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Chapter One
Pain and fury filled Raphael as he raced through the dense brush in a mindless quest for freedom. Adrenaline drove him, else the pain from his wounds might have overwhelmed him. Fear ate at his mind, as well, but it was a distant voice, drowned by the frustration and anger because the fear wasn't for himself. It was fear of failing.
He had almost had the bastard!
For months he had tracked the ring leader of the men that had killed his woman and their unborn child. Patience was not one of his virtues, but his rage had grown cold in the year since Concepcion's death. His determination had hardened in the weeks he had lain fighting for his own life and the months after that that he had spent regaining his strength with an agonizing slowness that had been maddening while he chaffed at his quarry's trail growing colder and colder.
He had tracked him, though, halfway across two continents.
His stupidity had nearly gotten him killed, but he had wanted the bastard to look in his eyes and know that he was going to die because of Concepcion. He hadn't wanted to send the son-of-a-bitch to hell wondering.
He hadn't expected to be interrupted, but he should have anticipated the possibility.
If they hadn't taken him completely off guard, he could've finished the bastard before he left. Now he was wounded again, pretty fucking badly, he thought, if the blood he was losing was any indication.
He couldn't stop to examine it, though, because he could still hear them following, could still hear a random shot from time to time as the trigger happy morons spied something they thought might be him and fired at it. The darkness and the thickness of the woods were his only allies and he had a feeling he was running out of allies.
Almost on the thought he bounded from the woods and onto a narrow, two rut track. Tall weeds sprouted from the soil on either side and along the narrow center strip, but he was exposed and he bounded across the track and into the woods on the other side.
He paused there to catch his breath because he couldn't do anything else. The adrenaline that had kept him going thus far was rapidly draining away from him now and he could feel weakness seeping into every muscle in his body. Panting for breath, he tipped his head back to look up at the trees for cover.
He tamped the impulse. He would be too exposed. If he had been stronger, it wouldn't be such a bad idea. It would give him a vantage to watch for the hunters. It would give him a strategic advantage if he was able to fight back, but he had a bad feeling he would come out the loser in his current state.
Twisting his head to look back in the direction from which he'd come, he listened intently. Sure enough, within a few moments, he heard the hunters trampling through the brush in pursuit.
Uttering a mental curse, he looked at the track again.
It might just lead back to the compound, but he didn't think so. He'd studied the area pretty thoroughly over the past few weeks and he was fairly certain that this track belonged to the woman he'd spotted a few times in his surveillance.
He didn't trust the impulse that assailed him to seek her out, but he was pretty much out of options unless he wanted to just lie down and let them finish him off.
A year ago, he would've almost welcomed it. Hell, even six months ago.
He wasn't ready to quit now, though. If he died, he meant to take that bastard with him to hell.
Turning without even realizing he had made a decision, he began to head along the edge of the track as quickly as he could. He didn't trust the woman, not enough to go to her for help, but she had several out buildings on her property. If he could just make it to one of them, he would have the chance to rest and see about his wounds.
The wound on his shoulder seemed to have stopped bleeding. He was fairly certain that had been no more than a crease, deep enough to hurt like a son-of-bitch, and bleed like hell, but he was pretty sure the bullet had done no more than plow a furrow through him and out the other side.
He was equally certain that he did have a bullet in his hip. He'd been favoring the leg, trying his best to keep from jolting it anymore than necessary, but each time he put even a little weight on that leg, agonizing pain ground through him and the leg threatened to buckle.
Hobbling now that the adrenaline had abandoned him and the pain and weakness was threatening to lay him out for the kill, he gritted his teeth and kept moving as quickly as he could, hoping he could make it to the woman's house and hide before he passed out.
Her image rose in his mind and as it did he felt his heart rate speed up just a little. A flicker of desire burgeoned despite all reason, his body beginning to hum with warmth.
Wryly, he concluded that he was still a ways from death if she could get any kind of rise out of him at the moment.
But then again, he had wanted her from the first moment he spied her and no amount of reasoning with himself had banished that.
She was as different from Concepcion as night from day.
It didn't matter.
More importantly, she was not one of the people.
But that didn't make any difference either. He'd tried to tell himself it did, but he knew better.
Every time he looked at her cool, white skin, her light blond hair, her pale blue eyes, he thought of ice, hard, cold.
And still he thirsted for a taste of her.
He hadn't stopped mourning for Concepcion and the babe. He still carried an ache that nothing could eradicate, not even his revenge. Having them wrenched from his life so abruptly and with such finality had been like having a part of himself torn away and he could never get that back, never get them back.
He would see that they had justice, though, blood for blood, if it was the last thing he ever did.
He had not intended that it be the last thing he ever did, though, because he had realized when he saw the woman that there was a reason to live, something to live for besides fulfilling the need for revenge.
He didn't trust her. She wasn't one of the people, and she lived too damned close to his enemy for his comfort in an area that was so remote that the next neighbors were miles away.
He couldn't completely rid himself of the suspicion that it was more than a coincidence that her land bordered his, that her neat little house and farm was little more than two miles from his compound as the crow flew.
But that didn't matter either.
In the back of his mind he knew that he had already decided that, once he had done what he had come to do, he fully intended to have her.
* * * *
The first gun shot woke Alaina. Still groggy with sleep, she lay still on the couch trying to figure out what the noise was. As it came closer it became clear what the loud popping noise was. Her heart skipped several beats. She glanced sharply at the clock on top of her TV set.
"My god! It's two in the morning! What the hell would they be hunting at this time of night?"
Rolling off the couch, she scrambled on her hands and knees toward the phone, grabbed it up and dialed the sheriff's office. It seemed to ring forever and finally switched over. He'd forwarded his calls.
He was probably at home in bed!
"Sheriff Wilson," said a voice on the line just about the time she'd given up.
"Hank, it's me, Alaina. They're out shooting up the woods again."
There was a momentary silence. "What the hell are they hunting at this time of night?"
"Well, god knows, I don't," Alaina said sharply, "but it sounds like they're moving in my direction. I'd just as soon not have any more bullet holes in my damned house!"
"I'm about fifteen minutes from you. Stay on the floor."
As if she had any intention of getting up!
The thought had barely formed in her mind when her wall exploded and then the couch as a stray bullet pierced the wall of the living room. Tufts of stuffing flew up in the air and drifted downward.
Alaina gaped at it in stunned disbelief for a split second feeling cold wash over her as she realized she'd been lying within inches of that bullet only a few moments earlier. Adrenaline surged through her then and, instinctively she began to scramble on her belly toward the back of the house. "Shit! Oh shit!" she muttered, with no clear destination in mind beyond trying to get out of range.
She'd never had a bullet actually enter the house! She'd heard shotgun pellets rain down on her roof like hail. She'd even found a couple of places on the outside walls where a spent bullet had cracked the siding, but she had never really believed she was in danger of actually getting shot in her own living room!
She'd already gone out the back door and made a dash for the storage shed in the rear before it occurred to her that they might decide she was a deer or whatever it was they were hunting.
They were on the front side of the house, though, which was why she'd thought of the shed to begin with, afraid that if they were close enough that a bullet had gone through the siding and into the house, that the interior walls weren't substantial enough to protect her.
In the distance, she heard Hank's siren.
She heard another gunshot as she grabbed the door of the shed, however, and she yanked it open and dove inside, wondering if they were going to shoot the poor sheriff. The shed was black as pitch inside, but she crouched behind her washing machine, which was right beside the door, trying to reassure herself that it was substantial enough to stop a bullet even if they came right up to the house. "Those crazy bastards!" she gasped, wondering if they were drunk or stoned out of their minds.
She'd complained about them trespassing at least a half a dozen times, but in the entire time she'd been living in the house, the hunters had never gotten nearly this close.
Trying to catch her breath and calm the frantic pounding of her heart, she listened as the siren drew nearer. After a few moments, she heard the engine of the car, the crunch of gravel beneath the wheels and then the sounds began to fade as the sheriff's car passed her place, headed down the track.
Tipping her head up, she listened for anything that might indicate that they were just crazy enough to shoot at the sheriff, wondering if it was safe to leave the shed.
"I'm going to sue the bastard if Hank doesn't arrest his sorry ass this time," she muttered.
She was shaking all over. She realized after a few moments that part of it, maybe, was due to the fact that she was sitting on cold concrete in her panties.
She'd forgotten she'd stripped down to her panties and t-shirt when she'd sprawled on the couch to watch the movie she'd dozed off in the middle of.
It was quiet outside now. She didn't hear the sirens, the car engine, no shooting. She thought she could hear a low hum of voices, but the sound was too indistinct to tell for sure.
Dragging in a shuddering breath, she was on the point of pushing herself upright when she saw something that froze her mid-motion.
There was a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring straight at her from the darkness of the shed less than two yards from where she was sitting.
Chapter One
Pain and fury filled Raphael as he raced through the dense brush in a mindless quest for freedom. Adrenaline drove him, else the pain from his wounds might have overwhelmed him. Fear ate at his mind, as well, but it was a distant voice, drowned by the frustration and anger because the fear wasn't for himself. It was fear of failing.
He had almost had the bastard!
For months he had tracked the ring leader of the men that had killed his woman and their unborn child. Patience was not one of his virtues, but his rage had grown cold in the year since Concepcion's death. His determination had hardened in the weeks he had lain fighting for his own life and the months after that that he had spent regaining his strength with an agonizing slowness that had been maddening while he chaffed at his quarry's trail growing colder and colder.
He had tracked him, though, halfway across two continents.
His stupidity had nearly gotten him killed, but he had wanted the bastard to look in his eyes and know that he was going to die because of Concepcion. He hadn't wanted to send the son-of-a-bitch to hell wondering.
He hadn't expected to be interrupted, but he should have anticipated the possibility.
If they hadn't taken him completely off guard, he could've finished the bastard before he left. Now he was wounded again, pretty fucking badly, he thought, if the blood he was losing was any indication.
He couldn't stop to examine it, though, because he could still hear them following, could still hear a random shot from time to time as the trigger happy morons spied something they thought might be him and fired at it. The darkness and the thickness of the woods were his only allies and he had a feeling he was running out of allies.
Almost on the thought he bounded from the woods and onto a narrow, two rut track. Tall weeds sprouted from the soil on either side and along the narrow center strip, but he was exposed and he bounded across the track and into the woods on the other side.
He paused there to catch his breath because he couldn't do anything else. The adrenaline that had kept him going thus far was rapidly draining away from him now and he could feel weakness seeping into every muscle in his body. Panting for breath, he tipped his head back to look up at the trees for cover.
He tamped the impulse. He would be too exposed. If he had been stronger, it wouldn't be such a bad idea. It would give him a vantage to watch for the hunters. It would give him a strategic advantage if he was able to fight back, but he had a bad feeling he would come out the loser in his current state.
Twisting his head to look back in the direction from which he'd come, he listened intently. Sure enough, within a few moments, he heard the hunters trampling through the brush in pursuit.
Uttering a mental curse, he looked at the track again.
It might just lead back to the compound, but he didn't think so. He'd studied the area pretty thoroughly over the past few weeks and he was fairly certain that this track belonged to the woman he'd spotted a few times in his surveillance.
He didn't trust the impulse that assailed him to seek her out, but he was pretty much out of options unless he wanted to just lie down and let them finish him off.
A year ago, he would've almost welcomed it. Hell, even six months ago.
He wasn't ready to quit now, though. If he died, he meant to take that bastard with him to hell.
Turning without even realizing he had made a decision, he began to head along the edge of the track as quickly as he could. He didn't trust the woman, not enough to go to her for help, but she had several out buildings on her property. If he could just make it to one of them, he would have the chance to rest and see about his wounds.
The wound on his shoulder seemed to have stopped bleeding. He was fairly certain that had been no more than a crease, deep enough to hurt like a son-of-bitch, and bleed like hell, but he was pretty sure the bullet had done no more than plow a furrow through him and out the other side.
He was equally certain that he did have a bullet in his hip. He'd been favoring the leg, trying his best to keep from jolting it anymore than necessary, but each time he put even a little weight on that leg, agonizing pain ground through him and the leg threatened to buckle.
Hobbling now that the adrenaline had abandoned him and the pain and weakness was threatening to lay him out for the kill, he gritted his teeth and kept moving as quickly as he could, hoping he could make it to the woman's house and hide before he passed out.
Her image rose in his mind and as it did he felt his heart rate speed up just a little. A flicker of desire burgeoned despite all reason, his body beginning to hum with warmth.
Wryly, he concluded that he was still a ways from death if she could get any kind of rise out of him at the moment.
But then again, he had wanted her from the first moment he spied her and no amount of reasoning with himself had banished that.
She was as different from Concepcion as night from day.
It didn't matter.
More importantly, she was not one of the people.
But that didn't make any difference either. He'd tried to tell himself it did, but he knew better.
Every time he looked at her cool, white skin, her light blond hair, her pale blue eyes, he thought of ice, hard, cold.
And still he thirsted for a taste of her.
He hadn't stopped mourning for Concepcion and the babe. He still carried an ache that nothing could eradicate, not even his revenge. Having them wrenched from his life so abruptly and with such finality had been like having a part of himself torn away and he could never get that back, never get them back.
He would see that they had justice, though, blood for blood, if it was the last thing he ever did.
He had not intended that it be the last thing he ever did, though, because he had realized when he saw the woman that there was a reason to live, something to live for besides fulfilling the need for revenge.
He didn't trust her. She wasn't one of the people, and she lived too damned close to his enemy for his comfort in an area that was so remote that the next neighbors were miles away.
He couldn't completely rid himself of the suspicion that it was more than a coincidence that her land bordered his, that her neat little house and farm was little more than two miles from his compound as the crow flew.
But that didn't matter either.
In the back of his mind he knew that he had already decided that, once he had done what he had come to do, he fully intended to have her.
* * * *
The first gun shot woke Alaina. Still groggy with sleep, she lay still on the couch trying to figure out what the noise was. As it came closer it became clear what the loud popping noise was. Her heart skipped several beats. She glanced sharply at the clock on top of her TV set.
"My god! It's two in the morning! What the hell would they be hunting at this time of night?"
Rolling off the couch, she scrambled on her hands and knees toward the phone, grabbed it up and dialed the sheriff's office. It seemed to ring forever and finally switched over. He'd forwarded his calls.
He was probably at home in bed!
"Sheriff Wilson," said a voice on the line just about the time she'd given up.
"Hank, it's me, Alaina. They're out shooting up the woods again."
There was a momentary silence. "What the hell are they hunting at this time of night?"
"Well, god knows, I don't," Alaina said sharply, "but it sounds like they're moving in my direction. I'd just as soon not have any more bullet holes in my damned house!"
"I'm about fifteen minutes from you. Stay on the floor."
As if she had any intention of getting up!
The thought had barely formed in her mind when her wall exploded and then the couch as a stray bullet pierced the wall of the living room. Tufts of stuffing flew up in the air and drifted downward.
Alaina gaped at it in stunned disbelief for a split second feeling cold wash over her as she realized she'd been lying within inches of that bullet only a few moments earlier. Adrenaline surged through her then and, instinctively she began to scramble on her belly toward the back of the house. "Shit! Oh shit!" she muttered, with no clear destination in mind beyond trying to get out of range.
She'd never had a bullet actually enter the house! She'd heard shotgun pellets rain down on her roof like hail. She'd even found a couple of places on the outside walls where a spent bullet had cracked the siding, but she had never really believed she was in danger of actually getting shot in her own living room!
She'd already gone out the back door and made a dash for the storage shed in the rear before it occurred to her that they might decide she was a deer or whatever it was they were hunting.
They were on the front side of the house, though, which was why she'd thought of the shed to begin with, afraid that if they were close enough that a bullet had gone through the siding and into the house, that the interior walls weren't substantial enough to protect her.
In the distance, she heard Hank's siren.
She heard another gunshot as she grabbed the door of the shed, however, and she yanked it open and dove inside, wondering if they were going to shoot the poor sheriff. The shed was black as pitch inside, but she crouched behind her washing machine, which was right beside the door, trying to reassure herself that it was substantial enough to stop a bullet even if they came right up to the house. "Those crazy bastards!" she gasped, wondering if they were drunk or stoned out of their minds.
She'd complained about them trespassing at least a half a dozen times, but in the entire time she'd been living in the house, the hunters had never gotten nearly this close.
Trying to catch her breath and calm the frantic pounding of her heart, she listened as the siren drew nearer. After a few moments, she heard the engine of the car, the crunch of gravel beneath the wheels and then the sounds began to fade as the sheriff's car passed her place, headed down the track.
Tipping her head up, she listened for anything that might indicate that they were just crazy enough to shoot at the sheriff, wondering if it was safe to leave the shed.
"I'm going to sue the bastard if Hank doesn't arrest his sorry ass this time," she muttered.
She was shaking all over. She realized after a few moments that part of it, maybe, was due to the fact that she was sitting on cold concrete in her panties.
She'd forgotten she'd stripped down to her panties and t-shirt when she'd sprawled on the couch to watch the movie she'd dozed off in the middle of.
It was quiet outside now. She didn't hear the sirens, the car engine, no shooting. She thought she could hear a low hum of voices, but the sound was too indistinct to tell for sure.
Dragging in a shuddering breath, she was on the point of pushing herself upright when she saw something that froze her mid-motion.
There was a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring straight at her from the darkness of the shed less than two yards from where she was sitting.
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