SHADOWLOVE--STALKERS (6 page)

He repeated, “You
do
need me, Shawna, and one day you will realize that. Don’t wait too long—don’t wait till it is too late.” He turned and walked towards the steel door, punched in the code, and was gone without looking back.

Shawna stood in stunned silence. She didn’t know if she was still breathing. She rather thought she was holding her breath. She let it go with a gasp.
What the hell just
happened?

He said his name was Chadwick MacFare. He had managed to get past her very efficient doorman. He knew her door code. He knew things about her. Who was he—and even more importantly,
what was
he?

More to the point
, she
told herself
,
he wants to use me as bait!

She gathered her wits and hurriedly changed the code at her steel door. There was no question of her staying in New York now. Tomorrow was the day she would start over once again.

Was he right? She was running—but one day she would make a mistake, slow down, and forget to look over her shoulder, and then what?

She would have to leave the rest of her possessions behind. She no longer had the time to pack and have the rest of her things forwarded. She had another six months on her lease. She would see the manager in the morning and give him a check.

She couldn’t leave any hint of where she was going. Her airline ticket would be purchased in her new name and on the spot.

How had this Chad MacFare found her? Did it mean that Pentim would find her as well? It meant that Pentim might be closer to finding her, and the thought terrified her. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that happen. She didn’t want to be one of them…

No slip-ups! She just couldn’t take chances—or make a mistake. What were the odds that she wouldn’t? Everyone slipped up sometime.

However, she couldn’t think of that. She breathed a sigh of relief that she had already leased a cottage in the Highlands of Scotland months ago. That caused a momentary pause. Was it a coincidence that Chad MacFare was Scottish? Should that worry her? She chewed her bottom lip as she contemplated this and then shoved it aside. Scotland was a great span of glens and lochs, mountains and ravines, villages and towns. New York was a melting pot. Perhaps, even though he still had the accent, he was a New Yorker?

At any rate, she had to make a list in her mind of what she had to do, like calling a car dealership immediately to lease a car and have it delivered to the airport. Something not too conspicuous—something that would work in the Highlands, perhaps a Jeep. Yes, a Jeep—good, she was good, she told herself.

She moved over to her fire escape. Each of the four floors had a small balcony that opened up onto stairs to a dark and narrow alley below. She had decorated her balcony with potted plants and a tight sitting area. Night had already descended and the mist had turned into a drizzling rain, so she sighed and was just about to turn away when she saw
him
.

The alley beneath her terraced fire escape was narrow at the street-side and widened to its dead-end. He stood at the street entrance of the alley, and there he had a young woman planted against the brick of the building. He hadn’t bothered to put her in a trance, and she was ineffectually pushing against him in an effort to escape. He had his hand over her mouth.

Shawna didn’t wait for more. She had one disadvantage—her high-heeled boots! Off they went before she stealthily moved down to the next landing. She took the rail and jumped, nimbly landing in a crouched position in her stocking feet. Then in one fluid movement she spanned the distance between herself and the newbie vamp.

Arcane words rolled off her tongue in Gaelic—a spell that shot a ray of sunlight all over the vamp and elicited a growl as he turned and shielded his face with his arms.

“Run!” Shawna yelled at the young woman. “Move…now…run…”

She watched the girl take off in the direction of the street and then gave her full attention to the newbie vamp. He was trying to duck the ray of light Shawna had created all around him, when all at once she saw the expression on his face and knew the insanity had overcome the pain.

He snarled at her and lashed at the light as he stepped towards her. Shawna charged at him unwaveringly. She had trained most of her life for this moment. She knew what she had to do. She couldn’t think about it—she had to just act. Had she stopped to think about it, she would have realized how frightened she really was.

He lunged for her and handed her an opportunity. She easily and with a speed he had not anticipated sidestepped his desperate and clumsy onslaught. She had her switchblade out of her pocket. It was no ordinary switchblade. Its bronze sheath housed a thin but deadly blade of locust hardwood. Before he could regroup, she sank that wood into the nape of the vampire’s neck.

He gurgled and turned to stare at her with blood-soaked eyes. He was clawing at the back of his neck and exposing his chest to her as though inviting her to finish the job.

In a fraction of a second, any dread she might have felt flew away. She had never killed before, but she couldn’t allow this creature to live and repeat this night’s work. She had the advantage. He was a newbie vampire, just recently turned. He did not have the skill or the discipline to fend her off. She plunged the sharp wooden blade into his dead heart and felt a tear well up in her eyes. She wasn’t grieving for him, but for herself—this was not how she wanted to live her life.

He would not disintegrate like the older ones tended to do when destroyed. He dropped to the cement in a heap. Shawna was a skilled white witch, and she immediately called on her spell of fire.

When she was done, there were only ashes left of the vampire that had once been a human being. This time, Shawna grieved for the human in the ashes.

As she made her way back to her loft, she wondered how much of a coincidence this could be. What would a vampire be doing in this part of town? They usually did their hunting where there was more hustle and bustle and people to be found.

Still, she thought, this couldn’t be one of Pentim’s vamps. He was killing newbies, not creating them. No answers, just more questions.

All in all, she decided, it was a good thing she was leaving town.

~ Four ~

SHAWNA LOOKED OVER her shoulder as she maneuvered the Jeep out of the Inverness airport parking lot. A shy young man had met her with the keys, and he’d had someone waiting for him to take him back into town. Quick, easy, and ready to go—just what she needed.

She kept her eye on the road and watched for her turnoff as she familiarized herself with the controls of the car. The wheel wasn’t where it belonged, and neither were the other cars! Whew! Something to get used to.

A movement out of the corner of her eye brought her head round. She did not at first see anything to cause her alarm, but the short hairs at the nape of her neck were electrified. Her body felt tense—and had been feeling that way for some moments. She was sure she was being watched. She had scanned her surroundings before she got into the white Wrangler Jeep, but she hadn’t seen anything, or anyone, out of the ordinary.

And then as she turned the Jeep off the terminal road
, she saw Damon
.

He was tall, dark and moved with the air of a man who enjoys superior standing—at the very least in his own eyes. His profile, even in the shadow of the hanger, was more than familiar. She knew him. They had known one another for a few years, but they had rarely spoken.

The sky was overcast, but even so, she could see he had taken no chances. He lingered in the shadowed part of the hanger.

Their gazes locked, and he was the first to turn away.

Shawna slowed to a stop and watched him. What the hell was he doing in Inverness—and at the same time she had arrived? This had to be more than a coincidence. Why was he traveling at such an early hour? He usually only traveled at night because he was
a vampire—but no ordinary one.

He had always been a bit of a loner and usually kept to himself. He was a traveler, and she had come across him on many occasions in New York. She had even seen him once in a small town in upstate New York when she was just a young teen. Why was he here—now? Had one of Pentim’s clan members gotten to him? Was he following her?

She felt sick to the pit of her stomach. Two reasons for that: One, did that mean they were already near? The other—she liked Damon Drummond and had, even though they rarely spoke, counted him a friend…sort of.

Shawna did a mental scan, taking in the entire geography all around him. She sniffed the cool air to make certain there were no other vamps in the vicinity.

This done, she turned to the subject at hand. What the hell was he doing here? This had to be one of those times when it was just a rare coincidence—he and she being in Inverness at the same day, same time—didn’t it?

Shawna had never felt threatened by him before. However, things change, and she knew that. People—vamps—do things for all sorts of reasons, sometimes even almost noble reasons.
She couldn’t trust anyone
.

He watched her with a quirky smile as she slowed to a stop. They nodded at one another before she picked up her speed and drove off. That they both were in Scotland—arrived on the same day, same airport… Well, that was something she had to wonder about.

Was he running from the Pentim clan? They would want him. He was a singularly powerful vampire…

Possibly. At any rate, she would have to be careful.

Damon was tall, athletically built, powerful, and sexy. Before she had driven off, he had stared hard right into her eyes. As usual, she never got anything off of him. He was totally unreadable.

Shawna shook her head over the problem—she was encountering one problem after another. Well, at least he had made no effort to hide himself from her. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? If he were there as a spy, wouldn’t he have kept a lower profile?

She didn’t like that he knew she was in Scotland. Even if he didn’t mean her harm now, there was always the outside chance that Pentim might manage to enlist him at some later date.

She would have to do some investigating to determine Damon’s purpose for being in Inverness. She knew he liked to stay to the cities, rarely venturing into the country. She had watched his activities over the years and had thought she had made up her mind about Damon’s character in the mix of things. Perhaps she was wrong?

Damon was a vampire, but she wasn’t sure he used human blood to survive…she just wasn’t sure. Shawna’s investigations revealed that he wasn’t a killer, at least not that she had witnessed.

Shawna had often wondered how he had managed to retain some of the conscience that must have been his before his turning.

She knew that once a vampire took a victim it was next to impossible for him to stop feeding. Only the very disciplined knew the art of control and had the strength to leave their victims alive.

And recently, Shawna had a sense that he was using an alternative to blood. Damon was a mystery she had not figured out.

The road suddenly got complicated and required her attention. She had to study where she was going. She didn’t want to make any mistakes or ask directions. She had her GPS and concentrated on following its firm instructions.

She watched her rearview mirror, but there was no sign of Damon at her back, and her breathing steadied. Once, early in their acquaintance, after a chance encounter, he had sent her a whisper on the wind—calling her to wait for him.

He had approached her when she was in her last term at NYU.

Shawna felt him—saw him—at once and held her books closer to her body. Dusk was just hovering over the city, and she watched him take long, firm strides towards her. She knew who he was. He had never posed a threat in the past, but nor had he ever approached her so purposely before.

His presence filled her silver eyes. He had an alpha force, and his dark good looks drew attention to himself. There was no denying that her heart beat just a bit faster as he came to stand directly before and towering over her.

She had looked up into dark gold eyes and waited for him to speak, and when he did, she was surprised. She remembered the first time she had discovered that he was British. It always surprised her.

“Hello, Shawna.” His voice was quiet but strong and held her attention.

“Hello, Damon.” How odd, she thought, using their first names without ever being really introduced.

“Things are stirring up within the different clans. Don’t get caught in the middle.” His beautiful voice was soft, and although his words took on the shape of a command, there was a gentleness about it that once again surprised her.

“I never do.”

“It is different this time. Pentim Rawley wants more than control.”

“And what is it that he wants that could be more than control?”

“Genocide. He wants to eliminate all but a few clans, and he wants something else, Shawna.”

“What could that be?”

“I hear tell he is looking for his daughter. She is the only child he was ever able to father with a human, and he has only just recently discovered that she exists.”