Samhain Publishing

The sun disappeared behind buildings that had seen better days. It was the seedy side of town and she was hurrying to make one more trip before the streets turned dangerous. She was alone, a perfect target.

Watching from the shadows, he noticed how easy it would be to pick her out of a crowd. She wore a yellow T-shirt that reminded him of Easter, blue jeans that flared over her pink tennis shoes, and carried an armful of donated clothing. But all that color and the awkward bent-back way she balanced the clothes weren’t what made her stand out. No, it was her face. It had been ages since he had seen such a sparkling face, full of hope, life.
He planned to take it all away.

She could not see him, or know his intentions, but her legs picked up speed as if trying to outrun him. He shook his head. If she hoped to make it to safety, she was sadly mistaken. She would never be safe again. The woman he followed was a hairsbreadth away from Death. She just didn’t want to believe it yet.

He knew the truth. The discomfort pinching beneath her breastbone was not heartburn from the chili-cheese dog she’d eaten for lunch. And the occasional twinge in her left arm related less to the load she was carrying than to the ticking bomb that was moments from exploding.

He was there for her, but not to pick up the pieces. His job was more about lighting the fuse. As she came toward him, concentrating on balancing the stack in her arms and not where she placed her feet, he grinned. This was going to be easy.

Get it done and get gone was one of his better mottos.

“Hello, Sara.” He stepped into her path.

“Oh.” She stopped quickly and a jacket slipped off the top of the pile. “Do I know you?” With her eyes on him, she squatted, trying to retrieve the fallen article without dropping the rest.

“Allow me.” He shook the dirt off the jacket with a loud crack and replaced it on top of the pile.

She cocked her head, squinting at him. “I sometimes forget faces, but yours…I’m sure I’d remember if we’d met.”

He didn’t smile. It went without saying that women found him attractive. His father was made in God’s image, after all.

He moved closer, blocking the sun from her eyes, and let her see him for who he was. “How about now?”

She peered into his face and her eyes widened. “My gosh, it’s you!”

“Ah, you remember after all.”

“You”—she gulped—“were in my brother’s hospital room, five years ago, just before he—”

All the clothes fell out of her arms. The acidic heartburn bloomed into breath-stealing pain. Clutching her chest, she pressed down hard against the invisible hand that squeezed her heart like a stress-releasing ball. She rocked forward in misery.

“Do not fight it. In a few minutes it will be over,” he said softly.

“Oh no, please, no!”

He shook his head. “Or, you can fight me, as you are doing now. Believe me, it’s worse this way, but I will win either way.”

Her mouth fell open and she panted for air. He knew she was experiencing the most intense agony of her life. It was only going to get worse.

“Please…a minute…to talk,” she ground out through clenched teeth. A fine sheen of perspiration beaded on her upper lip. Her bright blue eyes were ringed with darkness, and yet, she seemed determined to speak her mind.

He gave her the minute.

The pain subsided completely. She bent at the waist, as athletes do after a great race, and took deep breaths, exhaling each one slowly, fearing it would be her last. Finally, she stood straight and looked him in the eye. “That’s better.”

She had been ignoring the pain for so long that the absence of it must have felt like rebirth. “Don’t get used to it. I’ve given you one minute. Say what you must.”

“I…I knew you would come. Not you, exactly, but, you know, The End.” Words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush. “My family is cursed with this genetic heart defect. Very rare, always deadly. My brothers, mother, aunts, all of them died young. I guess I’ve got it too. I never got tested. I mean, who wants to pay two grand to see those lab results?” She tried to laugh—a bitter puff of air came out instead. “So now that you’re here…for me…you can’t be.” Her hands flew up and she cried out, “I’m not ready.”

He growled with disgust. “Lady, no one ever is.”

“You don’t understand. I’m not going.” She stamped her tennis shoe against the sidewalk. “I need more time.”

He smiled. She was a feisty one, all right. Normally the lively ones perturbed him because they made his job difficult, but he found Sara Lane intriguing. Naïve, but intriguing.

“Death is the price to pay for life. There’s always a price. You are going, Sara.”

She blinked and tears clung to her dark eyelashes. When her pretty young face contorted with the deepest expression of sorrow he had witnessed in a long time, something stirred within him. Pity? No, he wouldn’t allow it.

Never let them get to you was another one of his hard-fast rules. A flash of anger overtook the pity and squelched it with one fiery blast.

“No offense, but what can I say to make you go away? Pleeease?” She lifted prayer hands before his face.

“Here it comes.” He rolled his eyes. “The begging.”

It was always the same. Kings, paupers, saints, villains—his victims never surprised him. She was no different.

“I just need more time. City hall has given me to the end of the month to finish the shelter. If I…” She couldn’t say the words. “…am not around, hundreds of people will be sleeping on the streets again this winter. If only you could see how hard I’ve fought for this.”

And suddenly he could. Damn it! He hated this part of the job. One of the punishments for his crimes was to stand sentry each time a soul sheared from its body. He was forced to watch a replay of childhood, birthdays, first kisses, humiliations and fears. Fragments of the dying person’s lifetime would swirl before his eyes like a film spliced together by a lunatic. He’d learned to shrug it away.

Until he met Sara Lane.

In a flash, he saw her arguing before the city council. The long blond ponytail swayed against her back as she bounced on her toes with excitement. Her face flushed pink.

“One month, that’s all I need to clean up the old JCPenney building,” she was saying. “We have to get these people in where it’s safe and warm. No one else should die out there.”

In the vision, he could see that the members of the city council hardly looked at Sara. They didn’t feel her passion as he did. They were fools.

“All right, Ms—?” A pencil-necked man shuffled the papers in his hands.

“Lane,” she said for the fifth time.

“Um, yes, Ms. Lane. We will take a break and discuss this amongst ourselves. If you’ll wait outside, we’ll let you know our decision.”

The door closed in her face.

Sara waited for about five minutes then crept over and put her ear against the door. She frowned. It didn’t sound good. The city council members seemed to care more about the city’s image than taking care of people who really needed help.

Did they think ignoring the homeless would make them go away? She threw open the door, yelling, “These are human beings, not rats! No one deserves to live like that.”

“Ms. Lane, you need to stay outside. This is a closed session!” a fat man in an expensive pinstriped suit said.

She shook her finger at him. “I’d like to see you outside. You’d never last a day living on the streets.”

The fat man huffed, shifting his weight over his belt. “Someone get her out of here.”

Two thugs came for her. They grabbed her roughly by her arms and started hauling her out of the building.

“Oh, no you don’t! I’m not leaving. Hey, take your hands off me.”

Her feet kicked the air three feet off the ground. She struggled and squirmed. The men squeezed harder. The front door was thrown open and they…

He clamped his mind down on the memory, not wanting to see this woman hurt, even in the past. What he wanted to do was pound the fat jerk into oblivion. And his thug buddies right behind him.

He blinked a few times at the blurred freckled face staring at him. He was amazed. This young woman hadn’t given up. Somehow she had fought City Hall and won. He wished he could let her see the thing through to the end, but that was impossible.

“Are you all right?” Sara asked.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Are you communicating with…you know…someone?” she wondered. “Because if you are, um, would you mind asking for an extension? I could really use the extra time. Will you ask?”

When he opened his eyes again, the present became sharp and clear. So did the woman jabbering before him.

“Well? What did they—He—whatever, say? Can you come back later? Like next month? Six months?” She reached a hand out to touch his shoulder. “Pretty pl-eease?”

He moved to the side so that her hand missed him. He couldn’t let her touch him. “Listen to me,” he said, his words measured. “I understand your situation, but today’s the day, Sara. I don’t make the rules, I carry them out.”

“You listen. I’m going to die. I know that. Shoot, I’ve lived longer than anyone else in my family. When you’re the last one…” She took a deep breath. “I came to terms with dying long ago, after my two brothers and mother passed. And when Dad died of a broken heart—” Her eyes filled.

He shifted his feet. He understood only too well what it meant to be the last of his kind. “Count yourself fortunate,” he said gruffly. “Shortly you’ll be with your loved ones.” He raised his hand, fingers splayed before her face.

Her heart squeezed.

“No! Stop doing that.” She slapped his hand down. “I told you. I can’t go yet. I refuse.”

He glared at her. “That decision is not yours to make.”

“I’m not talking about forever. Jeez, who does a girl have to sleep with to get an additional two weeks around here?” she huffed.

His heart stopped. It had been at least a millennium since he cared for a woman, centuries since he had slept with one.

A smile played on her lips, one eyebrow lifted. “I thought I was joking, but from the look on your face…” She ran her hands down her body. “Do I have something here? Can I barter for two weeks?”

Sara had known her share of bad boys. Her life’s work kept her on the rough side of the tracks, where dangerous men could sex the bones right out of your body and leave you aching for more. But this Mediterranean god with olive skin, liquid-fire black hair and haunting gray eyes was something else. He could love her and leave her dead.

Maybe not the worst way to go. Shivering, she remembered how horrible it had been for her younger brother. Poor, sweet Josh, how he had suffered.

For Mom it hadn’t been so bad. She had lapsed into a coma and simply passed in her sleep. Her older brother, John, had recognized the telltale signs—shortness of breath, dizziness, his heart feeling like it was “being ground under a boot”—and took matters into his own hands. John had jumped out of an airplane and conveniently forgot to pull his ripcord. But Josh, the baby of the family, the one she’d cared for after the others passed, had lingered for weeks in excruciating torture like nothing she’d ever seen. Or wanted to experience again.

Seeing Josh go like that had bolstered her lifelong ambition to stop needless suffering. She was determined to put an end to the wasteful deaths that occurred far too often on cold, dangerous streets. But now, after coming so close to making a difference, the shelter would not be finished in time. Her chance to save lives was as dead as she was about to be. Sadness surged through her body like a river overflowing its banks and wiping out cities in its wake. Why did it have to end like this?

Suddenly, the raw truth settled and with it came stabbing terror.

I’m dying?

Dear God, she wasn’t as brave as Josh was, how could she face the moments ahead? Alone. No one to hold her hand, feed her ice chips, sing her into the deep sleep. No one to mourn her passing. It was terrifying.

Don’t cry, she warned herself, or you’ll never stop.

She needed to focus on the task at hand. There was a small chance she could buy more time. He held the key.

She studied the guy standing before her. Man, oh man, he looked good in that black T-shirt, those tight black jeans and reptile-skin boots. Everything about him was sleek, muscular—a human panther. But his face…mesmerizing. His eyes drew her in. They were strangely sensitive for a killer. A deeply wounded man peered at her with those eyes. Her heart fluttered a bit. She’d always been a sucker for men who needed healing.

But could she persuade him to grant her dying wish? It gave new meaning to bargaining with the devil, but she didn’t care. She had to have those two weeks and was determined to convince him, one way, or the other.

Clenching that square jaw of his, he was obviously considering her offer. All sorts of emotions played across his face. She recognized a few: curiosity—that was good; refusal—no, not so good; anger—maybe she could work with that; loss—hmm, interesting. It was the peel-her-like-a-grape-and-gobble-her-up lust that stole her breath away.

He wanted her. Bad. And she knew just what to do.

“You seem manly enough.” She sashayed a little closer. “You are a man, right?”

The look he gave her singed the hairs on her skin. “Of course I am.”

He sounded indignant. Good. “So what’s the problem? I mean, you can, uh”—she let her eyes travel to the prominent bulge in his black jeans—“perform, right? I don’t have riches or fame to trade, which I bet you don’t care about anyway. All I have to give is my body. So, if you’re not the guy to bargain with, can you tell me who is?”

His groan of desire was like a thunderclap in her ears. Before she knew what was happening, he pulled her into his arms.

“Oh,” was the best she could do before he was kissing her. Hard. His full lips pressed, satisfied and blocked out her grief all at once. She would have paid big money for such blessed relief years ago when sadness spread like a rotting illness throughout her being.

She was startled by the flash of heat coming off his lips—and even more shocked by the way the burn kept cranking up inside her, hotter and hotter by the minute. She hadn’t felt like this in…well, too long. If this kept up, she would combust.

Surprising herself, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as if he were her rescuer hauling her out of danger, not all holy danger himself. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than this—heat, longing, mindless lust. So she gave in to him, the dark stranger who had come to kill her. Her own passion mounted, a firestorm sweeping through her veins.

His tongue probed in her mouth, demanding more. Needing more. Or maybe she was the one doing the demanding. It was all so hazy and excruciatingly wonderful. He took her cheeks in his warm, strong hands, neither calloused nor too soft. And she felt…safe? How was that possible in this man’s arms?

He kissed her deeper, and all thoughts flew out of her head. She soared in painless bliss. Every cell in her body was on fire. Melting. Weak.

His muscular arms slid down her body until he was gripping her around her back.
Good, hold me tight, or I might fall. She felt woozy. No drink or drug known to mankind could compare with the magic this guy was planting on her lips.

Still kissing her, he looked deeply into her eyes. She was spellbound by the amount of passion bottled up inside this man. At that moment, she knew.

She was a goner.

The last thing she heard was screaming. His.