Carter, Margaret - Night Flight (ellora)

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Chapter One
A siren wailed through the clear night air.
Gillian eased off the accelerator, downshifted and steered her vintage Corvette onto the freeway
shoulder.
About time! Where are the cops when you need them?She had started to think she would have to
drive halfway to Los Angeles to run into a speed trap.
She braked, then turned off the ignition just as a California Highway Patrol car pulled up behind her.
Dinnertime! Gillian got out of the driver's seat and stood by the open door, assuming a "lost waif"
expression. Or as waiflike as a woman almost six feet tall could look. Her elfin-thin face and boyish figure
helped.
The officer emerged from the patrol car and strode toward her. He was blond, broad-chested, and
tall, at least two inches taller than Gillian.Good, she preferred males she didn't have to bend over
uncomfortably far to nibble on.
"What's wrong, officer?" she said in a breathy whisper, to force him to approach closer to hear her.
His clean scent sharpened her appetite. This hunting method snared much more satisfying prey than she
would catch by cruising bars. "I didn't think I was speeding."
Brandishing his notepad, he said, "Miss, you were doing at least eighty-five."
"Oh—I'm sorry. I must have been daydreaming." She stretched out a hand to brush his collar with
one fingernail, while her eyes held his gaze. She knew he saw pinpoints of crimson glowing in their
depths. She made no attempt to hide this inhuman trait, for his vision was already glazing over. Even
though still young for one of her kind, she had no trouble casting a glamour over any human subject who
wasn't prepared to resist.
"Daydreaming. Not a good idea on the freeway."
"I know. I'll never do it again. You don't want to give me a ticket, do you?" she murmured. Her
touch intensified the effect of her hypnotic stare.
"Not really—" His hands dangled, barely keeping a grip on the ticket book.
She pressed her fingertips to the warm flesh on the side of his neck, relishing the throb of the pulse
beneath the skin. "Let's go back to your car."
After guiding the man into the driver's seat of the police car, she slipped into the passenger side. She
gently turned his head so that his eyes focused on hers again. The car's radio crackled, unheeded by
either of them. "Now I'm going to kiss you. You want that, don't you?"
He slowly nodded.
She scattered feathery kisses over his cheeks and temples, avoiding his lips; somehow that contact
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seemed too intimate, despite what she was about to do. His breathing quickened. His skin temperature
rose, sharpening her appetite. Strong emotion added spice to the blood, and sexual desire flavored it
most intensely. Her empathic sense drank in his rising passion. The background noise of distant traffic
blurred to an oceanic roar in her ears. Gripping the back of his neck, she unbuttoned his collar and
fastened her mouth on his throat. Her tongue flicked rapidly, teasing both him and herself while the
enzymes in her saliva augmented the painkilling effect of her hypnotic spell.
He gripped the edges of the seat. When her razor-edged incisors pierced his skin, his hips arched.
The salt-sweet gush of blood sent heat surging from her mouth to every cell of her body. The thrill rippled
through her taut nipples and the hypersensitive flesh between her thighs.
For a second she almost stopped drinking.I shouldn't feel that way. Normally, her pleasure was
diffused throughout her body, radiating from the spot where she luxuriated in the taste of her prey. She
didn't expect such intensely localized sensations.
Never mind. Think about it later.She yielded to the ecstasy.
Her victim groaned aloud as she sucked and licked the tiny wound. She dropped her free hand to
the zipper and ran her open palm along the hard ridge that angled across his lap. He thrust into her
strokes. She drew one last, long swallow of hot blood and pulled away. She pressed against the wound
to stop the bleeding, meanwhile lightening the pressure of her hand.
His moan of frustration reminded her of the final step she needed to take, according to the rule she'd
learned when her need for human blood had first awakened: "You have to pay them back for your meals,
even if it's with pleasure they'll have to forget the source of. That's only fair." Her memory recited the
words in the voice of her mother, Juliette. Smiling, Gillian wondered how it would feel to
be—intimate—with her prey.
What am I thinking about? Just take care of him and get away from here!
Massaging the back of his neck, she murmured, "Shh, it's all right. In a minute you're going to take a
little nap. When you wake up, you'll forget you ever saw me. You pulled over to rest for a minute and fell
asleep. All you'll remember is a dream, a very nice dream."
Inch by inch, she pulled down his zipper, while the fingernails of her other hand skimmed the nape of
his neck. His erection sprang free. She circled his shaft, meanwhile nuzzling his throat without quite
reopening the wound. He arched his back, rising out of the seat, as he thrust into her palm. Engorged
with blood, his organ felt on fire to her. "Yes," she hissed against his flushed skin. "You're in the arms of
your ideal woman, plunging into her. She's wet and hot. You've never been so stiff before, you've never
come so hard."
His hips pumped. With the frantic acceleration of his movements, his heartbeat thundered in her ears.
His heat and musk filled the car like a cloud of incense. At his moment of release, she nipped the skin of
his throat and tasted one more drop of blood. Her own body echoed the climax as he erupted.
She licked her fingers before wiping them with his handkerchief, then pressing the square of cloth
into his lap. Semen had a flavor tantalizingly similar to blood.
"Now," she whispered, "close your eyes." Leaving him to the fantasy she had planted in his mind,
doubtless a thrill more intense than he'd ever shared with a human female, she returned to the Corvette
and drove away.
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Now if that were Paul,she thought,I might not mind getting a little--closer. She squelched the
image, annoyed at herself for letting it arise in the first place. Her association with her collaborator Paul
Shelby had to remain businesslike; anything else could be dangerous. She mustn't even let herself wonder
how he would taste. In fact, she'd made a point of feeding well tonight because she had a meeting with
Paul the next day and she didn't want to be hungry when she saw him.
Lately she'd caught herself thinking of Paul more and more, outside the boundaries of their
writer-photographer partnership. She'd felt oddly restless in the past few weeks, even dreaming about
him several days in a row. Her nonhuman neural patterns required only a few hours of REM time per
week, vague, fleeting images that evaporated upon waking. The vivid scenarios that haunted her weren't
normal. Those tantalizing visions wrecked what should be peacefully dreamless day-sleep.
Rolling her window all the way down, she let the desert wind blow through her short, curly red hair.
The feeding had infused her with energy; she wanted to banish pointless worries and enjoy the sensation.
She took the next exit and reentered the freeway southbound, headed for her home in El Cajon, a suburb
east of San Diego.
Chapter Two
Half an hour later, she breezed into her townhouse still high on her victim's blood and passion. Just
inside the foyer, she stopped short, her exhilaration flattened by an all-too-familiar metallic scent in the
air. Extending a telepathic tendril, she brushed the surface of the intruder's thoughts. Only the surface;
hard, smooth, and cold. Despite the blood-bond they shared as mentor and pupil, he never allowed her
into the depths of his mind.Lord Volnar.
She drew the front door shut and fastened the deadbolt. She didn't need to ask how he'd got in,
since he had a key. But she couldn't imagine why he was visiting, with no prior notice. Now that she was
too old to need constant supervision, she saw her adviser only a few times a year, a schedule of which
she heartily approved. And their last meeting had occurred only nine days earlier.
She marched into the living room, folded her arms, and glared down at the man seated on the low,
sea-green sofa. In the dark room, his eyes gleamed red. "What are you doing here? I'm not a kid
anymore. You can't just barge in anytime."
With a tight smile, Volnar gestured at the other end of the couch. "Sit down, Gillian."
As she did so, perching stiffly on the edge of the cushion with her hands clutching each other in her
lap, his nostrils flared, and his thick eyebrows arched. Not for the first time, she observed how much he
looked like Stoker's description of Dracula in the original novel—aquiline profile, high forehead,
iron-gray hair, thick moustache, eyebrows meeting over the nose. She knew there must be a story behind
that resemblance, one he'd never told her.
"At least you could've called first."
"Pointless," he said. "You would have wasted time trying to persuade me to stay away."
"You bet I would. I don't need you hovering over me anymore. So what's wrong? I haven't done
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anything I can think of."
His smile widened to bare his teeth. "Why do you assume I'm here to chastise you? I have good
news."
Suspicious of Volnar's idea of "good news," Gillian didn't quite relax, but she did sit back and
unclasp her tightly entangled fingers. "What's going on?"
"Last time I visited, I noticed a change in your body chemistry, your—fragrance. Now it's more
obvious. I'm sure of it—you're about to go into estrus."
"What?" Her heart accelerated. She drew a deep breath and willed her pulse to a slow, even
rhythm. "Happy, happy, joy, joy," wasnot her first reaction. "That's impossible. I'm only twenty-six. I
shouldn't start for another four years."
"That's the typical pattern for our species. You are not typical. You're one-fourthHomo sapiens ,
completely unpredictable."
"I did start needing to feed on—human prey—younger than normal. But this—I'm not ready. Can't
you do something to stop it?" She realized the silliness of that plea almost before the words emerged from
her mouth.
"Stop it? Child, this is an unprecedented opportunity. With your human genes, anything is possible.
You might even be fertile at your first heat. If so, we mustn't waste it."
Her throat tightened with anxiety.Maybe he's right. The way I reacted to that policeman—
"If I really am going to be fertile a week or two from now, the last thing I want is to get pregnant.
You know how I feel about that stupid breeding program of yours."
"Young lady, without that ‘stupid program’, you wouldn't exist. I've lavished enormous amounts of
time and energy on you. I expect cooperation. You know how our birthrate has dropped over the past
few centuries."
"Of course I know. You never let me forget it. Human DNA is going to revive our gene pool, I have
a duty to the race, yada, yada." Momentarily she wondered where she got the nerve to be rude to her
adviser, the most ancient of their kind.
He showed no anger. With his power, he didn't have to squander emotion. "I never let you forget it
because it's important. You can certainly spare a little of your time for the good of your people."
"A little time!" She jumped to her feet and paced around the room, fists clenched at her sides.
"Eleven months of pregnancy, three or four years of breast-feeding—"
"Out of a lifetime that will last for millennia. Calm yourself and think rationally. You have to mate with
someone. The compulsion is irresistible. So you may as well accept my choice."
"Your what?" That couldn't mean what it sounded like.
"Unless you already have someone in mind? No? I assumed not."
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Her nails dug into her palms. She flexed her fingers to ease the muscle spasms. "You're not saying
you've picked a mate for me?"
"Of course. If you're capable of conceiving, we can't leave the father to chance. Since you have little
or no background to base a choice on, it's logical for me to make that decision."
"Now wait just a minute!" She choked down the rage boiling up in her throat. She knew her aura
must be sparking like a thundercloud. His remained as serene as ever. "I pick my own mate! Females of
our species always do. You can't take that right away from me."
"You are not an ordinary female. While it's unlikely that you'll ovulate the first time, in view of your
heritage—"
"Damn my heritage!" Lightheaded with anger, she breathed deeply until the red mist cleared from her
vision. "Those human genes you keep lecturing about come from my father and he hates the whole idea
of this selective breeding crap as much as I do. He wouldn't put up with this for one minute."
Volnar's eyes hardened. "He has nothing to say about it. In view of his human mind-set, I've allowed
him an unusual involvement in your upbringing. But not something this important." He stood up, though he
didn't approach her. "Don't you want to know whom I've chosen?"
"Doesn't matter, because I won't do it."
"Luciano Rossi. A good bloodline, proven fertile, but he hasn't yet sired enough offspring to cause
problems with future inbreeding, if he should succeed in impregnating you."
"You've got to be kidding." A futile outburst, since her adviser never joked. She visualized Luciano,
slightly over five centuries old, born in Italy, with dark, wavy hair in dramatic contrast to his vampire-pale
skin. Attractive, no doubt about it, probably a ravishing success with human females.
"I know what he thinks about `half-breeds' and `lap dogs who pretend to be wolves' and contaminating
the gene pool with lower life forms. I overheard him ranting about it once, not that he tried very hard to
keep me from listening. I can't stand him."
"That's irrelevant," said Volnar with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It's not as if you're expected to
marry each other, like ephemerals. One night and you never have to see him again."
"Yeah, well, one night is about twelve hours too long." She flung herself down on the sofa. "Why are
we arguing about it? Luciano would never want me, anyway."
"On the contrary, he has already agreed."
Her pulse stuttered in renewed shock. "You asked him without even talking to me first? You—"
When she'd forced her emotions back under control, she said, "Oh, I understand. He wants to get on
your good side. The Prime Elder favors interbreeding with ephemerals, so Luciano decides to have a
change of heart. That's the only reason he could possibly have to mate with a half-breed."
"His reasons shouldn't concern you. The point is that he's a superb physical specimen, with enough
experience to give you a pleasant initiation."
"Right, about as pleasant as being staked out in the desert at high noon." A possible escape occurred
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to her. "Why don't you mate with me yourself? Like you said, I have to do it with somebody. You're
bound to have more—experience—than Luciano."
"Out of the question," Volnar said. "I've already sired more than enough offspring. The purpose of
this project is to increase our genetic variety, not subtract from it."
"Then let somebody else do the increasing. I won't let that man near me."
Volnar's lips quirked in amusement. "What will you do about your needs, then?"
"Maybe I won't have to do anything. You said yourself; all bets are off because I'm one-fourth
human. Maybe my estrus will be weak enough that I can ignore it, ride it out by myself."
"You don't know what you're saying, young lady." Sitting beside her, he took her hand. "That's
extremely unlikely. And if you find yourself overcome by the full force of the compulsion, with no mate
available—I would not want you to suffer that agony."
His cool touch sent an unexpected shiver up her arm. She snatched her hand away. Her skin felt too
tight, and her head began to pound with tension. "I'll worry about that when it happens. Now that you've
ruined my night, get out of here!"
He started for the door. Pausing on the threshold, he turned toward her and said, "I can feel it
approaching already. You must certainly be aware that your physical response to me isn't normal. Soon,
Gillian—probably within the week. Be prepared to accept Luciano."
Only after the door shut behind Volnar did she work up the nerve to snarl, "The hell with that! I'd
rather mate with an ephemeral."
Abruptly Paul's image flashed into her mind. A flood of heat rushed over her.
I have to get out of here. At this rate I'll never be able to sleep tomorrow.
Hurrying out the back door of her condo, she threaded her way through the townhouse complex to
the open desert behind it. Ice plants crunched under her sandals. Jogging up a steep hillside to the top of
a ridge, she inhaled the deliciously cool breeze that blew toward her. After stripping off her clothes, she
spread her arms wide and yielded to the electricity that danced over her skin. Silken fur sprouted on her
arms, back, and face. Her teeth sharpened. Wings erupted from her shoulders. She shuddered with the
thrill of the change.
Launching herself into the air, she glided over the open land. Her flight wasn't true flying, but
levitation, with the wings to steer and provide balance. Regardless of the technicalities, the sense of
delirious freedom swept away her anxiety and rage. She knew she shouldn't fly this near a populated
area, but tonight she didn't care.
An hour later she returned home and retreated to her darkroom, immersing herself in work. By
dawn, she had tired herself enough to sink into the deathlike daylight sleep.
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Chapter Three
The clock radio woke her at four p. m. She dragged herself out of bed groggy and crabby, knowing
the sun would shine for hours yet.Maybe I should spend the summers in Patagonia. Only the prospect
of a meeting with Paul made facing the summer afternoon bearable.
She had dreamed of him again, of flying through the desert night sky with him in her arms, like a
scene from a "Superman" comic. His image refused to fade from her mind—copper-gold hair a few
shades lighter than her own, blue eyes, the ruddy aura of a man in prime health, a masculine aroma clean
of any trace of disease or tobacco smoke.
Her teeth tingled, and the cilia in her palms itched with the yearning to caress warm human flesh. She
cursed aloud. Her feeding the night before should have appeased that need. In the shower she ran her
hands over her breasts. The friction made the tiny hairs bristle and her nipples harden. For a vampire,
whose erogenous zones weren't localized like an ephemeral's, both sensations were equally tantalizing.
Ripples of pleasure spread over her bare skin, sensitized by the torrent of hot water from the
shower. Though she knew she couldn't satisfy her own craving—she needed the blood and passion of a
human donor for that—she couldn't resist nestling a hand between her thighs. The hidden bud swelled
and throbbed. Normally she felt sensations there only when she fed, and only as a small part of the
whole-body rush. Now she felt compelled to stroke that spot.
The frisson that arced along her nerves surprised her. Again she had to face the fear that Volnar
might be right about her—premature development. She rubbed harder and faster, but no relief came.
Gritting her teeth, she teased herself until her veins felt on fire, her stomach cramping and jaws aching.
Finally, her throat dry with frustration, she turned the shower to full cold and stood under it until the
hunger faded, banishing Paul's image whenever it floated to the surface of her mind.
I've been mooning over him like a lovesick heroine in one of Juliette's romances!Her mother,
Professor Julia Frost in the English department at the College of William and Mary, also wrote historical
romances under the name "Juliette Fontaine." Reviewers praise the authenticity of the author's
mid-Victorian settings, never guessing, of course, that she'd lived through that era. Gillian had always
read her mother's novels as a source of humor. Strictly for ephemerals, who made an endless fuss over
their mating rituals. Now she'd started acting like one of them.
* * * * *
Wearing a light summer dress and a wide-brimmed straw hat with polarized sunglasses, her arms
and face coated with factor 30 sunscreen, Gillian headed west on the freeway to Paul's ranch-style faux
adobe house in La Jolla.
Beside her in the front seat lay a portfolio of recent photographs, sample illustrations for their latest
book proposal. Paul augmented his income as a zoology professor at the University of California, San
Diego, by writing wildlife picture books for children. Gillian supplied the photos.
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As a team, she and Paul specialized in California's nocturnal fauna. They'd worked up a plan for a
new series, stories instead of straight nature reportage. The first book, if the publisher they'd approached
offered a contract, would beChico the Coyote .
By the time Gillian reached Paul's home, driving straight into the setting sun most of the way, she had
a pounding headache. The anticipation of seeing him made it worthwhile, though. He opened the door
almost a soon as her finger touched the buzzer. She heard his heartbeat stutter when their eyes met. With
that mutual attraction, seducing him would be fatally easy.
She pushed the thought into a corner of her mind, but not without pausing to savor his fragrance,
soap and shampoo spiced with the warmth of his flesh. She noticed that his golden-red hair still curled
damply from the shower.
"Gillian, hi! Got the pictures?—great, come right in." With a light grip on her wrist, Paul led her into
the combination living room-dining alcove. Aware of her sensitivity to the sun, he'd left the curtains almost
completely shut. When she removed her sunglasses, the pastel blues and greens of the decor soothed her
eyes.
She immediately caught sight of a bottle and two glasses on the coffee table, which was carved from
a tree stump and varnished to a deep chestnut gloss. "What's this, something I should know?" she said as
she plopped her portfolio, hat, and purse on the couch.
Paul's smile widened. He handed her an e-mail printout. "I was planning to make a big production of
it, but why wait? Here—message from Jan this afternoon."
Their agent. Gillian scanned the sheet of paper. The publisher had offered a contract for the picture
book series. She had to read the amount of the advance twice. Though she could have all the money she
ever needed from Volnar for the asking, she preferred the independence of earning her own.
"Yes! Of course I had a feeling they wouldn't turn us down, but—Paul, this is great!"
"Caldecott Medal, here we come!" He threw his arms around her in a bear hug. His heart pounded
against her breast, his rapid breath ruffling her hair. Almost involuntarily she returned the hug. For a
second her cheek rested against his. By tilting her head at a slightly different angle, she could press her
lips to the side of his neck—
She eased out of his arms. Paul avoided her eyes like a flustered teenager. He bent over the
champagne bottle, clumsily picking at the foil cap. Grateful for the distraction, Gillian sat down on the
couch and picked up one of the empty glasses. While he opened the bottle, her eyes wandered to the
terrarium in the corner where his pet boa constrictor coiled in its usual torpid condition.
A tempting fantasy flitted through her mind. Could a man who liked snakes accept the truth about a
human-shaped predator who fed on blood? She smiled to herself at the idea. Surely she wouldn't
seriously think of revealing her true nature to Paul? Ephemerals receptive to the companionship of
vampires were far more than vampires themselves.
The pop of the cork interrupted her reverie. After filling their glasses, Paul toasted their future
success. Sipping, she gazed into his eyes and fantasized about the flavor of his essence instead of the tart
fizz of champagne.I have to stop thinking this way!
He lounged beside her on the sofa, refilling both goblets. "Come on, I want to see your latest
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masterpieces."
Grateful for the diversion into a professional mood, she took the photos out of the portfolio. Paul
fanned them on the coffee table. Scanning Gillian's candid shots of coyotes, raccoons, chipmunks,
jackrabbits, and pocket mice ignited an appreciative glow in his aura that warmed her almost as much as
his leashed desire for her. "Your night photography never ceases to amaze me. These belong inNational
Geographic ."
"Someday," she said, not altogether kidding.
"How do you get so close without spooking them? Raccoons, okay, you practically have to fire a
shotgun to scare them away, but these others—"
Gillian shrugged. She couldn't very well explain how she used vampiric influence to lull the creatures
into submission or, alternatively, cast a psychic veil to make herself "invisible" to them. "Just a knack, I
guess."
"These raccoons look like you posed them that way."
She said nothing, since she couldn't admit she had done just that.
"Maybe we should use them for the next book. They're familiar animals, so kids should enjoy
reading about them, plus we could use the story to educate them not to try petting or feeding weed
species."
Gillian laughed. "I hope you don't plan to call them that in the book! Kind of undermines the cuteness
factor."
They finished off the bottle while discussing possible raccoon-centered plots. Though their agent had
persuaded the publisher to sign a multibook contract, the exact number of books remained to be
decided. Paul suggested they should have several proposals ready to demonstrate their ability to follow
through on a long-range series.
"How about bats?" After a moment's thought, he said with a self-deprecating laugh, "Don't know if
I'd want you crawling through caves full of guano, not to mention taking chances with rabies."
"Bats wouldn't bite me," she said absentmindedly, provoking a quizzical glance from Paul.
"How about staying for dinner to celebrate?" He held up a hand when she started to protest. "Yeah,
I haven't forgotten your allergies. I got a couple of things you can eat, and the rest of the time you can just
talk to me."
Gillian had refused every previous invitation, partly because the "allergy" excuse would stretch only
so far, but partly to keep a cautious distance from Paul. If she accepted this invitation, she'd set a
hazardous precedent. Yet she couldn't bring herself to refuse this time.
He took her silence for acceptance. "Great, I'll just put my steak under the broiler."
After she'd watched him start dinner, he said, "Time to feed Naga. Want to help?"
"Sure."
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While he fetched a white rat in a small cage from his home office, she lifted the glass top off the
terrarium. The snake languidly raised its head to stare at her. "You know," said Paul, dangling the rat by
its tail, "you're the only woman I've ever had over here who'd watch this, much less do it, without
screaming or gagging."
How many women has he invited over?she thought. The pang of—could it be
jealousy?—astonished her. "That's silly. It's part of nature."
"Red in tooth and claw," he misquoted. "Most people don't like to confront that fact too closely." He
dropped the rat. The snake's coils whipped around the rodent and squeezed. A minute later, the fanged
jaws unhinged and engulfed the victim. Paul and Gillian watched while the rat disappeared into the
snake's mouth in spasmodic jerks, tail last, and became a lump in its gullet.
While Gillian replaced the lid, Paul returned the cage to the other room. The sight of the reptile
devouring its prey roused her own appetite.Ridiculous, I shouldn't be hungry at all tonight. Maybe the
anomaly had something to do with her approaching estrus. She pushed that thought aside; she wanted to
forget the problem for a few hours.
Paul dined on steak, baked potato, and salad—with garlic-free dressing, in consideration for her
"allergies." He shared a first course of beef broth with her, and she drank milk in addition to a glass of the
burgundy he opened. She knew he tactfully restricted her wine intake because she had to drive home.
She couldn't explain that her inhuman tolerance made the precaution unnecessary. With the scent of his
rare steak tantalizing her, she wished the alcohol could dull her senses.
"There's something I want to ask you," he said as they moved from table to couch with after-dinner
shot glasses of sherry. The rose-pink of his aura dimmed and flickered, reflecting his nervousness. She
noticed how he sat closer to her than usual. When he put down his glass and touched her hand, not quite
clasping it, his heartbeat accelerated. "You must know I'm interested in you, as more than a
collaborator."
She nodded. The near-formality of the statement intrigued her. Most of the human males who'd tried
to seduce her in the past, allured by her innate vampire magnetism, had used much more blunt language.
Or else they'd bypassed words altogether. Paul, in comparison, acted like a knight from King Arthur's
court.
"I don't want to push you into something you're not ready for, but I don't want to wait forever,
either. So—" He shook his head with a rueful smile. "Good Lord, listen to me babble. The hell with the
prepared speech. Would you like to spend this weekend with me in my cabin at Big Bear?"
She stared at him. This wasn't quite the approach she'd expected.
Apparently taking her stunned expression for reluctance, he said, "It can be just companionship, if
that's all you want. Just take it a step at a time. How about it?"
Gillian shook her head. Even if it weren't dangerous to get too close to an ephemeral she actually
liked—the risk of addiction was too high—spending a whole weekend with him, day and night, held the
potential for disaster. Not to mention that he would see her failing to eat enough to keep an anorexic
twelve-year-old alive, he might catch a glimpse of her asleep. Her daytime dormancy looked enough like
death to scare him witless and destroy any illusion that she was a normal woman.
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摘要：

ChapterOne       Asirenwailedthroughtheclearnightair.      Gillianeasedofftheaccelerator,downshiftedandsteeredhervintageCorvetteontothefreewayshoulder.      Abouttime!Wherearethecopswhenyouneedthem?ShehadstartedtothinkshewouldhavetodrivehalfwaytoLosAngelestorunintoaspeedtrap.      Shebraked,thenturn...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：54 页 大小：652.46KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-18

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