Isa touched her cheek, almost abandoning her promise to Frazier right then, because she would not, could not pretend to be this man's fiancee-his property-a single moment longer. She even opened her mouth to say the words, but then a voice stopped her.
"Take your hands off her."
Relief flooded through Isa. It was Chance! He wasn't hurt, thank God, and... why did Paul just drop his gun?
"You're dead," Paul breathed. His face was stark white, and his hand shook as he made the sign of the cross. "I shot you in the head and threw your weighted-down body in the river!"
Isa's eyes bulged at that.
"I am dead," Chance agreed calmly behind her. "And yet I'm still standing here. Makes you wonder how, doesn't it?"
Ritchie seemed equally shaken. He crossed himself too, and Isa heard him mutter the familiar Latin incantation: "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti..."
Even Robert looked like he'd seen a ghost, which sent a chill up Isa's spine. No one was denying Paul's statement that he'd shot Chance in the head. That wasn't something you'd walk away from afterward, but here Chance was, announcing that he was dead and yet he still wasn't going anywhere. Could he have hypnotized them into thinking Paul had shot him? Was such a thing even possible?
Isa swung around to look at Chance, and there was something in his gaze that froze her. She remembered the cool feel of his skin on hers, the way his eyes seemed to change colors, and how he'd gotten into her five-story-high home through the window when there wasn't any fire escape. There was only so much skill or hypnotism could account for. So if it wasn't that...
Chance met her stare levelly, as if he knew what was brewing in her mind-and wasn't denying any of it. Once again, her grandmother's words rang in her head. Don't think the world contains only what you've been taught at school. Oh no, my dear. That's just the first layer of it... Or Chance himself, when she'd asked him what he was. You're not ready to know what I am, so don't ask me that question when you don't really want a truthful answer to it...
Robert drew out his gun. "Fuck it, I'm shooting you until you stay dead!"
Isa heard multiple pops, saw a blur of motion... and then she was swinging from Chance's grip. Noises seemed to coalesce into one loud murmur, and her stomach felt oddly hot though the rest of her was chilled. She tried to look down, but Chance's arms blocked her. He had them pressed to her stomach even as she realized with shock that they were somehow outside. On rooftops. Moving at speeds that defied any logical explanation.
Then there was a jarring suddenness as they stopped. Chance loomed over her, his face very close...
Oh God, his face!
Isa screamed. Or tried. It only came out as a wheezing cry of denial. Chance ignored that, whipping a knife out from somewhere on him. Those glowing eyes, his fangs... he's some kind of devil, she realized dully. Cold slithered further up her limbs. In nomine Patris...
Chance stabbed her in the side. Isa did scream this time, a high-pitched wail of agony that wrenched out of her soul. There was another horrible, spine-bowing pain as Chance wiggled the knife, and then mercifully, gray encroached her vision. The pain started to fade even as the cold increased. Isa could barely make out Chance's transformed face as he slashed the blade across his wrist next, and then pressed the cut to her open mouth.
* * *
Chance took Isa to her grandmother's. It wasn't far, considering he traveled in a beeline by leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Up here, traffic definitely wasn't an issue.
Isa hadn't spoken a word to him since he'd made her drink his blood to heal her gunshot wound. Digging that bullet out of her side had filled Chance with rage, regret, and fear. He hated hurting her that way, but if he hadn't, her flesh would have knit back over the wound soon after she swallowed his blood. Drinking that small amount wouldn't turn her into a vampire-Chance would have needed to mortally drain her first, and then have her drink far more deeply from him-but it would heal her internal and external damage from the gunshot wound. He wouldn't risk her life by taking her to a local hospital; the bullet had torn through her liver. So close to losing her forever.
As soon as she was safely at Greta's, Chance was going to hunt down the two shooters and kill them. They wouldn't live out the next hour, either of them.
Chance didn't bother going to the front door, in case Greta was being watched. He leapt from the top of the roof down to the side window with Isa clutched in his arms. To anyone casually looking up, he'd appear as nothing more than a hazy blur. Vampire speed defied human ability to track with the naked eye, so he wasn't worried about 911 calls about a rooftop-jumping superman.
One hard jerk broke the lock on her window. It slid up and Chance maneuvered them inside with one fluid motion. Isa blinked at her surroundings for a second, as if she couldn't believe where she was. Then she shoved against Chance's chest. Hard.
"Let go of me."
She had more force behind the push than she normally would have. Her head bobbed around, listening to noises she wouldn't have heard an hour ago. His blood had done more than just heal her. In the quantity he'd given her, almost a half pint, it had also heightened her strength and senses.
Chance let her go. She backed away from him at once, her gaze flicking around like she expected him to attack. For the tenth time, she rubbed her stomach, feeling the smoothness where there had so recently been a bleeding hole.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Isabella," Chance said quietly.
She let out a derisive bark that stated she didn't believe him. Meanwhile, Chance heard Greta stir in the other room. She must have been taking a nap.
"You were shot," Chance told her, knowing with the instant shock her body would have gone into, she might not have realized that. "I had to dig the bullet out. That's why, with the knife..."
Isa backed up until she was almost to the door of the living room. "Who shot me? Robert?"
Chance's mouth tightened. "No. But Robert pulling his gun distracted me from seeing the other two men outside who were taking aim. Apparently the Salucci brothers got tired of negotiating with Robert, and decided a drive-by shooting would be much more efficient instead."
"Those were the pops I heard," Isa murmured, as if to herself. Then she gave Chance a repelled look that pierced his heart. "You're not human."
This wasn't the way he'd intended her to find out, but there was no turning back. Even though he could erase the knowledge from her if he bit her and used his power, Chance refused to manipulate her that way.
"No. I haven't been for a long time."