Jared Read Free

here.”
    “I can carry my own pack.”
    He listened to the forest. The spots of silence
indicated the others searching, working in ever-broadening circles. “And I can
carry you if you don’t get moving. Those two had friends.”
    “I’m not going with you.”
    “A woman alone isn’t safe out here.”
    “I’m not safe with you, either.”
    He stopped and turned. “You’re about as safe as you’re
ever going to get.”
    Her hands settled on her hips. “Why? Because the big,
bad male vamp beat up the other two vamps?”
    He took two steps back and grabbed her hand,
impatience at her rejection of his protection roughening his voice. “Because
I’m the big, bad vamp who can beat up all the other vamps who want you as their
own personal tidbit.”
    He gave a yank, and she stumbled toward him. He kept
her momentum going through sheer muscle. She trotted behind him, putting as
much resistance as she could into every step.
    “If you don’t cooperate, I’m going to pick you up and
carry you again.”
    Her talons sank into his wrist. “I don’t want to go
with you.”
    “I don’t care.”
    He wasn’t leaving her for the Sanctuary vultures. He
glanced behind them and, with a surge of energy, created a tiny whirlwind to
erase their tracks from the snow. If those who followed found the spot, and
were good trackers, they’d sense the lingering energy, but they’d have to be
good.
    “Levitate.”
    “You levitate.”
    She was determined to be difficult. He tugged her into
him. She landed against this chest with an “oof” and a flash of talons.
“Hell-cat.”
    He spun her around, wrapped his arm around her torso,
pinning her arms to her side, picked her up, and headed west. After five
minutes of riding in that position, she caved.
    “All right,” she gasped. “You win.”
    He didn’t stop. He didn’t trust her for a minute. The
woman had spent the entire time stewing, her energy whirling with
concentration, which meant she’d probably been planning, too. He’d lived long
enough to know a pretty exterior didn’t mean an empty head. His brother’s wife
was a prime example. The woman was as sweet as candy to look at, but underneath
there was a will of iron and a razor-sharp brain.
    “I’ll tell you what.” The other males had split up,
one heading in their direction. He stopped. “You can ride piggyback.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Then you stay the way you are.” In a couple of miles
he’d lose their tail, and then he’d put her down.
    “I don’t like you,” she informed him in icy tones.
    “You don’t have to like me, little vamp. All you need
to do is live.”
    “And if I don’t want to?”
    He almost missed a step. “I’m sure you’ve figured out
by now that, as vampires, we don’t have much of a choice.”
    She always had a choice. Raisa prided herself on
creating choices where none existed, but right now, the only one she could come
up with to deal with the big vamp was to kick him between the legs. Frustration
never created her best ideas. She tried a different tact.
    “Please put me down?”
    He glanced down at her and slowed. He had beautiful
eyes. More green than hazel and glowing with the force of the personality
behind them. There was a flicker of his energy. A softening? She tried again.
    “Please?”
    He stopped. The slow glide down his body was more
seduction than release. Awareness shuddered along her senses.
    She looked up as her boots sank into the snow. The man
was not just big, he was massive. He had to be over six feet tall with wide
shoulders that just screamed “give me a reason.” The leather coat he wore did
nothing to reduce the image of power and mass. He wore the Stetson on his head
without any affectation. The same with the rifle in his hands and the scuffed
cowboy boots on his feet. Not a newcomer to the West, then. With startling
speed, a shaft of energy shot out from him and surrounded her, catching at that
flutter of awareness. She instinctively