It seemed to me these were warnings, but the guy on top of me was apparently insane because he ignored the warnings of the huge, vicious, snarling dogs. His head dipped toward me, slanted, then his mouth was at my neck.

Oh shit. Oh shit!

This was definitely not good.

I belatedly opened my mouth to scream.

Not that first sound came out because suddenly I wasn’t immobilized. Nothing was on me, nothing holding me down.

I still didn’t move.

This was because something I couldn’t see, and not only because it was dark, but because it was happening so…damned…fast, was whirling around me.

I would know what that was when sickening, warm gushes of blood spurted across my chest and neck about a half a second before I saw a canine head (with no body, mind) roll across the asphalt in front of me. More blood splashed the pavement beside me in a hideous surge and I heard the heinous noises of body after lifeless body thudding to the ground.

Then I was up, my own body swinging like it was flying through the air, but I felt hands on me. A breeze was blowing through my hair, I was moving so fast, and then my back slammed against the brick wall of the building at the side of the alley.

I blinked, not feeling the wall at my back but the intense hard-muscled warmth of a body pressed to my front and before my eyes. A man.

A shock of black hair.

An intriguingly tilted set of eyes, the hue I couldn’t make out in the dark, but shockingly, I could see one was a color that was light, the other a color that was definitely dark.

Strong jutting jaw, sharp cheekbones, heavy brow.

The slash of an angry scar that went across his forehead, through his left eyebrow, disconnected then rejoined on his cheekbone to slide all the way down his face, curling around his jaw and disappearing.

I panted in his blood-stained face.

He stared, intense and frightening, into mine, his gaze, honest to God, like a touch.

I stopped panting because I stopped breathing.

His face came closer and my stomach clenched, my muscles tensed near to snapping, my chest burned, but his head veered and he touched his temple to mine, slid it back, rubbing it through my hair.

I sucked in breath only to hold it again when his hands left my armpits. One traveled down my side and then curved to become an arm around my back, holding me so strong, I was plastered to his front. The other went up, over my shoulder and in to curl tight and freakishly warm around the side of my neck.

His chin dipped and I felt his lips at my ear.