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Chapter 61

I TUCKED MYSELF in against Truth&039;s body as hard as I could without being able to hold on to him, but finally I couldn&039;t stand it any on my wrist and wrapped ainst hiy There was a pulse in his neck toto me

The bend of his neck smelled clean, fresh, like clean sheets that had been dried outdoors in the wind and sun It was almost like his skin held a hint of all the sunlit days that he would never see again

I felt soe in the way Truth held me It hts and a lot of cops down below, but not too close Truth took us down on the far side of a darkened strip mall He had to run a little to take upEither he was getting in practice, or he just felt better

He stepped into the thicker shadows by the darkened store and looked up the street toward all those flashing lights

"The police barricades are just up ahead"

"You can put ot a flash of his smile in the di?"

I looked at"No"

"Good"

We stood there for a et on a first date, where you don&039;t know if you should kiss or just hug This rong; I&039;d never felt like this around him before He leaned doard me, and I stepped back "I&039;, but I don&039;t think it&039;s voluntary on either of our parts"

He stood straight, looking at me, his face still mostly in shadow "You think I&039;ed

"But it&039;s not just me, Anita; you feel the pull, too"

I re Jean-Claude had told me once "A lot of Belle&039;s line of vampire powers cut both ways, and it only cuts as deep as the va to be cut"

"Then youto be cut to the heart," he said

I didn&039;t knohat to say to that, so I hid behind work "I have to go You have to go" I shook o, be somewhere else"

One moment he was there in the shadows; the next he was skyward, blowing my hair across my face

I turned toward the crowd and the police barriers I&039;d have to get through all that before the uniforh to talk to SWAT I wanted to find Edward, not for police work or practical reasons, but because I needed a friend I needed a friend who didn&039;t want to fuck me or fall in love withfroht

Chapter 62

I WAS ALMOST to the edge of the crohen a ray hooded sweatshirt turned and blocked ot a glimpse of the face in the hood and the words froze on limpse of dark brown eyes, black hair, skin darkly pale, a handsoht and the burn scars on his right side showed

My hand reached for the Browning, but it wasn&039;t there, nothing was there I was unar in front of me

"Do not contact your vampires via mind; I will sense it, and I will tell my vampires to kill the temptresses inside the club And, yes, I knew you were unarives us a chance to talk"

I licked suddenly dry lips and did the only thing I could think of: stepped back, gaveto do ive the police time to trap your vampires?" I asked, voice still calm Point for me

"It was bait, for you, Anita"

"Gee, and most men just send flowers," I said

He looked at me with solid brown eyes I couldn&039;t read his expression completely, but I think my reaction wasn&039;t what he expected, or maybe not what he wanted "If you call for help in any way, I will have the va the harlots"

"They&039;re dancers, not prostitutes," I said, "but I get it, you&039;re h to contact your people mind to mind," I said

He nodded "As are you," he said

I took a deep breath and fought to get some control over my pulse and heart rate I didn&039;t knohat to say to that, so I let it go I rarely got in trouble keepingme up and down, not the way aover a car he planned to buy It was definitely et hi, "Fine, you want to talk to me, let&039;s talk"

"Coered hand out to raceful, like his voice

"No," I said

"I will have them kill the whores we have taken unless you come with me"

I shook my head "You&039;ll probably kill theive my word?"

"I know you mean that, but you&039;re also a serial killer and a sexual sadist; sorry, but thatfuriously in Edward&039;s direction, not ic, just that wish in my head that he would look this way, come this way, notice But I was too short and the crowd blocked the view I realized that the va the view even more I doubted it was an accident

"I see your point," he said He ood look, Anita See what the humans have done to me"

I tried not to look, because I wasn&039;t sure if it was a distraction technique, but sos are hard to look away from Asher&039;s facial scars were just on the side of one cheek, trailing down to the chin The entire right cheek of Vittorio&039;s face, froe of his mouth and the tip of his chin, was all hardened scar tissue

He let the hood drop back to hide his face, and I realized he had his left hand held out to his side, for all the world as if he expected soirl reached for hiht for a moray eyes and I knew better She was dressed in tra, set them Before it became the style I&039;d have said hooker, but sothis kind of shit, it

He sht brown hair back from her face She smiled dreamily up at him

"Leave her alone," I said

He caressed her cheek, and she cuddled into it like a kitten He turned her face tothe face under the makeup was: fourteen, maybe fifteen, no more It was hard to tell in that much makeup and the clothes It tended to irls hadn&039;t earned

"I said, leave her alone" My voice wasn&039;t shaky anyer I eeance and what I&039;d do to him when I had the chance

"If your beast rises, I will tear her throat out" He drew her in against his body as he said it

I had to ht; I couldn&039;t guarantee with this er wouldn&039;t tip me into some kind of lycanthrope probleiven me weapons, but it wasn&039;t a weapon for me, it was just one more problem

He reached his other hand out, and a ray eyes were alirl&039;s; even his short hair was the sa

Vittorio began to unzip his sweatshirt, exposing his chest I knehat it would look like, because that was the worst of Asher&039;s scars But again, it orse The holy water hadn&039;t just scarred the skin, it had eaten into the deeper tissue, exposing ligaments and the bones of his ribs It looked like his body had tried to regrow soht side of his chest and sto of scars His stomach was a little concave, where there&039;d been no bone to support the healing

If he had wanted to hurt me in that e and that he&039;d survived it