darkness.
“Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you what I heard,” Skidmore said.
It was a lie; the older vampire never forgot anything. Jake waited, but Skidmore just smiled.
“What?”
“A very special friend of yours will be at the meeting. If we get there early enough, perhaps you’ll have time to get reacquainted.”
“Katie?” Jake glanced over at his companion, whose face seemed to glow in the starlight.
Skidmore grinned and ignored his question.
2
Jake felt her presence long before they arrived. Excited by the prospect of seeing Katie again, in spite of his best efforts not to be, he’d left the abandoned mine shaft where he and Skidmore had spent the day, early enough to give off smoke.
Holding a blanket over his head like some kind of television criminal, Skidmore had trotted along behind him, muttering, “Bloody hell, I don’t know why I travel with such a fucking lunatic.”
They’d driven with the top up until well after dark.
Now, a mere fifty miles from their destination, he felt her. After decades of sharing blood, they were one in many ways. Not spouses in the human sense, but much more, although they’d only lived together for fifteen years. Even that was unusual in vampire circles with the exception of a few rare couples, most of which had come to the Night together. As a rule, vampires tended to be loners—partly by necessity, and partly because eternity made it hard to put up with others for too long.
Jake slowed the car as they wound into the Sangre de Cristo mountains, and enjoyed the scent of evergreens in the cool night air. An owl screeched overhead, soaring above ponderosa pines, and he suddenly recalled a night long ago he’d spent chasing Lucky Bill Wainright across the state. He’d lost a damn good buckskin gelding to a prairie dog hole on that ride, and he’d taken his wrath out on the outlaw when he’d caught him. Lucky Bill hadn’t looked so lucky riding back into Lubbock with two black eyes, lips so swollen he couldn’t speak, and a nasty gash across his cheek. But it had been a fair fight—Jake wouldn’t have given the man such a beating otherwise.
He shivered at the vibration running down his spine. Even thinking about the past didn’t help as he closed the distance between himself and Katie. How long had it been? Ten years? No, more like twelve. Maybe more.
Jake swerved off the road at a wide spot, cut the engine, and jumped out, grabbing his hat from the backseat. He started across a field, headed for the trees, forgetting about his travel partner.
“Dammit, man, slow down,” Skidmore said.
Jake glanced back. “I thought you were in a hurry.”
“Not quite so much as you.” Skidmore waved him off, obviously annoyed. “Go on, then. We’ll rendezvous at the cabin.”
In the cover of trees, he moved faster, picking up scents and noises of night creatures, soundlessly passing coyotes, rodents, bats, and owls.
Halfway to the cabin, he stopped.
For a split second, he could have sworn he’d heard a human heart. Turning a slow circle, he listened and searched the darkness, but detected nothing resembling a man.
Shaking his head at his folly, Jake continued on, but at a fast walk just in case. Who would be out alone in the mountains at such an hour? In the old days, it might have been a shepherd—a young son proving his worth by watching over the flock for a long, sleepless night—but those days were gone. Jake sometimes wandered upon campers now, but they were rarely quiet enough to go undetected.
No, he must have been imagining things.
As he approached the site, he heard conversations and recognized some of the voices of the two dozen vampires in and around an old log cabin.
“I thought that might be you.”
Jake spun around at the voice to find Katie standing close, her eyes glistening and her wild auburn hair brassy in the moonlight. He smiled.
She slid her hands across his chest, cooing softly. “It’s been too long, Jake.” Leaning forward, she ran her tongue slowly up the side of his neck, tracing the line of his jugular.
Jake shuddered at the pleasure and grabbed her waist. “Oh, yeah,” he whispered. “Way too long.”
He wanted to fold her in his arms and drink from her until he’d had his fill of the bliss she would offer, but he knew Katie McMillan as few others ever could. Katie would never be dominated by a male of any species, now that she had a say in the matter. With Katie, it was better to wait, and he knew she’d make the wait worth his while.
She pressed the points of her fangs against the skin of his neck as she reached down to rub the front of his pants.
Jake’s knees shook. “Damn, woman, you’re making it hard—”
“Umm,” she purred.
“—for me to stand up.”
Katie straightened, knocked his hat off his head, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and kissed him. Her full, sweet lips met his squarely, and she worked his mouth open with her own as she gripped a handful of his hair.
Jake steadied himself by widening his stance as he kissed her back and drew her close. They fit together just as they always had, like two halves of a whole. Katie’s tongue circled his, then slid along the sides of his growing fangs. The sensations running through him were like electrical currents zapping his limbs, and his cock also grew in response. Katie slid her knee between his thighs, pushing just enough to make him groan again.
She tore her mouth from his and stared at him with her golden glowing eyes. “Spend the day with me, my love.”
“As you wish,” he said, grinning again. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”
Katie raked her fingers through his hair, then drew him to her for another kiss.
“Oh, please.” Skidmore leaned close to their faces. “Must you do this in public? It smacks of romanticism so unbecoming of our kind.”
Katie smiled against Jake’s lips, then glanced over at Skidmore. “Don’t worry, Thomas. I promise you’ll get the spanking you deserve.”
Skidmore grinned, his own eyes twinkling with a bit of gold. “Then I shall not complain. Come, the meeting’s about to start.”
He led the way into the cabin.
Jake snatched his hat from the ground. He held Katie’s hand until they reached the door, then he released her, stepped inside, and found a place against the back wall.
As members of the enforcement committee, Katie and Skidmore wound their way to the front, and André, the elected leader, moved forward.
Jake preferred to stay out of the politics of the group, although he’d often been called on to lend expertise from his human life in law enforcement over the past century or so. In spite of the group’s mission
