Blood Trail

worried?"

    "What the hell are you talking about?"

    "You've done more swearing in the last hour than you have since we've met."

    "Yeah?" She snapped the first aid kit shut with unnecessary force. "Well, I've had more to swear about, haven't I? I don't understand how this happened. You're supposed to be so great at night. What were you thinking about?"

    He didn't see any reason to lie. "You. Us. What happened earlier."

    Vicki's eyes narrowed. "Isn't that just like a man. Four hundred and fifty fucking years old and he's still thinking with his balls."

    "That's the lot." Donald straightened and threw the tweezers into the bowl with the shot. "Few hours and you'll be good as new. Some of the shallower holes are healing already."

    "You're pretty good at that," Henry noted, elevating his leg a little to get a better look.

    Donald shrugged. "Used to get lots of practice twenty, thirty years ago. Folks were faster on the trigger back then and fur only deflects so much. Used to have a pattern much like that on my butt." Twisting around in a way no human spine could handle, he studied the body part in question. "Seems to be gone now." He picked up the bowl and headed for the door. "If you were one of us, I'd suggest you change a few times to clear out any possible infection. Or lick it. As it is. ..."He shrugged and was gone.

    "I wasn't even going to ask!" Henry protested as Vicki glared down at him.

    "Good thing." Lick buckshot holes indeed! She couldn't hold the glare. It became a grin, then a worried frown as a new problem occurred to her. "Will you need to feed again?"

    He shook his head, regretting it almost immediately. "Tomorrow maybe, not tonight."

    "After the attack by the demon, you needed to feed right away."

    "Trust me, I was in much worse shape after the attack by the demon."

    Vicki rested her hand lightly on the flat expanse of Henry's stomach, just where the line of red-gold hair began below his navel. The motion was proprietary without being overtly sexual.
    "Can you feed tomorrow?"

    He covered her hand with his good one. "We'll work something out."

    She nodded, if not satisfied at least willing to wait. The desire she felt was embarrassing and she hoped like hell Henry's vampiric vibrations were responsible. Overactive hormones were the last thing she needed. "You know, I'm amazed you've managed to survive for four centuries; first the demon, now this, and in only five short months."

    "You may not believe this, but until I met you I lived the staid, boring life of a romance writer."

    Both her brows rose and her glasses slipped to the end of her nose.

    "Oh, all right," he admitted, "the night life was a bit better, but these sorts of things never happened to me."

    "Never?"

    He grinned as he remembered, although the event had been far from funny at the time. A woman - all right, his preoccupation with a woman - had been responsible for that disaster too.
    "Well, hardly ever. ..."

    His right knee felt twice its normal size and barely held his weight. A lucky blow from the blacksmith's iron hammer had slammed into the side of the joint.

    A man would never have walked again. Henry Fitzroy, vampire, had gotten up and run but the damage and the pain held him to a mortal's pace.

    He could hear the dogs. They were close.

    He should have sensed the trap. Heard or smelled or seen the men waiting in the dark corners of the room. But he'd been so anxious to feed, so anxious to lose himself in the arms of his little Mila, that he never suspected a thing. Never suspected that little Mila, of the sweet smile and soft thighs and hot blood, had confessed her sin to the priest and he had roused the village.

    The presence of a vampire outweighed the sanctity of the confessional.

    The dogs were gaining. Behind them came the torches and the stakes and the final death.

    Had they not placed their faith so strongly in the cross, they would have had him. Only the blacksmith had presence of mind enough to swing as he broke through their circle and made for the door.

    His leg twisted and white fire shot through his entire body. The sound of his own blood loud in his ears, he clutched desperately at a tree, fighting to stay upright. He couldn't go on. He couldn't stop.

    It hurts. Oh, God, how it hurts.

    The dogs were closer.

    He couldn't die like this, not after barely a hundred years; hunted down like a beast in the night. His ribs pressed tight around his straining heart, as though they already felt the