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snapped back. With a bang, a large crack shot through the Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 16
    middle of it and it sagged on its hinges but still stood as a barrier.
    “Bloody Zayan,” the earl muttered.
    Althea jerked her gaze to Brookshire’s face, swathed in the pale blue glow. A deep red fire burned in the depth of his eyes and she caught her breath at the sight. He was a demon and she was praying for his help?
    But what else could she do? She’d never been so helpless. None of her weapons could help against so much power.
    “Get back.”
    She flinched at his brutal command.
    “Back, goddammit.”
    Stumbling back, Althea snagged a slipper in her hem and tumbled against the wall behind.
    Her stake bit into her stomach and frantic breathing surrounded her—her own, choked and raw and desperate. The earl lifted his gloved hands, palms facing the door.
    A blast of light arced from his hands and the door exploded into splinters. He was definitely no ordinary vampire.
    “Stay there,” the earl barked as he stepped in a maelstrom of white and blue light. The dazzling stars swirled as though trapped in a whirlpool. They gathered in a large white ball, which raced into the room behind him.
    Wresting the stake from inside her wrapper, she got to her feet and staggered to the doorway.
    “Miss Yates, you’re not to go in there, lass.”
    A hand caught hold of her shoulder, the instant she recognized the voice. Mick O’Leary!
    Finally!
    Althea twisted beneath his grip and rapped the stake across his knuckles.
    “Ow. Christ Jesus!” O’Leary’s hand jerked open, giving her an instant to storm forward.
    As if she would cower in the hallway while her father was in danger! But as she raced into Father’s room, she could not see a thing other than spinning stars and flashes of light.
    Cries and shouts and thudding boots came from behind her—O’Leary and other servants charging into the room.
    “Father?”
    “Althea!”
    Dizzy with relief, Althea stumbled through the dark room toward her father’s voice. But cold wrapped around her, squeezing tight. A slithery cold as though an enormous snake had dropped on her. She slashed blindly with her stake. The tip glanced off an object, and she drove harder, with two hands. She felt it penetrate and pushed it home.
    Something exploded behind her and the force shoved her forward.
    Warm, comforting arms embraced her. “Althea, my love.” Her father’s voice, but weak, a mere whisper near her ear. She pulled her head back from his chest, searching through the screaming lights.
    “Father, we must get out. Can you move?”
    But he didn’t answer, and she felt his hands brush over her back in the sign of the cross. He muttered over and over. Latin, but her head filled with a rush of sound and she couldn’t Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 17
    understand his words.
    “Father, what is it? What are you fighting?”
    A clap of thunder burst inside the room and the lights shot away, toward the window. As they moved, they seemed to tug at her, like a ferocious wind that could pull her off the ground.
    Father’s grip tightened and she clung to him, her hands fisted in his nightshirt.
    Her ears rang with the screeching sounds of the fleeing lights, and then, so loud she feared her ears would burst, a cry of rage exploded.
    Then silence.
    In the center of the strange, frightening stillness, the vampire earl stood, fists raised to the sky. A faint green glow pulsed around him and as she watched, terrified, the soft light sucked back into his body and disappeared.
    Her father sagged against her. Althea caught him, tried to hold him up. Where was his bed?
    Moonlight spilled into the room now, and she saw, to her amazement, that nothing appeared out of place—not the furniture, or the bed. The earl lowered his arms. He stood in a pool of moonlight, his hair and face as silver as the light, and he looked like a