Once Burned

  Something ancient and vicious lurked in Szilagyi’s whiskey-colored gaze. “Begging would only please you, but I know what won’t. You care for her; I can smell it. You may think you’ve won, old friend, but I’ll make you remember what it’s like to lose someone precious, and how fitting that you’ll lose her here.”

  I watched something slip from his sleeve, no bigger than a cigarette lighter, but I didn’t do anything. Maybe because I’d seen too many movies where the villain monologues all of his evil plans before attempting to act on them. Szilagyi didn’t say a word. He simply pressed a button on it and the world exploded.

  Well, not the world, but the one around me, anyway.

  Vlad’s reaction saved me from being killed right then. Rocks blasted out with tremendous force, but his body formed a shield that protected my front while his arms covered as much of my back as they could. My head was stuffed into his chest, his chin holding it down and covering the top of it. The backs of my legs felt shredded from the flying shards, but with the ground dissolving beneath us, that was the least of my problems.

  Then Vlad’s grip tightened and suddenly nothing was beneath my feet. Were we flying? Being sucked down with the crumbling mountain? I shouldn’t have turned to the side to look, but I did—and saw an ocean of fire coming straight at us.

  I’d relived death-by-explosion before, so I knew what seemed to take several seconds actually happened in an instant. Vlad vaulted us up, escaping most of the stone and brick minefield, but the fire was too fast. It rushed upward, matching his speed easily. I squeezed my eyes shut again, bracing for the inevitable agony. If I was lucky, death would take me quickly. At least I knew Vlad would survive the flames. Szilagyi had detonated another mountain, but this one wouldn’t claim him. It would only take me, and while that sucked, I wasn’t the type to want company in death.

  Then those roaring flames enveloped me. I felt it in the pressure that covered every inch of me, but though the wind from the inferno whipped my hair around, the only heat I felt came from the vampire who held me so tight, it was hard to breathe.

  Had my body gone into shock, numbing me from the pain? Possible, but it had never happened so fast before. I risked another glance—and saw flames all around me, even rippling above me, but though the smoke turned the few breaths I managed into ragged coughs, it was almost as if the fire skipped over me. Not even my clothes or hair were singed.

  It was so unbelievable that my mind refused to accept it. I had to be burning. Any second now I’d feel that excruciating pain slam into me and smell the horrifying odor of my own flesh cooking. But even as I waited, Vlad slanted us sideways and increased his speed. The smoke and flames were now to our left, giving me an unrestricted view of Castle Poenari as it smoldered and crumbled into the mountain below it.

  Finally Vlad set us at the bottom of that mountain, far enough away from the rock slides that smeared the formerly pristine snow with ugly streaks of gray and black. It took several seconds for my legs to stop shaking enough for me to stand on my own, and even then, I couldn’t bring myself to release the grip I had around his neck.

  “How?” I managed, my mind filling in the rest of what I couldn’t verbally articulate. How did I not burn to death? Nothing should have survived that fire except the vampire still holding me upright.

  Vlad loosened my grip enough to stare down at me. “My aura saved you.”

  At my blank look, he went on. “You did notice that my clothes never burn when I call forth flames. My power recognizes anything contained within my aura as part of me and thus won’t consume it. Other fire travels right over my aura as if repelled by it, so I coated you in it to make the flames pass over you.”

  I was so stunned that I couldn’t speak. He’d actually managed to make me fireproof? How long would it last?

  His mouth twisted into a musing smile. “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. Perhaps it will wear off in as little as an hour, perhaps it will last weeks.”

  It took me a few moments to process the subtext behind that statement because I was still overwhelmed by what had just happened.

  “If you’ve never done this before, how did you know it would work?”

  His expression changed into the arrogant one I knew so well. “Because it had to. I wasn’t about to let you die.”

  I shook my head with a sort of bemused amazement. I’d worried that his ego might be the death of him, but as it turned out, it had saved my life. Of course he wouldn’t hesitate before trying something that had never been done before. He was Vlad Tepesh. How could he fail?

  Another rumbling sound made me look upward toward what used to be Castle Poenari. A huge smoking hole was all that was left of the tower, and almost all of those imposing high walls had crumbled into the forest below. The structure I’d so recently thought of as a stone dragon now looked like a ragged skeleton.

  “Oh, Vlad,” I said softly. “Your home. It’s . . . gone.”

  His hands settled onto my shoulder, their heat searing through the layers of clothing I’d stolen from my now dead captors.

  “It hasn’t been my home for centuries. I’m not sorry that it’s gone. Its place in my life is long over.”

  Above the noise from the rock slides, trees falling, and other destructive sounds, I heard shouts. Vlad and I turned, and though I couldn’t see who it was in the distance, he smiled.

  “Maximus, Shrapnel, and Martin seem to have survived the explosion. They must have gone out the tunnel.”

  Then he looked at me and his smile faded. “Why did you wait to tell me about that?” Hints of anger colored his voice.

  “Because you would’ve sent someone else to free them,” I replied, the topic helping me to regain my shattered composure. “I can’t do anything about the guards who were killed, but Maximus and Shrapnel were captured while protecting me, so it was only fair that I was the one to get them out. I didn’t even want Marty to come along, but he insisted.”

  “Such a reckless, foolish risk,” he muttered, but when he brushed my hair, his touch was gentle despite his hardened tone.

  I smiled, holding up my hand. “Reckless, maybe. Foolish, no. You were right. This is a formidable weapon.”

  He clasped it, absorbing the current it contained without a flicker in his expression.

  “Yes, but you are still only human.”

  I laughed, the sound of it drowned out by the crunch of rocks as the mountain continued to shudder as though in the throes of birth pangs.

  “So was Van Helsing, yet in every movie, he beat the vampire in the end. Never underestimate the power of humanity.”

  Epilogue

  Dawn broke with a veil of fog, tinting everything with a haze like the glimpses I occasionally caught of the future. Vlad had sent me and Marty back home while he and several guards searched the ruins under Castle Poenari. He wanted to make sure none of Szilagyi’s people who survived the explosion escaped, and he wanted his enemy’s bones, either as proof that he was dead, or as a trophy, or both.

  After a brief reunion with Gretchen and my dad to assure them that I was fine after my captivity, I pleaded exhaustion and went to my room. I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep for many reasons. One of those was because of what happened at the stable. It didn’t bother me that I’d killed Rend and the other guards. Given the right circumstances, most people were capable of taking a life, and this had been a kill-or-be-killed situation. But what I hadn’t anticipated was how I’d enjoyed it.

  Surviving against deadly foes accounted for some of the exhilaration I’d felt, but not all of it. I could use the excuse that Vlad’s ruthlessness was rubbing off, but deep down, I knew this cold-bloodedness was all mine. Vlad had even pointed out the darkness in me before our relationship began. I’d thought he was referring to everything I’d seen from my abilities. Now I realized he meant what lurked within me, and it had probably been there since before the accident.

  As disturbing as that realization was, what really kept me awake had not
hing to do with my unexpected harsh streak. The sun burned off most of the morning fog by the time I heard Vlad’s booted stride down the hallway. He came into my room, threw his dirt-smeared coat onto the floor, and was in the process of kicking off his boots when what I was doing made him pause.

  I sat in front of the mahogany fireplace, my right hand inside the orange and blue flames. They leapt between my fingers and curled around my wrist, but not one of them directly touched my skin. Instead, they skipped over me as if I wore an invisible glove, and while their warmth was pleasant, it wasn’t scorching as it should have been with my proximity.

  “Ah, so my aura is still embedded in you,” Vlad commented, not sounding concerned. He resumed his boot removal.

  I withdrew my hand, looking at its unblemished state with a mixture of wonder and dismay. “Did you find Szilagyi’s bones?”

  “No.” Boots off, he came over, kneeling beside me. “Don’t worry. If he managed to survive, it will take a day at least for him to dig his way out. My men have the area surrounded, and now you, my beauty, can link to him and see if he’d dead, or see what hole he’s attempting to crawl out of.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. The dirt and soot made him look fiercer, darkening that sexy stubble along his jaw and making his cheekbones more prominent. His lips were parted, showing a glimpse of white teeth that could tease and terrorize with equal skill. Firelight added a hint of gold to his copper-colored eyes, and those encircling rings of emerald grew as his brows drew together in a frown.

  “What’s wrong? You smell distraught.”

  I glanced at the fire. If not for Vlad willing his aura into me, I would have died from flames last night, but my survival had come at a price neither one of us had anticipated.

  “I already tried looking for Szilagyi,” I said, glancing back at Vlad. “There’s nothing to link to anymore.”

  He started to smile. “Then he truly is dead.”

  I savored his expression because it might be the last time he looked at me this way. Then I forced myself to continue.

  “I don’t know. It’s not just Szilagyi’s essence that I can’t link to anymore. It’s everyone’s.”

  I stroked the ornately carved wood around the fireplace for emphasis. “I’m not picking up impressions from what I touch anymore. Coating me with your aura did more than make me fireproof, Vlad. It also covered my abilities like some sort of supernatural glove and nothing gets in.”

  Very slowly, he rose, his expression changing from satisfaction to absolute inscrutability. Neither of us spoke the words that seemed to scream in the silence. Was if this wasn’t temporary? It might be a cure for the psychometric abilities I’d long wished to be rid of, but they were also the main reason Vlad had been drawn to me in the first place. If their loss was permanent, I’d gained some of the normalcy I longed for, but it might cost me the man I was falling in love with.

  And his enemy might still be out there. The explosion should have killed Szilagyi, but he’d cheated death before, and a bone-deep pessimism warned me that we hadn’t seen the last of him.

  “Don’t worry,” Vlad said, repeating his earlier words with less conviction this time. “I’ll double the guards at Poenari. Either my men will find Szi-lagyi alive, or, once your powers return, you can verify that he is truly dead.”

  I didn’t dispute his belief that I’d get my abilities back. Right now, we were both guessing on that count.

  “Reading my thoughts again?” I asked dryly.

  He flashed me a tight smile. “Always.”

  Then he put his boots back on, leaving his coat where it lay. “I’ll notify my men to double the watch, and now I intend to take one more sweep of the area before I rest.”

  He kissed me, and when we drew apart, something I couldn’t name flickered over his face as he stroked my right hand. But all he said was, “Get some sleep, Leila. I’ll return soon.”

  After he left, I realized he’d taken the time to reassure me over Szilagyi, but hadn’t said a word about my thought that I was falling in love with him. Was he avoiding that topic because he was incapable of love—something I now doubted—or because my power loss had indeed made him reevaluate our relationship?

  In the very near future, I’d put both possibilities to the test. I didn’t want to lose Vlad, but I wouldn’t start running from my problems again. I’d confront them despite their potential cost, and with or without any additional abilities.

  “Get ready, Vlad,” I whispered into the empty room. “This is far from over.”

  Acknowledgments

  For once, I really am going to keep this short. Thanks to God, who carries me through all things; to my husband, who is my rock; to my agent and publishing house, who help make these books possible; to readers, for buying and recommending them; and to my family and friends, for their love and support.

  Finally, to Dracula fans who, like me, always wanted him to win at the end instead of Van Helsing—this one’s for you! *wink*

  World of Frost Teaser

  Watch for the return of Vlad and Leila in the next Night Prince novel, available in Spring 2013.

  In the meantime, see how the adventures of Cat and Bones all started.

  Keep reading for a peek into the Night Huntress world . . . from the very beginning!

  All available from Avon Books

  HALFWAY TO THE GRAVE

  Half-vampire Catherine Crawfield is going after the undead with a vengeance . . . until she’s captured by Bones, a vampire bounty hunter, and is forced into an unholy partnership. She’s amazed she doesn’t end up as his dinner—are there actually good vampires? And Bones is turning out to be as tempting as any man with a heartbeat.

  “Halfway to the Grave has breathless action, a roller-coaster plot . . . and a love story that will leave you screaming for more. I devoured it in a single sitting.”

  ILONA ANDREWS

  “Beautiful ladies should never drink alone,” a voice said next to me.

  Turning to give a rebuff, I stopped short when I saw my admirer was as dead as Elvis. Blond hair about four shades darker than the other one’s, with turquoise-colored eyes. Hell’s bells, it was my lucky night.

  “I hate to drink alone, in fact.”

  He smiled, showing lovely squared teeth. All the better to bite you with, my dear.

  “Are you here by yourself?”

  “Do you want me to be?” Coyly, I fluttered my lashes at him. This one wasn’t going to get away, by God.

  “I very much want you to be.” His voice was lower now, his smile deeper. God, but they had great intonation. Most of them could double as phone-sex operators.

  “Well, then I was. Except now I’m with you.”

  I let my head tilt to the side in a flirtatious manner that also bared my neck. His eyes followed the movement, and he licked his lips. Oh good, a hungry one.

  “What’s your name, lovely lady?”

  “Cat Raven.” An abbreviation of Catherine, and the hair color of the first man who tried to kill me. See? Sentimental.

  His smile broadened. “Such an unusual name.”

  His name was Kevin. He was twenty-eight and an architect, or so he claimed. Kevin was recently engaged, but his fiancée had dumped him and now he just wanted to find a nice girl and settle down. Listening to this, I managed not to choke on my drink in amusement. What a load of crap. Next he’d be pulling out pictures of a house with a white picket fence. Of course, he couldn’t let me call a cab, and how inconsiderate that my fictitious friends left without me. How kind of him to drive me home, and oh, by the way, he had something to show me. Well, that made two of us.

  Experience had taught me it was much easier to dispose of a car that hadn’t been the scene of a killing. Therefore, I managed to open the passenger door of his Volkswagen and run screaming out of it with feigned horror when he made his move. He’d picked a deserted area, most of them did, so I didn’t worry about a Good Samaritan hearing my cries.

  He followed me
with measured steps, delighted with my sloppy staggering. Pretending to trip, I whimpered for effect as he loomed over me. His face had transformed to reflect his true nature. A sinister smile revealed upper fangs where none had been before, and his previously blue eyes now glowed with a terrible green light.

  I scrabbled around, concealing my hand slipping into my pocket. “Don’t hurt me!”

  He knelt, grasping the back of my neck.

  “It will only hurt for a moment.”

  Just then, I struck. My hand whipped out in a practiced movement and the weapon it held pierced his heart. I twisted repeatedly until his mouth went slack and the light faded from his eyes. With a last wrenching shove, I pushed him off and wiped my bloody hands on my pants.

  “You were right.” I was out of breath from my exertions. “It only hurt for a moment.”

  ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE

  Cat Crawfield is now a special agent, working for the government to rid the world of the rogue undead. But when she’s targeted for assassination she turns to her ex, the sexy and dangerous vampire Bones to help her.

  “Witty dialogue, a strong heroine, a delicious hero, and enough action to make a reader forget to sleep.”

  MELISSA MARR

  “Hallo, Kitten.”

  I was so preoccupied with my breakdown that I didn’t hear Bones come in. His voice was as smooth as I’d remembered, that English accent just as enticing. I snapped my head up, and in the midst of my carefully constructed life crashing around me, found the most absurd thing to worry about.

  “God, Bones, this is the ladies’ room! What if someone sees?”

  He laughed, a low, seductive ripple of the air. Noah had kissed me with less effect.