In the darkness, the square had turned sinister. A larger-than-life statue of a man on horseback stared down at her from its shadowy pedestal, tricks of the shaded streetlights turning the eyes of both the man and his horse angular and evil. A dreadful stillness surrounded her so that she could hear the water of the nearby canal lapping against its concrete sides. The hotel looked very far away across a sea of dark concrete.
And the nightmare wasn’t over. As Rose stood there, trying to make sense of her situation, three men in black came around the far corner of St. Isaac’s. One of them pointed, yelled. The words were Russian, but his meaning was clear. They were after Rose.
Even worse, while she could see the men, hear the men, she couldn’t feel them with her othersense. Just as with Mike and Alec, the space in which they stood might as well have been empty. Which meant they were voiders.
“Shit.” Rose tried to run, but her numb feet stumbled and twisted and for the second time that night she fell hard against the stone ground. Only this time, it was real.
Rough hands grabbed her. Rose screamed. Fingers covered her mouth. Rose bit. They dragged her to her feet, the largest of them holding her just above the ground so she couldn’t get any leverage. Rose kicked wildly and a second man grabbed her legs. The third still had his hand over her mouth, despite her teeth clamped on his pinky.
Everything was happening so fast, Rose didn’t notice the new presence behind the men. Until her jaw yanked sideways as the man covering her mouth pulled suddenly away. A shadow moved behind him and Rose heard a sickening crack as the man’s head twisted to an unnatural angle. He collapsed.
For the third time that night, Rose fell as her other two captors dropped her to deal with the new threat. A threat that jangled and twisted unmistakably against her addled senses. Her head hit the ground with dizzying pain, and she rasped, “Nazeem.”
“Miss Daziani.” His voice was calm, as though they had simply passed each other on the street. “You seem in some distress.”
The voiders in black circled the vampire. In the darkness, they were no more than shadows.
Until the hands of the larger man burst into flame. Rose gasped, then coughed as the freezing air struck her throat, still raw from the dream. This was magic—real magic. Her first taste, and she only wanted it to go away.
Nazeem moved faster than Rose’s eyes could track and suddenly he was behind the large man, knocking him forward. The other attacker had to dodge aside to keep from getting burned.
This seemed more resistance than the men were prepared to face. They turned to run and the shadows of St. Isaac’s reached out to cover them. Nazeem took a couple steps in pursuit, but they’d disappeared from view. He stopped and turned back to Rose.
With the men gone, the darkness lifted and light touched the square. In the reflected glow of the streetlamps, Rose saw Nazeem’s nostrils flare. “You’re hurt,” he said.
The world wobbled as Rose sat up. She reached up to feel hair matted with blood. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Come.” He knelt down beside her and removed his jacket, wrapping it around her shoulders. He scooped her up as though she weighed nothing. “You shouldn’t be outside.”
The leather of Nazeem’s jacket was buttery soft, and through it, Rose could feel the solid muscles of his chest as he carried her across the square and back to their hotel. And warmth—she wouldn’t have expected vampires to be warm. Probably the concussion talking, but Rose found herself much more comfortable than she should be in the arms of a vampire.
“I don’t know what happened. I was asleep—dreaming—then I woke up out here and those men attacked me.”
“Does this happen to you frequently?”
“Not as such, no.” Rose touched the sticky mess of her hair again; it didn’t feel like her head. Everything had happened so fast, and made no more sense than the dream had.
The dream. “Nazeem, I think I saw a man die.”
Nazeem tilted his head quizzically and Rose blushed, remembering the body they’d left lying in the square. His hands—the hands that carried her—Nazeem had just killed a man with the same ease she drew breath.
“Wait, put me down,” she said.
“Not until we’re inside, I think.” He glanced at her bare feet. “I wouldn’t see you injure yourself further.”
Those men had grabbed her, been trying to take her somewhere. Probably to the shining man, whoever or whatever he was. Nazeem had killed one of them, yes, but he’d done it to protect her. If Rose couldn’t accept that, she could at least push it to the back of her mind for now. “In my dream. That’s what I meant. I dreamed I saw a man die, only the killer, he looked at me, and then he sent those men to find me.”
Her voice was creeping higher, her words tumbling over each other. As a social work student, Rose had sat with victims of assault, had watched as the shock wore off and their emotions thawed to terror and panic and their thinking minds shut down. Rose focused on keeping her breathing steady as her fingers dug into the leather of Nazeem’s jacket, determined to stay calm.
Nazeem was a solid presence. Even if she couldn’t decipher his strange, buzzing insides, she could at least feel him there. After the voiders, that was a relief that far outweighed the frustration of her inability to read the look on his face or guess at what he might be thinking.
As they reached the Astoria’s doors, he said, “We should wake Ian and Mike.”
“Hell no. Are you kidding? I’m frozen, bleeding, and barely dressed. Why would I want to talk to them?”
“Keeping secrets is no way to begin this endeavor. We’re to be a team, are we not?”
That wasn’t the impression Rose had left dinner with. “Nobody seemed very enthused about us all working together.”
“Nonetheless.” Nazeem set her down on the soft lobby carpet. “I must insist.”
The lobby was empty except for the one curious desk clerk who was pretending not to watch. His reaction left Rose torn between anger and amusement. Either one was better than the fear. “Fine. You do whatever. Just let me get some clothes on before we start in with ‘Kumbaya,’ okay?”
“As you like.” His face stayed blank and his feelings twisted outside her comprehension, but Rose was pretty sure on the inside, Nazeem was amused.
Somehow, that helped.
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