Somewhere in the depths of the house a clock chimed midnight. I sat in the ballroom, alone, my back against the far wall and waited. I’d taken off my cloak but the chill in the large, empty room soon prompted me to settle it back over my shoulders. I hooked the clasp but didn’t bother to put my arms through the sleeves. Snuggling deeper into the folds I shivered. Dear Goddess, what had I done? I’d invited three vampires into my home to save me from the one outside it. I would have laughed if I’d been able.

The wind picked up, beating against the glass on either side of me like some living thing pounding to gain entrance. I picked my head up and looked around, my heart hammering in my chest. He was here; he was close.

One of the terrace doors to my left crashed open and the wind blew a swirl of dried autumn leaves into the ballroom, the leaves twirling around each other in little eddies like fairies waltzing across the floor. They drew my attention for only a moment. What stood in the doorway was far more fascinating.

I had expected him to be bigger somehow, like some great hulking demon, but the fact that he wasn’t didn’t dampen the frisson of sheer terror that blew through me when I first saw him. Terror, oh yes, and something else. Something that made my blood sing and my stomach tighten just to look at him.

He was several inches shy of six feet and built like some sleek, angry jungle cat. Michael. The Devil’s Archangel. And indeed that face could have belonged to some fallen god or angel. He was too unearthly, too beautiful, too starkly dangerous to be real. His hair was dark blonde and longer than had been fashionable any time in this century. It was tied back at his nape except for several strands that had worked themselves free, as if tousled by the wind or by a lover’s hand. His brows were darker, set over eyes that were either blue or green, but what took a face that was merely handsome and catapulted it into the realm of mesmerizing or godlike were his cheekbones. Sharp as a knife’s edge, they made my breath catch just to look at him. The candlelight flickered across his face, casting deep shadows in the hollows under those incredible cheekbones, drawing my attention down to his lips. Neither full nor thin, they were incredibly sensual, shaped in such a way as to make me wonder what they’d feel like against mine, what they’d feel like trailing along the bare skin of my throat. The thought made me shiver again but this time not in cold or fear.

In truth, he looked more like a pirate than a vampire. Tall black leather boots encased his legs up to mid-thigh and a simple white linen shirt was tucked haphazardly into his black breeches, as if he’d dressed in a hurry. Perhaps my summons had pulled him from a lover’s bed? I didn’t much like that thought. His shirt was open at the neck, exposing a smooth expanse of pale chest, its full sleeves gathered at the wrist in a small fall of lace. That lace should have looked feminine but instead drew my gaze to his hands which gripped either side of the door frame. They were strong, the fingers long and blunted. His knuckles looked as if he’d seen more than his share of brawls and I wondered briefly whose blood ran in the veins that stood out on the backs of his hands. He was not armed with so much as a dagger but when his fingers clenched on the door frame and I heard the soft crack of the wood underneath I realized that those beautiful, lethal hands were weapons in themselves. And even knowing that, all I could think of was what they would feel like on my skin, moving up my arm, drawing my hair aside, moving lower...

He made a sound, a growl like that of a jungle cat. A sound unlike any that had ever come from a human mouth.

“Witch,” he whispered and pushed away from the door. And then he was moving, crossing the ballroom with such malevolent grace and inhuman speed that it was only two heartbeats before he was nearly upon me.

Driven by fear and an instinct for self-preservation, I raised one hand as he reached for me and my power flowed out of me, hitting him in the chest and lifting him off his feet. In one fluid movement I spun both of us around and pinned him to the wall. He looked surprised, and quite frankly so was I, but there was no way in hell I was going to let him know that. He was suspended several inches off the floor, my hand on his chest. My fingers fairly itched to slip inside the open V of his shirt, to feel his skin. Would he be warm or cold? Raising my head I looked at him. Up close his eyes were blue-gray, with a just a hint of green.

“Play nicely, vampire, or I’ll stake you where you stand,” I said, my hood falling back as I looked up. “I have no wish to hurt you, I need your help, but I will defend myself if necessary.”

He stilled, those haunting eyes slowly moving over every inch of my face, then lower to where my cloak fell open to reveal a generous swell of breast. His gaze lingered there. Tension hummed between us and if he had half as much interest in my body as I had in his then perhaps I could use that to my advantage. I reached up with my free hand, flicked open the clasp at my throat and with a shrug dropped the cloak to the floor. The silk lining slithered down my body on a sigh, leaving me clad in only the sleeveless crimson gown. I swayed and caught myself bare inches from pressing against him. The magic it was taking to hold him to the wall was draining. When he made no move to hurt me I cautiously lowered him and turned him loose, my hand trailing needlessly down his chest. I felt his muscles contract under my fingers and had to force myself to pull away from him.

I reached up and brushed my hair away from my neck, exposing the two puncture wounds still visible there. He frowned, reaching out to touch me, his fingertips slowly tracing the bite, his thumb caressing the pulse at the base of my throat. Those deadly hands were warm and so very, very strong. I wanted to wrap myself up in him, to feel his arms around me, to feel safe again. My breath rushed out in a quivering sigh.

“I see you’ve met one of my kind,” he said softly, his Scots brogue not as thick as it should have been, as if he’d lived a long time among the English. “What is it you want of me, lass? Vengeance? Shall I slay him for daring to lay his mouth on this pretty white flesh?”

There was a strange look on his face, a look of anger, of hunger, perhaps even of jealousy.

“No, I want you to slay him because he’s going to kill me.”

“Do you now?” he murmured.

“That is what you do, is it not? Protect the innocent?”

“And are you?” he asked, moving closer. His hand moved to my jaw, tilting my face up to his. His lips were so close. “Are you innocent?” he asked softly, and I had the feeling we were not talking about the same thing.