and a big black wolf had stood in his place. Did it hurt when he changed? Where did his clothing go? Questions, questions. Would he answer them when she saw him again?
Rising, she went upstairs to get ready for bed.
Later, snuggled under the covers, her eyelids heavy, she stared out the open window, her thoughts turning once again toward Rane. Was he home in bed, thinking about her, or was he in his wolf form, running beneath the light of the moon?
Ignoring a sudden, inexplicable urge to go out into the night and look for him, she flopped over onto her stomach and closed her eyes.
Later, hovering on the brink of sleep, she thought she heard a wolf howl beneath her bedroom window.
Rane prowled the shadowed streets of the city, the lust for blood thrumming through his veins. The hunger was always worse when the moon was full, which he found oddly amusing. He had never known Vampires to be influenced by the cycles of the moon; it was a Supernatural law that applied only to Werewolves.
Hoping to subdue his hunger, Rane turned his thoughts to Savanah Gentry. She reminded him of someone, but again, he couldn’t make the connection. Pushing the troubling notion aside, he let his thoughts linger on Savanah. The next two weeks should be interesting indeed, he mused, thinking it was almost like he was a mortal man and she was his girlfriend. He laughed at the idea. He hadn’t had a girlfriend since he’d had a crush on Wendy Simpson when he was twelve.
Rane’s whole life had changed when he turned thirteen. Until then, he and his identical twin brother had been like any other boys on the brink of puberty. They had gone to school, played a harmless prank now and then, switched places with each other from time to time to see if anyone could tell the difference. But the world as they had known it had changed the night after he and Raphael turned thirteen. For one thing, they didn’t wake up the next morning.
Rane had learned later that his mother had tried to rouse him and his brother, but to no avail. They were sleeping the sleep of the Undead and there had been no waking either of them until the sun went down. He had risen with an unrelenting thirst he didn’t understand. His parents hadn’t known what to do. His father, Vince, had taken Rane and his brother outside and told them what he thought was happening, although there was no way to be sure, since as far as anyone knew, no other Vampire had ever sired children.
Vince Cordova’s explanation had been simple. He had been a Vampire only a year or so when he had married Rane’s mother. It was Vince’s opinion that he had retained enough of his humanity to sire Rane and his brother. After that brief explanation, Vince had taken his sons hunting. He had mesmerized a young woman and taken a small amount of her blood. As soon as Rane caught the scent, he had known it was what he had been hungering for, what he wanted. Needed. He and his brother had both fed from the woman. The little they had taken had satisfied Rafe, but not Rane. He had wanted more. He had wanted it all. He had made his first kill later that night, a secret he had kept to this day, a secret that gnawed at him even now.
He and Rafe had been full-fledged Vampires from that night on. Of course, going to school had been out of the question after that, so his parents had hired a tutor who had been willing to teach them at night. Later, after Rane and his brother reached adulthood, their father had brought their mother across.
“Just one big happy Vampire family,” Rane muttered, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
Rane had left home shortly after his mother was turned. He had never gone back.
He had kept up with his family’s whereabouts as best he could since then. He knew that his brother, his parents, and his grandparents had all been involved in the recent war between the Vampires and the Werewolves, a war that might have gone on forever if Mara and the head Werewolf, Clive, hadn’t come to their senses and realized that the war between the Supernatural creatures was a big mistake. A good many Vampires, Werewolves, and hunters had been killed before peace had been achieved.
Rane had been surprised to learn that Rafe had fallen in love, married a mortal woman, and settled down in Oak Hollow, a town Rane had never heard of and couldn’t find on a map. He grunted softly. Falling in love with mortal women seemed to run in his family.
The thought brought Savanah Gentry’s image quickly to mind. He had known many women in the course of his existence, some more intimately than others, but he had never let himself fall in love with any of them. Every time he started to care too deeply, the memory of the first woman he had killed burst through the mists of time, reminding him, in vivid detail, that he was a monster.
Chapter Five
William Gentry sat in the backyard, a blanket spread over his useless legs, a glass of strong whiskey cradled in his hands. There were times, like now, when sleep eluded him. When that happened, he came out here to try to forget.
He drained the glass and then refilled it from the bottle on the table beside him. He drank to forget old hurts, old wounds, and usually it worked, but tonight not even whiskey could drive away the ghosts of the past.
He remembered the day he had met Barbara. He had taken one look at her and known she was the woman he would marry. They had been dating only a few months when he proposed. He had been surprised when she not only refused to marry him, but refused to tell him why. Not one to give up easily, he had sent her flowers and candy every day, called her every night, until she admitted that she loved him, too, but that marriage was out of the question. It had taken another month before she’d told him why.
“I’m a Vampire hunter, Will,” she’d said. “I can’t marry anyone.”He had looked at her in disbelief. “You’re a what?”
“You heard me.”
“But how…why?”
“It’s in my blood, Will. It’s what I was born to do.”
He had listened as she explained what she did and how she did it, his stomach churning as she explained, in vivid detail, how one went about staking a Vampire and taking its head. It was a brutal business. She had showed him the kit she carried in the trunk of her car, explained why she always wore a silver cross and carried a small bottle of holy water in her pocket, why she could never have children. He had assured her that none of it mattered. He loved her.
They were married two months later. In his mind’s eye, he saw her as she had been on the day they wed—a beautiful, vivacious woman filled with the joy of life. They had been happy together, happier than any other couple he knew. He had hated what she did, but it was a part of her, a part she felt strongly about. They never talked about it. He never questioned her on those nights when she went hunting, never let her know how he worried, always afraid that she wouldn’t come home.
A year passed and then another and another, and their joy in each other grew, spilling over into every aspect of their lives together. Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, Barbara lamented the fact that as much as she wanted a child, she would never have one. She had explained to him that few hunters ever married. Spouses and children could all too easily become pawns in the deadly game of cat and mouse that hunter and hunted played. At those times, William had held her and consoled her, but secretly, he had been glad they remained childless. He didn’t want to share her life with anyone, not even his own child. And then, after five years of wedded bliss, Barbara had announced that, despite all their precautions, she was pregnant. In spite of her determination not to have a child, she had been overjoyed with the news.
William had pretended to be as happy as she, pretended until the doctor placed a tiny, squirming bundle in his arms and announced that he had a daughter. William had feared that a baby would ruin their lives, but Savanah had drawn them even closer together. Barb had quit the hunt when she learned she was pregnant. Will had never said anything about it—it was her decision, but he had been relieved. He had been busy with his career, but always, in the back of his mind, had lingered the fear that one night Barb wouldn’t come home. But Savanah had changed all that. He recalled how happy he and Barb had been at each new milestone in Savanah’s life—her first smile, her first tooth, her first step, her first word.
He had been content, certain that the future would hold the same joy as the present. And then the unthinkable had happened. The Vampires and the Werewolves came out of the shadows and went to war. He had prayed that Barb wouldn’t become involved, but he should have known better.
“I can’t just sit at home, Will,” she’d said. “I can’t just do nothing while people are being killed. I couldn’t live with myself if someone died because I wasn’t there to save them.”
He had been at the newspaper office, working late on a story for the morning edition, when he got a frantic phone call from the baby-sitter telling him to get to the hospital as fast as he could; Barbara had been in an accident. It was the call he had been dreading their whole married life.
He didn’t remember leaving the office, didn’t remember getting into his car and driving to the hospital, didn’t remember anything until he reached Barb’s bedside. At first, he had been afraid he was too late, that she was already gone. Her skin had been fish-belly white, her lips blue; she didn’t appear to be breathing.
“Barb?” He had taken her hand in his, felt the icy coldness of her skin seep into his own. “Barbara!”
Her eyelids had fluttered open and she had stared up at him out of the eyes of a stranger. “Will?”
“Barb! Thank God!”
“Kill me.”
“What?” He had stared at her, certain he had misunderstood her.
“I want you…to kill me.”
“What are you saying?”
“My neck…”
He frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with your neck.”
“Look…” A single tear trickled down her cheek as she turned her head to the side. “Look.”