Ducking behind a building, she pressed her back to the brick, panting hard to catch her breath. But not for long. She popped her head out just long enough to return fire, then jerked it back behind the wall again. Once, twice, three times. Each blast of power sucked more vital energy from her. More life force. More strength. She wondered if it was the same for him.
Peering out from behind the building once more, she didn’t see him, so she made a dash for the edge of town.
He followed, no longer firing, just running.
Yes, she thought. Using his power of destruction must drain him, too. And he’d annihilated many already tonight. She had the advantage. Except that she was pretty sure he’d been stronger to begin with.
Running onward, she knew she needed more speed, more force. Though it would rob her of precious energy, she paused to call her vampiric self up to the surface. Her jaw began to pulse and throb as her incisors elongated themselves, and her entire body prickled with newly heightened sensation. And then, fully vamped out, she ran full bore. The preternatural burst of speed would, she knew, make her appear as no more than a blur in the eyes of a human.
And, she hoped, in the eyes of the first immortal, as well.
Miles melted away, but Brigit didn’t stop until she stood in a wooded glen. There was a pond. There were trees. A nearly full moon hung low in the sky. It would be dawn soon. Leaning against a tree, she hung her head, caught her breath, let her body return to her more natural state. Her fangs retracted. Her skin felt almost numb in comparison to the heightened sensitivity of vampire flesh and nerve.
“I will wait until … you make ready.”
She straightened, spun. And there he stood, tall and straight and barely winded. “God,” she muttered.
“Utana,” he corrected. “You are … powerful warrior. Strong. Smart. I expected not such challenge from one so beautiful.”
“Don’t try to distract me with empty flattery, Utana. It won’t work.”
He frowned, tipping his head to one side as if trying to understand the meaning of her words. “I ask again—do not make me kill you, woman.”
She met his eyes, then had to look away. They were black as night, deep and full of misery. “You murdered dozens of my people.”
“All my years—as priest, as king, as soldier, as flood survivor, as immortal—all my years, I tell you, never did I kill when I was able to find another way. But—this time, no choice was I given. The will of the Anunaki must be obeyed.”
She felt his heart twisting with his words, as if he were holding back an emotional storm. There was pain in this man, and she hated that she could feel it. She didn’t know why, and wished it would go away, so she tried to close her mind to his. “There has to be another way,” she whispered.
“Another way, yes. A living death for me. I want only release, Brigit of the Vahmpeers. Release for the vahmpeers, as well. To release from the curse of living as demons, hated by the gods, forced to exist on the power of mortal blood. It is damnation for them. You cannot see with the wisdom of one as old as I, woman. But I remove your peoples’ curse as I remove my own. I wish only to join them in the Land of the Dead, where we will make our peace. I cannot know that blessed release until I obey the will of the gods and destroy the last of the vahmpeers.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Yes, I fear it is so.” He sent a blast, but she felt it coming.
And even as she lunged out of the line of fire, she realized with stunning clarity that she had known he was going to blast her before he had made a move.
That apparent psychic bond she’d been cursing only seconds earlier had enabled her to read him.
She hid behind a fragrant pine, hands braced on its sticky trunk, and she tried not to think before acting. She decided she would attack on impulse, without a plan, while reading his intentions as they formed.
Popping out from behind the tree, she fired and scored a direct hit. The beam slammed the big man in his abdomen, the force of it bending him in two and launching him backward through the air. He hit a boulder and sank to the ground, only to roll to the side as she sent a second shot.
She ducked as he shot back. Her pine tree cover, five feet behind her by then, blew apart and went crashing to the forest floor, forming a huge barrier between her and Utana. Dashing to another cluster of trees, Brigit shot again, blindly this time, and then she ran on.
It must have looked, from above, as if an invisible giant were stomping across the forest, each step snapping trees as if they were toothpicks.
And yet no further hits were scored. He pursued her, his pain washing over her in waves that were almost as debilitating to her as they must have been to him. God, why did she feel him so powerfully?
He was getting closer. Brigit turned, lifted a hand to fire and felt an enormous force, like gravity times ten, pulling her straight to her knees. She shot all the same, but he sidestepped the blast and walked slowly toward her.
Lifting her head, she watched him approach. She raised her hand, palm up, but for the life of her she could not generate enough energy for more than a slight flash from her eyes. It made a popping sound as it crested in the air between them.
Utana reached her and then sank to his knees, as well, facing her. They knelt there, as close as they could be without touching. Their eyes met, locked. “I can … fight … no more,” he whispered.
“Neither can I.”
Three panting breaths, and then his hand cupped the back of her head and he brought her face to his, smashing his mouth to hers, kissing her with all he had. Several days’ beard brushed soft against her chin, and they tumbled to the ground, limbs entwined, as fire burned in Brigit’s veins and she wondered just what the hell had come over her—over him.
Exhaustion won out over passion in the end. Their kiss, though heated, began to cool, as, wrapped up in each other, they sank into an exhausted slumber on the floor of the decimated forest.
When Brigit stirred some hours later, the sun was beating down. The birds were singing a riotous chorus.
And Utana was gone.
She got to her feet and stood in silence, absently brushing the leaves and twigs from her clothes, and turning in a slow circle. But he was nowhere near. She didn’t feel him anymore.
She relived the battle, her mind replaying every blast she’d sent and every one he’d returned. She walked back through the forest, noting where she’d been standing, running, diving, with the benefit of clear-minded hindsight.
Swallowing hard, she shook her head. He could have had her. At least three different times, she realized, she’d been exposed. An easy target, her back to him. And he’d sent bolts of power, not at her, but at nearby trees, toppling them.
He could have killed her. But he hadn’t.
And then she relived that kiss. That earth-shattering, mind-blowing kiss.
“Damn, what am I doing?” She pushed a hand through her hair, and closed her eyes.
Utana had managed to force his eyes open before the sun rose. Pain still throbbed in his body from the single blow she had landed in their battle of the night before. And yet, as he’d studied the beautiful woman in his arms, he was overcome with feelings that were counter to his purpose. He told himself that it was little more than the natural urge to possess her. That any man would feel the same. It was only nature. He was male, she was female. And he wanted to take her, there on the floor of the wooded glen.
And yet, from within, came the knowledge that he denied and refused to hear. The same knowledge that had held him back from destroying her, and had made him hurl his bolts far from her soft and pleasing form.