Dark Nights. Lisa Childs
are we talking about?” Sebastian asked.
“Her,” Ben replied. “You have to stick close to her. She won’t let me.”
Because she wanted nothing to do with him anymore. She wouldn’t take his calls or return his messages except to leave one of her own. I don’t want to see you. Or talk to you anymore. Please leave me alone….
He’d erased the message, but he would never forget the words—or the conviction in her voice. She’d been hurt and confused when she’d served him with divorce papers. She wasn’t confused anymore; she was certain she didn’t want him in her life.
“She won’t let me protect her, either,” Sebastian admitted with a heavy sigh. “It doesn’t matter if she sees us together or not. She keeps accusing me of hovering. She insists she’s not in any danger.”
“We both know better.”
Sebastian sighed again. “And so does everyone else. After Owen’s murder, I can’t convince anyone else to help me keep an eye on her.”
Ben shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t trust anyone else. You have to protect her.”
“But I don’t know—”
“This is your mess. You brought me into this,” Ben reminded him, frustration gripping him as he remembered the first time he’d seen this room. With the young man he’d believed his brother-in-law bleeding to death on the table, a stake protruding from his heart. “You brought her into this—you brought her into the world.”
And he had broken the law of the secret society when he had. Vampires were not supposed to procreate with mortals; they weren’t supposed to mate with them, either. But that was a law too many of the undead had broken for it ever to be steadfastly enforced.
Sebastian’s eyes glistened with regret and love. “She can never know that….”
“That you’re her dad instead of her younger half brother?” A claim she had too readily accepted as fact when Sebastian had showed up at their door ten years ago. “Yeah, that would kind of blow the damn secret out of the water.”
“And if she learns it…”
“If…” Ben snorted. “Does it matter? She doesn’t know it now, but she’s already in danger.”
“Is she?” the other man asked. “It’s been over a week and nothing else has happened.”
“Someone is threatening her,” Ben reminded him.
Maybe it was time he threatened back. He’d already lost Paige once because of the damn secret. He didn’t intend to lose her completely.
But then a scream penetrated the metal door, the voice shrill with terror. And terrifyingly familiar. Paige.
Was it already too late?
Paige pressed a trembling hand against her throat, where blood oozed between her fingers. With her other hand she fumbled for the light switch in her dark office. Before she could find it, the lamp flickered on her desk, and the faint glow of the bulb penetrated the shattered green shade and illuminated the trashed room.
She lurched to her feet and stumbled over the legs of the chair she’d thrown. Keeping that hand pressed against her wound, she tossed aside files and books as she looked for her purse and cell phone. Like the chair, the purse was upended—its contents spilled. She needed to get a purse with a damn zipper. Spying the glint of metal beneath the desk, she reached for the phone just as strong hands closed around her shoulders.
Thrusting her elbow back, she writhed and fought to free herself again from her assailant. “Let me go!”
“Paige, shh…it’s me,” a familiar deep voice assured her as he turned her to face him.
“Ben!” She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him. She’d never been so happy that he hadn’t listened to her and stayed away.
His hands trembling on her shoulders, he pulled her back. His dark eyes widened, and all the color drained from his handsome face. “You’re hurt! You’re bleeding….” His fingertips gently probed the wound.
“It’s just a scratch,” she assured him, feeling as if he needed more comfort than she did now.
His breath shuddered out. “It’s not deep, but I should take you to—”
“The hospital,” Sebastian interjected as he dropped onto his knees beside them. “You should take her to the hospital…if she needs stitches.”
She shook her head as she pushed aside Ben’s fingers and touched the wound. “It’s not bleeding much now.”
“I need to clean and dress it,” Ben said, his jaw taut. “Let’s get you to the E.R.”
She glanced back to her cell phone. “I need to call the police first.”
“What happened, Paige?” Sebastian asked.
She shivered. “I don’t know. It all happened so fast. One minute I was doing paperwork. The next it was dark and someone grabbed me.”
“You fought,” Ben said, his voice gruff with satisfaction and surprise.
He had every reason to be surprised. Until a week ago in her condo, she had never really fought with him. Or for him.
She nodded and wished she had fought before.
“Did you see who attacked you?” he asked, his hands tightening on her shoulders.
“No.” She trembled now, but with anger, not fear, over the way she’d been ambushed in the dark. “I couldn’t see anything.”
But she’d heard the voice, this time outside her head, in a whisper so raspy she’d been unable to tell if it was feminine or masculine. She shuddered now as she remembered the warmth of the breath against her neck as she’d been told again, “You don’t belong here….”
Bracing her hands on Ben’s shoulders, she levered herself to her feet. But as soon as she stood, she swayed. Dizziness lightened her head and dimmed her vision. She drew in a steadying breath, but before she could regain her balance, Ben swung her up in his arms.
“I’m fine,” she said, even though she couldn’t stop trembling now that she’d started.
“No, you’re not,” Ben said. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“I need to call the police,” she insisted.
“You can call your friend from the hospital,” he said as he carried her down the hall.
“Where did you come from?” she asked. “You and Sebastian?”
“We were out here, at the bar,” her brother answered. “We were having a drink.”
She glanced toward the bar, but no glasses sat atop the shiny granite surface. Would they have washed them before responding to her screams? She doubted it. “If you were out here, in the light, you would have seen who it was,” she pointed out. “Who attacked me?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw as Ben shook his head. “We didn’t see anything, Paige. We only heard your screams.”
“I’ll bring your car around,” Sebastian offered, running out the door ahead of them.
When he was gone, Paige focused on her ex-husband. “Where were you, Ben?” she asked. The question was one she had wanted to ask him so many times before. But she’d been afraid of the answer—afraid that he might have been cheating on her.
“I told you I’d be here for you,” he reminded her.
Like so many times before, over the years, he hadn’t really answered her question. And he hadn’t kept her safe.
Ben stared at the undead