One & Only

"ONE AND ONLY is brilliant to the very end." - Romance Junkies

"ONE AND ONLY is a captivating paranormal romance." - Wild on Books

"...emotionally romantic... There's a tender thread throughout that works well with themes of friendship, loyalty, and hope, as well as the continuing battle of good vs. evil." - Joyfully Reviewed

CHAPTER ONE
What was that noise? It was subtle, yet it grated on the ancient one’s sensitive hearing. A metallic twang-slap-grind that set his teeth on edge and made him wonder just how mechanically sound this old shuttle bus really was.
Once again, he marveled at how a being as powerful as he still needed to conform to the expectations of mortals—especially in the brave new world of technology. It was becoming harder and harder to reinvent himself now that his image was captured routinely in a myriad of different official ways. The next time he had to “die” and come back, he’d have to alter his appearance drastically. Mortal memories might be short, but photographs, it seemed, lived forever.
Of course, that was supposing he’d bother to come back this time.
Atticus Maxwell had been alive longer than he believed any being rightly should. The centuries had become endless. The business of living was tedious, with no one to share it with. Atticus had always been a loner, but had always held the secret hope that someday he would find at least one person in all the world—and all the centuries—to share his life.
It was the dearest goal of many of his kind. After a few centuries, most bloodletters settled down and began the search for the one person who could complete them. It was a serious business, and a quest he didn’t take lightly, but after so many years, he’d pretty much given up hope.
Atticus had searched longer than most, but he was still alone.

Lissa hadn’t wanted to board the shuttle bus, but there was no other feasible way to get to the rustic mountain retreat where a business conference she had to attend was being held. The place was on a rocky hillside that bordered wine country. The views were said to be magnificent and the five-star cuisine was not to be missed. Or so the travel agent had promised.
Lissa was at a crossroads in her career, having just lost her job as an account manager due to company downsizing. This conference was supposed to help her network for new contacts in her field and also had the advantage of hosting a small job fair of sorts. She had two interviews lined up for tomorrow, in fact, but she couldn’t seem to shake the feeling of foreboding that had enveloped her when she boarded the hotel’s private shuttle bus.
It happened that way sometimes. Lissa had a very small psychic gift that had helped her avoid trouble in the past, but tonight she was getting mixed signals from her sixth sense. She didn’t want to board the bus, but she didn’t know if that apprehensive knot in the bottom of her stomach was due to the shuttle bus itself, the passengers on it with her, or the conference that awaited her.
Then he’d appeared.
A man. Out of the night. He’d stolen her breath, and all her senses—both mystical and mundane—had gone on alert. He was dangerous. She could tell that, just by the aura of power that surrounded him. But he was also the most handsome and enticing being she had ever encountered.
Her sixth sense pulled her toward him. It made her yearn for him in a way she had never yearned before. Something about him was both arresting and fearsome at the same time, yet he drew her as a moth to a flame, and she was powerless to resist his allure.
So she boarded the bus. She allowed herself to be drawn in. She’d even encroached on his personal space to the point where he stumbled over her foot, crushing her toes for a short moment while her cheeks flamed in embarrassment.
“I’m so sorry,” he said as he stumbled. Alarmed blue eyes met her gaze for a brief moment as shock passed over his features. “Please excuse me.”
His voice rolled over her, rich and deep. It rumbled through her very being, awakening every synapse in that brief moment that was over all too soon. She smiled at him and mumbled her acknowledgment, but he’d already turned to claim his seat farther back in the crowded shuttle bus.
And that was the extent of their contact.
So little to build such a lasting impression. Lissa knew she would never forget the man as long as she lived, though she would probably never even know his name.

Atticus pondered the small woman he had unwittingly touched. She was a drab little thing in her buttoned up navy blue suit, but there was something very appealing about her. He had sought the mountain retreat that overlooked his own land in the valley far below for a bit of peace, but his thoughts were in more turmoil now than they had been in many decades.
Who was that woman? And why did she claim so much of his attention?
He really should be concentrating more on the strange sounds coming from the van’s undercarriage, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away from her. He could just see the top of her head over the top of the seat a few rows in front of him. She had lustrous brown hair he wanted to feel under his fingers.
Lightning flashed close by, distracting him, and the bus swerved on the slick mountain road. The driver pumped the brakes and the grinding sound elevated to a screeching metallic twang ending with a sickening snap. Quick as that lightning flash, the bus slid sideways on the wet pavement, overturned, then tumbled over the edge of the ribbon of road, into the void.
The shuttle bus rolled violently down the steep ravine. Atticus was thrown from side-to-side, top-to-bottom in a violent thrashing of metal against soft tissue that had no chance at all against such devastation.
The shuttle bus came to rest, after long moments of sickening freefall, at the bottom of a cliff, deep in wet foliage. The only sound was the creaking of metal as it rocked to a stop and the steady drip of soft rain on the leaves of the forest.
He was going to die.
Finally, after over a thousand years of walking the earth, his life was going to end. Atticus almost welcomed it.
But the girl would die, too, and that bothered him. He thought it odd. By now he probably shouldn’t have a conscience left, but the thought of her death—when he could, in all likelihood, save her—plagued him.
His worries seemed very far away while lying in a pool of his own blood, with some kind of support beam making a hole in his chest. Atticus felt his immortal life slipping away, but the faint, struggling gasps for breath issuing from the small woman called him back. She was alive. For the moment.