A short time later, Officer Burton returned to the living room. “It’s like he said, Linc. There’s a girl sleeping upstairs. No signs of a struggle. Nothing out of the ordinary that I could see.”

The young officer nodded, obviously disappointed that they weren’t going to see any action.

“Must have been a crank call.”

Burton nodded, then turned to Ronan. “Sorry to have bothered you, sir.”

“No problem, Officer,” Ronan replied.

He followed the two men to the door and watched them get into their squad car, noting, as he did so, that Hewitt’s car was gone.

Ronan swore softly as he closed and locked the door. The man was becoming quite a nuisance.

Something would have to be done about him sooner or later.

Overstreet looked up as Hewitt slammed into the room. “Something wrong?”

Hewitt dropped into a chair. “No. They’re both there.”

Overstreet studied the hunter’s face. “So, what’s got your shorts in a knot?”

Hewitt made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I looked in the window and saw him carrying the woman upstairs. She looked dead. Face the color of chalk. I couldn’t get into the house without his knowing it, so I called the cops. You know, anonymous tip. They checked it out. I guess they didn’t find anything out of line.”

“So, she’s still alive?”

“Either that or he hid the body.” Hewitt dragged a hand across his jaw. Somehow, the two of them would search the house again, and they would keep looking until they found the vampire’s resting place. It was somewhere inside the house. Hewitt was sure of it. They would find it tomorrow if they had to rip the place apart, brick by brick and board by board!

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Shannah, why are you resisting this?” Ronan blew out a breath of exasperation. “I’m offering you what you came looking for.”

“I know, but I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time. Ronan, I don’t want to be a vampire. I can’t drink blood, or sleep in a…a…where you sleep. I just can’t!”

“Shannah, love, you’re already a blood drinker. Trust me, being a vampire isn’t as bad as you think. Come out with me now, tonight. Let me show you what it’s really like.”

“You mean, go with you when you…?”

“Hunt,” he supplied.

She shuddered at the images that single word brought to mind. Images of wolves stalking buffalo calves, lions attacking young gazelles, tigers dragging their prey into the treetops.

She shook her head. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“Of course you can.” He held out his hand. “Trust me, Shannah, just one more time.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she laced her fingers with his and let him lead her out into the shadows of the night.

She clung to Ronan’s hand as he walked down the street. Why had she agreed to do this? She knew what he did to survive, what he had to do, but she didn’t like to think about it. Even knowing it was necessary didn’t make it any easier to accept.

Why had she agreed to accompany him? Out of curiosity? Or was she actually, on some deep level, contemplating a future as a vampire? No, that was out of the question. It was against everything she believed in. Yet here she was, taking one more step into a world that few knew existed.

They walked through the town until they reached a dimly lit street not far from the café where she had first seen him so many months ago.

Ronan stopped at the corner and she stopped beside him.

“What are we doing?” she asked after a couple of minutes.

“Waiting.”

She glanced around. There were three small specialty stores and a Chinese restaurant near where they stood. All were closed at this time of night. Music floated through the open door of a night club down the street.

“What are we waiting for?” she asked.

“Her.” Ronan pointed at a dark-haired woman emerging from the bar down the street. “Wait here.”

Shannah wrapped her arms around her waist as she watched Ronan approach the brunette. He spoke to her for a moment and then he took the woman’s hand in his and led her to where Shannah waited.

Shannah stared at the woman. She was tall and slim, perhaps thirty years old. If she was married, she didn’t wear a ring. Under Ronan’s spell, the woman’s expression was blank, as if all her emotions had been erased.

Shannah trailed behind as Ronan led the woman into a nearby alley. He spoke to the woman once again, and then he drew her into his arms.

The woman didn’t resist.

Shannah looked at the two of them, speechless, her heart racing. She didn’t want to see this.

Ronan looked at Shannah over the brunette’s head. His eyes were glowing strangely. He smiled, revealing sharp white fangs.

And then he bent his head over the woman’s neck.

Shannah stared at the scene before her. It was like something out of a horror movie, or a nightmare. Though she couldn’t actually see what he was doing, she knew what was happening, knew that his fangs had pierced the woman’s flesh, that he was feeding off her life’s blood.

The woman stood motionless in Ronan’s embrace, her eyes closed, her head canted to one side.

Shannah looked at Ronan again and her mind filled with his thoughts, his feelings. Chief among them was a sensation of intense pleasure and relief as the woman’s life force flowed into him, quieting his hunger, filling him with warmth. She was surprised to discover that he felt compassion for the woman, compassion and gratitude.

Lifting his head, Ronan looked at Shannah, his expression shuttered.

She stared back at him, wondering what he read in her eyes.

Bending down, he ran his tongue over the woman’s neck; then, taking her by the hand, Ronan led her out of the alley. He spoke briefly to the brunette, who nodded and walked away.

Ronan remained where he was, waiting for Shannah to emerge from the alley. “And so,” he said, “you have seen me for what I am. Does it disgust you? Frighten you?”

She shook her head. She wasn’t afraid. Searching her feelings, she realized she wasn’t even repulsed by what he had done. There had been nothing cruel about it. He had treated the woman kindly, even with respect. And though she couldn’t deny that he had taken something precious from the woman, the woman didn’t seem to be any the worse off because of it.

“Shannah?” He closed the short distance between them, his steps tentative, his expression guarded. Did he expect her to run away, screaming? “Does this change anything between us?”

“No.”

His relief was palpable.

“But I still don’t think I can do it. To drink a stranger’s blood, to have to do it every night…” She shook her head. “No.”

“In the beginning I had misgivings, as well, but all the things that you think are so important now soon become irrelevant, just as those things you view as repugnant now soon become second nature.”

“I don’t know…what of my family? My friends? Will they all become irrelevant, too?”

“No, Shannah. I was speaking of more mundane things.”

“I just don’t know.” She looked up at him, her eyes filled with doubts and a shadow of fear that he had seen there far too often of late. Fear of death.

“You needn’t decide now.”

But she couldn’t wait too long. Her time was running out. He knew it, and so did she.

Shannah turned away from the answering machine. There were four messages from her doctor.

She should have called him, she thought. She had intended to when they were in New York but she had been feeling so good and having such a wonderful time she had put it off, and then there had been the plane crash, and she had forgotten all about it. She knew she should go see him, but she didn’t want to hear what he had to say. She knew she was getting worse; he would know it, too, and she didn’t want to spend whatever time she had left in the hospital with doctors and nurses poking and prodding and smiling their bright, false smiles as they assured her everything would be all right.

She called her parents and spent an hour on the phone, assuring them time and again that she was fine.

When she hung up, she sat at Ronan’s desk and wrote letters of good-bye to her mom and dad, telling them that she loved them and that Ronan had taken good care of her. She wrote a letter to Judy, telling her how much she had appreciated her friendship through the years, assuring her that Ronan had made her last days easy to bear.

When she was done, she sealed the letters and put them in her dresser drawer, underneath her nightgowns.

Going downstairs, she went into the kitchen. She was standing in front of the refrigerator, trying to decide what to fix for dinner, when she heard a knock at the front door.

She peeked out the window, groaned softly when she saw Carl Overstreet and Jim Hewitt standing on the porch. What did they want now?

She darted back before they could see her, then stood there wondering if she should open the door or let them think she wasn’t home.

One of them knocked on the door, loudly, and then rang the doorbell again.

Shannah held her breath, waiting for them to go away.

She heard shuffling footsteps and muffled voices, the scraping sound of metal against metal, and suddenly the door swung open.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Shannah exclaimed, more angry than afraid. “Get the hell out of here!”

“I told you she was home,” Hewitt said dryly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Overstreet muttered. “Get on with it.”

“How did you get in here?” Shannah demanded.

“There are ways,” Hewitt said, slipping something into his pocket.

Shannah grimaced. How they had gotten in didn’t matter. They were here now. And they had to leave before Ronan arrived.

“So,” Overstreet said, “did you find out where he sleeps?”

“No.” As if she would ever tell them.

The reporter’s eyes narrowed ominously. “This would be a lot easier on everybody if you’d just cooperate with us.”