Falling from the Light (The Night Runner Series Book 3) (27 page)

“
T
hese girls have
no idea what they’re doing,” Mickey said, rising on her knees and craning her neck to see down the road.

“They probably haven’t been outdoors much.”

I jabbed the campfire with a stick and shifted so that the knob in the stump I was leaning against didn’t poke me directly in the spine. But then my view of the sunset was obscured by the ambitious campground shrubbery. I couldn’t win.

“More like never. Check this out.” She shoved my shoulder, sending my vertebrae bumping right over the knob again.

“Stop that. You’re going to paralyze me.” I rolled onto my knees. The girls Mickey was watching couldn’t have weighed two hundred pounds put together. One wore a puffy yellow down coat and a white hat. The other wore a matching white coat and yellow hat. The Montana Rockies were cool in mid-September, but not that cold. Of course, they were dressed more for fashion than for the elements. Long blonde hair streamed out from under the hats, and tall, heeled boots rose up from the ground.

“Maybe they are models on a photo shoot,” Mickey suggested. The girls stumbled through a campsite that had been occupied for the past two days by a bearded man who played guitar for his dog at night. One of them held a thick branch of green wood that was smoldering and dropping embers from the end.

“I see no photographers, but I’m pretty sure they’re about to burn that dude’s tent down.” I shoved to my feet and brushed dirt and tree debris from the back of my jeans as I crossed the gravel road.

“Are you guys looking for something?” I asked.

They turned in unison, all but striking a pose. One of them tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes, and I found myself mimicking the motion in return. She was familiar. She was…

“Chastity?”

“You’re Sydney, right?” She beamed, then held up a set of keys. “We’re here to exchange cars. Niall’s tired of rentals. He wants his car back.”

The Bradigan had taken us to Vegas, Disneyland, the Biggest Little City in the World, and Yellowstone. Mickey and Thurston had checked off a bunch of places they’d flagged in their travel books and I’d received thousands of high speed therapeutic miles and several servings of distraction. There’d been a few sobby benders in there as well, but by the time we landed in the lap of Mickey’s extended family in Missoula, we were all a little more solid. And a lot calmer.

I didn’t feel so calm now.

“Where is he?” I asked in a rush, looking around even though rationally I understood that he couldn’t be there. The sun hadn’t set yet.

“Waiting in the car,” not-Chastity said.

“Niall had to wrestle him down to keep him in the car so we volunteered to find you.” Chastity stabbed the branch into the fire pit. “Ready for a reunion?”

Was I ready? Ready for the miserable nightmares to stop? For the hollow ache inside of me to go away? A weightlessness filled me, making me feel like I was floating even as I crunched along the gravel path.

“What’s going on?” Mickey asked, falling into step beside me, her stick with four roasted marshmallows held out before her like a flag.

“We’re trading cars,” Chastity said. She looked between the two of us. “So you ladies have been sharing that throwback vamp, huh?”

“He’s not a throwback,” Mickey protested. “He has a strong sense of personal style when it comes to his facial hair.” She leaned close. “How do these campers know about Thurston?”

“That’s Chastity and the other one isn’t. They’re Niall MacInness’s…friends. He’s the vampire who owns the car we’ve been using.”

“That’s not yours?” she asked. I shook my head. “Is he going to be mad about that ding?”

Chastity gasped and I waved dismissively.

“He’ll barely notice it.”

“He’s a vampire,” Chastity said. “He notices
everything
. And that thing is his
baby
.”

“It’s really small. Like, minuscule.”

We rounded a corner and I broke from the others and walked to the edge of the steep hill. At the bottom, laid out at the end of a lazy switchback, was the parking lot for the hiking trail. At the edge of the lot, on a watercolor bed of gray pavement and orange leaves, a large white SUV sat idling. The windows were tinted darker than was legal outside of vampire-friendly states.

The back door nearest us opened and I stopped breathing. Mickey made a surprised sound as Thurston, who’d been waiting out the daylight in our cabin, appeared behind us. He asked a question, and the words fell apart before they entered my mind. MacInness swung himself out of the SUV, his red hair visible even at that distance. The girls cooed and waved. He turned back and spoke to someone inside the vehicle.

I started straight down the hill, gravity and something stronger dragging me down. Malcolm stepped out, running a hand down his front to smooth the sweater he wore. It would be soft, and warm from his body. He looked up and I skidded to a stop, kicking out a flurry of fallen leaves.

His eyes sparked gold, visible even from that distance. All the air left me like I’d been punched. He rushed through the intervening space in a matter of seconds, using that disconcerting speed that he was always so careful not to employ in front of me. And then he was in front of me, smooth and whole. He was close enough,
there
enough, to touch. But I couldn’t make myself reach for him, afraid that he’d disintegrate the way he did every night in my dreams. I closed my eyes when he reached for me, held my breath as strong arms encircled me and pulled me against him.

“You’re here,” I whispered, my hands landing lightly over his ribs.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” he said. His voice reverberated through me. The feel of him slicked over me, hot in the cool air, intimate after months without contact. I opened my eyes.

Smile lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes. His lips were dark against pale skin, and his upper lip curled sensually.

“I don’t care.” I only meant to touch him, to assure myself he was there, but my hands fisted in his hair as I dragged his mouth down to mine. “Malcolm.”

“Sydney.”

He tasted crisp and faintly spicy, and the kiss hit me like our first meeting. Even though I was ready for the shock, desire coiled low in my abdomen. Only he created this particular hunger in me, and only he could feed it.

But I couldn’t very well drag him down to the ground on a forty-five-degree hill in front of friends and strangers. Pulling back, I forced my hands down to his shoulders and dropped my forehead against his chest.

“Don’t you ever fucking do that again.” I banged my head against him a few times for emphasis.

“I explained in my letter—”

“I don’t mean getting Bronson to release you. I mean dying.
God
.”

His energy spiked with his emotions. The cascade was so warm it felt like it singed me where it landed on my skin. I bit my lip. It felt so good, so right where other vampires were so wrong. I’d thought I’d never have the chance to feel him again.

“It’s not something we need to worry about now. You have a guardian who’s made it known in no uncertain terms that anyone who so much as hints at being interested in you will be met with a swift and absolute response.”

I turned my head so that I could press my face into his neck, breathing him in while nuzzling against the line of his jaw. His fingers drew tiny circles across my shoulder blades and down my back.

“And you’re still free? Bronson was okay with that?” I grabbed his shirt and shook him. “I still don’t know why you felt the need to tell him you’re back.”

“He released me in front of witnesses he can’t dispose of. That’s as official as it gets. And I had to tell him in person, before he heard rumors. The look on his face was priceless.” He plucked a leaf from my hair and drew it down the side of my neck. I shivered and raised my head.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” I turned and pressed a kiss into his hand.

“I’m glad I met with him on the way,” he said. “You and I, we have some catching up to do.” He wrapped his arm around me and urged me up the hill. The others had continued their descent along the road, Thurston half dragging a gawking Mickey, and we were alone.

“So, that’s it?” My fingers slipped beneath his sweater to caress smooth, whole skin, and I almost choked on the feelings that surged up inside of me. He was here. He was himself. “It’s just us now?”

“Bronson wishes for your good regard too much to hold a grudge. Or to act on it, anyway.” He stroked my hair back from my face and cupped the curve of my cheek. The light rose and fell in his eyes, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

“You’re here. I can’t… You’re
here
.”

“Because of you.” He shook his head as though he couldn’t quite believe it.

“I’m pretty sure you knew exactly what you were doing. Other than not telling me ahead of time, which was un-fucking-forgivable.”

“It was a gamble, but it was the only way to get you out. I wasn’t sure it would work.” He kissed the corner of my mouth, my forehead, my eyes before pulling me close again.

“You didn’t think the pearls were strong enough to bring you back?”

“I wasn’t sure that you would, that you wanted…” His voice roughened and my stomach clenched.

“You didn’t believe that I wanted you enough that it would work? And you still walked up to him and invited him to kill you?”

His cheeks hollowed as the muscles of his jaw tensed.

“God, Mal.” I pressed my hands to my temples and shook my head, almost sick at the thought. “Don’t test me like that again. I can’t take it, and I sure as hell don’t want you going through it. I love you.”

He inclined his head. “Your heart’s going a mile a minute.”

“That’s not fear, Malcolm.”

“No?” He searched my face and I frowned. He wanted something from me and I didn’t know what. I hadn’t been sure what I would say to him. I love you, over and over again. But he’d neatly strategized and faced his own execution so that I could be safe and free. There might be words for that, but they weren’t words I knew.

“Circumstances have changed,” he said. “But I haven’t. Being with vampires nearly killed you.”

“I know what you are,” I murmured. “And my heart is racing now, but it’s not anxiety or uncertainty. It’s what loving you does to me.”

“You’re sure?”

I smiled with trembling lips, then nodded. “I’m sure.”

“It excites you?” He stepped close, his eyes bright as he backed me off the road and along the path to our cabin.

“Yes.” My heel fumbled over a root.

“It makes you…passionate?”

“You know it does, damn it.” I grinned, then flushed when my back hit the side of the cabin.

“Good.” He leaned close, but his touch was gentle as his hand circled my nape. “I need you to feel that way, because you’re it for me, Sydney. You’re all that I want.”

His words were the fuel and his lips the spark that ignited my whole body. I arched against him, digging my nails into his back to force him closer as his tongue teased mine. Power cascaded off of him, enveloping me in heat.

“You’re it for me, too.”

“Let’s go inside,” he whispered.

“You have something you want to show me?” I teased.

“Many things. For a long time. And then I’m going to take you to Detroit.”

“Is that a euphemism for something dirty…and amazing?”

He laughed softly against my hair. “It’s whatever we want it to be.”

S
o you’re an acknowledgments reader
. Nice!

Books don’t write themselves (the bastards), and authors don’t write them alone. This book was brought to you in part by the following fabulous people who contributed in their own special ways (sometimes with beatings, sometimes with bribes):

I. Tiffany Allee - Thank you for being my crit partner, a fellow burrito-eater, such a surreally fast napper, and the voice of reason in the madness of long writing nights.

II. Jolanda Jongedijk - Thank you for your keen eyes, your big talent, and your
almost
impossibly
pure mind.

III. Joshua Roots and Bettie Lee Turner - Thank you for making everything better with your beta powers and kindness.

D. Mallory Braus - Thank you for your editorial and personal support and for sharing with me all those secrets that I swear I’ll never tell anyone.*

Five. Michael Mandarano - Thank you for being an excellent copyeditor and for teaching me that some Canadians are nice, despite what everyone says.

*
P
robably
.

D
on’t Bite
the Messenger (Night Runner 0.5)

Running in the Dark (Night Runner 1.0)

R
egan Summers is
the author of the romantic urban fantasy Night Runner series. As a native Alaskan, she’s used to long, cold nights but thinks they’re better with a helping of action and sexy vampires. Don’t Bite the Messenger, the first in the series, was a finalist for the 2013 EPIC eBook Awards in the paranormal category.

F
ind Regan at
:

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