Night Falls on the Wicked (4 page)

“It’s okay,” he murmured in a distracted manner, looking more at the crowd than her … which was a relief but also a blow to her ego. “Quite a show going on, huh?”

If his face didn’t push her over the edge into infatuation, then the voice did. The sound of it stroked her like satin on naked flesh. There was an accent there. She had no idea of the origins. Faintly crisp and rolling. British maybe? Her toes curled inside her boots.

She gave herself a mental shake to snap out of her stupor. She’d been fine these last few years without a man in her life. She didn’t need one now.

She didn’t
want
to need one now.

She looked with longing across the street to the sidewalk that would carry her home. Home to safety and solitude. The two were dependent upon each other.

“It’s a circus all right,” she returned, recovering her voice, the well-worn indifference. She shifted her weight on her feet, anxious to be on her way.

He looked at her then, truly looked at her, and she wondered why she’d said anything at all. Why didn’t she just take her bag and go, flee, instead of lingering here?

What was she hoping for? God, was she even
hoping
? When she’d given up on hope years ago?

“Yeah,” he returned, looking her over with slow appraisal. Those impossible indigo eyes of his altered, became something … unnatural.

She struggled not to fidget beneath their regard. It seemed that they almost glowed, lit from within. She shook her head, convinced she was going crazy. Just desperate and lonely enough that her imagination was running wild.

“A real circus,” he said, echoing her.

Something shivered its way inside her at his drawling voice that said nothing remarkable and yet did.

Even as she told herself to break away—walk, run even—she couldn’t budge her feet. His eyes
spoke to her, told her to stay put. It was almost as if he mesmerized her … trapped her in a spell.

When he glanced back to the milling people, a breath escaped her that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. With those eyes off her now, she felt more in control of herself.

“They’re definitely not a fan of wolves around here, huh?” he asked.

“You could say that,” she hedged. “They don’t have the most open minds around here. Just be glad you’re not a wolf,” she joked, but something came over him, a sudden tensing of his broad shoulders that she didn’t miss.

He looked back at her again, expectantly, as if he waited for her to continue, to say more.

“There’s been a few alleged wolf attacks,” she elaborated, compelled to fill the awkward silence. “Lately everyone’s armed to the teeth around here.”

“Ah.” He nodded in the direction of the truck. Hair that was a myriad colors, several shades of gold and brown, fell across his brow. Somewhere, not in towns like this, women spent thousands of dollars in a salon to get hair like that. Something told her this guy didn’t do a thing except shampoo. He was effortlessly gorgeous. And her throat felt suddenly tight and dry with this realization. “Then those are the fearsome animals responsible for the alleged attacks?”

“Those two?” She snorted against the bite of cold air and pulled the hood of her coat closer around her face, swiping at her red-tipped nose. “Unlikely. Those wolves hardly look like they’ve eaten all winter. I don’t think they’ve attacked anyone. But no one’s convincing the local rabble otherwise.”

His well-carved lips twitched and she thought he wanted to smile, but then the hint of curving lips was gone, replaced with the stoic mask again.

It was as though he forgot her presence. His gaze traveled over the locals, assessing, almost as if he were looking for someone, marking each and every one of them.

With his attention removed from her, she finally turned and hurried away, her steps crunching quickly over the snow-covered sidewalk. She felt like a criminal on the escape. Silly, she knew. She didn’t even know his name. Good-byes weren’t a requirement. He was just a stranger. That’s all he could ever be. All she could let him be despite her instant attraction to him. Despite how much she still wanted to linger and talk to him.

She watched her breath fog before her lips and tried to forget those eyes—that stare. Easier said than done. She hadn’t found herself in close conversation with a good-looking guy in forever.

She was better off not getting involved. With him. With anyone.

He was better off. Everyone was.

And yet several feet down the street, she could not resist another look back. Just to assess. Just to make sure he wasn’t looking after her. He wasn’t. And for that, she felt a stab of disappointment that she had no business feeling.

W
hen Niklas looked back, she was gone.

He quickly scanned the small parking lot and spotted her ahead, continuing down the sidewalk with her bag of groceries and her blue hood pulled low over her head, obscuring her profile. He suspected this wasn’t just because of the cold but because she didn’t like to draw attention to herself. She had a way about her—a quiet way of moving, almost as though she didn’t touch the ground when she walked. Of course he noticed her. He missed nothing or no one.

He’d known instantly it was her. The woman he’d seen walking across the street from the B&B yesterday. Aside from his recognizing the coat she wore, his body had reacted instantly, his skin jumping and tightening the same way it had yesterday.

He felt a stab of disappointment to see her go. A strange sensation. He had barely viewed her face and he hadn’t even glimpsed her hair. Just a
vague impression of a pale face and wide hazel eyes. Nothing remarkable—on the surface. But there was something more there, something lurking beneath. Something that caught his attention. Yesterday and now. Something that held his
rarely
caught attention.

He frowned at her brisk pace. She was practically jogging. It was almost as if she were fleeing. From him? Had he frightened her? Those hazel eyes had stared at him with a wide-eyed awareness. At first, he thought she recognized him. Impossible, he knew. He knew no one. Had no one. He was all alone in this world and had been for too many years to count.

He considered following her. She wouldn’t live far if she was on foot in this climate. He took one step in the direction she’d fled and then stopped himself. Shaking his head, he wondered why he should care where she lived. But he knew that answer deep and swift in his blood. Just as he knew himself.

He hadn’t spent this long keeping himself tightly in check without coming to understand precisely what he was.

She turned a corner in front of the town diner. Out of sight. His breath came easier. He’d felt a connection to her. A response. It was all tied up in his baser instincts. No matter how he struggled
to suppress his nature, the essence of what he was rose up inside him now and then. A bitter reminder just in case he started to feel normal. In case he started believing he was an average guy.

There was no formula as to what female might arouse a reaction in him. No predicting. Yesterday, the maid, Holly, had been easy enough to pass by, to reject. But this one …

He shook his head, the satin-soft sound of her voice still running through his mind

Certain women affected him more than others. Every once in a while he got within breathing distance of a specific female and a primal need seized him to take her, have her, possess her. She was one of them, he guessed. Nothing more.

Usually he walked away as fast as he could manage when one of those situations occurred. A few times, admittedly, he didn’t walk away.

A few times he succumbed. Sometimes when he was feeling particularly weak he took what he craved, what the woman invited, and then he left. As quickly as possible.

Tonight, she was gone before he had a chance to decide for himself if he wanted to pursue her. A heavy sigh welled up inside him and pushed past his lips. Just as well.

He returned his attention to the idiots cheering over a few wolf corpses. It was the same story
everywhere. Sad, really, that wolves got blamed for the attacks.

Alleged
. That was the word the girl had used. He hadn’t missed that. She was smart. He’d heard it in her voice, watched it in the movement of her body. She held herself guardedly, with a certain awareness. She
knew
that wolves weren’t behind the attacks. Although, he knew, she couldn’t fathom the true reason. Who would? But for him, the conclusion was obvious.

The killings had occurred in the last moonrise. He only hoped it was the pack he was after. He’d lost track of them in Calgary, but from the moment he arrived here he knew they were close. He felt them, scented their presence. He slid a glance up at the night sky. The waxing moon burned through the clouds, almost full. There wasn’t much time. Just a few more days. With any luck, he’d find them before moonrise.

Before someone else died.

A
S SOON AS
D
ARBY
got home she hurriedly put away her groceries and changed into her running clothes. As exhausting as work could be, running brought her back to life. She figured it was the endorphin release. She read somewhere that endorphins made you happier. In her case, it probably staved off the despair from consuming
her. Not to mention it kept her in shape. Something necessary with the amount of diner food she ate.

For some reason, her run-in with the hot guy in front of the store only made her feel more on edge than normal. She definitely needed to pound out some frustration on the pavement.

She passed the front of the diner, waving to Maggie through the windows. She and Corey had the late shift tonight. Tomorrow would be Darby’s turn.

She deliberately didn’t look in the direction of the store. She didn’t want to know if the stranger was still standing there. She didn’t want to look at the hot guy that made her skin ripple, her body ache and long for a man’s touch. Nor did she really want to see a bunch of locals cheering over some wolf carcasses.

She pushed on, moving into the quieter section of town. The cold didn’t affect her once she got her heart pumping and legs moving. She stayed within the town, working her way from one end to the other.

It was already dark, but the streetlamps lighted her way. She glanced up past the craggy mountain peaks to the moon. Not quite full. It wasn’t as if she had that to worry about.
Yet
.

She passed the B&B and noticed a black Hummer parked in front. Immediately, her mind went
to the guy from earlier tonight, the stranger, and she just knew it was his. No one around here drove anything like it. Her gaze skimmed the several windows dotting the front of the quaint B&B, wondering which one might be his.

With a shake of her head and a groan, she increased her speed and turned off Main onto one of the older residential streets. It was a street she liked running down because the houses were older. Charming and picturesque with large, wraparound porches. Colorful gardens in the spring and summer. Not that she was ever here to see them then, but she bet they looked beautiful. She liked to imagine them, liked to fantasize about the sun on her face.

The Christmas lights were down now, but they’d been beautiful. It was as if all the neighbors had some sort of unspoken agreement to try to outdo one another. Her aunts used to take great care over Christmas, including decorating the house. Such things had never been priorities for her mother, but for her aunts Christmas was big. They would have arguments over what color lights should go on the outside of the house. A pained smile flitted over her lips. She shook her head and pushed her legs harder, fighting through the burn in her lungs.

Her breath puffed out in front of her as she followed the curving sidewalk, turning with the
street as it ended in a cul-de-sac. She backtracked on the opposite side of the street now, the cadence of her thundering feet feeding her spirit.

The world slipped away, fading to nothing save dark night ahead of her, the only sound in her head the sawing of her own breath.

A
S
N
IKLAS NEARED THE
front door of the B&B, ready to tackle the night and scour the area for Cyprian and the others, he spotted her through the window. She was across the street, running. Stepping outside, he burrowed into his coat and watched as she moved down the sidewalk at a fast clip.

He shook his head. Who jogged in weather like this? And at night. Alone.
Alone at night
.

He scowled as this occurred to him, sinking in. She was the perfect target for Cyprian and his pack. She probably thought she was safe in town. No way could she predict the danger that lurked.

Even without the full moon it was dangerous.
They
were never harmless. Although he told himself it wasn’t his concern—
she
wasn’t his concern—he took off after her, moving swiftly, faster than the eye could process. Like the curls of icy air traveling over the frozen streets, he followed her without detection. That was his gift. Or curse.

She jogged through a neighborhood, fast for
a human, bounding effortlessly it seemed. He admired her movements as he kept a safe distance. She wore a jogging jacket, fitted and smooth against her body, designed for winter. Her thumbs poked out of small holes in the sleeves. From her flowing, natural stride he surmised she ran a lot. The neighborhood sat silent, nestled among shadows and trees. His lips twisted and he felt an unreasonable flash of anger. She made an easy target, so easy to claim. Careless fool. Even without blood-hungry creatures wandering the night, the woman should be smarter.

He stilled at the end of the street, leaning against the frozen post that held up the crooked street sign as he waited for her to return.

She almost didn’t see him until she was on top of him. She jerked back with a startled yelp, her wide-eyed gaze falling on him. Her hood fell back from her head and he was granted his first view of her hair. Even in a ponytail he could see that it was a dark red, thick as a horse mane in its band.

She hopped a little where she stood, her hot breath blowing clouds in front of her. “I didn’t see you there,” she panted.