That was impossible. It looked as if coals were glowing deep under the skin, and the eerie glow was putting out impressive amounts of heat.

There was a shuffling noise in the underbrush, and I froze. My comatose abductor/savior wasn’t the highest priority. The danger in the darkness beyond was worse. Whatever was out there was evil, ancient, and soulless, something foul and indescribable. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, a nameless dread like something out of a Stephen King novel.

This was just wrong. I wrote cozy mysteries, not horror novels. What was I doing in the equivalent of a Japanese horror movie? Not that there’d been any blood as yet. But I could smell it on the night air, and it sickened me.

I glanced back at the small pile of twigs and grasses that I’d assembled. My fingertips were scorched, and on impulse I scooped up some dried leaves and touched them against his arm.

They burst into flames, and I dropped them, startled; they fell onto the makeshift pyre, igniting it.

The fire was bright, flames shooting upward into the sky. But darkness had closed in around us, and the monsters were still waiting.

I put more leaves on top of the fire, adding twigs and branches, listening to the reassuring crackle as they caught. It was only common sense, using fire to scare away the carnivorous predators in the darkness. Even cavemen had done it. Of course, cavemen hadn’t started fires from the scorched skin of a fanged creature, but I was handling things the best I could. Hell, maybe saber-toothed tigers had had fire beneath their pelts as well. Anything was possible.

I rose, turning back to my own personal saber-toothed tiger. We were too close to the fire, close enough that my companion would go up in flames if we stayed there. If I could pull him back against the rock face, we might be safe, and it would be easier to defend only one side of the clearing. I reached under his arms and tugged at his shoulders.

“Come on, Dracula,” I muttered. “You’re too big for me to move on my own. I gotta have some help here.”

He didn’t stir. I looked down at him, frustrated. He wasn’t huge, more long-limbed and elegant than bulky; and while I didn’t waste my limited time and money chasing after the perfect body in one of the many fitness clubs in Manhattan, I was strong enough. I should have been able to drag him a short distance away from the fire. Nothing was making any sense, and all the possible explanations put him in a fairly nasty light. Even so, I couldn’t just let him die.

I couldn’t get a good enough grip on his body, so I caught hold of his jacket and yanked. He was unexpectedly heavy, though it shouldn’t have surprised me—the man had towered over my meager five foot three, and I’d felt the crushing strength in his hand as he’d propelled me toward the . . .

I couldn’t remember. Five minutes later, and I couldn’t remember a damned thing. I didn’t know how he’d managed to get burned, or what he’d been trying to do. It was a blank. Everything was a blank. The last thing I remembered was stepping off the curb outside the office building on my way to meet with my editors.

They were going to be pissed as hell that I’d stood them up again.

How much time had passed since then? Days, weeks, months? The short, sassy hairstyle I’d spent a fortune on was now an unruly mane hanging down to my shoulders, and I could see that it was its original mousy brown instead of the tawny, streaked blond I’d gone for. That certainly couldn’t have happened in a matter of hours. How long had I been gone?

His heavy body finally began to budge, and I dragged him as far as I could until he let out a piercing cry of pain. I let him be, squatting beside him, staring at his burned flesh. It was the weirdest thing—it seemed like he had flames beneath his skin, as if his bones were made of burning coals.

His entire body was radiating heat, but apart from his arm he wasn’t painful to touch. The night had grown sharply colder, and the shapeless thing I was wearing wasn’t made for late autumn nights. My patient shivered as I put more wood on the fire. Thank God I’d grabbed an armload. The nighttime marauders seemed to have gone, but there was no guarantee they wouldn’t return if I were fool enough to let the fire go out. Wolves didn’t actually attack people, did they? But who said they were wolves?

It was going to be a long night.

I sat back on my heels, studying him. Who was he, and what the hell had he done to me? There had to be a reasonable explanation for what had appeared to be fangs. There were crazies out there who filed their teeth to points so they could resemble vampires—I’d seen it on one of the rotting corpse television shows like CSI or Bones.

I could certainly see why some people would want to dress up like vampires. After all, bloodsuckers were hot and elegant; they dressed well and clearly had a lot of sex, if all the fiction was to be believed. They also didn’t exist.

But this particular man didn’t need to dress up or pretend to be anything he wasn’t. He was hot, in every sense of the word. I snickered at the notion. No one was around to appreciate my feeble wit, but I’d always managed to amuse myself.

“So what’s up with you?” I demanded of his unconscious figure. “What are we doing here? Did you abduct me?” Wishful thinking on my part. This was a man who clearly had no need to kidnap women. All he had to do was snap his fingers, and they’d be lining up around the block.

I had no illusions about my own charms. I was no troll, and I cleaned up pretty well, but next to this man I was clearly only ordinary. All the gym memberships in the world couldn’t seem to get rid of the unwanted ten pounds that hugged my hips. With the right clothes, hair, and makeup I was someone to reckon with, but even so I’d never be in this man’s league. Right now, dressed in sackcloth and ashes, I probably looked like a bag lady.

Not that I cared. My only company was passed out, presumably for the night. I leaned back, stretching my legs out in front of me, then realized I was leaning against the stone wall. I scrambled away from it, thoroughly creeped out. Hadn’t it split open, revealing some kind of horror . . . ? No, that was impossible.

And yet, where had the fire come from? It seemed to me I could remember flames, like the flames of hell, before he pulled me back again—no, the night must be sending my imagination into overdrive.

Smoke billowed up into the inky-blue sky, and I shivered again, wrapping my arms around my body in a useless attempt to warm myself. I could feel the thin, loose clothing beneath my fingers—it was little wonder I was freezing. And there was a delicious source of heat lying at my feet.

He was nothing special, apart from his rather spectacular good looks. And I lived in the Village—I saw any number of beautiful men on a daily basis and they never made me weak in the knees. Of course, in the Village most of the men would be patently unavailable, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate them. I seriously lusted after Russell Crowe, and he was just as unlikely to find his way into my bed.