VISIONS OF HEAT

Faith’s instinct was to fight the sucking edges of the darkness, but as she’d learned in the weeks prior to Marine’s murder, the more she struggled, the harder it would hold on. So she let it—let him—take her under and bring her into his world.

His darkness churned with faint hints of red. The blood hunger was reawakening far more quickly than she would’ve guessed—Marine’s murder hadn’t sated this creature, it had simply whetted the edge of his appetite.

He released her when there was no longer any chance of escape. Now she would watch and see, now she would be his audience and his disciple, for he was a great being and expected others to pay homage. That she was the solitary individual aware of his genius was a source of great anger, which he took out on her by forcing her to bear witness to his every malevolent act. They hadn’t yet come to pass, but while in the twisted coils of a vision somehow linked to the killer’s mind, they were her reality.

A violent swirl of red sliced her thoughts in half as he shoved into her mind. She lost all sense of self, of being a cardinal named Faith, and became a creature of pain and fear. The darkness pushed her to the raw edge of madness, threatening her with the very emotions she’d been trained not to feel, or to even admit possessing. Her helplessness made the killer laugh. He grabbed her with his teeth, shook her hard.

He wanted her to not only watch, but understand his sick desires. That she didn’t, couldn’t, enraged him. Surrounded by the vicious thickness of murderous fury, Faith did the sole thing she could to protect herself. She surrendered the civilized thinking part of her mind and retreated into the walled inner core of her psyche, curling up around herself like a child going into the fetal position.

Still, the darkness battered her. He was amused by her inability to deal with him, playing with her as a cat might play with a trapped mouse. He didn’t want to kill her. No, what he wanted was to flaunt his power until she stopped resisting and let him rape her mind. Then he’d be free to show her all his desires, every one of his planned future acts, an endless reel of horror.

Too deep inside the most animal heart of her psyche to remember that she wasn’t supposed to feel fear, Faith began to struggle with everything in her.

And failed to break out.





Vaughn landed silently on the soft carpet of Faith’s bedroom. His feet were bare but his legs covered—he’d cached a pair of jeans in the forest earlier that day, not wanting to scandalize Faith any more than she was already going to be scandalized. Of course, he was still looking forward to seeing the surprise in her eyes when she found him there for the second night in a row.

However, his senses went on red alert the second he took a step toward the bed. Her blanket in a heap on the floor, Faith lay curled into a tight ball, breath shallow and heartbeat sluggish to the cat’s keen hearing. The scent of something that shouldn’t have been there, something that didn’t belong, was pungent in the air. When he narrowed his eyes in the semidarkness, he picked out a more extreme blackness around Faith, just as he’d done at the cabin.

Convinced the darkness would grip her tighter if it knew Vaughn was about to intervene, he got onto the bed in silence. His next move was lightning fast. Picking her up, he crushed her against him, physically blocking the darkness with the way his body curved over hers. Logic argued it wouldn’t work—whatever was attacking her was doing so on the psychic plane. But instinct said it would. And instinct was proven right.

He felt the cold emptiness of sheer evil brush over him as the darkness was ripped in two by his body. It was unable to cling to anything in him because he was too different, too animal. Vaughn allowed a growl to rise up in his throat—his claws had sliced out the instant after he’d dragged Faith to safety. Now she lay protected by a human cage and, no longer able to feed on her, the dark thing withered away.

Vaughn waited until the air was purged of the noxious scent before he dropped his gaze to Faith. Retracting his claws, he used one hand to clear the strands of hair off her face. Her skin was cool, too cool. And her heartbeat was becoming ever slower, as if she continued to fight with all her strength, unaware she was safe. He wanted to do violence. But instead, he slid a hand under her nape and kissed her.

Only touch affected Faith deeply enough to break through the psychic nature of her mind. Most humans would’ve been shocked at the animal intensity of his kiss, but he wasn’t human. And he wasn’t shocked.