Dante considered the clearing. For the moment they were alone.
'You can wait here for me. I won't go far."
She bit her lip, the terror she was struggling to keep at bay almost visible as she considered the darkness shrouded about her.
"Your definition of far is considerably different than mine," she muttered.
He placed his fingers beneath her chin to tilt her head upward. He waited until she met his searching gaze and then offered her a comforting smile.
'You have only to call and I will come running."
"You promise?"
"Upon my quiche-hating heart," he said softly.
Her lips twitched, although her eyes remained dark with unease. 'That'll do."
Framing her face in his hands, Dante crushed his lips to her forehead before pulling back to regard her with a somber expression.
"Abby."
"What?"
"I would suggest you stay away from the windows. It's bad in there. Really bad."
His warning delivered, Dante turned to make his way toward the outbuildings. If some of the witches had fled, he should be able to follow their scent. He supposed it was too much to hope that they might be hidden in the nearby trees.
In over three centuries, they had never made anything easy.
Don't look. Don't look. Don't look.
Dante's words echoed through Abby's mind.
She knew he was right. She didn't want to see whatever was inside. God knew she had seen enough in the past hours to last her a couple of lifetimes. Not the least of which was a walking corpse who refused to stay in Ms grave.
But the very fact that she shouldn't look naturally ensured that her feet were moving forward and she was pressing her face to the glass.
For a moment her eyes could make out nothing in the gloom, and a deep sense of relief shuddered through her. Then, even as she prepared to pull away, her gaze shifted toward a nearby wall and she was reeling backward in horror.
So much blood…
It had been splattered everywhere.
And… stuff she didn't even want to consider.
Bending over, she gagged at the rising nausea.
"You had to look, didn't you?" a dark voice drawled even as a strong arm encircled her shoulders and pulled her close.
"You shouldn't have told me not to."
He pressed her head into his shoulder. "Somehow I knew it would end up being my fault."
Comforted more than a rational woman should be by a vampire's touch, Abby slowly forced herself to pull away.
"Did you find the trail?"
Even in the darkness, she could see his grimace.