Blade's Lady. Fiona Brand

before. The receptionist had been pleasant but officious. If Anna wanted to see anyone else, she would have to make an appointment. Not surprising, Anna thought, since she’d turned up in her waitressing uniform—Joe’s Bar and Grill emblazoned across her chest—and given her name as Johnson.

      The shabby entrance sign to Ambrose Park loomed, lit by the solitary spotlight that hadn’t been broken or stolen. The park was pleasant enough to walk across during daylight hours, but at night it was devoid of all charm and more likely to hold vagrants than lovers.

      A tingling of the nerves down her spine, a cold jab of awareness, presaged a whisper of sound, the scrape of a shoe on pavement.

      Anna ducked, feinted, felt the rush of air as something passed close to her head. Instinctively, she lashed out with the briefcase; it connected solidly. There was a muffled curse, a grunt as whoever had tried to hit her slipped on the slick concrete and tumbled, almost taking her with him.

      A booted foot caught her heavily on one knee. She flailed, grabbed for balance, almost dropping the briefcase. Her shoulder caught the edge of one of the unevenly plastered pillars that guarded the broad entrance to the park. She reeled, still off balance, and saw the cold gleam of light travel the length of a gun barrel as the man regained his feet.

      Time seemed to slow, stop, freeze her in place while her mind groped past a paralysing blankness; then fear slammed through her, and with a gasping breath she plunged into the darkness.

      In abrupt contrast to the blankness of just moments ago, thoughts and decisions now tumbled in a frantic cascade. The park was her best option; the trees were closer than any building, the undergrowth thick at the edges. And it was very dark. He couldn’t shoot her if he couldn’t see her.

      Clutching the case to her chest, Anna lengthened her stride, but her sneakers kept losing their purchase, slipping on the wet grass.

      She risked a glance over her shoulder. A burst of adrenaline punched hotly through her as she saw the man coming after her and knew this was no ordinary mugging. She stumbled, regained her balance. A sense of unreality gripped her as she passed by the darker outline of a set of swings and a slide—innocent reminders of a childhood that for her had ended brutally in a flooded river.

      Oh God. She had allowed herself to become complacent, over-confident—lulled by the knowledge that her twenty-seventh birthday was only weeks away, and then she could end this madness. She had been wrong; she’d been found. Someone had been lying in wait for her.

      If it hadn’t been for that burst of awareness, honed by years of running and hiding, she would be dead. She knew that as surely as she knew that Henry had set her up.

      She had made a mistake. Stupid. Stupid.

      The notice in the paper had served a purpose other than the obvious legal one; it had also been a ploy to flush her out of hiding. There had been someone watching the lawyer’s office; she had been followed from there.

      She should have rung Emerson Stevens instead of showing up unannounced, only to be blocked. If she’d rung, she would have found out Emerson was dead, and that there was no point in approaching Stevens, Harrow and Cooper directly yet, because with Emerson gone, there was no-one there who knew her by sight. No-one who would believe that she hadn’t died when her car had plunged over a cliff into the sea almost seven years ago. No-one who would give her the time of day without irrefutable evidence of her identity.

      It was a catch-22 situation. To establish her identity, she would have to reveal herself, turn herself into a target while the wheels of justice slowly ground their course. If she had to resort to DNA testing to prove her right to her own inheritance, that could take months, and money she didn’t have.

      Panic grabbed at her insides as the ruthless simplicity of Henry’s strategy sank in and eroded her confidence. Henry was nothing if not thorough. Having her declared legally dead would finalise his claim on Tarrant Holdings, then he would make the legal fiction a physical fact by having her disposed of before she had time to establish her identity.

      One way or another, the shadowed half life of Anna Johnson-Tarrant would cease.

      She heard the pounding of footsteps above her own, caught the edge of a guttural phrase, and panic surged again. The man was gaining. She could hear the grunting rush of his breath as he strained to catch her, almost feel the brush of his fingers as he reached to grab her clothing, a shoulder, an arm. The trees loomed close, closer, then she was among them, branches whipping at her legs, tugging at her clothing as she weaved blindly, more by instinct than sight, because it was like running into a wall of darkness. She wavered, confused, slammed head first into a tree and fell to the ground, stunned.

      She rolled and crawled on—the briefcase awkward—thankful that the thick layer of leaves was too sodden to rustle. A rough oath grated, low and harsh. Light dazzled her as the beam of a flashlight swept the trees, flooding the dense brush with an unholy radiance that backlit the short, stocky man who was after her. The beam scythed over her head. She dropped flat, damming her startled breath in her throat, hugging the cold, wet earth like a hungry lover.

      After an eon, he moved on. She could hear the uneven thud of his tread—as if he was limping—feel the hot pulse of a lump forming on her forehead, taste blood in her mouth.

      Her head spun as she regained her feet and started in the direction opposite from the one the man was taking, feeling her way from tree to tree, lifting and setting her feet down with care. The ground was uneven, an obstacle course of jutting tree roots and slippery vegetation.

      The beam swung back, almost silhouetting her. She ducked and crouched behind a tree trunk, holding her breath for long, strained moments. When the beam swung away, she once more hugged her briefcase to her chest and headed for the only source of light she could see, a blue and red glow that she knew emanated from the towering neon Gamezone sign that garishly announced the presence of the video arcade near her flat.

      Minutes later, she stumbled free of the trees and stepped into…darkness.

      The fall was abrupt, shocking. For long moments she lay unmoving, facedown in what she dimly recognised as the deeply carved groove of a storm drain. The smell of mud and her own fear filled her nostrils; the sound of her racing heart jackhammered in her ears. She still had her briefcase; it was lodged beneath her, its hard edges digging into her stomach, her breasts. She was going to have bruises—lots of them.

      Pushing herself onto her hands and knees, she gripped the case and fought to still the sickening spinning in her head. She fingered the tight, tender lump already forming there.

      Clutching a fistful of icy grass, she began to climb out of the ditch. She was almost out, so close, when she lost her footing and, hampered by the awkward weight of the case, tumbled back. A sound broke from her throat. Pain flared, as if someone had just driven a thick spike through her skull, then dissolved into swirling shards of darkness.

      Just before the blackness claimed her completely, the elusive threads of the old familiar fantasy she used to escape into when she was a child—and sometimes even now, when she dreamed—wound through her mind.

      Her knight.

      His face shimmered into vague focus: the long hair, black as midnight satin; fierce, dark eyes; the strong chiseled planes and angles of a face that was both grimly handsome and exotically sensual. Oh yeah, he was a fantasy, all right. Why couldn’t you be real? she thought hazily.

      Right now, the fantasy, pretty as it was, just didn’t do the job.

      Blade shoved free of the bed. And the dream.

      His heart was pounding, his skin damp with sweat, his chest heaving like a bellows. He swore, a low, dark rumble of sound. Dragging unsteady fingers through his hair, he fought to banish the image of mist and rain and darkness. Trees, lots of trees, and a pulsing neon sign. The woman, lying crumpled on the ground, afraid…hunted. A dark bank rearing overhead.

      The dream had been strong this time.

      A shudder swept him, compliments of the disorientating aftermath of the dream—and other far more potent