He would have her.
Chapter 4
The fight had shaken her more than usual. Or maybe it was the mysterious warrior who stood before her that had her legs feeling weak.
Caterina tried to tear her eyes away from his rich, earthy ones. Eyes that had been black more than once during the fight and during their confrontation. He moved with the speed and fought with the strength of a vampire, but whatever he was, he wasn’t one of their breed.
And he wasn’t human like her.
According to him, he was older than two hundred years, something that might have sounded ridiculous or even incredible to her a decade ago. Now, she felt nothing. No sense of amazement. No desire to laugh in his face and tell him his joke was poor.
If vampires were real, then it stood to reason that there were other things that went bump in the night.
What was he?
A natural predator for the vampires? He evidently enjoyed hunting them, had been aggravated by the fact he had found her killing a nest he had earmarked for himself. He had seemed annoyed about offering to team up with her, even when it had been his suggestion.
In all her research, she hadn’t heard of vampires having any predators. Everyone painted them as the top of the food chain. The great white shark of the immortal world.
She looked the man over. Where did he stand in that shadowy, secret world?
His fingers grazed her arm, up and down, a maddening caress over her jacket that seemed to reach beyond the leather so she could feel his touch on her bare flesh. Her breaths came shorter and faster even as she steeled herself against the effects of his stroking. She lifted her eyes to his, a demand to stop rising to her lips. It fell away as she fell into his eyes.
They brightened, mesmerising flecks of warm gold emerging against the earthy backdrop as they sparkled at her in the low light.
Heat swept through her, a wildfire that frightened her.
She had been so focused on her brother for the last decade that she hadn’t been with a man in that time, hadn’t even thought about indulging in such a thing. Now she couldn’t think about anything else.
This dark warrior had stolen the whole of her focus, had her breathless and aching for him to do more than lightly caress her arm over her jacket. She wanted to feel his fingers on her bare flesh, ached with a need to have his large hands cupping her, kneading her, teasing her to the edge of insanity.
She swallowed to wet her parched throat and somehow found the strength to step back and break contact with him.
Her voice wobbled as she spoke, betraying how easily he shook her.
“I’ll meet you in the Plaça Reial tomorrow night at dusk.” Meeting in a very public square seemed like the most sensible course of action.
Something about this man unsettled her, and it wasn’t just how easily he had her aching for his touch. She intended to question him before they went anywhere, learning more about him to set her mind at ease, something she couldn’t do right now. She needed time to gather herself and build a wall, something to protect herself. He had her shaken, made her weak in a way she didn’t like.
She took a step towards the exit and looked back at him. “I’ll give you an hour but no more. If you don’t show, I’m out of there.”
He nodded. “Until then.”
Caterina went to turn away from him, expecting him to follow her out of the building.
He disappeared in a swirl of black smoke and she stumbled backwards, her spine hitting the wall of the arched entrance as her breath left her in a startled rush. She stared wide-eyed at the lingering ribbons of darkness as they dissipated.
Cursed low in Catalan.
What the hell?
Her legs threatened to give out and she leaned more heavily against the sandstone wall for support, struggling to comprehend what had just happened.
Warning bells jangled in her head.
She tried to ignore them as she found the strength to walk out of the heavy wooden door and close it behind her, concealing the carnage on the other side. There was more to the dark warrior than she had expected, and she didn’t like it. For the last nine years, she had known what she was up against, had learned everything about her quarry so they couldn’t surprise her, catching her off guard.
Now she had proposed working with a man she didn’t know, one who had finally managed to stun her by revealing a power that did seem impossible. Laughable. A very poor joke.
He could teleport.
She tried to wrap her head around that as she walked from the scene of the crime, heading towards the nearest Metro station.
Walking felt good, had her legs growing stronger beneath her and her head clearing, although she couldn’t shift the warrior from it, or how easily he had unnerved her. What other powers did he have?
She cursed again. Walking away from all of this was a good idea. Probably the best one she’d had all night. Before she ended up in deep trouble.
So why couldn’t she do it?
Caterina pondered that as she exited the narrow, sloping shopping street into a small square with a busy road running through it and crossed it to the Metro station. Every moment with the warrior played on repeat in her head, every detail pored over, and every instinctive reaction he had triggered studied. Her attraction to him was obvious and she wasn’t foolish enough to deny that it existed. But her instincts also labelled him as dangerous as the vampires.
Perhaps even more so.
Vampires she knew how to handle.
This warrior tied her in knots, had her pulled in too many directions, and she didn’t like it.
She boarded a train and managed to find a seat thanks to the late hour, lost herself in thought as she waited for her stop deep on the outskirts of Barcelona, far beyond the tourist attractions that crowded the centre.
Not meeting him wasn’t an option.
He knew the city and he wouldn’t be deterred from hunting the vampires. Neither would she. Their paths would cross before the week was out and another confrontation would happen. Angering a man with unknown powers was probably a bad thing. It was better to go along with her original plan, presuming he showed tomorrow night, and learn as much about him as possible before they embarked on their hunt.
Although, she doubted he would enjoy a light round of interrogation.
She left the train and walked home, enjoying the quietness of the streets and how the air was finally cooling, the vicious grip of summer easing on the city for a few scant hours before dawn came and had everyone boiling in their skin again.
She loved her city, but hell, she hated it in summer. It was oppressively humid, the sun sending stifling air rolling in from the sea that bordered Barcelona and the nearby mountains trapping it over the city.
It was little wonder a lot of stores and businesses closed up for the hottest months, and many families headed to cooler destinations.
Sometimes, she and Guillem did that, picking another city in Spain as their base of operations for August, when the heat really hit. Vampires lived everywhere. There wasn’t a city in the country where she couldn’t find at least a few to hunt and eradicate.
She pushed the door to her apartment building open and headed up the stairs, keeping her footsteps light so she didn’t disturb the neighbours. When she reached her apartment door on the third floor, she pressed her ear against it and listened. It was quiet on the other side, no sign that Guillem was awake.
He had been sleeping more and more recently, and it worried her.