Christine Feehan - Dark Fire (Dark Series - book 6)

But this time she didn’t cover much ground. She was so tired, her body felt like lead, and each step she took felt as if she were wading through quicksand.

She sat down abruptly on the side of the road. Her head was beginning to pound with alarming force. She rubbed her temples and the nape of her neck, hoping to alleviate the pain.

A small blue pickup truck pulled up beside her. It was a measure of her weakness that she could barely find the strength to get to her feet and go to the driver’s window.

The man was about forty, compact, and muscular. He smiled at her, his eyes holding a hint of worry. “Something wrong, miss?”

Rusti shook her head. “I need a ride, though, if you’re going any distance.”

“Sure, hop in.” He pushed a pile of clutter from the seat to the floor. “The truck’s a mess, but what the heck?”

“Thanks. The weather looks like it’s going to turn nasty.” And it did. Unexpectedly, dark clouds began to float across the sky.

The man glanced up through the windshield. “Crazy. The weather reports said clear and sunny. Maybe those clouds will just drift on by. I’m Harry.” He stuck out his hand.

“Tempest.” She slipped her hand into his for a brief shake, but the moment she touched him, her stomach lurched and her skin crawled.

His thumb brushed the back of her hand just once, sending a chill down her spine. But Harry released her immediately and put the truck back into gear, his eyes on the road. Rusti huddled as far from him as possible, fighting her rising nausea and wild imagination. But the moment her head was against the back of the seat, tiredness overtook her, and her lashes kept drifting down.

Harry glanced at her with obvious concern. “Are you sick? I could take you to the nearest doctor. I think there’s supposed to be a small town a few miles up this road.”

Rusti tried to rally. She shook her pounding head. She knew she was pale, and she could feel small beads of perspiration dotting her forehead. “I jogged for several miles. I think I just overdid it.” But she knew that wasn’t the problem. For some reason every cell in her body was protesting the distance she was putting between herself and Darius. She knew it. Felt it.

“Go to sleep, then. I’m used to driving alone,” Harry advised. “I usually have the radio on, but if it bothers you, I can do without it.”

“It’s not going to bother me,” she replied. Her lashes would not stay up no matter how hard she tried to stay awake. She was exhausted. Had she picked up a bug?

Suddenly she sat up straight. Could vampires have rabies? They turned into bats, didn’t they? And couldn’t bats carry rabies? She was okay with bats, but that didn’t mean she liked vampires. What if Darius had infected her with something?

She realized Harry was staring at her. He was probably thinking he had picked up a nutcase. Deliberately she settled back against the seat and closed her eyes. Could a person become a vampire with one bite? One little bite? She squirmed, remembering the dark, sensual heat burning through her body. So okay. Maybe a big bite. The memory, the feel of his mouth on her neck, made her throb and burn, flooding her with flames all over again. She found her hand creeping up to her throat to cover the spot, to hold the erotic memory in the palm of her hand.

She nearly groaned aloud. Darius definitely had infected her with something, but it wasn’t rabies. Weariness continued to invade her body, deadening her limbs, so she gave up the fight and allowed her eyes to close.

Harry drove for fifteen minutes, casting quick, covert glances at his hitchhiker. His heart was pounding loudly in his chest. She was small and curvy and had fallen right into his lap. He never looked a gift horse in the mouth. Glancing at his watch, he was satisfied to see that he was ahead of schedule. He was meeting his boss in a couple of hours and had time enough to indulge his fantasies with the little redhead.

The ominous clouds had thickened and darkened, occasionally issuing small veins of lightning and a rumble of thunder. But it was still early evening, around six-thirty, and Harry watched for a grove of trees where he could pull off the road into a private area and remain undetected by any passing cars.

Rusti jerked awake when a hand fumbled clumsily at her breast. Her eyes flew open. Harry was leaning across her, tearing at her clothes. She slugged him as hard as she was able to in the small confines of the truck. But he was a big man, and his fist clipped her behind her ear, then smashed into her left eye. For a brief instant she saw stars, then everything went black, and she slid farther down into the seat.

Harry’s mouth covered hers, wet and slimy. Again she struggled wildly, raking at his face with her fingernails. “Stop! Stop it!”

He slapped her over and over, his other hand squeezing her breast hard, hurting her. “You’re a whore. Why else would you get in here with me? You wanted this. You know you did. That’s okay, honey, I like it rough. Fight me. It’s great. It’s what I want.”

His knee pressed hard against her thigh, holding her down so that he could tear at the waistband of her jeans. Rusti’s hand found the door handle, and she wrenched at it and jackknifed out onto the ground. Scrambling on all fours, she tried to get away.

Overhead the skies unexpectedly opened up, and the dark clouds emptied onto them like a waterfall. Harry caught her ankle, dragging her back over the gravel toward him. Grabbing her other ankle, he flipped her over so hard it drove the air from her lungs.

Lightning flashed, sizzled, and arced from cloud to cloud. She saw it clearly as she stared up at the sky. Rain fell in silver sheets, drenching her. She closed her eyes as Harry struck her repeatedly with his clenched fist. “Feels good, feels real good, doesn’t it?” he rasped. His eyes were ugly and hard, glaring down at her with hatred and triumph.

Tempest fought him with every ounce of strength she possessed, kicking at him when she could draw her legs up, beating at him until her fists were bruised and aching. Nothing seemed to help. The rain poured down on them both, and thunder growled, shaking the ground.

There was no warning whatsoever. One moment Harry’s weight was pressing down on her body, the next he was jerked backward by some unseen hand. She heard the thud as her attacker landed hard against his truck. She tried to roll over, sick to her stomach. Every muscle hurt. She managed to make it to her knees before she vomited violently, again and again. Her eye was swelling shut, and with the rain, wind, and abruptly falling darkness, it was hard to see what was happening.

She heard an ominous crack, the sound of a bone breaking. She crawled almost blindly toward a tree and dragged herself unsteadily up to brace herself on the trunk. Then arms surrounded her, drew her toward a solid chest. Instantly she erupted into a fighting, struggling wild thing, screaming and blindly flailing.

“You are safe, now,” Darius crooned softly, battling down the beast raging in his body. “No one is going to hurt you. Be calm, Tempest. You are safe with me.”

At that moment she didn’t care what Darius was; he had saved her. She clutched his jacket and burrowed close, trying to shrink from the terrible brutality and disappear into the shelter of his body.

Tempest was shaking so hard that Darius was afraid she would collapse. He lifted her into his arms, holding her close. “See to the mortal,” he snapped over his shoulder to Dayan, his second in command.

Darius carried Tempest’s small, battered body into the comparative shelter of the trees. She was a mess, her face swollen and bruised, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was hunching into herself, rocking back and forth, far too reminiscent of Syndil after Savon’s attack for Darius’s comfort. He simply held her, allowing her to cry, his arms strong and comforting.