He’s going to kill me.

That was all there was to it. If he wasn't going to before, then certainly now that I'd slapped him, I was doomed.

A pit formed in the center of my stomach and seemed to bleed numbness to my limbs and brain.

Was this what happened before you got murdered? Did your body shut down to protect you? I didn't know, but for the second time that night, that was exactly what mine was doing. It wasn’t like me at all and yet there wasn’t a single thing I could do to change it. My brain went into overdrive as I tried to formulate my last and final words.

With a trembling hand, I pulled out my phone and stupidly handed it to him. "Here. If you have to kill me, will you at least tell my sister that I don't blame her? It wasn't her fault and it wasn't Freddy that did it. As much of an ass as he is, I wouldn't want him to be on the hook for my murder."

"Who's Freddy?" the man asked, a confused expression crossing his features.

"A seriously bad date, but I don't see him surviving in prison, and since he wouldn't be guilty of my murder, I would want my sister to know that the guy she set me up with isn't the reason I'm dead." I was babbling and I knew it, but for some reason, I couldn't seem to stop. "I never even got to eat my calzones, what a waste. If I'd known that they were going to be my last meal, I would have ordered extra feta. So what if Freddy hinted that I’m borderline chubby or how I could have gone for a healthier alternative?"

His brow furrowed and a small crease appeared between the slashes that formed his eyebrows, above the nose that was as straight as an arrow. It was crazy to be noticing these details about this man. It wasn't like I was going to be able to provide them to the police later, but I couldn't stop staring.

All in all, it was safe to say that my body was betraying me tonight. On the fritz so badly that it was beyond my control and I hated it. Cool, calm and collected Starling Mitchell had been left behind that bank, and frozen, rambling, terrified Starling had taken her place.

His eyes, still shrouded by darkness, narrowed and he threw his arms out to his sides. "What are you on about, woman? No one is killing anyone. And you can have all the calzones you want."

"You aren’t going to kill me?" While that was the most random question that I never thought I would ask, there I was, patiently waiting for him to answer it. But there was nothing ordinary about this night.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I'm trying to help you." His deep baritone was low but seemed sincere as his hands went to his narrow hips. “I’d thought that was obvious by now.”

A peal of manic laughter escaped from my lips. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that you’re going to let me get away, scot-free? I’ve seen too much. I just watched you kill a man…"

His chin dropped lower, while his eyes locked on to mine, cutting my rambling short. "You watched me kill a man who was trying to rape you. He wouldn't have hesitated to follow through if I hadn't followed him and stopped him. He isn’t a first-time offender. He’s responsible for the assault of four women over the course of the last few months."

"He was?”

"He was," the man confirmed, the cool, powerful aura of a male who wields authority and confidence as if they'd been born in line to the throne that I had glimpsed earlier returning. "While you were so sure that I was going to kill you, did you notice that I left the man's new sidekick unscathed?"

"Unscathed?" I asked dubiously, remembering bruises that had already been growing on the man's face when he ran.

His eyebrow raised even higher as he scoffed. "While he got nothing less than he deserved, it was no accident that he got away with his life."

"No accident, huh? So you’re the judge, jury and executioner?"

Lips curling into a half smile, he nodded slowly. "Something like that. The point is, that he is alive because he hasn't actually done anything yet. Tonight was supposed to be his first foray into that particular side of how utterly appalling humanity can be. We can only hope that what he witnessed scared him straight, otherwise, he will most definitely find himself in the same place as his depraved mentor. And believe me, we’ll be watching.”

That cultured lilt in his voice was impossible to ignore. Trust me, I tried.

"So you're some kind of monster vigilante?" How I was even asking these questions with a straight face, I would never know. “Like Batman?”

"Something like that. We'll keep the accomplice under watch and if needs be, we’ll step in," he said nonchalantly, angling his body slightly to the side and bringing his profile into clearer view under the light of the streetlamp at the end of the path that he had been blocking.

My job wasn't glamorous and neither was my life, but I'd read my fair share of fashion magazines, and not even on the pages of the most exclusive of those, had I ever seen even a male model who could hold a candle to this guy.

Now that I was fairly certain that he wasn't going to kill me, I let myself take a closer look at him. High cheekbones formed a perfect, sharp indent underneath them in this light. His eyes, their exact color still hidden, looked out at the world from behind long, black lashes that framed eyes that burned into mine with an intensity previously unknown to me.

There were no lines on his face and he didn't look to be more than a couple years older than my twenty-four, but there was something in the way that he carried himself that suggested a maturity and a worldliness that guys my age––and much older, if I was being honest––lacked in its entirety.

He seemed completely at ease, even standing on a darkened path with a strange woman and having killed a man not an hour ago. For the first time, I noticed that there wasn't so much as a drop of blood on him. In fact, he could probably have walked right into the swankiest restaurant in town and fit right in.

That realization drew me back to the present, where I was ogling the mysterious stranger and the fact that he was a real-life Batman.

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"

An amused smirk pulled at the corners of his mouth. "Welcome back. Honestly, you're welcome to believe anything that you want. I learned a long time ago that I can't change beliefs and, frankly, I don't really have time right now."

"You don't have time?"

Did vampire monster vigilantes have office hours?

"Nope. I need to get back to work. That's if you're done checking me out?"

A surprised snort-laugh at his directness escaped my mouth and I slapped a hand over my lips to stifle it, but it was too late.

"I wasn't checking you out. I was trying to memorize your features in case I had to describe it to the police after you attacked me,” I corrected primly.

"Fine. If that’s what you want to tell yourself. But right now, I just really need to get you home so that I can go back to work. And you’re not going to the police." There was still nothing but sincerity in his tone, he didn't even seem annoyed by my holding him up.

Both of my eyebrows shot up as I ignored everything he said after the word home. "Are you asking if you can take me home?"

"I'm not asking. I am seeing you home safe and then I’m going back to work." He made a sweeping gesture with one of his large hands toward the end of the path. "After you, lead the way."

My feet remained planted on the ground and the puffs of smoke caused by my breath were coming faster at the thought of this man knowing where I lived, though I'd be lying to myself if I tried to convince myself that the cause for it was fear anymore.

What the hell was happening to me? My knees and palms were still aching from my recent attack and I was contemplating letting a strange man into my house, now?

Maybe I’d hit my head on the way to the pavement.

"I'm not in the habit of letting strange men escort me home."

Lips quirking, he shook his head slightly and muttered what sounded like, "stubborn and smart." But I couldn't be sure.

"I'm not that strange,” he said. "Besides, does saving your ass not count for anything around here?"

As much as I hated to admit it, he had something of a point. But even more than that, as I gazed into the dark night, I realized I wasn’t ready to be alone. Not yet.

"Fine, let's go."

I hurried past him and he followed me to my house without saying another word. His very presence, however, suddenly made me feel safer and more protected than I ever had before, and I realized then that I trusted that he wasn't going to hurt me. That was what was making all the difference.

Which probably meant that I owed him an apology as well as a thank you.

When we reached my house, I slowed and pointed at my small front porch. "That's me."

"That's great, but I'm seeing you all the way inside."

I shrugged, dug my keys out of my jacket pocket and unlocked the door.

"Thank you. For everything,” I said sincerely. “I don't know what I would have done without you."

"You won't ever have to know. That pathetic excuse of a man hurt enough people, but he won't be hurting anyone anymore."

“Thanks to you," I said, trying to block the memory of the man still crumpled in the alleyway from my mind.

I couldn’t work up even an ounce of pity, but it sure did remind me that I had a plethora of questions that I wanted to ask this man. "Look, I feel really stupid for the way that I acted back there. Would you like to come inside for a drink or a cup of coffee, it's the least I can do."

In the light of my porch, a little brighter than any other I'd been in with him that night, I could see that his eyes were a deep green, like freshly cut grass after the summer rain, with an almost amber ring around his irises. They also had a blueish hue that reminded me of heather in a field. They were entrancing, enchanting and very much unique.

However, at my invitation, they flared and he pointed almost stiffly at my grazed palms and knees from my earlier fall. A burning amber color overtook the green as he shook his head.

"I wish I could stay, but that isn't a good idea,” he told me, capturing my gaze with those eyes.

"Why not?" It certainly looked like he wanted to. “Your kind doesn’t drink coffee or?”

Exhaling on a heavy sigh, he managed a tight smile. "You want the truth?"

"Yeah?"

He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and winced slightly in a way that seemed uncharacteristic, even though that was crazy to even think because I knew next to nothing about him. "My kind prefers blood and yours smells unbearably sweet. It’s kind of driving me mad. I really wish that I could have stayed."

My jaw dropped and I was sure he was toying with me. Strangely, it didn't actually look like he was kidding, though. His jaw was clenched, his shoulders locked, and it looked like he was torn between sweeping me up in his arms on the one hand and bolting away from me as fast as his legs could carry him on the other.

Speaking of which, he turned and strode away from me with determined strides. I called out to him just as he reached the edge of the narrow stone pathway that led to my porch.

"Will I ever see you again?" I called, knowing I sounded like some fool from a black and white movie but unable to stop myself.

Pausing to turn slowly until he faced me, he shrugged his shoulders, hands still jammed into his pockets. "That's entirely up to you."

I had no freaking idea what that meant, but before I could ask him, he was gone.

Having had the most bizarre night of my life and one that I was sure would get me booked into a padded room for an indeterminable amount of time if I ever talked about it, I trudged into my house and bolted my door behind me, mind still reeling.

What a crazy, messed up, sometimes beautiful world we lived in… I couldn't quite make sense of the events of the night or the man who had come to my rescue. Shedding my jacket and boots, I padded to my kitchen wearing my woolly, cold-weather socks and poured myself a healthy glass of wine.

I was more than relieved that I was home safely and my head still spun, nausea hitting me like a tsunami when I considered the alternatives, but for some reason I wasn't scared anymore. I wasn’t panicked or freaked out anymore and I was ninety percent sure that I wasn’t crazy. Eighty percent sure that I had, in fact, seen a real-life vampire in action.

Okay, maybe sixty.

But I wasn’t feeling anything that I thought I would’ve been. If anything, I was restless, and if I was being completely honest with myself, surprisingly needy.

My phone buzzed and I tugged it out, peering down at a message from my sister.

Sorry, I forgot to call! Everything go okay with Fred?

Laughter bubbled up to my lips as I shot back a short reply, promising to fill her in the next day. I couldn’t talk about all this. Not yet. Not only did I need to process it all, I also felt a strange need to hold it close to me for a while. How could I explain it properly? The strange, almost preternatural intimacy between me and the man whose name I didn’t even know?

All I knew was that this couldn’t be the end. This couldn’t be the last time I saw my savior.

I wouldn’t let it.