Unfair, she thought. She didn‟t want to stick around either. Not that she expected the very polite Danes to lock her in some
foreign cell for being stupid enough to walk alone at night. But what if they contacted the embassy? Or her parents?
Her gaze skittered to the body stretched out in the gutter. “What about him?”
“You wish him punished further?”
“No . ” The suggestion horrified her. “But he . . . Look, if he dies, you could be in trouble.”
His eyes widened slightly, as if she had surprised him. His pupils were large and very dark, banded with a pale rim of
color. Not blue, Liz thought, despite that white blond hair.
And she had no business puzzling over his eye color when there was an unconscious man lying practically at her feet.
Steeling herself to approach him—to approach them both—she knelt in the street, grateful for the thin protection of her
jeans. She was uncomfortably conscious of her rescuer standing over them. His heat. His height.
“He will not die,” he said quietly.
Awareness tightened the back of her neck. Nerves sharpened her voice. “How would you know?”
“I could ask the same of you.”
She overcame her distaste of the body before her, forcing herself to conduct a patient assessment. Airway, breathing,
circulation . . .
“I‟m going to be a doctor.” Not for another seven years or so, but merely saying the words gave her a measure of
confidence, a portion of control.
She took a deep breath. A sour smell leaked upward from the gutter. Stale sweat maybe, or unwashed feet. Or Shaved Head
Guy could have been popping nitrates. She‟d seen plenty of little glass vials crushed on the sidewalk outside the club.
He sprawled on his back, in danger of swallowing his tongue. She felt gingerly for neck or spine injuries before tilting his
head to clear his airway. He groaned, making her start.
Her rescuer‟s voice dropped out of the darkness. “Unless your compassion extends to being here when he wakes, I suggest
you leave now.”
She gulped. “Right. Good idea.” She rocked back on her heels and stood, her legs trembling slightly in reaction.
Above the jagged rooftops, the sky was heavy purple, pregnant with early dawn. There was nothing to tell her what to do or
which way to go, only dirty windows, darkened doors, and stinking puddles. Shadows lay across the street like bars, collected
in drifts between the buildings like garbage.
She glanced nervously at her companion, his face etched in black and white perfection by the moon. With his broad
shoulders and long black coat, he looked dark and solid. She wanted to burrow under his coat.
She cleared her throat. “Would you mind walking me as far as Nørrebrogade?”
Those strange, pale eyes fixed on her face, the pupils widening like a chasm at her feet, reflecting nothing, revealing
nothing. They pulled at her like gravity. She imagined herself sinking into his eyes, falling down, down, down .
“I will take you.” In that voice, his low, deep, mocking voice, the words sounded almost sexual. “Since you ask.”
Her cheeks flushed as she snatched herself back from the edge of . . . what?
“Just to the main street,” she clarified.
He inclined his head in an oddly formal gesture. Foreign. “As far as you wish.”
Her heart bumped against her ribs. He had saved her, she reminded herself. She could trust him.
She was less sure if she should trust her own judgment. She got A‟s in all her classes and—according to Allyson—a C
minus in men.
This one stood like a bulwark in the moonlight, blocking the stench of the puddles, the reek from the alleys. His scent
teased at her senses, fresh and wild as the sea.
She released her breath. “I‟d appreciate it.”
His gaze skimmed her face again. “Would you, I wonder,” he murmured.
His words barely registered over the pounding in her ears. He was so close. If she stood on tiptoe, she thought dizzily, she
could kiss him.
Not that she would. Not that she wanted to.
He turned and strode away. Her knees sagged with disappointment and relief. She felt his absence like a chill against the
front of her body.