Page 14

S aintcrow and Kincaid left for Nevada late the following afternoon. By nightfall, their search of the state was finished with no success.

Their next stop was Utah.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Kincaid remarked as they were checking into a hotel that night. “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“You think we should give up?” Saintcrow asked, although he had no intention of doing so until they had exhausted every possibility.

Kincaid snorted. “Hell, no. We can’t leave Luca running around loose.”

“That’s for damn sure. Who knows what kind of chaos he’ll cause in the future? We were just lucky that blasted plague didn’t infect every vampire in the whole damn country!”

Idaho was their next stop. Again, they had no luck.

“Let’s check out Montana next,” Saintcrow suggested. “And then we’ll go hunt up something for dinner.”

Their Montana search didn’t take long. When they were satisfied they had checked every possible place and quenched their thirst, they stopped in at a nightclub to while away the rest of the night.

“How are you holding up?” Kincaid asked, his voice laced with concern.

Saintcrow stared at the wine in his glass. “Last night, Kadie was dreaming about us, about our past.”

Kincaid frowned at him. “How can you possibly know that?”

“I’m not sure. I was dreaming about her at the same time.”

Kincaid grunted. “Vampires don’t dream.”

“I know. But it happened just the same.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Beats the hell out of me.” Saintcrow scrubbed his hand across his jaw. “I think letting Kadie rest in the earth is keeping her from getting worse. I’m also thinking I need to go home and give her a little more blood.”

“Probably a good idea. Let’s go.”

Once they were in Morgan Creek, Saintcrow decided to spend the night there.

“I guess I’ll go see how the family’s getting along. I promised Rosa I’d come home whenever I could,” Kincaid said. “Meet you back here tomorrow afternoon. Say around four?”

“Sounds good.”

“We aren’t licked yet,” Kincaid said, and with a wave of his hand, he was gone.

Saintcrow stood there a moment, breathing in the familiar scents of the place he had called home for decades. Sometimes it was hard to remember what the town had been like back in the day, before all the changes they’d made in the last few years.

He glanced up at the three houses on the hill.

His lair was the oldest and the largest. Ethan and Sofia had once resided in Blair House, which was notorious for having once been the home to the vampires of Morgan Creek.

Ethan had remodeled the house, which was now pale yellow with white trim.

Decorative wrought-iron bars covered the door and the windows.

After Ethan and Sofia moved to Arizona, Kincaid and Rosa had moved into the house with Saintcrow’s permission, since the house belonged to him.

Micah and Holly had built the luxurious new house on the hill, though it stood empty nine months out of the year.

Strolling toward the cemetery, Saintcrow wondered idly what had happened to the vampires and the humans who had once resided in the town. How many of them were still alive?

But it was Kadie who dominated his thoughts as he opened the cemetery gate and made his way to the place where she rested.

He quickly removed the dirt that covered her.

Lifting her from Mother Earth’s embrace, he cradled her against his chest. He breathed in her familiar scent, ran his knuckles lightly over her pale cheek, kissed her gently.

He spent the next hour trying to break through the darkness that trapped her, but to no avail. It was as if there was a thick block wall between his mind and hers and he had no power to scale it or break it down. And yet he had shared her dreams.

He held her for hours as he recalled their years together. Unwilling to leave her, he stretched out on the ground, his arm holding her close to his side.

He whispered her name as the dark sleep carried him away.

Trapped between two worlds, Kadie’s heart swelled with emotion when she heard Saintcrow’s voice in her mind, whispering her name.

It warmed her very soul to know he was thinking of her.

Hope flared within her. If she could hear his voice, then she wasn’t dead.

Only caught in some horrible nightmare world. Maybe there was still hope of rescue.