A: Immortal Sea

jarring her wrists, scraping her palms.

Darkness swirled in the narrow street. Dazed, she heard a thud, a crunch, choked sounds of pain or surprise. Fighting. Her

insides roiled with fear and relief. They were fighting. She grabbed her purse, fumbling for the whistle she carried on campus.

Two sets of footsteps pounded against the pavement, leaving her attacker splayed in the gutter on the other side of the street

and one man standing in a puddle of moonlight.

Shadow Man. Her rescuer.

She blinked. From her position on the ground, he looked larger than life, tall and leanly muscled in a long black leather

coat.

He turned, the coat flaring around his ankles, and her heart jumped into her throat. His face was angled, cold, and pale, his

hair the color of moonlight.

Liz swallowed hard, her gaze sliding up that long, powerful body to his face. His features were too strong to be really

handsome, his nose too broad, his jaw too sharp. His upper lip was narrow, the lower one full, curved, and compelling.

She shivered with fear and something else. Just because he was cleaner and better dressed than the punks who had followed

her from the club didn‟t make him any less dangerous.

She snuck a glance at her attacker lying motionless in the gutter.

Okay, more dangerous.

She couldn‟t see her rescuer‟s eyes, shadowed by the line of his brow. He stood a moment longer, watching her, waiting for

. . . What? Thanks? Tears? Hysterics?

And then he turned away.

An unreasoning urgency gripped her, sharper than fear. “Wait.”

He paused. Her heart hammered. Did he even speak English?

She scrambled to her feet, wiping her palms on the thighs of her jeans. “I . . . Thank you for, uh, helping me.”

He ignored her, dropping on his haunches by the body in the gutter. She watched him pat down her attacker, searching for a

pulse.

Or maybe his wallet.

She gripped her purse tighter. “Why did you?”

He glanced briefly over his shoulder. “It was hardly a fair fight. I do not usually interfere in the affairs of your kind.”

Liz‟s eyes narrowed. Her kind?

Okay. She forced herself to consider the situation from his point of view, the dark street, her scanty club wear. He didn‟t

know her. She could have been anyone. Anything. A hooker on the run from her pimp.

“You‟re English,” she said.

“No.” He did not elaborate.

“But your accent . . .” Not English, not exactly. But he definitely wasn‟t American.

He straightened and walked away.

“Wait . ”

He turned, silhouetted by the moon, impatience in every hard line of his body.

She swallowed. “We can‟t just leave.”

“I can.”

“But . . .” She hugged her elbows, torn between her instinct for self-preservation and her sense of what was right.

“Shouldn‟t we notify the police?”

“I have no desire to be detained by your police.”

Which made her wonder uneasily what, exactly, he was doing alone on this deserted street at night.

Unfair, she thought. She didn‟t want to stick around either. Not that she expected the very polite Danes to lock her in some

foreign cell for being stupid enough to walk alone at night. But what if they contacted the embassy? Or her parents?

Her gaze skittered to the body stretched out in the gutter. “What about him?”

“You wish him punished further?”

“No . ” The suggestion horrified her. “But he . . . Look, if he dies, you could be in trouble.”

His eyes widened slightly, as if she had surprised him. His pupils were large and very dark, banded with a pale rim of

color. Not blue, Liz thought, despite that white blond hair.

And she had no business puzzling over his eye color when there was an unconscious man lying practically at her feet.

Steeling herself to approach him—to approach them both—she knelt in the street, grateful for the thin protection of her

jeans. She was uncomfortably conscious of her rescuer standing over them. His heat. His height.

“He will not die,” he said quietly.

Awareness tightened the back of her neck. Nerves sharpened her voice. “How would you know?”

“I could ask the same of you.”

She overcame her distaste of the body before her, forcing herself to conduct a patient assessment. Airway, breathing,

circulation . . .

“I‟m going to be a doctor.” Not for another seven years or so, but merely saying the words gave her a measure of

confidence, a portion of control.

She took a deep breath. A sour smell leaked upward from the gutter. Stale sweat maybe, or unwashed feet. Or Shaved Head

Guy could have been popping nitrates. She‟d seen plenty of little glass vials crushed on the sidewalk outside the club.

He sprawled on his back, in danger of swallowing his tongue. She felt gingerly for neck or spine injuries before tilting his

head to clear his airway. He groaned, making her start.

Her rescuer‟s voice dropped out of the darkness. “Unless your compassion extends to being here when he wakes, I suggest

you leave now.”

She gulped. “Right. Good idea.” She rocked back on her heels and stood, her legs trembling slightly in reaction.

Above the jagged rooftops, the sky was heavy purple, pregnant with early dawn. There was nothing to tell her what to do or

which way to go, only dirty windows, darkened doors, and stinking puddles. Shadows lay across the street like bars, collected

in drifts between the buildings like garbage.

She glanced nervously at her companion, his face etched in black and white perfection by the moon. With his broad

shoulders and long black coat, he looked dark and solid. She wanted to burrow under his coat.

She cleared her throat. “Would you mind walking me as far as Nørrebrogade?”

Those strange, pale eyes fixed on her face, the pupils widening like a chasm at her feet, reflecting nothing, revealing

nothing. They pulled at her like gravity. She imagined herself sinking into his eyes, falling down, down, down .

“I will take you.” In that voice, his low, deep, mocking voice, the words sounded almost sexual. “Since you ask.”

Her cheeks flushed as she snatched herself back from the edge of . . . what?

“Just to the main street,” she clarified.

He inclined his head in an oddly formal gesture. Foreign. “As far as you wish.”

Her heart bumped against her ribs. He had saved her, she reminded herself. She could trust him.

She was less sure if she should trust her own judgment. She got A‟s in all her classes and—according to Allyson—a C

minus in men.

This one stood like a bulwark in the moonlight, blocking the stench of the puddles, the reek from the alleys. His scent

teased at her senses, fresh and wild as the sea.

She released her breath. “I‟d appreciate it.”

His gaze skimmed her face again. “Would you, I wonder,” he murmured.

His words barely registered over the pounding in her ears. He was so close. If she stood on tiptoe, she thought dizzily, she

could kiss him.

Not that she would. Not that she wanted to.

He turned and strode away. Her knees sagged with disappointment and relief. She felt his absence like a chill against the

front of her body.

But at least he seemed to know where he was going. He moved as surely as a cat in the dark.

She hurried after him, envying both his confidence and his shoes. Her open-toed sandals were fine on the dance floor. Not