revealed by a white singlet. He wore khakis that flattered the long, muscled length of his legs, and his brown hair was scruffy, matching the stubble on his face. A weird light glowed through the dark tendrils of fog or smoke gently swirling around him.
Vivianne screamed.
* * *
Zane winced at the ear-piercing shriek. God, that woman could break glass, if she put in just a little more effort.
She backed away from him, her head slowly shaking in denial, and then it hit him.
“You can see me,” he breathed.
“Get out!” she screamed again, then raced to her dressing table. “Get out, you pervert.” She picked up a container of moisturizer, turned, and hurled it to him. He ducked.
“Hey, if I could get out of here, princess, I would,” he snarled back at her.
“Get. Out. Of my. House!” She picked up another bottle, then another, and threw them in quick succession at him. He dodged the first, but he wasn’t quite fast enough to get out of the way of the second missile. He froze as it sailed through his chest and smashed against the wall behind him. Er. Yeesh. That felt weird. Like fuzzy electrical shocks.
Vivianne’s eyes grew even rounder, if that was possible, and she picked up the vase off the end of the table and hurled it. He shifted, but it still caught him in the shoulder. Or rather, through it. More fuzzy tingling, like he’d cut off the circulation, and the numbness was about to wear off, right before the pins and needles.
She stalked up to him, her eyes glowing red like cigarettes, incisors lengthening, dark hair streaming behind her, silken robe flapping around her, and that curvaceous body quivering with rage. She fisted her hand and punched him—right through the face. He felt a nice little frisson, but that was about it.
He arched his eyebrow. “I can keep this up for hours. You?” He looked around the room. “There’s a crystal lampshade over there that looks handy.”
This time both of her hands clenched into fists. Her chest rose and fell in furious pants, and for a moment he just followed the movement: in, out, in...he blinked. She was...magnificent. He frowned. And she was not happy.
“Who—or what—the hell are you?” she rasped, her eyes bright with anger.
“You don’t—you don’t know me?” His jaw dropped, and then he raised both hands in exasperation. “Oh, come on. That is so unfair.” He’d been stuck as this vamp’s sidekick for—hell, he didn’t even know how long, but it felt like an eternity. She had become his guide, his anchor... Everything he saw was around her, bound to her.
And she had no idea who he was. Well, that sucked. He pursed his lips. His ego would recover, but he’d need a minute.
Her hand shot out to grasp his throat and passed through him. His lips quirked. So far the only good thing about this was watching her try to hit him and fail. Again, and again. He liked sharing the frustration. He folded his arms, waiting patiently as she tried to move, shove, punch, kick, bite...in scraps of lace that barely covered her.
“This reminds me of a movie I once saw, but I think there was jelly involved.”
She halted, glaring at him through a curtain of dark curls. He waggled his eyebrows and mouthed the word jelly.
“What the hell is going on here?” she snarled as she pulled her robe tight around her, concealing her golden-skinned curves framed in black lingerie. She was such a contradiction. All soft curves and femininity from the neck down. From the neck up—well, she was all sharpness and frost with a hint of homicide. At least her eyes weren’t glowing anymore, but had returned to their normal brown. Well, kind of normal. She had these cool little splinters of dark among the brown, and every now and then there was a fleck of gold. Fascinating. Damn it.
“I’m as confused as you are,” he answered truthfully.
She folded her arms, her lips pursing in a tight, tempting little pout. “Who are you?”
He inclined his head. “Zane Wilder, Alpine Pack Guardian,” he said formally.
She sneered. “A mutt? How dare you come into my home.”
He held up a hand. “Trust me, princess, this is the last place, and you are the last woman, I’d ever want to hang with.” He shuddered. Ugh. Vamps. So full of themselves. They carried the stench of death with them. Usually. Vivianne, though, had quite a pleasing scent. And again, he was not going to focus on that tempting, seductive, sassy little fragrance.
“I find myself...stuck.”
“Stuck?” Vivianne’s eyebrows rose as she grappled with the word.
“On you.”
“On me.”
“Stuck on you,” he clarified.
“Stuck on—”
“This conversation is going to be a long one if you’re just going to repeat everything I say,” he muttered.
Her brows drew together, and her eyes flashed. “Forgive me, I’m trying to understand how a dog got stuck on me.”
Zane narrowed his eyes. He was getting tired of her dog and mutt references. “And I’m trying to figure out how I got hitched to a soulless bloodsucker.”
She lifted her chin. “When?”
“When what?”
“When did you get stuck to me?”
He shrugged, frowning. “I don’t know. I woke up inside some hospital room, and then all hell broke loose.”
“And?”
“And what?”
She rubbed her forehead, as though an ache had started behind her eyes. Good. He hoped he made her head ache. His head pounded from trying to piece together the puzzle, particularly when he only had half the pieces.
“And what happened after that?”
He gestured around the room. “This happened. Where you go, I go. I’ve tried to walk away. Hell, I’ve tried to run away, and it’s like a revolving door, I’m running away, the world tilts, and I’m right back where I started.”
“With me.”
He nodded. “With you.”
She crossed her arms, then raised her hand to her face, nibbling on her thumbnail. It was an unconscious gesture, and possibly one of the most vulnerable he’d ever seen her do. She turned, took a couple of steps, hesitated.
“So...you’ve been with me for...a while.”
He nodded.
“Since I woke up?”
