though she was scared.
God, courage was a turn-on.
"I feed from females of my own species. Not humans."
Her eyes flared. "Are there a lot of you?"
"Enough. Not as many as there used to be. We're hunted for extinction."
Which reminded him: He was separated from his weapons by about six yards and a couch. He tried to get up, but the weakness in his body made his movements slow and uncoordinated.
Goddamned sun, he thought. Suck the life right out of you.
"What do you need?" she asked.
"My duffel. Just bring it around so it's at my feet."
She stood up and disappeared around the couch. He heard a thud and then the sound of the bag being dragged across the floor.
"Good lord, what is in here?" She came back into view. As she dropped the handles, they fell to the sides.
He hoped like hell she didn't look in there.
"Listen, Mary... we've got a problem." He forced his upper body off the floor, bracing his arms.
The probability of a lesser attacking her house now was low. Although the slayers could go out in sunlight, they worked at night and needed to trance-out to replenish their strength. Most of the time they were quiet during the day.
But he hadn't heard back from Wrath. And evening would come eventually.
Mary stared down at him, her expression grave. "Do you need to be underground? Because we can get you into the old grain cellar. The door to it is through the kitchen, but I could hang quilts over the sliders - Shoot, there are skylights. Maybe we could cover you in something. You'd probably be safer down there."
Rhage let his head fall back so that all he saw was the ceiling.
Here was this human female, who wasn't half his weight, who was ill, who'd just found out she had a vampire in her house - and she was worried about protecting him.
"Rhage?" She came over and knelt beside him. "I can help get you down - "
Before he could think, he took her hand, pressed his lips to her palm, and then put it on his heart.
Her fear swirled in the air, the sharp, smoky smell mixing with her delicious natural scent. But she didn't pull away this time, and the fight-or-flight cocktail didn't last long.
"You don't need to worry," she said softly. "I won't let anyone get to you today. You're safe."
Ah, hell. She was melting him. She really was.
He cleared his throat. "Thanks. But it's you I'm worried about. Mary, last night we were attacked in the park. You lost your purse, and I have to assume my enemies got it."
Tension shot down her arm, traveled through her palm, and hit him in his chest. As her anxiety spiked, he wished there was some way of bearing the fear for her, taking it into himself.
She shook her head. "I don't remember any attack."
"I hid your memories."
"What do you mean, 'hid'?"
He reached into her mind and released the events of the night before.
Mary gasped and put her hands to her head, blinking in rapid succession. He knew he had to explain quickly. It wasn't going to take her long to process everything and jump to the conclusion that he was a killer worth running from.
"Mary, I needed to get you home so I could protect you while I waited for word from my brothers." Which still hadn't come through, goddamn it. "Those men who attacked us, they aren't human, and they're very good at what they do."
She settled onto the floor with no grace, as if her knees had given out. Her eyes were wide and sightless while she shook her head.
"You killed two of them," she said in a dead voice. "You snapped the neck of one. And the other you..."
Rhage cursed. "I'm sorry that I got you tangled up in all this. I'm sorry that you're in danger now. And I'm sorry I stripped your memories - "
She pegged him with hard eyes. "Don't do that again."
He wished he could make her that promise. "I won't unless I have to in order to save you. You know a lot about me now, and that puts you at risk."
"Have you taken any other memories from me?"
"We met at the training center. You came with John and Bella."
"How long ago?"
"Couple days. I can give you those back, as well."
"Wait a minute." She frowned. "Why didn't you just make me forget all about you before now? You know, take everything."
As if she would have preferred that.
"I was going to.