Embrace the Night

Page 216



"How did you start that fire?"

He lifted one black brow. "An odd question at such a moment."
"How did we travel here so fast?"

"I have many talents," he said with a shrug.

"Are you a magician of some kind?" She shrank away from the word sorcerer, it conjured up too many dark images.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

"Don't tell me you think you're Harry Houdini?" "Answer me!"

"No, I don't believe in reincarnation. Or ghosts. Or werewolves."

He crossed the room, parted the drapes, and stared out into the night. He should end this now, he thought, one way or the other. As he had so long ago, he told himself to let her go, to exit her life and never return. But, as with his other Sara, he could not do it. He could not cut himself off from the only woman who had ever loved him. Selfish to the end, he mused, determined to have what he wanted at all costs.

He stood there for a long time, absorbing the sounds of the night, A drunk was lying in a gutter less than a mile away, snoring loudly. He heard the near-silent sweep of an owl's wings as it hunted in the night. In the distance, he could hear people talking, fighting, loving.

He drewadeep breath, and Sarah's scent filled his nostrils. Her perfume. The soap she had bathed with. The fragrance of her hair. The sharp odor of fear. The intoxicating scent of the blood flowing warm and sweet through her veins.

He clenched his hands at his sides. Sara Jayne, remember me, cara, come to me. "Sara Jayne." A shiver went through Sarah as she repeated the name. "She's the girl in my dreams."
"I know."

"How could you?"

"Because they're her dreams you're having, her nightmares." "You mean she really exists?"

"She did."

"Did?" A coldness seemed to fill the room as she waited for his explanation.

"She was born in England in 1865. She had hair the color of yours, but her eyes were blue, like the sky