Dayan watched the car until the taillights disappeared around a corner. Corinne feared for his safety. He read it easily in her eyes, in her mind. Heard her protest with his acute hearing. It warmed him as nothing else had ever done. Then he turned his head very slowly to look at the house. As he turned, his entire demeanor changed. There was nothing left of the elegant male. At once he looked like what he truly was. A dark, dangerous predator unsheathing his claws. Stalking his prey. He began to move in the darkness — his home, his world. He had the complete advantage. He could see easily on the darkest night, he could move with the silence of the wind, he could scent his prey as keenly as the wolf, and he could command the skies and the earth itself.
Dayan glided around the house, effortlessly vaulting the six-foot fence. As he did so he shifted shape, landing silently on four paws instead of two feet. The leopard padded softly on its large, cushioned paws, the grass barely moving as it circled the back of the house. Off the back porch a light shone beneath the door of a small room. In the shadow of the porch, the huge cat wavered and shimmered, its mottled fur almost iridescent for a brief moment, then it simply dissolved as if it had never been.
A stream of vapor poured through the crack of the door, flowing as quickly and silently as a lethal dose of carbon monoxide. Dayan gained the interior of the house and paused for a moment inside while the vapor wavered into transparency once more, only to reform in the huge, well muscled body of the cunning and silent predatory cat.
Dayan padded through the small, well-lit room into the darkened kitchen. He knew immediately where both hunters lay in wait. He could smell them, a pungent mixture of fear and excitement. They had been waiting for some time, pumped up and ready, sweat glands excreting their foul stench, but inevitably the wait had drained them and they had become restless and cramped in their positions. When the headlights of the car had signaled the arrival of the two women, the cycle had started all over again. Fear. Excitement. Adrenaline. And then the terrible letdown.
They were shifting their positions, uncertain what to do. Their orders were clear. Wait until the women arrived, grab them quickly and quietly. Dayan read their minds as clearly as he smelled the sweat from their bodies. Neither noticed the large leopard as it made its slow, patient approach in imperceptible silence.
The cat walked boldly out into the center of the spacious room, not even attempting to use the furniture for cover. This kind of cat-and-mouse game was as old as life itself to the predator. The leopard’s eyes remained focused on its prey, a penetrating, piercing stare signaling that death was stalking. Those eyes held all the cunning and intelligence of a great hunter. They were not the yellow eyes of a leopard, but a fierce, calm black, empty of anything but lethal intent.
The leopard dropped low, belly to the ground, muscles incredibly controlled as it began to stalk the men. Inch by slow inch. In complete silence. There was not even the whisper of fur brushing the immaculate carpet as the cat gained on its prey. A man was leaning against the wall, sighing, moving restlessly, easing his cramped muscles. A gun was in his right hand and he continually checked it, caressing the trigger absently with his finger, wiping his forehead where beads of sweat were accumulating. Waiting was a difficult thing, and he didn’t have the patience or stillness of the cat.
He never knew that he had gone from the hunter to the hunted. He felt the impact of the heavy body as it drove him into the wall. He felt the brush of fur and smelled the wild scent of death. Daggers pierced him where the heavy cat’s crushing claws held him still while its long, sharp teeth punctured his throat. For one moment the man stared into the eyes of the cat, caught and held as his throat was crushed; the knowledge of his own death had come far too late to stop it. Those eyes held savage intelligence and were mesmerizing, compelling. As he died, he recalled the events leading up to this moment. He had been one of the men who’d stalked and murdered John Wentworth. One of the men who did security work at the Morrison Center for Psychic Research.
Dayan lowered his prey to the ground, breathing deeply, forcing the beast under control. In the body of the leopard, his own hunger was doubly difficult to restrain. He moved quickly from the temptation, padding softly around the corner of the room into the hall on his cushioned paws. Corinne had been correct: The kidnappers were after them because John had gone to the center. Whatever her husband had told them, it had aroused interest in Corinne and Lisa as well.
Once again in complete control of the beast raging inside him, Dayan began to stalk the other kidnapper.
He was on the other side of the room, oblivious to his partner’s fate. Twice he lifted a small corner of the curtain and looked out into the dark night. The leopard could smell him, hear his sighs, his movements giving away his position as he constantly shifted his weight back and forth in an attempt to ease sore muscles and keep himself alert. This man was stroking his gun, too, fantasizing about what he would do to the two women when he had them in his hands.
The leopard padded forward until it was within several feet of its prey before it froze in position, sinking to the carpet in a low crouch. The cat remained perfectly motionless, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on its prey. The man turned and looked directly at the leopard without seeing it, without any awareness whatsoever. Dayan waited with all the patience of a thousand years of hunting. For him, the life cycle was endless and there was all the time in the world. He watched dispassionately as the intruder turned back to his post without seeing the body of his partner or the danger to himself.
The leopard inched forward once again without even a whisper of movement to betray him. He had stalked prey countless times and defeated his enemies time and again. The merciless black eyes never once left their target. When he was within striking distance, he gathered himself for the attack, watching, waiting for the perfect opportunity. He struck hard, going for the throat, the quick kill, and this time he shifted shape as he did so, bending his head to drink as he took the man unaware.
At once the rush of adrenaline-laced blood hit him hard, a fireball moving through his system.
The forbidden.
Addicting as any drug. He was hungry and he drank deeply, the beast rising, fighting for supremacy. Dayan calmly held the man’s weight in his enormously strong hands and deliberately thought of Corinne. She anchored him, kept him safe. She was there to ensure he did not cross over to become the very thing this man was hunting. The vampire. The undead. Dayan was a Carpathian male, as old as time, one of the ancients walking the land in search of his lifemate. Without her he would eventually be forced to seek the dawn or choose to lose his soul and become the vampire.
The blood was moving through his system, reviving cells and muscles and tissue, soaking into his body and giving him a false high. Everything in him demanded more, demanded he feed while the life force faded from the body.
Corinne.
He called her name in his mind for strength to resist the wildness. A cool breeze seemed to find its way to his hot skin.
Corinne.
He could see her face — he had memorized every inch of it. Her soft skin begging for his touch. Her moss-green eyes, the color as rare as she was. The light inside her, shining out of her.
Corinne.
He felt her with him and it was enough. He closed the wound with his healing saliva, allowing the man to die at his own pace. The beast inside him raged for a moment, fighting him, wanting more, wanting to gorge itself, but Dayan ignored the terrible whispers of power and concentrated on Corinne.
Her mouth. The intriguing dimple that came and went. The way her lips curved into a smile. She was extremely kissable. He looked around the spacious house. Corinne’s house. He inhaled her scent as he moved through the rooms. The house had high, vaulted ceilings, lots of wood and was very clean. Instinctively he knew that Corinne was the one who did the housekeeping. Lisa’s bedroom had clothes on the floor and draped over chairs. Lipsticks and cosmetics were scattered over a vanity. A large gilded mirror was on the wall above the small vanity. The room held Lisa’s scent and two pictures. One was of Corinne. The other was of a young male. Tall. Laughing. Blond like Lisa. It had to be John.