He arched a raven brow. "It is the fact that I am a vampire that gives me some insight. You don't live among humans for four centuries without learning something of their peculiar habits."
"Well, you don't know anything about me."
"No?" His lips curled in a faint smile. "I know that you hate onions and tuna fish, that you consume your weight in chocolate every day without ever gaining a pound, and that you need a recipe to boil water. I know that you pretend to enjoy classical music but change the radio station to punk rock when you think no one is around. I also know that you hide yourself from the world and that you're lonely. You have always been lonely."
Abby dutifully tried to breathe. Unfortunately her lungs refused to cooperate.
Damn him. It was one thing for her to have spent the past three months watching him with covert fascination. After all, she had discovered nothing more intimate than the fact that he was shamefully gorgeous and possessed a haunting skill upon the piano. To think that he had seen so easily through her carefully erected barriers was more than a little unnerving.
"Fine," she muttered. "I have intimacy issues. Yadda, yadda. Now, can we get up?"
His smile only widened. 'There is no hurry. The sun is just now setting."
"Well, you could use a bit of sun," she informed him dryly. 'You are very pale."
'You would see me a pile of ashes, eh?" The silver eyes smoldered with a sudden fire. "And how would I protect you if—"
Mesmerized by his dark honey voice and the promise that softened his features, Abby very nearly missed the shadow that slowly rose up behind the raven head. But when it shifted and neared, her eyes widened and a scream ripped from her throat.
"No!"
Distracted by the sharp lust that so readily consumed him when this woman was near, Dante was unprepared when Abby's scream ripped through the air and she shoved herself upright.
Tossed onto his back, it took a moment to struggle with the blankets wrapped about him. A moment too long as Abby surged from the mattress and attacked the looming form.
"Abby, no," he commanded, flowing upright in a belated attempt to halt her impetuous assault.
He caught no more than a glimpse of a human male before she was shoving the intruder away from the bed and they both tumbled onto the floor. In a heartbeat, or what would be a heartbeat if he were anything but a vampire, Dante was lifting Abby away and crouching beside the unmoving body.
"Hold, lover, he is dead," he murmured, his gaze swiftly taking in the rotting black suit and gaunt hand that still clutched a wooden stake. A vampire assassin. "For the second time, if I don't miss my guess."
Holding on to her towel with the grip of death, Abby regarded the still form with revulsion. Not much of a surprise. Being attacked by a decomposing corpse tended to be a once-in-a-lifetime event.
"My God, what is it?"
"An abomination."
"What?"
"A zombie." His voice was edged with disgust. Even among the demon world, the use of such magics was condemned. To disturb the realm of the underworld was sacrilege. "A dead shell animated by powerful magic. More magic than most demons possess. It isn't alive or dead, which explains why I didn't sense it and how it managed to slip through Viper's spell of protection."
"Zombies." Abby gave a short, near-hysterical laugh. "Great. Just great. Now all we need are a few mummies and a werewolf to complete our official Hoyle deck of monsters."
Dante reached out to touch the cold body that had spilled face-first on the carpet. "Abby, I need you to tell me what happened."
"What do you mean?"
"After you saw the zombie, what did you do?"
He sensed her shift uneasily at his probing. "You were here. You know what happened."
Dante lifted his head to meet her bewildered frown. She was still in shock from the unexpected violence, but at the moment he couldn't comfort her as he desired. It was imperative that he discover all he could of this latest threat.
"Please, Abby, tell me exactly what you did."
"What does it matter?" She gave a shiver. "It's dead, isn't it?"
"As dead as Elvis on this occasion. The question is why he is dead."
"Well, it might have something to do with that gaping hole in his head."
"No, that killed him the first time. When he entered the room, he was animated by magic, not a heartbeat. Nothing could have killed him but fire, preferably of the mystic variety."
"Fire?" She gave a shake of her head. "All I did was push him."
Rolling over the body, Dante jerked open the formal white shirt the poor soul had been buried in. In the shadowed light, the decay of the chest was hardly visible, but there was no mistaking the deep burns that were in the perfect shape of two hands.
Abby's hands.
"That was quite a push, lover," he murmured.
She made a sound deep in her throat as she hastily backed away In horror. "Are you saying that I did that?"
The tight distress in her voice had Dante uncoiling to move directly before her, conveniently blocking out the nasty sight of the corpse.
"I'm saying that you saved me," he informed her sternly. "If you hadn't stopped Undead Walking there, I would be showered over you in a very unflattering shade of ash."
"But how?" she whispered. "How could I do something like that?"
His hands moved to her shoulders to stroke them in a soothing motion. "I did tell you that the Phoenix would find ways to protect itself. There's nothing to be frightened of, Abby."
The brilliant blue eyes flashed with a barely suppressed emotion. "I just burned huge holes in that… thing without even knowing what I was doing."
'You were protecting yourself. And thankfully me in the bargain."
She lifted her hands to stare at them as if they were foreign objects. "But I don't even know how I did it."
"Does it matter?"
"Of course it matters," she retorted in sharp tones. "I've seen Firestarter. Do you think I want to be some freaking human torch?"
Dante was swift to smother his flare of humor at her fears. For all her courage, Abby was hanging by a thin thread.
"Lover, calm down. You aren't a human torch." Gently he reached for one of her hands and placed it to the center of his chest. Sharp, smoldering heat flared through him at her touch, but it had nothing to do with the power of the Phoenix. "See?"
"But…"
"Abby." He rested his forehead upon laer own, squeezing her fingers in silent comfort. "It's no different than your ability to stop a man with a well-aimed kick or using those nails as lethal weapons. It's just another tool. One that might very well keep you alive."