Love is Darkness (A Valerie Dearborn Novel) by Caroline Hanson Read Free Book Online

Everything had happened so fast that she'd decided she didn't know what he looked like. He couldn’t have been that beautiful.
     
    Her memories of that night were all twisted up so that Lucas now seemed larger than life. She feared she'd romanticized him and that she would be disappointed in his actual appearance if she ever saw him again. Which, she emphatically did not want!
     
    Jack got out and waited for her, the sound of his door closing interrupting her thoughts. He was going to stay hidden on the other side of the yard. Hide in the shadows, just in case.
     
      “You know what Jack? Fuck you! You didn't have to do this. You know how messed up this is!”
     
    He ran his hand through his hair, uncomfortable. He'd never disagree with her father. She waited but he said nothing, seemingly at a loss.
     
    “Kiss ass.” She turned and walked away.
     
    “Use the rage, Val. Good talk.” The sarcasm made her want to scream.
     
    Then he was serious, “Okay, this jackass works and he'll be home in twenty. Guess where he works, Val? The library . Honestly, you could kill him with your eyes closed.”
     
    Jack disappeared into the shadows while she quickly set up her trip wire and stationed herself behind the bushes, dried up blooms falling all around her like snow.
     
    Knives? Check. Pill? Check. Gun? Big check!  
    Okay. She was ready to go. Val imagined the fight over and over. Different ways it could happen and ways she could die.
     
    Val hunkered down behind the Hydrangea and waited. Twenty minutes is a long time to be afraid…and I really have to pee.
     
    Finally, there was movement. A man was walking down the dark street, appearing and disappearing as he passed under street lamps. Could be a normal pedestrian out for a walk.  
    Or not.  
      The guy moved very smoothly. Her stomach wobbled. Vampires didn't have limps or glitches. Tendons didn't matter and it made them unusually graceful. It wasn't something most people would notice. But to her, it was a tell .
     
    He came towards the house and a car drove by. The lights caught his eyes and they flashed monster bright. Yup. This was the guy.
     
    She felt the gun in her hand, made sure the safety was off, then breathed in and out steadily. Slowly, quietly. Except for the desire to run away screaming she was still, calm. He turned in the gate.
     
    Three steps, you bastard.  
    He walked forward and she pointed the gun. She was good, very accurate for all the days she'd spent at the range and all the hunting trips her dad had taken her on, but this was different.
     
    She could screw this up so badly that even Jack's life might be in danger. Her hand started to waiver at the thought, but he was getting close to the trip wire now. He was tall. Why had she thought he’d be shorter? He looked kind of shy and like he could work in a library. Vampires should be scary. It should be required. Looking normal was an unfair advantage.
     
    Val forced herself to calm, re-imagining what it had felt like when Lucas had made her feel so eerily and thoroughly emotionless.
     
    The vampire stepped on the tripwire, a silver-tipped arrow slicing through the air and lodging into his   ribs . He spun around to find the source of the weapon, simultaneously pulling the arrow out of his body. The head of the arrow detached inside him, just as it was supposed to, and a curl of smoke rose from his chest where the silver burned him.
     
    But he wasn't going to die from it.
     
    Shit! Flesh wound. If only he’d been three inches shorter .
     
    Val sighted the gun and pulled the trigger. The bullets were made of wood and the gun had a silencer. The plant shook as the bullet passed through. It pierced him in the back and he jerked around again, facing her.
     
    He coughed, black blood arcing from his mouth like vomit. She'd hit a lung.
     
    She fired again and he fell to his knees. She shot him again, knowing this would be the one to finish him off, but the gun jammed. Of course!