Then it pitched forward, taking her over the side of the ravine.
Down and down and down.
Above her on the road, Dwight Parrish’s pickup roared away without stopping.
CHAPTER 4
Inside the small gas station’s convenience store, Knox put a few dollars on the counter for a packet of air-activated hand warmers he didn’t actually need.
“Thanks for looking in back for these,” he told the attendant behind the register.
The scrawny, tattooed twenty-something with ginger-colored dreadlocks bobbed his head, mild disinterest in his dull gaze. “No problem, man.”
It would take a few minutes for the human’s faculties to fully come back online after the blood Knox had just drained from him in the store room. The mind scrub he’d given him afterward ensured the local youth wouldn’t even recall Knox had been there at all.
The precaution was more habit than anything else. In general, he didn’t bother with Breed feeding laws or curfews, but his Hunter training had conditioned him to exist on the fringes of civilization. He preferred to navigate his world with speed and stealth, and leave no trace behind him.
Slipping his purchase into the pocket of his parka, Knox walked outside. The blizzard hadn’t let up any during the few minutes he’d had his fangs sunk into the kid’s wrist. Not that there had been much hope of that.
The unplanned detour had been more about taking the edge off the stirrings of his hunger for a very different blood Host.
He had been thinking about Leni’s creamy throat and delicate skin as he’d taken the attendant’s wrist to his mouth. It was a piss-poor substitute. The blood was thin and tainted with the acridness of a recent dose of opioids, but the drugs had no effect on Knox. The youth was also hiding a host of sins, everything from petty thievery to a handful of violent assaults. His guilt over those crimes tasted as bitter to Knox as the kid’s addiction.
As for the red cells, they’d served their purpose. Nevertheless, sated from feeding and eager to be done with the trek to the Canadian border, it was no small aggravation that he was still thinking about the woman. Still wondering if she might have welcomed him into her bed, if he’d had the inkling to stay in Parrish Falls for the rest of the night.
Which he didn’t.
Staying for the night would mean staying until the following sunset, when it would be safe for him to be outside again. He hoped to be hours into Quebec by then.
And miles away from the sweet, freckled nose and sharp, forthright hazel gaze of a woman he didn’t think he’d ever forget.
Fuck, maybe he needed a mind scrub. Too bad he couldn’t give one to himself.
Somewhere in the dark a diesel engine rumbled, drawing nearer. The soles of Knox’s boots vibrated with the low sound, and with the metallic complaint of a snow plow’s blade scraping over the narrow two-lane.
Dwight Parrish’s heavy-duty pickup barreled past the gas station, sending clumps of snow and ice flying in its wake. He was alone in the cab, having apparently dropped his buddy from the diner somewhere along the way.
Knox scowled from within the deep hood of his jacket as he watched the truck roar up the road. He was sorely tempted to follow him. Roughing up a dickweed like that would give him great satisfaction, and not only because it seemed like more than one of the Parrish brothers could use a lesson in humility. Not to mention a brush with their own mortality.
But they weren’t his problem.
Parrish Falls wasn’t the only town saddled with a clan of self-important assholes running roughshod over anyone they pleased. It wouldn’t be the last, either.
As for Lenora Calhoun, she wasn’t the only beautiful woman who’d turned Knox’s head during his rootless trek across the country. Why she had woken something in him after only a few minutes in her company, he didn’t want to know.
He was finished thinking about her too.
Damn it, he had to be.
Putting his head down against the frigid push of the storm, he set off in the opposite direction of the diner and walked for a while. A forest of thick pines and spruce stood tall on either side of the sloping, snowy road. The decline grew more pronounced on his right, carving a deep ravine that followed the winding outline of the frozen river below.
And farther ahead, near the bottom of that same ravine around a mile away from where he was now, he saw a dim orange glow. Vehicle taillights.
The muffled sound of a running engine hit his acute senses at the same time. The stench of steaming, dark gray clouds of exhaust on the cold night wind. A hard creak of a door hinge as someone crawled out of the driver’s side, stumbling and slipping in the tangled mess of the thicket.
A woman.
Holy shit, it was her.
