"Let her meet Sean," Lucian suggested. "And then we can begin the explanations that she isn't going to believe."

She had been expecting to tell a story that no one was going to believe.

Lucian led the way across the room to a library with double doors. As she walked in, she saw a man leaning against a mantel, a drink in his hand, as he spoke to someone across the room.

"Sean, she's arrived. I didn't have to look for her," Lucian said.

"So you're Jordan Riley," Sean Canady said. He was about forty, fit and handsome, with fine, serious eyes. She started across the room, ready to shake his hand.

Then she saw the man to whom he had been speaking.

She froze where she stood; Ragnor Wulfsson was standing just across the room from where Canady leaned against the mantel.

"Jordan," Ragnor began, walking toward her.

G.o.d! This was it! She had traveled through the night, only across the expanse of the Atlantic, to find herself facing the same terror.

There would be no escape here, she thought. She had run from a place with friends and family, and she was here alone and he was here.

No escape . . . She pictured Tiff's ashen body, saw her shoulders pull free from her head.

She turned and ran.

Ignoring the startled cries of Jade DeVeau, she shoved the woman out of her way and fled from the house, bursting through the front door, racing down the steps. She hopped into the Honda and gunned the motor, realizing that she could mire the car in the unpaved driveway if she didn't calm down and use some sense. She didn't even know where she was driving. She peeled out, and shot along the lonely strip of road.

Suddenly, she slammed on her brakes. There was something in the road ahead of her. A shadow. A shape ...

A man. Her lights focused on a man standing in her path. Ragnor.

She hit the b.u.t.ton for her window.

"Move out of the way. I swear, I'll run you over."

"Jordan, stop it, you're in danger-"

"From you!"

"No, d.a.m.n you, not from me. Will you come back to the house and talk? We will do our best to explain."

"Explain that you're monsters, and that you kill people, and that Sean Canady writes about vampires with such knowledge because he is one?"

"Sean isn't a vampire."

"But-you are?"

"Jordan, I have to explain-"

She didn't let him finish. She floored the car, sickened that she was going to hit him, but so panicked that she could do nothing else. Yet as the car sped across the highway, Ragnor seemed to fade into the darkness.

She slowed when she came to a crossroad, peering through the window, trying desperately to decide which way to go to get back to people-lots of people. Normal people.

Then she let out a scream of terror. Ragnor was at her window. "Jordan, you've got to listen to me-"

Once again, she hit the gas pedal, shot out into the intersection. A car was coming from the left. He blared his horn.

Jordan swerved and lost control. The car spun. The next thing she knew, she was flying into the foliage at the side of the road. The car came to a violent halt as she hit a tree stump. She'd neglected to wear a seat belt in her haste to escape. She only kept herself in the car and in one piece with the death grip she had on the steering wheel.

"Jordan!" She heard his deep voice as he called to her. In panic she pushed open the door and started to run into the night.

"Jordan!"

The next thing she knew, he was behind her, his hands on her shoulders. She turned, screaming, kicking, fighting. In her effort to free herself from his grasp, she stumbled backward in a pile of weeds and fell flat, bringing him down with her.

He braced his hands against her shoulders, sprawled halfway over her. "Jordan, stop it, for the love of G.o.d, stop it! You have to listen-"

He broke off so suddenly that she ceased to fight. She stared at him and realized that he was listening to something that she didn't hear. It had taken his attention from her. If she chose just the right moment ...

But then she heard it, too. Wings ...

Wings in the night.

A whisper, a hiss, a warning . ..

She didn't need to escape him; he was no longer touching her. As she stared into the darkness, she saw a shadow form just feet away. Ragnor leaped to his feet, turning to face the shadow. The darkness took shape. A man, a man in a large black coat. From beneath it, he drew a long and glistening sword.

Ragnor walked toward the man on the roadway. Jordan lay stunned, watching him. Then, as she saw Ragnor draw some kind of a weapon from his jacket, she got to her feet.

She watched the two men approaching one another. The sword was swung by the stranger, a man with a face she'd never seen before. Ragnor ducked the swing of the blade, and the sword whistled through the night air.

Jordan found the strength to move. Her car was useless. She moved carefully, silently across the road, standing opposite the two men edging back toward the way she had come.

Then she saw Ragnor strike. He had only a long bladed knife, while the other man wielded a sword, but the stranger had lost his balance. Ragnor sprang forward with a sure, true aim, catching the fellow dead center in his throat.

Jordan screamed.

The man dropped his sword, clutching his throat. Blood was spilling from his wound.

Ragnor went in mercilessly for the kill.

She screamed again as the man's head flopped to his side, and still, Ragnor did not cease. He struck out again, and again, until the man's head fell from his body, and into the foliage. A second later, the body-which had wobbled even after it had lost its head- went crashing into the bushes after it.

She had never felt such pure hysteria. She simply stood, screaming and screaming, and then she saw Ragnor stare at her, and she backed away, and she wanted to run, but she couldn't, she could only stare at him as if she could preserve her own life by keeping him locked in front of her with her eyes.

"Jordan!"

Once again, she started backing away, shaking her head in disbelief and horror.

"Jordan, he was sent to- kill you. Or stop you, bring you down. I still don't completely understand-"

"Stop!" she raised a hand before her, still backing away. She hit soft dirt. Her heel sank, and again, she stumbled backward.

A second later, he was towering over her.

"Do it!" she shrieked. "Kill me, cut off my head, do ... do ..."

He reached a hand down to her. "Get up, scream again if you need to, and then get logical and listen to me!"

"Logical!" she said, her voice rising again.

He had a grip on her arm; he pulled her to her feet.

The headlights of a car suddenly pinned them both in brilliant light. Jordan looked to the road for help. Sean Canady was driving the car.

Her heart sank.

"Jordan, let's go," Ragnor said curtly.

He drew her to the car. Canady opened the door; Ragnor ushered her in, then took a seat in the back.

The car made a quick U-turn.

"What are you going to do with me?" Jordan asked.

"Give you some clean clothes, by the looks of it," Canady said lightly. "Then a good stiff drink."

She caught Ragnor's eyes in the rearview mirror. They were hard blue, cold as ice.

"Imagine being a cop and having to come to grips with all of this," Canady said lightly.

"A cop-but not a vampire?" Jordan said.

"Yeah. Almost . .. but never really," Canady explained.

She fell silent, thinking that she must be dreaming, as she had been dreaming on the plane. But she wasn't dreaming. She could feel a pain pulsing in her ankle and her knee hurt. And her back. And catching sight of herself in a dim reflection on the windshield of the car, she saw that twigs and bracken were in her hair.

The car pulled up to the house. Before she had a chance to move, Ragnor left the rear seat and opened her door. He drew her out, none too gently. "Could we have a discussion now, in the house, please?"

She shook off his touch and walked up the front steps. Both the women were waiting for her there.

"Lucian?" Ragnor asked.

"He went looking for you, too," Jade said. "He was afraid you might have met with trouble."

"I did."

"Did you know him?" she asked. He shook his head. "They've been creating their own little army. They're novices, and can't fight worth a d.a.m.n."

"Come into the office, please!" Maggie said. Evidently, she had gotten her child to bed in the midst of all this.

Without looking back at Ragnor, Jordan took a seat on the edge of the antique sofa that faced the mantel.

There was a fire burning in the hearth. At least that brought a warmth to her that she found she desperately needed.

They flocked around her, Maggie on one side, Jade on the other, Sean in front of the mantel on one side, and Ragnor-who had just sawed off someone's head on the other side. He was in a leather jacket, breathing easily for a man who had just engaged in such strenuous exercise; his long blond hair somewhat tousled but his clothing still amazingly, in place. She wanted to run to him; she wanted to run away from him.

Now she knew why.

"Jordan, first of all, I swear, none of us means to hurt you in any way," Sean Canady said.

"We're trying to protect you," Maggie explained. Jordan stared at her. "Are you a vampire?"

"No ... but I was. That's a very long story, and I'm not exactly sure what forces gave me a cure."

"I am a vampire," Jade said softly. "By choice."

Jordan swung around to stare at her. "As is Lucian," Jade explained.

"So, you see, we know what we're talking about," Sean said.

She just stared at them, all of them, one by one.

Then she looked at Ragnor. "Great. Just great."

"There are more than you might realize," Maggie said.

"I think she needs that good stiff drink," Sean said.

"Perhaps you'd better get it," Ragnor said. "I'm sure she'll think I'm trying to poison her."

Sean brought her something in a gla.s.s. Her fingers wound around it, shaking so badly that she could hardly hold the gla.s.s. She decided to down the drink in a single swallow.

How could she make things worse?

"I'll try to explain things to you in a nutsh.e.l.l," Sean said. "Vampires do exist. They have for centuries. They've survived, usually, by keeping a low profile."

"A low profile," Jordan repeated woodenly, extending the gla.s.s. "I think I'll have another."

Ragnor hunkered down before her. "In ancient times, it was easy. There were wars, feuds, deaths ... everywhere."

"And no ma.s.s media," Jade said.

"And no forensic detective work," Sean continued.

"But there are legends," Ragnor said. "Some of them true, some of them exaggerated, some entirely made up."

"I existed for years, never hurting anyone," Maggie said. "But there is ... an instinct. A hunger. And that hunger creates a disregard for human life."

"Which has been shared by many 'normal' men throughout history. There has always been a despot somewhere, a tyrant, a king, a dictator, willing to dispose of hundreds and thousands of people," Ragnor continued, his eyes hard on hers. "The Romans conquered and killed throughout Europe and beyond. The barbarians swept down on Imperial Rome.