Hot Blooded

jungle where they
could shape-shift whenever they wanted without fear of being seen. Back where
life was uncomplicated. They had one small job before they could return:
persuading a human female to do as the Chavez family wanted.
    Rafael and Nicolas hunted the vampire in South America, answering the call of
their Prince hundreds of years earlier. It was little enough to give back to
their dying race. They wanted to go back to the country that had been their home
and back to what had been their way of life for hundreds of years. That way of
life was far more difficult to maintain, to continue for honor's sake, in this
unfamiliar country.
    The problem was one small human female.
    Nicolas had gone to her and ordered her compliance, "pushing" at her mind
with a hard command, but to his surprise and displeasure it had not worked. She
became even more stubborn, refusing to talk with any member of their family. In
all the centuries of their existence, such a thing had never happened. All
humans could be controlled, could be manipulated. It was Rafael's job now, even
if it meant taking her blood to force compliance. When the brothers wanted
something, anything, they got it. She would not stand in their way. For a moment
a muscle jerked along his shadowed jaw. One way or another, they would get what
they wanted.
    He sighed as he stared up at the stars. He had his brothers, yet there was
nothing to ease the unrelenting merciless nights. He fed. He existed. He fought
the vampire. He went through the motions of everyday life, yet he felt nothing
but hunger. Insatiable hunger. The whispering call of power to kill. To feel
just once, for one moment. To be able to feel. What would it be like to just for
that one moment sink his teeth deep into human flesh and drain his prey,
feel
something,
anything
for a few moments. He glanced back toward
the woman in the truck, temptation whispering insidiously.
    Rafael
! Nicolas's voice was a sharp reprimand.
Shall I come to
you
?
    Rafael sighed.
I will not give in this night
. He shook his head,
denying that ever-present enticement.
    Rafael swept his gaze across the night sky. noting the bats dipping,
performing their nightly ballet. He moved in complete silence, the wind bringing
him untold information, tales of the night calling to him.
Creature of the
night
. He was uneasy, his senses telling him a vampire could be close, but
he was unable to ferret the undead from its lair, if, in fact, it was in the
area. It had probably gone to ground the instant Nicolas and Rafael had shown up
and was waiting for them to leave before rising.
    The wind carried the distant sound of voices. Alarmed. Soft. A beautiful
cadence that touched something deep inside him. He heard the voice, a melodious
voice, yet he couldn't understand the words. He stepped closer to the edge of
the cliff. Something caught at the edge of his vision and he stared down at the
scene below him, his burning gaze fixed on horse and rider. He stared down at
the small woman on the large horse in a kind of mind-numbing shock. It was
nearly seventeen hundred years since Rafael had seen color. He had not felt
emotion. Now, staring at the drama unfolding in the small corral, the horse and
rider locked in battle, in a blink of an eye, everything changed.
    He saw her bright hair, a flame of color. He saw the faded blue of her jeans
and the pale rose of her shirt. He saw the horse, a burnished red, tossing its
head, whirling and bucking. Time seemed to slow down so that every detail was
etched in his mind. The way the leaves on the trees glittered with a silvery
sheen, the colors of earth and hay. He saw the silvery tones to the water as it
shimmered from a distant pond. The breath slammed out of his lungs and he stood
quite still, a part of the mountain he was standing on, frozen for the first
time in all of his existence.
    Behind him, the woman in the truck stirred to bring his attention back to
her, but she didn't matter. She was waking, drowsy, certain they had made love
and that she had been overwhelmed by his attentions. The teenage boy and young
girl near the corral didn't matter. His brothers waiting at home on their ranch
in Brazil, Nicolas waiting here in this crowded country, the Chavez family, none
of them mattered. Only that single rider.
    Colby Jansen. Instinctively he knew the rider was Colby. The defiant one.
Fire and ice like the mountains she lived amongst. The mountains she