Rogue Darkness by Dianne Duvall

And it had. She couldn’t go out and sunbathe for hours on end. But it took longer for Nicole’s skin to pinken and burn than it did for Sean’s.

Nicole remembered little about her transformation. According to Sean, once Aidan bit her, she got pretty loopy and said some things Sean admitted he wished he could’ve caught on video. Nicole vaguely recalled not feeling well the next day. She developed a high fever and vomited up everything Sean coaxed her into eating or drinking. Even water.

Sean had been a real sweetheart, staying by her side, comforting her, distracting her, and making her laugh. All she remembered after that was waking up with a haggard Sean leaning over her and discovering—much to her shock—that three days had passed.

Poor Sean. As soon as he’d realized she was lucid, he had crawled into bed, curled his big body around hers, and held her almost painfully tight for at least an hour, mumbling something about an ice bath and her scaring the crap out of him.

Then he’d fed her lots of pizza.

She grinned.

Though there wasn’t much of a breeze, the wind generated by her exceptional speed yanked Nicole’s hair back from her face. Running this fast wasn’t as easy as she’d expected. Nicole had nearly crashed into a tree the first time she’d raced through the forest. But she had since learned how to process visuals of her surroundings as quickly as she could run.

Tonight, Sean was helping her learn how to use her enhanced senses to track targets as part of her new vampire-hunter training.

Since she could run as fast as a three-thousand-year-old immortal, Nicole had given him a head start. But she was gaining on him and would soon—

She skidded to a halt. The thick trunks of towering evergreens rose around her.

Peering between them, she sniffed.

Sean’s scent had abruptly grown fainter, not stronger as it would have if she were about to catch him.

Frowning, she turned in a slow circle.

That was odd. It seemed stronger behind her than it was in front of her. Had he doubled back?

She pondered it.

He couldn’t have. She would’ve run into him if he had. And if he’d veered off and taken a circuitous route to bypass her, she would’ve smelled it and heard it.

Wouldn’t she?

Swearing, Nicole sprinted back the way she’d come. Every half mile or so, she paused to sniff and listen.

Run. Pause. Sniff. Listen. Run. Pause. Sniff. Listen.

At no point did she unearth anything that suggested Sean had struck off in a different direction.

When she could barely detect his scent, she reluctantly conceded defeat and returned to the point at which she’d lost it. Frowning, she propped her hands on her hips. “Sean,” she called, “where are you?”

“Up here.” A smile tinged the deep voice that came from above.

Tilting her head back, she looked up.

Fifty or sixty feet up in the branches of a nearby tree, Sean grinned down at her as he hugged the trunk. “Hi there.”

She smiled back. “Hi yourself.”

As agile as a monkey, he began to climb down. “Did you know your eyes glow when you get frustrated?”

No, she didn’t. She’d have to keep that in mind on future hunts. “How do you know it’s frustration and not your gorilla-like prowess turning me on?” she countered. Sean was no longer the only one in this relationship whose eyes glowed when he became aroused. He had proven that shortly after her transformation by ardently making love with her in front of a mirror.

Nicole’s pulse jumped just thinking about it. That man could heat her blood like no other.

A wistful sigh escaped her

And immortal sex was the best.

Pausing in his descent, Sean jumped up and down on a thick limb, emitted several deep-throated hoo’s, and beat his chest like a gorilla. “Is that what gets your motor running?”

Nicole laughed. “No. We’ll have to chalk it up to frustration. Why are you climbing down, anyway? Why don’t you jump?”

When he was about thirty feet up, he did just that. Stepping off a stout limb, he plummeted down and landed in a neat crouch a couple of feet away. So cool. “Because I’m not a fan of heights,” he admitted with a sheepish smile.

She wasn’t either and didn’t look forward to learning how to land safely when jumping or falling from such heights. “How did you elude me like that?”

Propping his hands on his hips, he puffed out his chest, turned his head to the side, and assumed a superhero pose. “I’m just that good,” he professed, oozing arrogance.

Nicole shoved him with a laugh. “Seriously, how’d you do it?”

Sean shrugged. “You assumed that greater speed would deliver an easy victory. Overconfidence in our line of work can sometimes bite you in the ass.”

She would’ve made a jesting comment about using her new fangs to bite him in the ass if she weren’t so embarrassed to admit that hubris had indeed misled her. “Yep. I screwed up.”

Smiling, he grasped her hips and drew her closer. “I’d tell you I never screw up, but—”

“I used to be your Second.”

“And came to my rescue how many times?”

“I lost count.”

“Exactly. So don’t sweat it.” Dipping his head, he pressed his lips to hers in a slow kiss full of warmth and affection. “You’ve only been immortal for a few weeks. And unlike certain other new immortals, you haven’t accidentally crashed through the side of a house or tossed someone up through a ceiling.”