“Tell me everything about Hanson and these northern rocks.”
“Let go of me.” Amber tried to break free with little success. “I’ll scream.”
“You scream, and I’ll gag you.” Calm and reasonable, Kane’s voice remained pleasant as he issued the threat. “No police.”
Ass-hat. Amber opened her mouth to shriek.
Kane’s palm instantly fit over her lips, stifling the sound. His free arm banded around her waist, lifting her almost two feet so they were eye-to-eye. Then he waited, no expression on his angled face.
Fury shook her shoulders. She kicked out, aiming for his knees. Kane turned them, smashing her between the wall and his body.
His body was harder than the cedar.
Amber struggled, mostly immobilized, the heat from Kane sending her senses reeling. Anger melded with something hotter in her blood. She tried to bite his palm.
He pressed harder so her teeth couldn’t find purchase. “I bite back, sweetheart.” His fangs dropped low with the warning.
She stopped struggling. Her eyes widened to let in more light, and heat slammed down to her abdomen. His obvious control over himself even while trying to frighten her gave her an odd sense of security along with a bizarre desire to challenge his control. What was the vampire like when he actually let loose?
When had she truly begun to think of him as a vampire? His fangs remained low, leaving her no mental way out. Vampires truly existed.
One of his dark eyebrows rose. “Have we reached an understanding?”
Slowly, she nodded.
“Good.” He removed his hand, and his fangs retracted. “Now I’m going to put you down, and we’re going to walk nicely through the hospital to the parking lot. Understand?” Waiting for her second nod, he set her down.
She bit her lip as she calculated the odds of getting away from him. But did she even want to? A vampire, one as strong as Kane, would come in handy with Hanson and his men. “Will you help save my grandma?”
“If you promise to help save my brother.”
She breathed in through her nose, mind reeling. “By fighting demons.”
Kane jerked his head and grabbed her hand in a firm hold. “No. You’re not going to fight demons.” He frowned, heading for the door. “You’ll shield with your mind but from a safe place. I won’t let you get harmed.” His jaw set hard at the end. “Trust me.”
Famous last words. “What if I can’t figure out how to help you?” What if he was wrong, and she wasn’t gifted? One tiny headache didn’t mean she had a gift. Wouldn’t she know if she had some weird mental ability?
“Let’s get your granny back, and then we’ll figure out how your gift works. One thing at a time.” His voice stayed low, but a tenor of urgency ran through the dark tone.
Maybe the vamp wasn’t as in control as she’d thought. She followed him into the still-quiet hall and out the front door. The wind whipped into her face as she glared at the Suburban. “We don’t have windows.”
Kane exhaled a puff of breath in the cold as he eyed the parking lot. “Any idea who owns the brown truck?” He pointed to an older Chevy half-hidden under snow.
“No. That truck has been there since Grandma was brought in. Maybe a patient owns it.”
“Good.” Long strides helped Kane draw her across the lot. “Let’s wipe off the snow.” Using his bare hands, he shoved several inches of snow off the windows. “What does Hanson want with the northern rocks?”
Amber shuffled snow off her boots. “My community owns fifty acres, and the northern rocks make up three acres. This is all about water rights. Well-testing around the rocks show plenty of water, and Hanson wants to put in several high-end subdivisions centered around a golf course. We won’t let him.”
Kane smoothed snow off the hood of the battered truck. “Your community? What kind of community? Like a commune?”
Amber laughed. “Well, kind of. We don’t go around naked or anything. But we have banded together in an eco-village to live as much as we can off the land. Even my VW Bug is frowned upon. Most people only use vehicles in emergencies.”
“Yet you work in a bar.” His expression remained neutral, yet there was a hint of—what was that in his tone?
She bristled. “Don’t judge me, rich boy.”
One dark eyebrow rose. “Rich boy?”
“Yeah. That coat costs more than most people make in a month. Heck, in three months.” Snobby people should have to live off their wits and the land for an entire year. They’d probably only last a week.
He frowned down at his coat. “Oh. My apologies, I didn’t mean to sound judgmental.”
“Accepted.” Amber couldn’t help a small smile. Kane had no problem apologizing when he was wrong, now did he? Confidence and fairness in such a sexy package—were all vampires so cool?
Kane dropped to his haunches, inspecting the front tire. “As a race, we’re rather protective of females. Sometimes too much so. My sisters-in-law would never be allowed to work alone in a bar—just for safety reasons.” He stiffened, catching his breath. Then he stood and whirled to face her. “Don’t ever tell them I used the word allow. God. Ever. Please.”
Amber laughed. “No promises.” What were these sisters-in-law like? “Are they vampires, too?”
Kane frowned. “Ah, no. Vampires are male only. We have to mate a female from a different species, and even then we only produce male vampires. Two of my sisters-in-law were enhanced humans, the other is a witch.”
There was that mate word again. One simple four-letter word shouldn’t send tingles down her spine. “A witch? A real witch?”
“Yes. Moira is incredibly powerful—you have a lot in common.”
“What’s an enhanced human?”
“A female with gifts—psychic, empathic, and so on.” Kane banged the windshield wipers back onto the glass. “So, why are you working in a bar?”
“We make enough money to live off the farm by selling vegetables, fruits, and jams in the summer, and Christmas wreaths in the winter. But hospital bills are expensive, and we don’t have health insurance.” Amber shrugged.
“So selling the land to Hanson would give you much-needed money.” Kane held out a hand.
Amber took it, allowing him to lead her around the truck to the passenger door. “Yes. But we’d be sacrificing the land and our way of life for money. Not a good sacrifice.”
He opened the door and lifted her into the truck. “Interesting. Okay, let’s go get your granny.”
CHAPTER 7
Jase Kayrs settled against the rough stone wall, his gaze on the myriad of earthy colors in the rock across the small cell. Slowly, methodically, he listed every shade of brown he could see. Tan, beige, mud . . . the list went on and on. For every new shade he noted, victory filled him that his brain still worked. Somewhat.
Take that, demons.
A crude window had been cut high above to let in light during the day. Once in a while the wind would blow hard enough he’d get a whiff of the sea, but usually the smell of dirt filled his small space. There was a time he could control the elements and heat the small area, but no longer. Cold permeated through his skin to his bones—no muscles. Idly, he wondered how much he weighed now. Not much.
Water dripped down the grooves in the rock and splashed onto the hard ground. The tip-tap of it faded away into the familiar, no longer causing spikes of irritation to dig at his neck.
That had taken about a year.
Sometimes he saw faces in the rock. After particularly bad sessions with the demons, those faces would speak to him. And when he was at his lowest, he’d talk back. These days he seemed to be talking to the rock often.