He shook his head. “Nope. She said she was a dual person, part human and part reptile. A rattlesnake, if I had to guess.”
Kadie shivered at the image. “Do you think she can help?”
“I have my doubts.”
“What did she do?”
“She helped herself to a healthy taste of my blood, then she collected a pint of it in a bottle, cut off a chunk of my skin and a lock of my hair.”
“Oh, my,” Kadie murmured. “I don’t think I like the sound of that. Why did you agree to let her do it?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. I didn’t sense any danger coming from her. Besides, at this point, I’m willing to try anything.” He glanced out the window. It was Sunday evening. The town was quiet. Too quiet. Rising, he went to stand at the window.
“What’s wrong?” Rising, Kadie went to stand beside him. She opened her preternatural senses but found nothing amiss.
Lifting his head, Saintcrow took a deep breath. “There’s a vampire on the bridge.”
“Are you going out to see what he wants?”
“I know what he wants,” Saintcrow said, and turned away from the window. What he didn’t know was why this fledgling had been drawn to him. Or how he knew where to look.
Save for a few ancient acquaintances, no one knew where he made his lair these days. So how had this stranger found him? There was only one way to find out.
Chapter Six
Over the course of the next week, a handful of vampires showed up at the bridge. Like the first one, they were all looking for Saintcrow.
“This is so weird,” Kadie remarked late that night after Rylan returned from meeting with yet another one.
Saintcrow shrugged. “Yeah. They all want to stay here.”
“Why?”
“They’re not sure. I told them it was impossible, but they’re not leaving the area. I can sense them lurking nearby.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“Sure, decades ago before we opened the town to the world. But now...?” He grunted softly. “The last one said she just wanted to be near me.”
Kadie lifted one brow. “Near you?”
“That’s what she said.”
“That’s just...creepy.”
“Yeah. They all asked to drink from me.”
A cold chill ran down Kadie’s spine. “Drink from you?”
“Well, I am one of the oldest of our kind. And the most powerful.”
“You’ve been that way for centuries. Why the sudden interest now?”
“Beats the hell out of me.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry about it, darlin’.”
“Do you think it has something to do with whatever it is that’s affecting you?”
“Maybe.” Or maybe they sensed something he didn’t, he mused. Maybe he was getting weaker and like wild animals, they were closing in for the kill. It was a troubling thought and he dismissed it out of hand. He wasn’t growing weaker. Far from it. It was more likely that they were here hoping to take a little ofhis blood and make themselves stronger and more powerful. But why now all of a sudden?