It was certainly her stock and trade to ignore what she didn't want to see.

Lowering her lashes, she battled a ridiculous urge to blush. "We should be getting up."

"Abby, please don't shut me out," he said, his voice softening to a dark, pleasant rasp that feathered down her spine. "I didn't mean to frighten you. It's just…"

Against her will, her eyes lifted to clash with his silver gaze. "Just what?"

"I want you to know me for who and what I am, not as some sugar-and-spice image of what you wish I could be."

"I saw you fight that demon, Dante. I know what you are."

Surprisingly he grimaced in the dusky shadows. "No, you don't, but you will before all this is said and done. And that's what I fear."

Suddenly Abby understood. This was about more than just her uncertain opinion of vampires. It was about faith. Trust. In him.

"We both know I would already be dead if you were a human. I'd be a hypocrite to wish you to be anything but what you are," she admitted, a reluctant smile touching her lips. "Besides, my record with men of the human species doesn't precisely make me anxious to be saddled with one for an eternity."

His features thankfully softened at her rueful confession. "No knights in shining armor?"

"Knights? More like mooks."

"Mooks?"

"Well, my last boyfriend dumped me for our mailman, and I do mean mailman, and the one before him stuck around just long enough to steal my ATM code so he could clear out my savings account."

"Worthless vermin." He narrowed Ms gaze.

"Unbelievably they were an improvement to my first boyfriend, who thought the best way to end an argument was with his fists."

There was a stark silence as he studied her face. "He hit you?"

"Only once. I at least learn from my stupidity."

"Do you want me to kill him?"

Abby blinked, not at all certain he was teasing. "Ah… well… a tempting offer, of course, but I suppose I should pass."

He shrugged. "It's an open-ended offer if you change your mind."

"Actually, I prefer to simply forget they ever existed," she assured him.

"A solution of sorts." His gaze swept down to the fullness of her lips before lifting. "But do you think it wise?"

Abby frowned. Surely to God she was not about to receive dating advice from a half-naked vampire who just happened to be perched on top of her?

A deliriously sexy half-naked vampire.

"I would say it's at least wiser than having them eaten," she forced herself to mutter.

"I only wonder if you truly have learned from your mistakes," he said.

"I've learned that I have rotten judgment when it comes to men."

"Or you seek out those who are destined to disappoint you so that you needn't worry about an emotional attachment."

"Oh God, please don't turn Dr. Phil on me," she grumped, not at all in the mood to consider he might be right. "The last thing I need is to be psychoanalyzed by a vampire."

He arched a raven brow. "It is the fact that I am a vampire that gives me some insight. You don't live among humans for four centuries without learning something of their peculiar habits."

"Well, you don't know anything about me."

"No?" His lips curled in a faint smile. "I know that you hate onions and tuna fish, that you consume your weight in chocolate every day without ever gaining a pound, and that you need a recipe to boil water. I know that you pretend to enjoy classical music but change the radio station to punk rock when you think no one is around. I also know that you hide yourself from the world and that you're lonely. You have always been lonely."

Abby dutifully tried to breathe. Unfortunately her lungs refused to cooperate.

Damn him. It was one thing for her to have spent the past three months watching him with covert fascination. After all, she had discovered nothing more intimate than the fact that he was shamefully gorgeous and possessed a haunting skill upon the piano. To think that he had seen so easily through her carefully erected barriers was more than a little unnerving.

"Fine," she muttered. "I have intimacy issues. Yadda, yadda. Now, can we get up?"

His smile only widened. 'There is no hurry. The sun is just now setting."

"Well, you could use a bit of sun," she informed him dryly. 'You are very pale."

'You would see me a pile of ashes, eh?" The silver eyes smoldered with a sudden fire. "And how would I protect you if—"

Mesmerized by his dark honey voice and the promise that softened his features, Abby very nearly missed the shadow that slowly rose up behind the raven head. But when it shifted and neared, her eyes widened and a scream ripped from her throat.

"No!"

Distracted by the sharp lust that so readily consumed him when this woman was near, Dante was unprepared when Abby's scream ripped through the air and she shoved herself upright.

Tossed onto his back, it took a moment to struggle with the blankets wrapped about him. A moment too long as Abby surged from the mattress and attacked the looming form.

"Abby, no," he commanded, flowing upright in a belated attempt to halt her impetuous assault.

He caught no more than a glimpse of a human male before she was shoving the intruder away from the bed and they both tumbled onto the floor. In a heartbeat, or what would be a heartbeat if he were anything but a vampire, Dante was lifting Abby away and crouching beside the unmoving body.

"Hold, lover, he is dead," he murmured, his gaze swiftly taking in the rotting black suit and gaunt hand that still clutched a wooden stake. A vampire assassin. "For the second time, if I don't miss my guess."

Holding on to her towel with the grip of death, Abby regarded the still form with revulsion. Not much of a surprise. Being attacked by a decomposing corpse tended to be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

"My God, what is it?"

"An abomination."

"What?"

"A zombie." His voice was edged with disgust. Even among the demon world, the use of such magics was condemned. To disturb the realm of the underworld was sacrilege. "A dead shell animated by powerful magic. More magic than most demons possess. It isn't alive or dead, which explains why I didn't sense it and how it managed to slip through Viper's spell of protection."

"Zombies." Abby gave a short, near-hysterical laugh. "Great. Just great. Now all we need are a few mummies and a werewolf to complete our official Hoyle deck of monsters."

Dante reached out to touch the cold body that had spilled face-first on the carpet. "Abby, I need you to tell me what happened."

"What do you mean?"

"After you saw the zombie, what did you do?"

He sensed her shift uneasily at his probing. "You were here. You know what happened."

Dante lifted his head to meet her bewildered frown. She was still in shock from the unexpected violence, but at the moment he couldn't comfort her as he desired. It was imperative that he discover all he could of this latest threat.

"Please, Abby, tell me exactly what you did."

"What does it matter?" She gave a shiver. "It's dead, isn't it?"

"As dead as Elvis on this occasion. The question is why he is dead."

"Well, it might have something to do with that gaping hole in his head."

"No, that killed him the first time. When he entered the room, he was animated by magic, not a heartbeat. Nothing could have killed him but fire, preferably of the mystic variety."

"Fire?" She gave a shake of her head. "All I did was push him."

Rolling over the body, Dante jerked open the formal white shirt the poor soul had been buried in. In the shadowed light, the decay of the chest was hardly visible, but there was no mistaking the deep burns that were in the perfect shape of two hands.

Abby's hands.

"That was quite a push, lover," he murmured.

She made a sound deep in her throat as she hastily backed away In horror. "Are you saying that I did that?"

The tight distress in her voice had Dante uncoiling to move directly before her, conveniently blocking out the nasty sight of the corpse.

"I'm saying that you saved me," he informed her sternly. "If you hadn't stopped Undead Walking there, I would be showered over you in a very unflattering shade of ash."

"But how?" she whispered. "How could I do something like that?"

His hands moved to her shoulders to stroke them in a soothing motion. "I did tell you that the Phoenix would find ways to protect itself. There's nothing to be frightened of, Abby."

The brilliant blue eyes flashed with a barely suppressed emotion. "I just burned huge holes in that… thing without even knowing what I was doing."

'You were protecting yourself. And thankfully me in the bargain."

She lifted her hands to stare at them as if they were foreign objects. "But I don't even know how I did it."