"Doctor . . .?" I said, searching for a nametag.

He scooped me up with his soulful dark eyes. "Dr. Mitch-ell. Lee. And you are?"

Available.

"Dr. Knight.Kismet. I'm a psychologist. Can you tell us anything about what's wrong with Emerald? Can we see her?""We've stabilized her, but she's lost a lot of blood and she's receiving a transfusion now. This is an unusual case; the patient should be covered with blood to account for the excessive blood loss, but she isn't. And, it appears that she has older puncture wounds on her neck and chest in addi-tion to those we're treating today. We're running tests on the wounds to see what kind of animal caused them. Do you have any information about where she was when the attack occurred? Did you see anything?"

I glanced over at Midnight, sliding the questions into her lap. She shook her head. "I thought Emerald was staying home last night and I didn't get back 'til early this morning, so I don't know what happened.

I'm so sorry that I wasn't there for her," she whimpered, as tears ran down her cheeks.

I put my arm around her shoulders. "Dr. Mitchell, when will you get the results of the tests back? I'd like to know as soon as possible."

"Is the patient a client of yours?"

I started to say no, but then I remembered the lost, empty eyes of the vulnerable young woman we'd brought in, and I decided to lie. I wasn't sure how far professional courtesy was going to get me, and I wasn't willing to be another person who abandoned Emerald.

Yes. We just started working together." I should know something by tomorrow morning. I could call you when the results come in, if you want." He smiled and tilted his head to the side.

Was this guy flirting with me? I must have crossed into some twilight zone, because this kind of stuff just didn't hap-pen to me.

First the vampire wannabe gave meJello knees, and now the handsome doctor was smiling at me in a most inviting manner. I'd bet the combination of the smile and the head-tilt thing always worked for him. I could definitely verify its effectiveness.

"I would appreciate that." Slightly flustered, I finally man-aged to pull out one of my business cards and handed it to him. "Just leave a message any time and I'll call you right back."

If one of my almost-clients hadn't been lying in the hospi-tal, missing several pints of blood, I might have been tempted to pull my own smile and head-tilt out of the garage and take it for a test spin. But under the circumstances, I just put my professional face back on and behaved myself.

"The patient isn't going to be able to have any visitors today, so it would be best if you returned in the morning," he explained, stepping back into his official persona. "Don't worry. We'll take good care of her." He winked at me, smiled, and walked away.

Well. That's it. I've definitely entered a parallel universe.

Ronald went to fetch the van and Midnight retreated in search of a restroom. I sat back down in one of the uncom-fortable chairs, closed my eyes and circled my head around, stretching out the tight muscles in my neck. After a few sec-onds, I sensed someone behind me and turned to investigate.

Wow. I've died and gone to hunk heaven.

A tall, absurdly attractive man was inching toward me, madly scribbling into a notebook, totally oblivious to the fact that I was staring at him. He must have sensed he'd reached my chair because he started talking, eyes still on his writing.

"Dr. Knight? I'm Special Agent Stevens," he said, finally making eye contact. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you. Seems I really can't walk and do anything else at the same time. I couldn't help but overhear the conversation you had with the doctor. The victim of the attack is your client?'

"Special Agent Stevens?You don't look like a special agent." I noticed he was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. "Who do you work for?" Who knew the hospital was where they kept all the great looking men?

"Sorry. I'd just gotten home and changed clothes when I picked up the call that there'd been another attack." He pulled out his identification from his back pocket and handed it to me.

Federal Bureau of Investigation, Special Agent Alan Ste-vens.I shifted my eyes from the photo to his face and back again. The picture didn't do him justice. It didn't even begin to convey the intelligence anddepth in his sapphire eyes or the golden highlights in his dark hair. Well, now.

I handed the ID back to him. "Why would the FBI be interested in an animal attack inDenver ?"

He paused and studied me as if he was trying to figure out if I was serious or not. "This wasn't an animal attack. I've been tracking these cases all over the country. The local po-lice are involved, too. So, is Emerald Addison your client?"

"You know I can't confirm or deny that."Shit He'd ob-viously heard me confirm it to the doctor.

"That pesky confidentiality thing, eh?"He smirked, making excellent eye contact.

I got distracted by his face for a moment.He has wonderful eyes. Depending on how he moves his head, sometimes they're blue and sometimes purple. Like the ocean at twilightSnap out of it, Kismet "Uh, what cases have you been tracking? What does Emerald's situation have to do with those?'" It was definitely time to change the topic.

He smiled. "Oh, so you won't answer my questions, yet I'm supposed to answer yours? I don't think so.

But I'd like your contact information, just in case I think of some ques-tions you can answer. Could I have one of those business cards you gave to the doctor?"

I wonder how it would feel to run my fingers through all that gor-geous hair Making sure that thought was not written on my face, I gave him one of my cards, and he fished in his wallet for one of his. "Here's my card. If you think of anything that might help me find whoever did this to your client, you can call me.Day or night."

I nodded, feeling like a hormonal 13-year-old. "Thanks, I will."

We locked eyes for a few seconds and then he shifted his gaze back down to the notebook, began writing furiously again, and shuffled back a few feet toward the nurses' station. Mid-night,who had been standing off to the side, listening to the exchange, joined me and reported that Ronald and the van were out front. We were just going out the door when Special Agent Stevens suddenly reappeared and grabbed my arm.

"Oh, by the way, doc. Watch out for the vampires."

By the time we left the hospital, the mountain skyline shimmered in the midst of a breathtakingcolor and light show. Brilliant shades of red, orange, blue, and purple swirled around and through each other, muting into pinks, peaches, and lavenders as shafts of sunlight streamed through open-ings in the kaleidoscope ofcolors .And off to the east, faint points of light floating in an indigo void sparkled as the sun retreated behind the towering peaks in the west. Nothing's as magical as aRockyMountain sunset.

We were all exhausted and the ride back to my office was a silent one. It appeared my companions had buried the hatchet, because Ronald offered to take Midnight home, and she accepted. Before they left I rescheduled Ronald's ap-pointment and thanked him for being such a big help. He seemed ill at ease with my expression of appreciation, but gave me a tentative smile. I looked forward to finding out if I could help alleviate the sadness I saw behind his warm tawny eyes.

I wrestled with myself about whether I should go up to my office and work for a while or head home to a glass of wine and a hot bath. Guilt won the match and I rode the ele-vator upstairs, daydreaming about sinking into anaromatic,bubble -filled tub.

I was gratified to find several voice mail messages from prospective clients, and I sat at my desk for the next hour re-turning calls and answering emails. I had just decided to pack it in for the evening, when my office door opened and two of the whitest men I'd ever seen walked in. I don't mean just pale, like the British actors on the BBC. Chalk white. Unlike the makeup that Midnight used to adorn herself, the tone of their complexions hadn't come from a tube.

Suffice it to say they weren't sun worshippers.

One of the men was tall, dark-haired, and handsome and the other, short, odd-looking, and muscle-bound.

Startled, I asked, "Can I help you?"

How did they get in? Pm positive I locked those doors.

No response.

They ambled into the office and circled around, prowling through the couches and chairs in the middle of the room, their eyes fixed on me.

The smaller of the two came and sat on the corner of my desk and leered at me. He smiled a closed-mouth smile and reached out a tattooed hand to touch my hair. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt that showed exaggerated biceps and triceps rippling across his upper arms. His hair was that artificialcolor of burgundy that was so popular with the Goths, and it flowed down his upper body like stringy octo-pus arms. His eyes were so light blue they were almost white. He reminded me of a demented, miniature muscle man.A nightmare come to life.

These guys made my stomach hurt. It wasn't only that they'd invaded my privacy, or that they appeared dangerous, or even that they could assault me at any moment. It was something else.Some basic, preverbal fear that caused the hairs on my arms to stand up and the warning system in my head to fire a red alert. I kept having the odd, less-than-comforting intuition that death was in the room, and my usually manageable radar was picking up so much fear-ful information that it plunged into overload and threatened to shut down.

I glanced over at the phone on the far corner of my desk and began sliding my hand in that direction.

The tall man stepped around behind me and put his hands underneath my jaw, pulling my head back. Hebent down, brought his mouth next to my ear and whispered, in a very sensuous voice, "I've heard so much about you, I thought it was time we were formally introduced." He grabbed the hand moving toward the phone.

"Who are you? What do you want?" I tried not to sound as worried as I felt.

His hand trailed across the hair at the back of my head as he moved to sit directly in front of me on my desk, which caused his legs to be jammed into the space under the desk with mine.

I instinctively reacted, making an unsuccessful attempt to push away. He bent in close, his hands straddling my chair, effectively blocking any move on my part. I was glad I'd worn a pantsuit instead of a skirt, because I wanted as many layers between us as possible.

He lowered his mouth to within an inch of mine, and I twisted my head to the side, shifting away from his hot, unpleasantly sweet breath. He grabbed my chin between his thumband first finger, holding tightly enough that I knew there'd be bruises, and forced my face back level with his. "I'm Bryce. I believe you've heard of me."

"Stop it! Let go of me . . ."

He swallowed my words with his mouth, clamping his lips on mine with enough pressure to cause my teeth to break the skin on the inside of my lip. Then he sucked my lower lip into his mouth, holding it with his teeth until I made an involuntary yelp of pain. Only then did he pull back, giv-ing an evil grin, and gazed at me with his dark green eyes, which seemed suddenly magnetic. I tried to look away, but I couldn't. I literally couldn't. It was as if his eyes were pulling me. I managed to briefly squeeze my eyelids shut, and he dug his fingers into my chin again, jerking my head roughly. He roared, "Open your eyes."

My eyelids flew up and his eyes were directly in front of mine, the green darker than before, almost black. I fell into them and felt the edges of my vision blur-a strange haze settling over everything-as part of my mind drifted off on a cloud.

I felt as if my arms and legs were encased inarmor , that even thinking about moving would require way too much ef-fort, and that it really wouldn't matter, because they were too heavy to lift anyway.Bryce cocked his head to the side and watched me, smil-ing. "See? You're feeling much more relaxed now. Aren't you sorry you put up such a fuss?"

"What do you want?" I mumbled.

I made what I thought was another valiant effort to raise myself out of the chair. Since nothing happened, I could only assume the message hadn't made it from my brain to my body. My muscles were pudding and my mouth was dry as theSahara . Maybe I'd had a stroke and was spending my last moments on Earth in the company of a psychopath.

He laughed. "I enjoy when you struggle. It excites me. I'm not sure you really want to know what I want.

Let's just keep it a surprise, shall we?"

Bryce selected a piece of his long hair and brushed it against my cheek. "You really are quite lovely.All that long, dark hair and sexy eyes. I can see why Devereux is attracted to you. I'm here because I overheard him talking about you to my little servant, Midnight. I think he's quite smitten, if you want my opinion. Nothing would make me happier than to keep Devereux from having something he wants or, even better, to take it away from him after he has it."

"No one has me," I asserted, despite the fact that I didn't have any idea what he was talking about, and the part of my mind that had floated away was still missing-in-action. False bravado was one of my favoritedefenses .

All this time the smaller man had been laughing and slapping his leg with one hand. I slanted a glance at him and he showed me his top row of teeth, exposing a very real-look-ing set of fangs. He definitely had the best pair of fakes I'd seen so far. I wasn't sure what kind of reaction he thought I'd have to his cosmetic dentistry, but I obviously didn't give him whatever he wanted because he lurched at me and growled, "I could rip your throat out with these."

Abnormally fast, Bryce reached over, grabbed the small man by the throat, and threw him onto the floor.

He snarled, "Leave her alone,Raleigh . I told you. She's mine."

Raleighglared at Bryce, making noises that sounded more animal than human. He got up off the floor,stumbled to the nearest couch and stretched out, lacing his fingers be-hind his head.

She's mine? What does that mean? Am I his to harm,or. . . ? I wish I could find the "on" switch for my brain.

I hadn't worked with any physically dangerous or psy-chotic clients since my residency at the psychiatric ward during graduate school, and I tried to remember the skills I'd learned for dealing with them. Since I'd seen Bryce throw the small man around like a cardboardcutout , I knew I had no chance of doing anything that required physical strength, and I thought my only hope would be to use my tools as a therapist. Maybe I could reason with him. Or maybe I should just keep my mouth shut. I definitely needed to keep a clear head and that had become a problem.

Bryce turned his attention back to me and searched for something in my expression. He leaned in, ran his tongue over my lips and then kissed me again. I twisted my face away and yelled, "No!" He angrily shoved my chair back from the desk, stood up and lifted me, holding me like a child in his arms.

I ineffectually pushed against his chest and kicked my legs, trying to get him to put me down, and for one sick mo-ment I was reminded of a scene from that old science fiction movie,The DayThe Earth Stood Still , where the robot picked up the woman and she couldn't get away. Bryce felt that cold and alien to me.

I still had little control of my limbs and I was forced to acknowledge that this situation wasn't likely to end up any way I'd choose.

"Let me go! What are you doing?" I screamed, as he walked me over to a couch back against the far wall. The motions I was making with my arms and legs were pitifully useless. I hate feeling helpless. I thought about all the op-portunities I'd had to take self-defenseclasses and how I'd always come up with some excuse to avoid them. I didn't know if learning to take down a guy wearing a big, foam helmet would have helped me fight off these two vampire wannabes, but it would have been better than nothing.

"Let's have a therapy session." He sat down on the couch, holding me tight in his lap. I kept pushing against him, getting more and more pissed about whatever he'd done to cause this bizarre paralysis, but his arms were steel bands. The sweet, coppery smell that rode his breath seemed stronger now.

"What do you want? Why did you come here?" I de-manded, trying to sound more confident than I felt."Maybe I need someone to talk to," he said in a fake whining voice. He opened the top button of my blouse, and ran his finger across the section of exposed skin. "Maybe I'm just a lonely vampire searching for my soul mate. What do you think?" He threw back his head and laughed, en-joying some private joke, and then he recovered himself.

"I hear you don't believe in vampires. I thought I'd change your mind.Watch."

He lifted his top lip so I could see the upper row of teeth and, as I watched, his canines got longer and longer until they protruded a good quarter- to a half-inch below his other teeth. Then they contracted back up into their normal place and ex-tended again, as if he could will them to move in and out of his gums. He grinned at me. "How do you explain that?"

I didn't say anything. I stared at his mouth, trying to fig-ure out how the trick fangs worked.

He smiled, his eyes sparkling. "Go ahead. Touch them."

Touch them? I wasn't going to stick my fingers in some psychopath's mouth. He'd probably bite me. I didn't want to think about where those teeth had been.

"No."

"Oh, but I insist." He grabbed my hand and forced it up toward his mouth, laying the tip of my index finger on one of his fangs. It contracted while I touched it, and I was able to snatch my hand away.

Maybe my instincts could over-ride whatever he'd done to me.

He laughed. "I'm old enough to have total control of my fangs, but if you get me aroused or angry enough they seem to have a mind of their own. And, right now I'm feeling very aroused."

He grabbed my hand again and shoved it down into his lap, which was filled with a large erection. "Let me show you what else has a mind of its own."In one quick motion he had me lying flat on the couch with him on top of me, roughly pressing his lips against mine. I pushed at him again, my muscles finally deciding to re-join the party, but he grabbed my wrists, holding them over my head in a vice-like grip as he forced his tongue into my mouth. After a few seconds I felt him kissing his way down to my neck and there was a flash of pain when he bit me.

I screamed and kicked and pushed against him in a futile effort to dislodge an immovable object. I tried to raise my knee to administer the only effective self-defensestrategy I knew, but he weighed on me like a slab of cement and I thought that maybe I wouldn't have to worry about him rap-ing me, because he'd probably crush or smother me first.

He was making loud sucking sounds at the wound on my neck and I started to feellightheaded .

Suddenly, the pain stopped and I opened my eyes-which I hadn't real-ized I'd closed-and he wasn't on top of me anymore. I could hear male voices yelling and the sound of furniture being pushed around.

I sat up, feeling like the morning after, and saw Devereux and Bryce struggling with each other, dancers in a strange ballet.Raleigh was nowhere in sight.

Watching the two of them was surprisingly entrancing, and I couldn't shift my eyes away. It was as if they were in slow motion. I was fascinated by Devereux's light blond hair contrasted by Bryce's dark, silky veil. I hallucinated that their hair was flowing out around their heads as if they were submerged under water and, while some part of me knew that couldn't really be happening,I was lost in the spectacle.

I was jarred out of my trance by the harsh sound of De-vereux's angry words.

"If you touch her again, I will kill you," he bellowed in an unnaturally amplified voice. "She is under my protec-tion now. Ignore that at your peril." He released Bryce, who laughed and then vanished.

I stared at the empty place where Bryce had been and tried to get the neurons in my brain to fire in some helpful way. I quickly blinked my eyes a few times to clear the fog. Perfect. I'd finally lost my mind.

Devereux straightened his clothing, smoothed his hair back away from his face and walked over to me.

He sat down, opened his arms and I sagged against him, forgetting for a moment that I had my suspicions about his mental state, and allowed myself to be held. I could hear his heart beating and felt his warm breath on the side of my face.We just sat like that, with him holding me, collapsed and shaking against him, for several minutes. "I am very sorry that I did not get here sooner. I never thought Bryce would risk my anger by coming here. I will pay much closer atten-tion in the future."

"Thank you," I mumbled, but I didn't know what I was thanking him for. Had he appointed himself my bodyguard? Was he saying that he was the reason I'd been attacked?

He stroked my hair and I surrendered into the calming rhythm of his hand. I didn't know how to make sense out of anything that had happened. I prided myself on my logi-cal mind, and none of the puzzle pieces fit. My body was in shock, and the wound on my neck throbbed. I couldn't really have seen someone disappear before my eyes. That was im-possible. It was probably a delusion triggered by the attack. But it had seemed so real.

I was grateful to find that all my clothes were still but-toned, snapped, and zipped. Thankfully, Bryce hadn't been able to follow through on his intention to penetrate more than my neck.