winds.
He wondered what would possess someone to be out on a day like today, but as the vessel drew closer, the vague outline sharpened and he recognized its shape.
Fury rose up in him at the sight of the rumrunner manned by his nemesis, Captain Pedro Ramirez. No wonder the boat was out tonight. The vampire captain and his immortal crew would have little fear of death in the churning waters any mortal man would avoid.
As Damien watched, the crew struggled with something cumbersome along the schooner’s deck. To his surprise, they raised a skiff over the lip of the starboard side and lowered the small vessel into the rough seas. The boat pushed away from the schooner, manned by two crewmen who furiously rowed through the surging waves. Time and time again the sea tossed the meager skiff up into the air before crashing it back down against the water’s surface.
Still the vampire crew pushed ahead, unmindful of the dangerous ocean.
Damien wondered anew why they would be out in such weather and why they were headed directly toward his lighthouse. But Damien understood that Ramirez delighted in torturing him. In taking Angelina from him, time and time again. With Christmas Eve arriving tomorrow, maybe Ramirez wanted to remind Damien of what he had lost last year.
As the skiff hit the shore, the two crewmen jumped overboard into the pounding surf and hauled the vessel up onto the sand to beach it. Then they reached in and dragged out a long, lumpy roll of canvas clumsily bound with rope. They tossed the package onto the sand and then dragged it upward until it was well beyond the reach of the angry surf.
Then they pulled the skiff off the beach and back into the waves for a return trip to the rumrunner.
A present from Ramirez? Not likely, but Damien couldn’t resist the temptation of the package. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but he was already dead, both physically and spiritually, so who cared what danger lurked within the bundle?
With a surge of vampire speed, he nearly flew down the spiral staircase and out the lighthouse door, racing over the sand and snow to the package not far from the water’s edge. As he approached, he could see the brownish-red blotches along the outside of the canvas. Even with the wind, his vampire senses picked up the smell of blood and the hushed heartbeat pulsing beneath the fabric.
Damien dropped to his knees and swiftly undid the thick ropes wrapped tightly around the rough bloodstained canvas. His fingers shook as he wondered who was trapped within. As he both hoped and feared that it was Angelina.
The wind picked up one edge of the cloth, what he now saw had once been a sail, as he finished untying the rope. Freed, the sail flew upward into Damien’s face, strong enough to open a gash along his cheek.
Ignoring the wound, which his vampire body would heal in the space of a few heartbeats, he ripped the canvas sheet away from his face and held it down with one knee. But before he could undo the rest of the bundle, a hand fell from beneath the other edge of the canvas.
Petite and bloodied. A woman’s hand. Achingly familiar.
Angelina.
She lay naked in the center of the sail, her raven hair spilling out against a mosaic of bright red and rusty brown on the white canvas. There was no denying the scent of blood, but more powerful was her familiar aroma. Even with the storm swirling around him, her natural perfume filled his senses, making him think of bright summer days and fields of wildflowers.
Impossible. Wonderful. He reached for her, encircling her in his arms. The heat of her blood bathed his hands. Seeped through the thin wet fabric of his cotton shirt.
He drew her close and kissed her temple, detecting the thready pulse of life beneath his lips.
She was alive, he thought with joy. As her eyelids fluttered open, recognition came alive in their emerald depths.
“Damien? Is it really you?” she said in the voice that had been haunting his dreams for nearly a year. He realized then that her voice had not changed during any of her visits. Each word she spoke was like music, strumming elation and desire to life deep in his gut. Her voice wrought peace in his soul, as it had every time she had come into his life.
“It’s really me, Angelina. This time nothing will take you from me.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE PITCH