SHADOWLOVE--STALKERS Read Free Page B

shoulders in his large hands. His green eyes stared hard into her silver pools. “Just stop!”
    “Stop! You are a total stranger, talking nonsense, and I am warning you…” Shawna grimaced at him. “Get your hands off me.”
    He dropped his hold on her. “Come with me… there, to that coffee house—safe enough, crowded.” He pointed his strong chin in the direction of a small shop across the street.
    “I have an appointment I can’t miss.”
    “Then let me walk you to your appointment. You can ask me anything you want to know. I will answer what I can. Afterwards, we can go to a very public coffee shop, and you can hear what I have to say.”
    He saw her consider his suggestion. Her watched as her mind raced over the possibilities, and then she spoke.
    “I don’t know who you are. Your accent is Scottish, I think…so maybe you are tourist looking for some excitement. You won’t find it with me.” She yanked out of his hold and called over her shoulder, “Stop following me.”
    He gave it up. The way he saw it was that at least for the moment she was not in any immediate danger, even though he had seen more than the ordinary numbers of vampires since he had arrived last night. Still, it was not the right time of day for vampires to cruise the city streets. He could try again later, but not too much later, not with the vision he had still taunting him. He knew from that vision that the clan would soon be closing in on her. He had learned over the last two centuries that his visions would only give him ‘the most likely future’, not the absolute. And he had also learned that there were few visions, one out of nine in fact, that he could actually alter.
    However, this time he had to succeed. He had to interfere with Shawna’s future. The alternative was, for him, unthinkable.
    He was surprised by her vehement rebuff. He had not anticipated it…and in fact, had never before been rebuffed by a woman…
    He would have to find a way to make her listen because she didn’t stand a chance alone, and he knew now that was how she was determined to face her danger— alone.
    Besides, she was essential to his plan. She was the bait he needed .
    He knew from inquiries that the Rawley clan had a compound in the wilds of Quebec. They had resided there for the last twenty years, but he knew they had recently decided to move elsewhere—Europe, probably Italy.
    In his vision he had seen Pentim force his own blood down her throat. She had lost her battle against the vampire virus, but she would not allow herself to become one of them; in the end she had forced her father into a rage and died by his hand. That had been his vision.
    Chad MacFare was his own man, and he knew he was going against his father’s wishes. His father had asked him to ‘sit it out’. How could he? The Rawley clan had become too powerful, too threatening. And he personally wanted Pentim Rawley dead for reasons all his own.
    In the end, he, his father, and his grandmother’s way of life might even be threatened. That was something they had avoided for centuries…
    His reasons for wanting Rawley dead were deeply personal, and he meant to get the job done at any cost!
    * * *
    Shawna raced into the Harlow Building on Forty-Fifth and Avenue of the Americas. The hunky stranger was no longer at her back. A small part of her felt oddly deflated; a larger part of her wondered just who he was, and what was his angle. However, she had things to do, and so she forced herself to put him out of her mind.
    Smartly dressed people were coming and going, focusing on their own business. She dove into a crowded elevator and pushed the button for the fifteenth and highest floor of the building.
    With a sigh of relief she slipped out of the elevator into the grand central hall of Stevens & Stevens. When she gave her name, a young paralegal immediately stepped forward, hand outstretched in a warm greeting. Shawna knew the attention was because she was one of the large