She spotted a couple of curtains twitching. Nosey neighbors wondering why she was walking to work with a copper.
“And did they find anything? The others, when they went sniffing?”
“I just checked in with them actually.” He tapped the phone attached to his heavy stab vest.
A few dark curls peeked from his cap. Like Flynn’s, his hair was too long to comply with police regulations. She guessed Henry turned a blind eye, considering they could drain his blood should they decide to. “Do you need that?” She nodded at his stab vest.
“A regular knife couldn’t penetrate my skin.” He paused. “But a stake could.”
“A wooden stake?” She raised her eyebrows at him.
“Some of the rumors are true.”
“A wooden stake through the heart would kill you?”
“Yup.”
“Garlic? Do you hate that?”
“Not too keen.”
“Crosses?”
“I don’t make a habit of wearing one.”
She paused when a dog walker, eight canines on leads, trotted over the corner of the main road. They yanked the gangly guy leading them along so fast he was nearly jogging. Three of the dogs suddenly stopped and growled as they eyed up Ben. Another two barked wildly, slobber dribbling, and pulled on their leads.
Ben quickly went the opposite way, in the direction of Scotland Yard. Corey followed.
A taxi sped past, light off, then a white van—Dave’s Plumbing Services—and a double decker bus.
“So did they find anything, last night?” she asked over the traffic noise. “You said you just checked in with them.”
“They caught a suspicious scent near Borough Market. Could be nothing, could be something.”
“What kind of scent?”
“Dog.” He grimaced and threw a glance over his shoulder. “Gross.”
“You don’t like dogs?”
“Let’s just say if they were all wiped out by some freaky doggy flu, I wouldn’t be upset. Stinky, noisy creatures with hateful eyes.”
“Just as well I have a cat then.”
“Yes, Flynn said. Seems she’s not his greatest fan, though.”
“Can you blame her?” Corey huffed.
“Why, because he’s a vampire?” he asked.
“It’s confusing for me, must be for her, too.”
They walked under a brick bridge, out of the sunlight. Moss grew on the walls. Pigeons had taken to roosting on an outcrop in the highest peak of the arch.
“I think you’re getting pretty used to us,” Ben said.
“I haven’t got a choice when my DCI tells me to.”
A petrol tanker hurtled toward them on the other side of the road. It was speeding, Corey was sure of that. But it was a long time since she’d given out a traffic infringement ticket and she wasn’t about to start again now.
Suddenly the tanker hissed, its brakes ramming on. The tires screeched and squealed as it swerved with a spread-eagled pigeon flattened against a now cracked windscreen.
The horn sounded, a bellowing blast raging around the innards of the bridge.
The driver was wide-eyed, his mouth a perfect ‘O’ as he tried to regain control. The windscreen wipers dashed left then right. The horn sounded again.
The tanker was careening straight toward them. Over the midline of the road. So fast. The huge bumper getting bigger and bigger.
Corey screamed.
“Watch it.” Ben grabbed her, shoved her against the brick wall, and flattened himself to her body, his hands either side of her head, palms flat on the brickwork. “Hold on.”
She just had time to grip his stab vest before the enormous tanker hit.
She gritted her teeth and braced for pain. They were about to be killed, pancaked, trapped between brick and metal. The speed, the weight of the tanker, it was lethal.
She waited for death.
It would be quick, she was sure of that.
But all she felt was the length of Ben’s solid body pressing a little more to hers. She stared into his face, her heart thudding, pulse raging in her ears.
He didn’t blink. His jaw was tight, lips flattened. His eye contact with hers didn’t waver.
He took the full impact of the out-of-control vehicle against his shoulders and back.
The tanker bounced off him, a stone skimming the surface of water, then veered past the bridge and rammed into an empty bus shelter several feet away.
Corey gripped Ben’s stab vest tighter, in the loop near his biceps. Her knuckles paled. “What the…I…shit…that was…”
He glanced at the tanker. “It was light, I think it’s empty. No fuel. Means we don’t have to run from an explosion.”
She didn’t look at it. She was still staring up at him. “It hit you, us, hard. Really hard.”
“It bounced.”
“Yes, off you. It. Bounced. Off. You.” She could hardly believe she was saying those words. They should both be toast.
“Yes, ma’am. It bounced.”
“Stop calling me that. Call me Corey.” Damn it, the man had just saved her life, he could use her name. But how had he done it? “It should have…crushed us, Ben.”
“Vampires are not that easy to kill.” He kind of shrugged.
Her hands moved with his action.
“Clearly.”
“And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let anything happen to you.” He lowered his face to hers. His breaths were cool on her cheek, and his eyes flashed in the shadows. His boyish charm, easy-going expression, had long gone. “You’re everything to me…to us. We’ve been waiting for this moment, for you to come into our world, for a very long time.”
She swallowed, her chest tight with fear, relief, and every damn emotion—a tangled web of feelings that spun through her. It was almost impossible to process how much her life had changed in the twenty-four hours since she’d last walked this path to work.
“Hey.” He lifted his palms from the wall and smoothed them around her waist. “You’re okay, Corey. Really you are. I’ve got you.”
His arms were thick and strong, and the next thing she knew he’d pulled her close, tucking her head beneath his chin.
She squeezed her eyes closed and took a few deep breaths, inhaling his sweetly masculine scent. Her adrenaline was racing around her veins. In his embrace she felt small and weak, not a pleasant state when she was used to being in charge and in control. But she allowed herself a moment of support. A few seconds to take stock of the near miss, how her life had almost been wiped out.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Thanks are not necessary.” He set a gentle, lingering kiss on the top of her head then reached for her hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here before we have a ton of paperwork to fill in.”
“Yeah.” She glanced at the tanker again. The driver was climbing down from his cab, a passerby helping him. He appeared no worse for wear. “I haven’t got time for RTAs today.”
“I agree.” Ben slotted his hand onto the small of her back, pressing her light jacket and white blouse against her skin. “And the others will be waiting for us.”
They hurried off, Corey’s weak knees gaining strength as they moved farther from the crashed tanker. Within a few minutes, a police car and two fire engines hurtled past. That made her feel better.