coppery scent of blood and the memory of the glass cutting, ripping, ending a life.
She supposed she was lucky then that Len didn’t attack her right away. Forcing herself to think instead of just feel, she looked at him.
But he wasn’t watching her. He was staring past her at . . . She turned.
The horrors never ended. A transparent coffin rested on another table. A man’s body lay inside. He was naked, and his pale skin gleamed under the ceiling light. Someone had set a headstone beside the table. Only two things about the stone registered.
A sick mind had created that image. It was an etching of the man in his coffin with thick chains wrapped around almost every inch of his body. A huge padlock trapped the man inside. The etched lock almost seemed to glow.
And a name. Ethan.
“You stupid bitch! You killed the binder.”
Cassie had never heard that much fear in any person’s voice. A binder? What was a—
The man in the coffin turned his head. He opened his eyes and stared at her. Eyes with no pupils, no white, just solid black.
She stopped breathing.
Len screamed, a high keening sound filled with unspeakable terror. He threw himself toward the closed door.
The coffin shattered.
Chapter Two
Cassie flung her hand in front of her eyes and turned her head away to protect herself from flying glass. At the same time, she bent to retrieve her own glass shard. Because beneath her gibbering fear, she still wanted to live. Then she straightened.
Who to face? But her subconscious recognized the real danger. She looked at where the coffin had rested. . . .
At the man crouched among the shattered remains, all smooth bare skin and hard muscle. Cuts from the broken glass dripped blood that trailed over his chest and stomach. His tangled dark hair framed a face that spoke of violence in shadowed planes and sharp edges. He stared at her, his black eyes alive with rage and something so predatory that she stepped back. Len seemed safe compared to this . . . She wasn’t sure anymore. The word “man” suggested human. Too tame a category for what glared back at her. Male. Definitely male.
As she stared with unblinking horror, he curled back his upper lip, exposing long sharp fangs.
She gripped her small glass shard so tightly it dug into her palm. Blood trickled between her fingers. The pain kept things real, because on some level she still wanted to believe she’d wandered into a dark nightmare alley. But this was no dream. And she didn’t have any illusions that her puny weapon would stop him.
Then she realized he wasn’t looking at her any longer. His gaze swept past her to focus on Len, who was throwing himself against the door in a vain effort to break it down. The force of his desperation shook the room.
The fanged . . . male laughed, a soft sound that terrified her more than an angry roar ever would. She edged over to the wall and pressed herself flat against it, wished she could sink into it and disappear, and prayed to a God she hadn’t spoken to since she was ten.
“Leaving so soon?”
His voice was dark and deep, filled with such menace that she had to force herself not to join Len in flinging herself against the door. Instinct whispered, “You’re prey. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t call attention to yourself.”
“I’m sorry that I don’t have more time to discuss things with you—life, death, and how payback is a bitch.” He didn’t move closer to Len.
Len finally turned away from the door. All color had drained from his face, his eyes were wide and staring. “No. Don’t. Tony did the binding.” He sounded almost incoherent.
“But Tony is dead. That only leaves you.” He sounded regretful that Tony was beyond his reach. Then he smiled.
Cassie shuddered. She felt what was coming, sensed death filling the room, the air thick with fear and finality. She told herself to close her eyes.
She watched.
Suddenly, Len’s head jerked sharply to the left, farther than any human neck should be able to twist. If there was an accompanying sound, Cassie couldn’t hear it past the roaring in her head. Len dropped to the floor. Cassie recognized death in his loose-limbed sprawl and empty eyes. And no one had touched him.
She stared at Len’s killer. Was she imagining the slight change in his face—the more predatory shape of his eyes, a more dangerous slant to his mouth? Cassie blinked. Of