Grace by Mina Carter

…couldn’t exist. Even as she thought it, things started to click into place. His absences during the day. He wasn’t dedicated to his work; he’d been avoiding the damn sun.
    Jaron bit down. His teeth sliced through the skin of his victim’s throat like a knife through hot butter. The guy jerked and twitched as Grace watched in stunned silence. Jaron didn’t open his eyes as he drank. She could almost hear the muscles of his throat working as he swallowed.
    A moment later, Jaron released the man and the corpse slid to the floor, like a puppet with its strings cut. Jaron looked up at her, flinching as he almost met her eyes, as though he was afraid to look at her. He looked away at the last minute. Then he was moving again and the rest of their captors didn’t stand a chance.
    Grace looked away from the carnage. She curled into a ball against the wall, as Jaron tore through their abductors. Literally. Strangled screams of pain were followed by wet splashes and dull thuds as bodies hit the floor. She tried to keep her gaze averted, tried to make sense of what was happening around her.
    Blood sprayed up the wall next to her, a hot, wet, vivid scarlet spray. It slid down onto the floor next to her in heavy drops. Drip…drip…drip . Like a leaky faucet. The tap in her bathroom had dripped like that until Jaron had called someone in to fix it. Fayte had never bothered. Grace snorted; well she wouldn’t have, would she, if she was planning to kill Grace anyway? Grimly she clung to that thought, ignoring the fact that not ten feet away her lover was tearing people apart with his bare hands.
    Was she going to be next?
    Silence fell over the warehouse. Only two sets of breathing. Hers and Jaron’s. His wasn’t even labored; she suspected he didn’t need to breathe, that he was only breathing as part of his human disguise.
    “People tend to notice if I don’t.”
    Grace flinched as he spoke, his voice far closer than she expected. His feet came into her field of vision, expensive Italian leather shoes. A speck of blood marred his toe. Grace couldn’t help but stare at it. He’d ruined his shoes; that stain would never come out.
    “You ruined your shoes.”
    “What?” His voice held confusion as he squatted beside her, his knees coming into view now. Grace felt rather than heard him move. He extended his hand toward her and she flinched, expecting him to grab her at any moment, sink his teeth into her neck and kill her.
    “Grace, please, I wouldn’t do that.” His voice was agonised, as though he could see the image in her head. Startled, Grace looked up, directly into his blazing blue eyes. “You can read my mind.” Not a question, but a statement. Another realisation as things made more sense now.
    Jaron nodded, his hand falling away. “Just the surface thoughts; I don’t go any deeper.”
    “God, no wonder you were so perfect. You knew exactly what I wanted because you could see it in my mind.” Grace slammed her head back against the wall, irritation and embarrassment surging through her. No wonder he’d been able to seduce her so easily, been able to get around her normal reserve. She’d wondered at that. Wondered what it was about him that allowed him to judge her responses and know when to push and when to back off. He’d been reading her damn mind.
    The little part of her mind that was prone to hysteria yammered that there was a vampire crouched not three feet away but she ignored it. If Jaron wanted to kill her, there wasn’t anything she could do to stop him.
    “Please, Gracie, look at me. Despite what you’re thinking, I’m not going to hurt you. I-I love you.”
     
    Jaron had lived centuries but he’d never been this frightened. He sat, crouched in front of the woman he loved—the human woman he loved—who’d just found out he was a blood sucking fiend from beyond the grave.
    She wouldn’t look at him as he untied her and her flinch cut him to the bone. If he’d been capable of