The darkness held no sign of life. Memphis’s muscles tensed as a cold breeze flew past her.
Her lips twitched in pleasure as tingles of electrical current slithered from the nape of her neck, down her spine, and caught fire at the clawed fist of the griffin tattooed at her hip. The image had started out as what she believed was a birthmark of an eye, but over the years had spread into the griffin. With each kill, another element of the beast appeared.
Laughter erupted on all sides of her and she braced for battle, her hand on the hilt of the short dagger sheathed on her thigh. Just as the first shadow shifted into a crouch, a strong hand grasped hers and pulled her at top speed out of the dark alley.
She tried dragging her feet, but the body attached to the hand must have been solid muscle and outweighed her by at least fifty pounds.
“Dammit, let go.” She yanked her hand, but only managed to have the hold tightened. She knew you never pulled against the hand but pushed into it, but at the angle she was currently in, she couldn’t do that.
“Don’t be stupid,” the deep, masculine voice said, sending a purely sensual shiver through her system. He stopped long enough to look over his shoulder at her and say, “Little girls shouldn’t play in dark alleys,” and he was tugging her behind him again.
Given in to the knowledge that she couldn’t very well fight with this idiot-turned-hero around, she raced with him up a flight of stairs, through a hall, and back down another flight. Out the door, back into the night and on the street, they ran for a few miles before a click sounded in the silent night air and a car door slung open.
“Get in,” the dark knight yelled.
With a half sigh, half laugh, Memphis slumped into the passenger seat of a very clean, very sleek sports car. He hit speeds over one hundred miles per hour as he made his way through the sleepy streets of Austin. Working on finding some sort of gratitude that might displace her anger, she sank back into the leather seat and studied the man by the console lights. Dark hair, black as pitch, hung loosely over a high forehead and curled at his neck and around his ears. A square jaw, clenched in what seemed to be anger, added masculinity to high, defined cheekbones.
Her heart sputtered in her chest, caught in a frenzy of longing and fear, two feelings she had no use for. A normally brilliant mind blanked. He was beautiful. Not in a pretty, female way, but in a god-fallen-to-the-earth kind of way. And the sense of recognition stunned her. But how? If she’d ever laid eyes on him before, she’d have remembered. There wasn’t a woman alive that wouldn’t have a clear recollection of this strong man.
After what couldn’t have been more than minutes, he slowed and glanced at her. “What the hell where you doing out this time of night?”
She raised a brow at the growl of anger in his voice and bit back a laugh.
“Have you any idea how dangerous it is to walk around a place like that in the light of day, better yet on a moonless night?”
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