His companions laughed. Violence thickened the air.
Oh, God. Oh, shit. What had she done?
Slowly, her attacker dragged the back of his arm across his cut lip. He stared down at his wrist; up into her eyes. And
smiled, his teeth stained with blood.
Fear tightened her chest. She sucked in her breath to scream. Before the sound escaped, movement flashed in her peripheral
vision. Something big, something fast, flowing out of the darkness behind her.
She flinched from this new threat.
But the thing— shadow — man —brushed by her like a shark in the water, knocking her flat on her ass. She landed hard,
jarring her wrists, scraping her palms.
Darkness swirled in the narrow street. Dazed, she heard a thud, a crunch, choked sounds of pain or surprise. Fighting. Her
insides roiled with fear and relief. They were fighting. She grabbed her purse, fumbling for the whistle she carried on campus.
Two sets of footsteps pounded against the pavement, leaving her attacker splayed in the gutter on the other side of the street
and one man standing in a puddle of moonlight.
Shadow Man. Her rescuer.
She blinked. From her position on the ground, he looked larger than life, tall and leanly muscled in a long black leather
coat.
He turned, the coat flaring around his ankles, and her heart jumped into her throat. His face was angled, cold, and pale, his
hair the color of moonlight.
Liz swallowed hard, her gaze sliding up that long, powerful body to his face. His features were too strong to be really
handsome, his nose too broad, his jaw too sharp. His upper lip was narrow, the lower one full, curved, and compelling.
She shivered with fear and something else. Just because he was cleaner and better dressed than the punks who had followed
her from the club didn‟t make him any less dangerous.
She snuck a glance at her attacker lying motionless in the gutter.
Okay, more dangerous.
She couldn‟t see her rescuer‟s eyes, shadowed by the line of his brow. He stood a moment longer, watching her, waiting for
. . . What? Thanks? Tears? Hysterics?
And then he turned away.
An unreasoning urgency gripped her, sharper than fear. “Wait.”
He paused. Her heart hammered. Did he even speak English?
She scrambled to her feet, wiping her palms on the thighs of her jeans. “I . . . Thank you for, uh, helping me.”
He ignored her, dropping on his haunches by the body in the gutter. She watched him pat down her attacker, searching for a
pulse.
Or maybe his wallet.
She gripped her purse tighter. “Why did you?”
He glanced briefly over his shoulder. “It was hardly a fair fight. I do not usually interfere in the affairs of your kind.”
Liz‟s eyes narrowed. Her kind?
Okay. She forced herself to consider the situation from his point of view, the dark street, her scanty club wear. He didn‟t
know her. She could have been anyone. Anything. A hooker on the run from her pimp.
“You‟re English,” she said.
“No.” He did not elaborate.
“But your accent . . .” Not English, not exactly. But he definitely wasn‟t American.
He straightened and walked away.
“Wait . ”
He turned, silhouetted by the moon, impatience in every hard line of his body.
She swallowed. “We can‟t just leave.”
“I can.”
“But . . .” She hugged her elbows, torn between her instinct for self-preservation and her sense of what was right.
“Shouldn‟t we notify the police?”
“I have no desire to be detained by your police.”