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  Her lungs swelled like those of a marathon runner after a race.

  She dragged in breath after ragged breath.

  Her heart felt ready to explode.

  Her head spun in ever tightening circles and she had to close her eyes

  tightly against the horrible dizziness.

  She sat up quickly, pushing the damp hair from her forehead, and

  glanced at the clock beside the bed and then at the fading light beyond

  the window.

  She needn’t have done so.

  The dream assaulted her at the same time each day, just one part of her

  increasingly irregular sleep patterns.

  Nighttime insomnia, daytime lethargy and vivid nightmares that were

  always the same had become a predictable part of her existence.

  She’d made a habit of rushing to her room for a nap the second she got

  home from work, knowing it would be the only sleep she was likely to

  get.

  She’d sleep like the dead until just before dusk, only to be wakened by

  that frightening, lingering dream.

  The effects slowly faded, and Tamara got to her feet, pulled on her

  satin robe and padded to the adjoining bathroom, leaving tracks in the

  deep, silvery pile of the carpet.

  She twisted the knob on the oversize tub and sprinkled a handful of

  bath oil beads into the rising water.

  As the stream of water bubbled and spurted she heard an urgent knock,

  and she went to the door.

  Daniel’s silver brows bunched together over pale blue, concern-filled

  eyes.

  “Tam? Are you all right?”

  She closed her eyes slowly and sighed.

  She must have cried out again.

  It was bad enough to be certain her own sanity was slipping steadily

  out of her grasp, but to worry the man who’d been like a father to her

  for the past twenty years was too much.

  “Of course, I’m fine. Why?”

  “I… thought I heard you call.”

  His eyes narrowed to study her face.

  She hoped the circles beneath her eyes didn’t show.

  “Are you sure you’re ” “Fine. I’m fine. I stubbed my toe on the

  bedpost, that’s all.”

  Still he looked doubtful.

  “You look tired.”

  “I was about to take a nice hot bath and then I’m down for the

  night.”

  She smiled to ease his worry, but it turned to a frown when she noted

  the coat over his arm.

  “You’re going out? Daniel, it’s been snowing all day. The roads “

  “I’m not driving. Tam. Curtis is coming to pick me up.”

  She felt her spine stiffen.

  Her breath escaped her in a rush.

  “You’re going to spy on that man again, aren’t you?

  Honestly, Daniel, this obsession you have ” ” Spying!

  It’s surveillance.

  And don’t call it obsession, Tamara.

  It’s pure scientific study.

  You should understand that.

  ” Her brows rose.

  “It’s folklore, that’s what it is. And if you keep dogging the poor

  man’s every step he’s going to end up dragging you into court. Daniel,

  you’ve followed him for months. You have yet to come up with a shred

  of evidence that he’s ” “Daniel.

  ” Curt’s voice cut her off, and in a moment he’d hurried up the stairs

  to join Daniel outside her bedroom door. ” Are you ready?

  ” “And you!”

  Tamara rushed on as if he’d been privy to the entire conversation.

  “I can’t believe you’re encouraging this witch-hunt. For God’s sake,

  the three of us spend every day in a high-tech, brass-and-glass-filled

  office building in White Plains. We’re living in the nineties, guys.

  By ram, Connecticut, not fifteenth-century Transylvania!”

  Curt stared at her for a moment.

  Then he tilted his head to one side and opened his arms.

  She sighed and allowed his embrace.

  “Still not sleeping nights?”

  His voice came smoothly, softly.

  She shook her head against the damp fabric of his coat.

  “I’m worried about leaving her alone,” Daniel said, as if she were not

  there.

  “I have experiments to finish in the basement lab,” Curt offered.

  “I could hang around here, if you want to do the surveillance alone.”

  “I don’t need a baby-sitter,” she snapped.

  Daniel ignored her.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” he said.

  He leaned over to plant a dry peck on her cheek.

  “I’ll be back around dawn.”

  She pulled from Curt’s arms and shook her head in frustration.

  “Daniel and I know what we’re doing. Tam,” Curt told her, his tone

  placating.

  “We’ve been in this business a lot longer than you have. DPI has reams

  on Marquand.

  It’s not legend.

  ” “I want to see the files.”

  She sniffed and met his gaze.

  His lips tightened at the corners.

  “Your security clearance isn’t high enough.”

  It was the answer she’d expected, the same one she got every time she

  asked to see the data that the Division of Paranormal Investigations

  had on the alleged vampire, Marquand.

  She lowered her head and turned from him.

  His hand on her shoulder stopped her.

  “Tamara, don’t be angry.

  It’s for your own”— ” I know.

  For my own good.

  My tub is going to run over.

  ” She stepped away from him and closed the door.

  Curds would sequester himself in the basement lab and not give her a

  second thought, she was sure of it.

  He didn’t worry about her the way Daniel did.

  He did seem to feel he had the right to boss her around more than usual

  lately.

  She shrugged, vowing not to worry anymore about Curt’s proprietary

  attitude toward her.

  She stopped the water in the bathtub and stared down into it for long

  moments.

  No hot bath was going to help her sleep.

  She’d tried everything from warm milk to double doses of a prescription

  sleep aid she’d pressured her doctor into giving her.

  Nothing worked.

  Why go through the motions?

  With a frustrated sigh she padded to the French doors.

  On a whim, she flung them open and stepped out onto the balcony.

  A purple-black sky, lightening to silvery blue in the west, dropped

  snowflakes in chaotic choreography.

  The sun had set fully while she’d been arguing with her insane guardian

  and his stubborn cohort.

  She stared, entranced by the simple grace of the dancing snow.

  All at once she felt she had to be a part of it.

  Why waste all this nervous energy lying in bed, staring up at the

  underside of the white canopy?

  Especially when she knew sleep wouldn’t come for hours.

  Maybe she could exhaust herself into oblivion.

  How long had it been since she’d been able to put aside her gnawing

  worry and enjoy some simple pleasure?

  She hurried back inside, eager now that the decision was made.

  She yanked on tight black leggings and a bulky knit sweater, two pairs

  of socks and furry pink earmuffs.

  She grabbed her coat and her skates from the
closet, dropped them into

  her duffel bag, shoved her purse in beside them and opened her bedroom

  door.

  For a moment she just listened.

  The hollow dinosaur of a house was silent.

  She tiptoed through the hall and down the stairs.

  She paused at the front door just long enough to stuff her feet into

  her boots, and then she slipped silently through it.

  Crisp air stung her cheeks and her breath made little steam clouds in

  the tailing snow.

  Twenty minutes of walking and snow-dance watching brought her to the

  outskirts of By ram.

  Childish delight warmed her when her destination came into view.

  The rink sparkled from its nest amid the town park’s shrubbery and

  carefully pruned elms.

  Meandering, snow dusted sidewalks, wrought-iron benches with redwood

  slatted seats, and trash cans painted a festive green made a wreath

  around the ice.

  Tamara hastened to the nearest bench to change into her skates.

  When he woke, Eric felt as if his head were stuffed with wet cotton.

  He’d swung his legs to the floor, landing with unusual clumsiness.

  He hadn’t needed a window to sense the pale blush that still hung in

  the western sky.

  It hadn’t been the coming of night that had wakened him.

  Hadn’t been that for weeks.

  Always her cries echoed in his head until he could no longer rest.

  Fear and confusion were palpable in her wrenching pleas.

  He felt her need like a barbed hook, snagged through his heart and

  pulling him.

  Yet he hesitated.

  Some preternatural instinct warned him not to act hastily.

  No sense of imminent danger laced her nightly summons.

  No physical weakness or life-threatening accident seemed to be the

  cause.

  What, then?

  That she was able to summon him at all was incredible.

  No human could summon a vampire.

  That anything other than mortal danger could rouse him from his

  deathlike slumber astounded him.

  He longed to go to her, to ask the questions that burned in his mind.

  Yet he hesitated.

  Long ago he’d left this place, vowing to stay clear of the girl for

  her own sake.

  He’d hoped the incredible psychic link between them would fade with

  time and distance.

  Apparently it had not.

  He relaxed for an hour in the comfort of his lair.

  With the final setting of the sun came the familiar rush of energy.

  His senses sharpened to the deadly keenness of a freshly whetted

  blade.

  His body tingled with a million needles of sensation.

  He dressed, then released the multitude of locks on the heavy door.

  He moved in silence through the pitch-black hall and pushed against a

  heavy slab of stone at the end.

  It swung inward easily, without a creak of protest, and he stepped

  through the opening into what appeared to be an ordinary basement.

  The door, from this side, looked like a well-stocked wine rack.

  He pushed it gently closed again and mounted the stairway that led to

  the main house.

  He had to see her.

  He’d known it for some time, and avoided the knowledge.

  Her pull was too strong to resist.

  When her sweet, tormented voice came to him in the velvet folds of his

  rest, he felt her anguish.

  He had to know what troubled her so.

  He moved into the parlor, to the tall window, and parted the drape.

  The DPI van sat across from the front gate, as it had every night for

  two months now.

  Another reason he needed to exercise caution.

  The division had begun with a group of pious imbeciles, intent on the

  destruction of any and everything they did not understand, over a

  century ago.

  Rumor had it they were now under the auspices of the CIA, making them a

  threat not to be taken lightly.

  They occupied an entire office building in White Plains, according to

  Eric’s information.

  It was said they had operatives in place all over the United States,

  and even in Europe.

  The one outside seemed to have made Eric his personal obsession.

  As if the front gate were the only way out, he parked there at dark

  every night and remained until dawn.

  He was as bothersome to Eric as a noisy fly.

  He shrugged into a dark-colored overcoat and left through the French

  doors off the living room, facing opposite the front gate.

  He crossed the back lawn, stretching from the house to the sheer, rocky

  cliff above Long Island Sound.

  He went to the tall iron fence that completely surrounded his property,

  and vaulted it without much effort.

  He moved through the trees, gaining the road several yards behind the

  intense man who thought he was watching so well.

  He walked only a short distance before he stopped, cleared his mind and

  closed his eyes.

  He opened himself to the cacophony of sensations that were usually

  denied access.

  He winced inwardly at the bombardment.

  Voices of every tone, inflection and decibel level echoed in his

  mind.

  Emotions from terrible fear to delirious joy swept through him.

  Physical sensations, both pleasure and pain, twisted within him, and he

  braced himself against the mental assault.

  He couldn’t target an individual’s mind any other way, unless that

  person was deliberately sending him a message—the way she’d been

  doing.

  Gradually he gained mastery over the barrage.

  He sifted it, searching for her voice, her thoughts.

  In moments he felt her, and he turned in the direction he knew her to

  be.

  He nearly choked when he drew near the ice rink and caught sight of

  her.

  She twirled in the center of the rink, bathed in moonglow, her face

  turned up as if in supplication—as if she were in love with the

  night.

  She stopped, extended her arms with the grace of a ballerina and skated

  slowly, then faster, carving a figure eight into the ice.

  She turned then, glided backward over the ice, then turned again,

  crossing skate over skate, slowing her pace gradually.

  Eric felt an odd burning in his throat as he watched her.

  ,.

  ; ggSfest glgtg g had been twenty years since he’d left the innocent,

  raven’.

  g.

  gXggSgg ‘ilgt g g haired child’s hospital bed after saving her life.

  How vivggyg’ggg.

  fggsSSgS g(Nig.

  -1 ‘;;:::1; idly he recalled that night—the way she’d opened her eyes

  gg;<:g’;g:;t<?

  gg|* feSi5?

  ::g,g;;:llg gd clutched his hand.

  She’d called him by name, and gB ygySr/gSSisSS ISSt:?

  gg!

  asked him not to go.

  Called him by name, even though ‘g’gggglg&jcKillg she’d never seen him

  before that night!

  It was then he’d g’g{g’gWglillgg lllllilJft’gsK realized the strength

  of the bond between them, and made “‘“lgiiBSgiSIIIS? g me decision to

  leave.

  Did she remember?

  Would she recognize him, if she saw him
again?

  Of course, he had no intention of allowing that.

  He only wanted to look at her, to scan her mind and learn what caused

  her nightly anguish.

  She skated to a bench near the edge of the ice, pulled off the earmuffs

  she wore and tossed them down.

  She shook her head and her hair flew wildly, like a black satin cloak

  of curls.

  She shrugged off the jacket and dropped it on the bench.

  She seemed unconcerned that it slid over the side to land in the

  snow.

  She drew a breath, turned and skated off.

  Eric opened his mind and locked in on hers, honed his every sense to

  her.

  It took only seconds, and once again he marveled at the strength of the

  mental link between them.

  He heard her thoughts as clearly as she did.

  What he heard was music—the music she imagined as she swooped and

  swirled around the ice.

  It faded slightly, and she spoke inwardly to herself.

  Axel, Tam, old girl.

  A little more speed.

  now!

  He caught his breath when she leapt from the ice to spin one and a half

  times.

  She landed almost perfectly, with one leg extended behind her, then

  wobbled and went down hard.

  Eric almost rushed out to her.

  Some nearly unheard instinct whispered a warning and he stopped

  himself.

  Slowly he realized she was laughing, and the sound was like crystal

  water bubbling over stones.

  gaze followed her.

  She looped around the far end of the rink.

  That’s when Eric spotted the van, parked in the darkness just across

  the street.

  Daniel St Claire!

  He quickly corrected himself.

  It couldn’t be St Claire.

  He’d have heard the man’s arrival.

  He would have had to arrive after Eric himself.

  He looked more closely at the white van, noticing minute

  differences—that scratch along the side, the tires.

  It wasn’t St Claire’s vehicle, but it was DPI.

  Someone was watching—not him, but Tamara.

  He would have moved nearer, pierced the dark interior with his eyes and

  identified the watcher, but his foot caught on something and he glanced

  down.

  A bag.

  Her bag.

  He looked toward Tamara again.

  She was completely engrossed in her skating.

  Apparently the one watching her was, as well.

  Eric bent, snatched up the bag and melted into the shadows.

  Besides her boots the only thing inside was a small handbag.

  Supple kid leather beneath his fingers.

  He took it out.