Darkness Dawns
His body hardened even more when he remembered the way her heartbeat had sped up at his touch.
Her pulse was slow and steady now, the blood in her veins calling him to come and satiate his hunger. As he listened to the steady thrum of it, his own heart began to pound.
Roland slid one hand up her back, tunneling through soft, thick curls, and rested his fingers upon the satiny skin of her neck just over her pulse.
What would she taste like? Sweet like her smiles? Or spicy like her daring spirit?
Would drinking from her merely dull the pain? Or would it set him aflame?
His body was struggling to heal itself. The need for blood lacerated him.
Roland felt his fangs descend and lengthen.
Just one taste
.
Sarah is sleeping
.
She need never know.
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2008 by Leslie Duvall
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eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-2242-8
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CKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deepest appreciation goes to my editor, Megan Records, and everyone on the Kensington team. Heartfelt thanks go to my parents for their continued love and support. Most of all, I would like to thank my husband for always believing in me and encouraging me and for bringing so much love and happiness into my life.
A strident screech pierced the predawn quiet.
The hair on the back of her neck rising, Sarah Bingham surveyed the meadow around her. The sky had gone from black to charcoal gray, a harbinger of sunrise that did little to alleviate the gloom. In the nine months North Carolina had been her home, she had heard some creepy animal calls, but that one had sounded downright human.
Couldn’t have been.
She lived way out in the boonies with no nearby neighbors.
Struggling to shake off her unease, she impaled the soil with a shovel, turned it over, then repeated the process that would ultimately culminate in a vegetable garden. The unseasonable heat she had hoped to avoid by starting early added a glimmer of moisture to her skin as she grappled with the drought-hardened ground.
Oh
yeah. A few hours of this and she would definitely collapse into an exhausted slumber.
Screw you, insomnia!
The spring semester was over. Her students were gone. She was going to sleep tonight if it killed her.
Loud snarling, growling sounds abruptly split the air, accompanied by cracks and thumps and the snap of branches.
Starting violently, Sarah gripped the wooden handle of the
shovel and stared at the heavy undergrowth in front of her with wide, unblinking eyes.
The foliage began to thrash and sway. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Oh crap!
Weren’t there bears in North Carolina?
Branches and leaves exploded outward as a massive dark form, moving so fast she couldn’t see it clearly, charged toward her.
Too panicked to even scream, she dropped the wooden handle and raised her arms to protect her face, head, and neck.
A heavy weight crashed into her left side. Feet flying up, she hit the ground hard on her back two or three yards away. Dry soil and twigs abraded her hands as she threw them out to the sides. Something tore through her right shirtsleeve and cut her elbow. A painful throbbing invaded her ribs.
Rolling onto her stomach, Sarah jerked her head up and looked around wildly in time to see the trees that bisected this end of the meadow envelop … whatever had barreled into her.
Quiet settled upon the clearing.
Wincing, she pressed a hand to her aching side and scrambled to her feet.
The growls and thrashing resumed, even louder than before.
Adrenaline surging through her veins, shortening her breath, speeding her pulse, she grabbed the shovel with shaking hands, turned it upside down, and held it like a baseball bat.
She didn’t know what that thing was, but if it came back, she was going to knock it six ways from Sunday.
“Where’d they go?” a voice called out breathlessly.
Sarah jumped and glanced at the trees that bordered the meadow on her right.
“That way! Straight ahead! Don’t lose ’em!”
Two figures, mere shadows amid the dense, dark brush, moved as quickly as they could in the same direction as the … thing. Only visible for a brief moment before the
trees swallowed them again, they didn’t appear to have noticed her. The long-sleeved green shirt she wore over a black tank top and sweat pants must have made her blend into the dim scenery.
The growling ceased. So did the thumps and thrashing.
Sarah took a cautious step backward. Then another.
“Ah man!” the first voice blurted. “I think I’m gonna puke!”
“Don’t be such a wuss.”
What the hell was going on? Had those guys been chasing a bear?
It had to have been a bear, right?
“Aren’t you gonna kill him?” the second voice asked.
“Let the sun finish him,” sneered a new voice, deep and full of malice.
“What do you want us to do?” the second countered.
“Stay until it’s over,” the third instructed, his words softened by a British accent, “then bring me whatever is left of him.”
Sarah continued to inch toward the wall of greenery that separated the meadow from her backyard, trying not to make any sound that might alert them to her presence.
Who were you supposed to call when you thought someone was torturing wild animals? 911? Animal Control?
“Is he gone?” the first voice asked uneasily.
“Yeah,” the second responded.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah-yeah. He’s gone. He’s gone.”
“Dude! That was the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”
“Didn’t I tell ya?”
Wasn’t torturing animals the first step toward becoming a serial killer?
“Hey, what are you doin’?” the first asked.
“Cuttin’ his clothes off.”
Sarah froze, ice filling her veins.
His clothes?
“Dude, that’s so gay.”
“I’m not gay, asswipe. I wanna see what the sun’s gonna do to him.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“Get his boots.”
A man? That couldn’t have been a man that had knocked her down. It had been huge, had growled, and had crossed the clearing
way
too fast to have been human.
Yet, it sounded as if their victim
was
a man, not an animal.
And, apparently, they weren’t through with him.
Spinning around, she took three quick steps, intending to hurry home and call 911.
“Hey, Bobby,” the second said, “you ever stabbed anyone before?”
She halted.
“No.”
“Check this out.”
Thud.
Grunt.
“Dude!”
Crap!
Reversing direction, she crossed the clearing as quickly and quietly as she could. Her stinging hands tightened around the shovel handle. Sweat beaded on her skin. The bitter taste of fear invading her mouth, she entered the trees and crept forward.
This is crazy. This is crazy.
She was a music professor, not a police officer!
But it would take too long for the police to arrive. She lived so far from town….
“You wanna try it?”
“Won’t they be pissed if we cut him up?”
“Not as long as he’s still breathin’ when the sun hits him. And if he’s not, who cares? How’re they gonna know?”
The trees weren’t as thick here as she had thought. After just a few steps, Sarah stood at the edge (with any luck, still concealed by their branches) and peered anxiously into the next field.
A whiff of rank body odor struck her.
There were three men. One, whose face was hidden from view, lay on the ground on his back, what she could see of him bare. His arms had been pulled away from his sides and appeared to be held down by something she couldn’t glimpse through the tall grasses. Closer to her, his ankles had been lashed together with … rope? The weeds obscured them too much to tell. But they, too, were held down, judging by the way his thigh muscles continually flexed and strained.
A blond in faded jeans and a yellow T-shirt straddled the man’s thighs, his back to Sarah. A second with brown hair stood beside him, mostly turned away, gaping down at the naked man.
Though she only caught a quick impression of their faces, Sarah guessed the assailants were around twenty years old.
The blond suddenly raised both hands above his head, his fingers curled around the grip of a pocketknife, then slammed them down.
Thud.
The naked man jerked and grunted with pain.
The brunet yelled, “Dude! Awesome!”
Sickened, terrified, trembling uncontrollably, Sarah stepped out of the trees, skulked forward, and swung the shovel.
The blond looked up at his accomplice. “You wanna—”
Thunk.
Yellow Shirt slumped sideways, hit the ground, and lay still.
The second man gaped at his friend in stupefaction, then spun toward Sarah … just as she swung again.