Page 2 of Vampire's Choice

Predators attempted to flush prey by freaking them out enough they’d bolt. To resist it, the prey had to hold fast to the belief that, until he or she moved, the hunter had no visual fix on their target.

No surprise, that subconscious whisper was back.

Run. Run. Run.

A surge of adrenaline told her she might need to consider it. Sooner rather than later.

Her father had told her there was a time to run. Run when your instincts tell you to, but do it with clarity. Think ahead. Be planning your next steps.

Had he ever felt the need to have that talk with Adan? She’d never asked. She didn’t look for answers that would only hurt and drag her down.

A rumble vibrated in Tau’s chest. All the muscles beneath the smooth tawny fur became far more defined as they tensed. He bolted. Only her quick reflexes, which shifted her a few inches to the right, kept her in her squat. Otherwise the push-off from his powerful haunches would have struck and toppled her.

A male lion didn’t run from an opponent, unless it wasn’t something he could fight.

The shadow passed over her again.

If there’d been no island breach—and her senses didn’t detect any—and this threat wasn’t aimed at the cats they protected—she didn’t feel that, either—this was something else.

Ruth tracked that shadow and its attending movement of grasses. The prevailing wind was coming from the opposite direction. When the two met, the ripples melted into it and disappeared.

By the time she blinked twice, they resurfaced. Only now the grass bent in tight coils in several places simultaneously. Triangulating her position.

It was telling her it knew she was there. Playing with her, but not to be playful. This was a cat thinking it had stumbled on a mouse, a random opportunity.

It didn’t know she was thinking the same.

Okay, yeah, maybe the day-to-day was becoming a little too routine. She loved it here, and intended to be her father’s successor in caring for the sanctuary, but so far her only significant ventures outside the island on her own were limited to her use of her pilot’s license to ferry goods and staff to and from the Florida mainland, outside of the supply boat’s normal schedule.

Female born vampires reaching their seventies were the equivalent of a human in their twenties. Wanting to explore and experience…everything. And Ruth was in her eighties.

Maybe that was what kept her from sounding an alarm. The architect of the swirling wind projected some of the same pent-up restlessness.

Would it have been better if she was sensing a threat to her home, her family or the cats? Her protective instincts would have kicked in and she wouldn’t be struggling with what was probably a really stupid reaction. She would have alerted her father through their blood born mind link and gone after the visitor with ferocity.

Instead, the taunt of the mini tornadoes only intrigued her more. Her hair lifted again, brushing her other shoulder.

Her father often ambushed her on the preserve, testing and training her. She’d not only picked up fight skills quickly from a young age, she’d loved learning them. She relished the warrior’s dance.

The visitor was inviting her to take a turn on that floor with him.

Him. It was definitely a male energy. Her attention sharpened.

Heat along her back, a closer pass from the shadow, and she moved.

She spun, fangs bared, ducked and rolled. As she did, she felt the glancing strike of a grasping hand. She leaped away from the sense of something large and solid in her personal space, and ran right into a heated and dense net.

She tore at it, twisted and kicked. A male voice cursed. She rolled free, and when she opened her hands, what she’d torn loose fell free.

Feathers. Silky, long and strong, with points that scraped her palms.

Fae? No. She recognized the Fae, and, with few exceptions, most incited murderous rage from her.

He wasn’t vampire, either.

Before she could surge to her feet, he landed on her, driving her to the ground, pressing her to her stomach.

She needed to call Mal. She wasn’t an idiot. But before she could reach out over the mind link, her antagonist hit her with another weapon.

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