Chapter 7

A pale hand flew clutched helplessly at nothing.  Brown curls danced on the air as she crumpled almost in slow motion.  Her head hurtled toward a potentially brutal collision with the pavement.

By then, Eliot was already halfway out of his car.

His speed made the distance between them nothing, and he lunged, catching her before she even hit the ground.  Her limbs were stiff, jerking uncontrollably in his arms until he was forced to lay her down on the ground.

On her side, something told him as her rolled her onto a shoulder.

Those brown eyes stared open into space.  Her jaw clenched.  In silent throes, her body trembled.

Then…all at once she went still.

She just stopped breathing.

The light went out of those brown eyes.

Even her heart ceased beating.  Eliot knew because he couldn’t hear the tell-tale thump pulsing through her pale skin.

In all appearances, she was…dead.

As a proverbial doornail.

He reached out.  His fingers brushed a curl of sandy hair, unbelievably soft.   Hesitantly, his hand hovered over her throat, aiming to search for a pulse.  He had barely touched her, when her body convulsed.

Thud! Her heart pounded sluggishly in his ears.  She sucked in a noisy breath like someone surfacing after nearly drowning underwater.

Her eyes slid back into her head, body slumping onto the sidewalk.  In ragged motions, her chest began to shakily rise and fall with each rasping breath.

Pink began to creep back into her skin.

What the hell…

Eliot flinched at the sound of his own voice, realizing that he had spoken the words out loud.

“What the hell?”

He didn’t stop to think—didn’t stop to consider that she had quite literally died and come back to life right before his eyes.  He merely stooped to slip the girl into his arms and took off in the first direction he sensed, where her scent flared the strongest.

He followed it like an invisible trail, back down the path she’d taken, around a curve where a large Victorian house loomed above a gravel driveway overlooking a hill.

She was so light.

He had to glance down just to make sure that he really carried her and hadn’t just picked up that little backpack instead.  He couldn’t even feel her weight pressing into the crook of his shoulder.

He was a vampire, after all—but still…

She felt lighter than a feather.

A feather that didn’t make a single sound as he marched up the steps of a wide wraparound porch where her scent flared the strongest; a meadow of scented roses that lingered over by a solid oak door.

He pounded heavily on the surface with his fist, wrenching it open when he couldn’t hear any rushing footsteps from inside.   The lock shattered, breaking with a firm twist, but he didn’t care as the door flew back to slam against a wall.

Cautiously, he stepped over the threshold and nearly sneezed as a wave of dust wafted up to meet his nose.

Her scent was everywhere.  Which was the only reason he knew this house was hers, and not some abandoned manor inhabited by only ghosts.

Stacks of boxes littered a wide foyer.  At a glance he read the labels taped to the face of some; Dad’s room.  Miriam’s stuff.

In a far corner, he caught sight of an open box full of clothes.  Almost as if she was too hesitant to move the entire thing to her room so she just settled for pulling random bits of clothing out as she needed them.

As if she wasn’t sure how long the stay in this house would last, so what was the point in unpacking?

God, he couldn’t even smell any other scent floating from the halls but hers.  If someone else had even lived here with her, they hadn’t been in this house for a long while.   Long enough for even their scent to go stale.

Eliot stayed there, in the doorway just long enough for his ears to prove what his nose had already deducted.

She was alone.

There was no one there to call for help.  No one there who might be able to explain just what the hell had happened.

He didn’t even have a cellphone.  In his world, there was no need for one.

Most of his kind were telepaths.  When a message was urgent enough, there were other ways to get it across.

None that involved telephone wires.

She might have had one, he realized glancing down, but…

With a heavy sigh, he realized that there would be only way to get her help.  He turned, slamming the door behind him and leapt from the porch with her still clutched in his arms.  She barely stirred even as he raced back to his still idling car and shoved her into the passenger’s seat.

Her head lolled against the black leather.  He heard her moan, low under her breath, like someone upset at being woken up.

It had to be a good sign.

Or so he hoped.

Slamming the door behind her, he darted around to the other side and threw himself into the driver’s seat.  It was only when he reached for the key in the ignition that he saw the bright red rash stretching down his wrist to swatch the back of his hand.

It hurt, he realized, feeling the pain as his flingers flexed; a subtle burn, almost as if he’d stuck his hand too long beneath a heat lamp.

With a wary glance at the cloudy sky, he realized what he had done in a moment of thoughtless action.  He had left the safety of his car without even considering the consequences…

The sun might have been safely tucked away behind a thick layer of cloud cover—but it’s lethal rays still managed to pierce through as a warning.

The stinging rash prickled down from the nape of his neck, but even as he reached up to brush the sore skin he could already  feel it fading, as his body healed in the soothing semi-darkness of his car.

It was strange though, he realized as he switched the car out of park and slammed his foot down on the gas.

Outside, in broad daylight, with her in his arms…he hadn’t even felt the pain.