Page 34 of Enchant the Dawn

“Head for your place. It’s closer than mine.” He would need to get away from her before she noticed his wounds healing. He feared if he let her take him to the hospital, she would insist on staying with him. “I can make it home from there.”

“Stubborn man,” she muttered under her breath. “If you won’t go to a doctor, at least let me wash and bandage the wound before you leave.”

“Maddy ...”

She didn’t answer. After pulling into the driveway, she insisted on helping him out of the car. She put her arm around his waist as they walked toward the door. Inside, she tugged him toward the bathroom, where she filled the sink with hot water.

Dominic swore softly. Should he wipe the memory of what had happened that night from her mind? Or just tell her the truth?

She was unbuttoning his shirt, pushing it down over his shoulders, when her face paled and she swayed on her feet.

He grasped her shoulders to steady her.

“How . . .” She looked up at him in confusion. “There’s no wound. How is that possible? And where did the stake come from? I didn’t see anyone.”

Shit!

He guided her toward the toilet, lowered the lid, and urged her to sit and put her head down. “I can explain.”

Maddy took several slow, deep breaths. Maybe she was imagining things, refusing to see what was right before her eyes because it was so ghastly. But when she looked up again, there was no sign of injury save for a little blood. How was that possible?

Dominic knelt before her and took her hands in his. “I don’t know how to tell you this except to just say it. I’m a vampire.”

She blinked at him, her expression blank.

“It’s true.”

She glanced at his chest again, pulled one hand free and touched him with her fingertips. “I don’t believe you,” she said. But what other explanation was there? She had never believed in vampires, but she had seen countless movies about Dracula and the undead. She knew about wooden stakes and garlic and silver and mirrors. But she’d never heard of a stake materializing out of thin air. Clutching at straws, she said, “This is just some kind of morbid joke, right?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“I don’t know what to say.” How could it be true? She had spent time with him, kissed him, laughed with him, and never suspected. But why would she? Sure, some of the people in the city believed in all that stuff—vampires and zombies, witches and curses and magic . . . Oh, Lord, his great-grandmother was a witch! Why hadn’t Ava warned her? But why would she? Dominic was family.

“Maddy ...”

She tugged her hand from his and clenched her fist. “I think you should leave.”

“All right, if that’s what you want. If it’ll make you feel better, I can wipe the memory of what happened from your mind.”

He knew immediately he shouldn’t have said that. She looked at him in horror, and he could almost hear her wondering if he had done other things and erased them from her memory.

Gaining his feet, he brushed a kiss across the top of her head and left the house.

Feeling the sting of tears in her eyes, Maddy stared after him. How could a relationship that had seemed so promising have ended in such an unbelievably bizarre way?

Vampire. How could it be true? Yet how could she deny what she had seen with her own eyes?

Lurching to her feet, she hurried from room to room, making sure all the doors and windows were locked, thinking she might never again go outside after dark.

* * *

Ava stared at the dried blood on Dominic’s shirtfront. “What on earth happened to you?”

“I ran into a Knight. Or rather, he ran into me. With a stake.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yeah. Maddy was with me at the time.”

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