Primal

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The events in Bleeding Heart take place a few days after those in Nightshade.

ONE

“She’s the chick with the vamp-killing blood?”

The loud voice pulled me out of a thick cloud of nightmares about pale-skinned monsters with sharp teeth and claws. I opened my eyes wide and stared up at the peeling white paint on the motel room’s ceiling.

“Yeah, her name’s Jill,” was the reply. Both voices—one familiar and one not—came from outside, and I could hear them clearly through the thin door.

“So, what are you? Like, her protector or something?”

“Something like that.”

“Shit, man. You’re not forgetting you’re half vampire, right? What if you get a taste of her? Will it kill you, too?”

“I don’t drink blood, so I’m not planning on finding out.”

I slipped out of the lumpy bed and moved toward the window to the left of the door so I could peek outside. The view was the same as it had been for three days—a very unglamorous gray cement parking lot with a dying twenty-foot-tall palm tree blocking my view of the main street.

Declan Reyes stood with his back to the green door, his profile clearly visible to me. He’d lost his left eye a long time ago, and the damage was covered by a black eye patch. His face was scarred around that patch from old injuries, just like the rest of his body. Dhampyrs like Declan—half human and half vampire—healed fast, but scarred from every flesh wound they received. They also didn’t have the benefits of immortality like a vampire did. Thanks to his human side, Declan was every bit as mortal as I was.

He had his arms crossed over his chest, and he faced a darkhaired man only a couple inches short of his six-four. The man looked tough, like a bouncer or a bodyguard.

Or, more likely, a vampire hunter.

Declan had said he was going to contact one of his old pals here in Los Angeles to see if he could help us out. This must have been the pal in question. Nice of him to make house calls.

The idea of anyone else getting involved with my problems didn’t set my mind at ease, but I was trying not to complain. I’d recently become extremely guarded about my privacy. It was safer that way.

The man’s lips parted to show straight white teeth as he grinned. “Wait. I think I get it. You’re doing her, aren’t you?”

“Doing her?” Declan replied dryly.

His smile widened. “Got to say, I’m surprised. Rumor had it that you were . . . uh, how do I put it?”

“What?”

“Neutered. Don’t take it the wrong way, but that’s what I heard. That serum you were on before—the shit that kept your vamp side at bay—I heard it fucked with your libido. Always wondered why you were never that interested in hitting the titty bars with me. I guess now I know, right?”

Declan glared at him without speaking, and I gripped the window ledge, worried that there would be a fight between them. This was one of Declan’s friends? He sounded like a Grade-A asshole, enough to make my skin crawl.

I actually jumped when Declan laughed a second later. It was a humorless sound.

“My sex life is none of your fucking business, Jackson.”

“I’ll take that as an affirmative.” Jackson was laughing, too. “What about the permanent drug you’re on now? Does that—”

“It works the same as before. Actually, it feels even stronger than the other one. I’m with Jill to keep her safe until we find a way to get the Nightshade formula out of her blood.” Declan’s jaw tensed. “That’s all.”

“So you’re not fucking her.”

“It’s none of your damn business either way. But no.”

Jackson’s shit-eating grin didn’t waver. “But you have. No wonder you’re so into this chick. Memories of a great lay can fuel a guy for a long damn time. I bet she’s hot. When can I meet her?”

“She’s sleeping.”

I pushed open the door, leveling my gaze with the nosy hunter I’d already decided to dislike. “I’m awake now. Hard to have an afternoon nap when there’s so much testosterone flying around.”

“You heard all that?” Jackson scanned the length of me. I’d slept in jeans and a black tank top so I was already fully dressed.

“I heard enough.”

He glanced into the room, his gaze stopping at a plastic baby bottle and pile of disposable diapers. “Did I wake the baby?”

“There’s no baby,” I said, with a sharp look at Declan.

Jackson frowned. “Just collecting kid paraphernalia in case one suddenly appears out of nowhere?”

“I was looking after a baby for someone, but Declan took her elsewhere yesterday and won’t tell me where.” I sounded as pissed as I felt. I had a hard time hiding my feelings, especially when it came to the things that were totally out of my control.

A vampire—a vampire king, actually—named Matthias had asked me to protect his newborn daughter. It was his last request he’d made just before he’d died from drinking my blood.

He was gone. But the promise I’d made remained.

The promise that Declan had taken out of my hands.

“Jill . . .” Declan looked at me out of the corner of his good eye.

“Am I lying?”

“It’s better this way.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that.”

I did agree that my current life was nowhere a baby should be, and I’d be the first to acknowledge I wasn’t born with strong maternal instincts, but it bothered me that he’d made this choice alone and refused to tell me where she was—only that she was safe and being cared for. Declan believed the baby was in danger and that any vampire who wanted to find her could mentally influence my weak human mind to learn where she was. She was a dhampyr like Declan. Because of that, her infant blood was worth its weight in diamonds to vampires who believed the rumors that it imbued true immortality when consumed.

Maybe Declan was right to take her somewhere she’d be better looked after than with us, but it didn’t mean I had to like it.

He was just damn lucky I’d come to trust his judgment about shit like this.

The vampire hunter extended his hand. “Jackson Gale. Great to meet you, Jill.”

I glanced at Declan, but his expression was unreadable. Another one of his drug’s side effects, apart from impotence, was keeping my dhampyr traveling companion virtually emotionless. It was a difficult thing to get used to.

Finally, I grasped Jackson’s hand and shook it. “Charmed, I’m sure. So what’s going on? Or would you like to continue talking about what a great lay I am?”

Jackson grinned. “Nice.”

Declan’s expression tensed. “I wish you hadn’t overheard that.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

For an emotion-free dhampyr, he now looked a little bit embarrassed.

“Declan’s filled me in on the Nightshade formula in your blood.” Jackson eyed me. “How do you feel?”

I paused for a moment, deciding how much I wanted to share with this stranger, then figured what the hell. “I’ve felt better. But I haven’t had any side effects for a few days.”

“What kind of side effects were you getting before?” He leaned against the wall next to the open motel door. I hadn’t yet stepped outside. I glanced around to make sure nobody but the three of us was within hearing distance.

“After I was first injected, I got nausea from hell. And lots of pain. Those side effects have leveled off, but this poison will kill me unless I find a way to get it out.”

“Damn.” He watched me, his brow creased. “Then lucky for you I’m here. I’ve been looking into things, and I know where you need to go.”

“Where?” I failed to keep the naked eagerness out of my voice.

“The parachemist who created the Nightshade formula in the first place—everyone thought he worked alone, but they were wrong.”

Declan crossed his arms. “He didn’t?”

Jackson shook his head. “He had a partner a couple years ago, Dr. Victor Reynolds. He works out of a covert research facility on the edge of the city. He wants to meet you—both of you—to see if he can do anything to fix this.” His previously amused expression faded, and I was surprised to see concern now etched there. “Look, I don’t know you, Jill, but I can see that you’ve been through a lot of bad shit. You’re not a part of this world. You shouldn’t have been dragged into it.”

“You’re right, she shouldn’t have,” Declan said, and we shared a look. I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and come between him, his gun, and a man who’d used me as a hostage before injecting me with Nightshade—the only sample of it there was.

Only a week ago I didn’t know vampires were real. That there was a branch of science that specialized in the paranormal. That a formula could be developed that would make my scent irresistible to vampires, but one taste would turn them into fire and ash. I’d fallen head first down the rabbit hole, and I’d been looking for a way out ever since. Looked like Jackson just might have a map for me.

While I could never forget everything I’d seen and experienced, I was ready for this roller-coaster ride to be over once and for all.

“When can I meet Dr. Reynolds?” I asked.

Jackson looked at each of us in turn. “How does now sound?”

WE DROVE WITH Jackson forty minutes across Los Angeles to what looked like a small, run-down warehouse on the edge of the city. Declan parked about two hundred yards away from it, shielding the car behind a Dumpster.

“You’re sure this is the right place?” I asked as I stepped out of the passenger side of the car and warily eyed the unfamiliar location.

Jackson slammed the rear car door behind him. “Yeah. It’s a secret research facility. Emphasis on the secret part, which is why it doesn’t look like much from up here. It’s all underground. The place goes twenty stories down.”

“What kind of research do they do here?” Declan asked.

“What kind do you think?”

Declan looked at the building. “They keep vampires here?”

Jackson nodded. “Locked up in the basement. If you’re doing research, you gotta have some guinea pigs at the ready. A few days starved off blood and they make for better test subjects; their vampiric traits can’t be hidden anymore. Saving mankind from the monsters is hard work.” He grinned. “Come on. I promise nobody’s going to get bit.”

Funny guy. All his flippant comment did was give me second thoughts about this. A shiver went down my arms, and my stomach began to churn. I had to remember that guys like Jackson were used to this sort of thing and could find the humor where I didn’t. Still, things felt off. I didn’t like the prospect of being anywhere where I knew vampires were hanging around, even if it was against their will.

However, my motivation for getting rid of the Nightshade was strong. I really wanted to live, so I summoned all the courage I could and followed him.

We walked around to the front of the building, and Jackson pushed open the large front door. There was a security camera mounted up to the left on a ledge to keep an eye on visitors.

I grabbed Declan’s arm before he went inside. “Can I talk to you?”

He flicked a glance at Jackson. “Give us a minute.”

“I’ll wait inside.” Jackson entered the warehouse and closed the door behind him.

Declan turned to me. “What is it?”

“You sure you trust this guy?”

“Yes. I’ve known him ten years—we trained together. He’s always known I’m a dhampyr and he never held it against me like some of the others did. He’s a good guy.”

I could tell that he meant every word.

I was quiet for a moment. “You know, he kind of reminds me of somebody.”

“Who?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You.”

Declan snorted humorlessly “You mean, if I wasn’t all scarred up and pumped full of drugs that make me into a robot.”

I frowned. “Declan—”

“It’s true, Jill. And I know it. Talking to him earlier—what you overheard. He knows me. He knows that you and I can’t . . .” His jaw tensed. “Not anymore.”

Declan and I had sex once when he’d briefly gone off his emotion-and-desire-repressing serum for the first time in his adult life. He’d never been with anyone before me, but he’d been a very quick learner.

I pressed my hands against the hard planes of his chest and looked up at him. “I am willing to give it a shot. You never know what might happen with a little experimentation.”

He searched my face. “You’re looking for a miracle.”

I nodded. “Every damn day, actually.”

“This isn’t one of them. This serum’s permanent.”

“I don’t believe anything’s ever completely permanent.”

I went up on my tiptoes and pressed my lips against his. He didn’t push me away, but he didn’t kiss me back, either. I could taste him, I could feel him, I could touch him. But I couldn’t be with him—not really. It was so frustrating. Sometimes it was difficult not to remember how good it had been between us. It hurt to think it might never happen again.

For such a tough-looking man, one you might not want to run into in a dark alley, one who looked like he could kill someone with his bare hands—and Declan could—I literally ached for him. But it was an ache that would have to go untended. Like he said, he was like a robot right now—virtually emotionless and without the distraction of lust or desire. Too bad. They were very worthy distractions.

His gray eye held an edge of regret when I pulled back from him. “I’m sorry, Jill.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“It’s good that we’re here. I knew Jackson could find somebody to help us. Then you can go back to your normal life and forget all about this.” He pushed open the warehouse door and walked through to join Jackson on the other side.

His message was clear. I could forget about him.

Because Declan Reyes, dhampyr vampire hunter, one with scars deeper than just physical, a man I couldn’t make love to no matter how much I wanted to, thought he had no place in my regular human life.

The ache I already felt for him spread to my heart because I knew he was right.

TWO

“No guards?” I asked skeptically after entering the cavernous interior of the warehouse.

“Downstairs,” Jackson replied. “There are security cameras everywhere. Very few people know this place exists, and everyone who works here is screened and background-checked. The elevator only works for those who know the code.” He grinned. “Feel better?”

I scanned the seemingly empty space. “Not really.”

“Just chill. It’s fine. This place has been around for years. Follow me.”

Jackson led us to an elevator that, after he punched in a code that he shared with Declan so he’d know what it was, took us deep below ground.

Dr. Reynolds was waiting for us at the end of a long hallway in a large white room. He was fiftyish, with fine features and dark hair that was salt-and-pepper at the temples. Wire-framed glasses perched on his nose. With the white coat over his clothes and a stethoscope hanging around his neck, he looked like a family doctor who’d graduated top of his class. This helped ease my mind a little.

He’d given me a brief medical examination—eyes, mouth, ears all got a check. Heart rate. Blood pressure. He scribbled his findings down on a clipboard before he finally looked up at me. “I can help you, Jill.”

My heart leapt. It was exactly what I’d been waiting to hear. I wanted to pinch myself to prove this wasn’t just a dream.

“How can you help her?” Declan asked. He didn’t sound as relieved as I felt. Instead, he sounded wary, suspicious, and not the least bit friendly.

His query earned him a sharp look. “I believe I asked you to leave the room before I started my examination.”

“I’m not leaving Jill’s side.” Declan stood just out of reach, his arms crossed over his chest. I saw a glint of the silver stake he kept in a sheath on his belt under the edge of his black jacket. He didn’t look directly at me, despite his fierce and protective claim.

Jackson had left when he’d been asked to. Declan, however, had flatly refused, not budging a step when Dr. Reynolds made the original request. It was fine with me. More than fine. His presence helped to give me extra strength to face whatever the doctor had to say to me.

Dr. Reynolds’s jaw tightened as he glared at the stubborn vampire hunter. “Declan Reyes. Your reputation precedes you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You’re a dhampyr.” It was said through clenched teeth.

Declan didn’t reply to that, which was confirmation enough.

“Declan’s with me,” I said, not liking the tension that had been steadily rising in the room. “Whatever you have to say to me, I’m fine with him hearing it, too.”

“Maybe I’m not fine with that.”

“Let me guess,” Declan said. “You have a problem with dhampyrs.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah.”

The doctor’s narrowed eyes flicked to me. “You know dhampyrs are extremely dangerous to humans, don’t you? Perhaps even more so than vampires.”

I’d heard this song and dance before. I held the gaze of the doctor, whose face had flushed with anger. “Declan’s different.”

“Have you seen the other kind of dhampyr?” he asked sharply.

“Yes.” A chill went down my spine. There were two types of dhampyrs, and Declan was the more human type. The other kind were referred to as monster dhampyrs because of their more monstrous appearance and appetites. They were as mindless as they were ravenous, like large, pale, humanoid piranha—sharp teeth, soulless black eyes, and an overwhelming need to feed.

The stuff of nightmares, actually. I had the sleepless nights to prove it.

I watched Dr. Reynolds, whose attention was now focused on Declan. There was something there that made me uncomfortable—a willingness to believe the worst. This is what Declan had been putting up with all of his life—people jumping to conclusions about what he was, based on half of his DNA.

I’d come face-to-face with several hungry vampires since I was first injected with Nightshade. I easily remembered what it felt like to be bit by one of them—the sharp pain as those razor-sharp teeth cut into my flesh. Just because every one of them who had tasted my blood had died a quick and fiery death didn’t make the thought of getting attacked any more pleasant.

“Declan’s with me,” I said. “And I trust him completely. If you have a problem with that, then we’re going to have to leave.”

After a few more moments, Dr. Reynolds’s unfriendly and tense expression faded and his brow furrowed. “I apologize for my unprofessional behavior.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then cleaned the glasses on his sleeve before putting them back on. “My wife, she—she was killed by a dhampyr. It’s colored my objectivity.”

Immediate empathy surged through me at the thought of anyone facing death at the hands of one of those nightmarish monsters. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

“So am I.” His jaw tensed and his expression shadowed. “This is neither here nor there. I need to take some samples of your blood now so I can study it.”

I rolled up my sleeve without argument, happy for the change of subject, and he set to work. He drew in a sharp breath when he first saw the color of my blood. It wasn’t red. It was more of a dark, very dark, crimson.

“It’s incredible,” he mused aloud.

Seeing it only made it that much more real. I flicked a glance at Declan before returning my attention to the doctor. “What? Incredible that I’m still standing. Still breathing?”

A slight smile played at his lips. “I’d be lying if I said no. Yes, it’s incredible that your body has withstood the poison for so long, especially with visible transformations like this. It’s infused your entire being. If it was developed by regular chemistry, there’s little doubt that you wouldn’t have survived this long. However, parachemistry is different.”

“So you can help her,” Declan said. “For real?”

Declan’s voice was enough to put a crack in Dr. Reynolds’s pleasant expression. He really didn’t like the dhampyr and wasn’t making much of an effort to hide it. “Yes. I’ll use these samples to create a new serum that will release the Nightshade from your cellular makeup.”

“Sounds . . . encouraging?” I said, gripping the edges of the examination table. My heart pounded so hard and fast it was difficult to appear calm.

His expression darkened. “Once we separate the formula from your blood, I think we can cleanse the blood through intensive hemodialysis. Dialysis isn’t normally a painful process, but I should warn you that the separation process likely will be . . . difficult for you.”

The thought of more pain made me cringe. I’d experienced so much pain since first being injected that it had redefined agony for me. This wasn’t something I’d choose if I had any other option. There weren’t any other options.

I hadn’t been expecting a magic, sugarcoated pill to cure me. It would have been nice, but this wasn’t a fairy tale.

I nodded firmly. “Let’s do it.”

“You’ll stay here during your treatment—the floor above us is where my patients stay. It will be quite comfortable for you.”

I assumed that the vampire guinea pigs didn’t get the same first-class treatment. “What do you want in return? I don’t suppose this is covered by health insurance.”

He placed his clipboard under his arm and moved to the other side of the examining table, giving Declan a wide berth. “If there’s any way I can rediscover the formula, if I can extract it from your blood and re-create it—it’ll be an invaluable weapon. Even though you’ll no longer be a part of it, there’s no reason why the Nightshade program needs to be discarded completely.”

He was helping me so he could try to re-create Nightshade. Sounded reasonable to me.

I nodded again. “When do we start?”

“The moment I have the information I need from these samples. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

I felt lightheaded from the blood donation as Declan and I left the examining room and rode the elevator back up to the warehouse level. Declan kept his hand at the small of my back in case I lost my balance.

We got off the elevator and walked through the empty warehouse until we emerged into the sunlight again.

He eyed me cautiously. “You okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” I pressed my hand to my forehead. “Must be all the blood he took. I’m feeling a bit drained.”

“I’ll go get the car,” Declan said. “Wait here.”

I nodded and leaned against the wall, just outside of the front door, and watched him disappear around the edge of the building. I eyed the camera that was trained on the front door. For something that was there for security reasons, it made me nervous.

“Did it go well?” Jackson asked. I started a little, since I hadn’t seen him standing to the other side of me.

“I think so.” I rubbed my fingertips over the Band-Aid at the crook of my arm. “Listen, thanks for pointing us in the right direction.”

Jackson smiled. He was actually quite attractive in a biker-dude kind of way, and the expression helped soften up the rougher edges. “I’m usually a hard-ass when it comes to shit like this, but I’m really sorry for what you’ve been through.”

That surprised me. “You don’t strike me as the type who’s sorry for much.”

“I’m not.”

I blew out a long breath and pressed back against the wall. The air was dry, hot, and smelled like dust and exhaust fumes. The meeting with Dr. Reynolds had tired me out. Hope was an exhausting emotion to entertain. “You’ve known Declan for ten years, have you?”

“Around that.” He shook his head. “Seems strange seeing him with a woman like you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “A woman like me?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I can tell a lot just from meeting a person once. You’re somebody who needs a man in her life who’s able to show her a good time.”

“Am I?”

“And I saw how you looked at him before.”

“How’s that?”

“Like he’s on the menu.”

I couldn’t help but snort at that. This guy thought he knew it all. I wasn’t a big fan of cocky. “Is that right?”

“Declan, he’s . . . a good hunter. Loyal to a fault. I know you met the man who raised him.”

“I did.”

“Then you know Declan will stay with someone even when it’s obvious to everyone else it’s a bad idea.”

I bristled at that. “That’s how you think it is with him and me?”

“There’s nothing there, Jill. Just a shell. He’s a machine. A soldier. He kills rogue vampires. It’s what he’s done, 24/7, for as long as I’ve known him. He isn’t somebody who’s going to make a good boyfriend.”

This conversation was beginning to make me uncomfortable, but if it was a means to get more information about Declan, I could tolerate Jackson for a while longer. “I’m not looking for a boyfriend right now. I’m a bit preoccupied with trying to stay alive with blood nearly the color of tar.”

“Maybe so.” Jackson drew close enough to me that I could smell his spicy aftershave. His gaze swept the length of me. “But you’re a woman of passion. You have needs he’s not able to fill.” He reached forward and twisted a piece of my long black hair around his index finger before leaning closer to me. “I can fill them, Jill. If you want me to.”

“Oh yeah?” It was warm outside—easily over ninety degrees—and Jackson’s body heat only made it warmer. A trickle of perspiration slid down my spine. He was hitting on me. That didn’t seem like something someone should do to a buddy’s female companion, even in an unusual relationship like mine and Declan’s.

“I can take you to places you’ve never been before. I’m not asking for a relationship here, just a bit of fun. A way to let off some steam.”

A bit of fun—something I hadn’t had in a very long time. Too bad it was Jackson doing the offering. “What about Declan?”

He shook his head. “Declan’s like a eunuch. He can’t satisfy you like I can, even if he wanted to. It won’t be long before you start looking elsewhere. Despite all you’ve been through, I see that fire inside of you. And I know how to quench it.”

“You want to fuck me.” I stated it bluntly to make sure I understood him correctly—not that he was being subtle about it.

“Very much. And what do you want?” He leaned closer so I could feel the line of his body, which included a very stiff erection that he wasn’t shy about pressing against me.

“What do I want?” I put my hand on his chest and slid it down between us, over his rather impressive denim-clad hard-on. Then I grabbed it and twisted. “I want you to fuck off.”

Pain registered on his face, but he let out a low, throaty laugh. “I guess I have my answer.”

I let go of him, feeling that my point had been made rather succinctly. “No offense intended, of course.”

“Of course not.” His eyes flicked behind me as he cupped his hand over his assaulted groin and stepped away from me. “Declan. You’re back.”

I glanced to my left. Declan’s emotionless gaze was narrow, and I wondered if he’d seen what just happened.

“Let’s go,” was all he said.

Very soon I’d start the painful process of cleaning my blood. Soon I’d be back to my normal life—the life that didn’t include amorous—or rather, lecherous—vampire hunters who left me cold, or dhampyrs who made my blood hot and my body yearn for more than they were able to give me.

I’d never been a big fan of disappointment.

THREE

I had a shower back at the motel room to cool off. Declan went out to get us food. When I emerged with wet hair, after pulling on some clean leggings and a tank top, he was already back.

He held up the brown paper bag. “Burgers. And fries.”

“Running for my life is fattening.” I didn’t really mean it. Since I’d been poisoned, I’d lost weight. I could actually count my ribs now, which was a bit disturbing, since I wasn’t eating any less than I normally did. I figured the Nightshade revved up my metabolism. It was another side effect to add to the list.

I leaned my hip against the table and ran my fingers through my damp hair to get the tangles out. Declan sat at the small table and looked down at his hands. He seemed preoccupied about something.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

He looked at me. “Why do you think there’s a problem?”

“You’re quieter than normal. Not that you’re usually a chatterbox, but—”

“I heard you talking with Jackson.”

“What part?”

“All of it.” He raised his gray gaze to mine, stroking his fingers over his eye patch to adjust it back into its proper place.

“He came on to me.”

“I know.”

“And I told him to fuck off.”

His lips curved. “I know.”

I felt concerned, since he still looked troubled. “What’s really wrong, Declan?”

He shook his head. “If he’d forced himself on you any further, I would have ripped his head off. As it is, he took a simple fuck off as an answer. He’s very popular with women. Your rejection must have come as a shock considering his track record.”

“Do you think I was tempted?”

He blinked. “Were you?”

“No. Were you jealous?”

He gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles whitening. “I don’t know. With the serum, all—all I feel is this emptiness inside of me. Where there should be emotion, there’s . . . nothing, just an empty black hole. I know that’s where all the shit I should be feeling belongs. I never felt it before—never noticed it, anyway—but I do now.”

“Emptiness.”

“Yeah.”

I bit my bottom lip as my throat began to tighten. “I know how you feel. I have that, too.”

“You do?”

I nodded. “It’s hard to deal with that empty feeling, but sometimes we don’t have any choice.”

His expression darkened. “Jackson gave you a choice.”

I couldn’t resist rolling my eyes at that. “Yeah, he did. Since I can’t be with you, he was more than willing to serve as a replacement. Really big of him.”

His brows drew together. “Is that why you feel empty? Because we can’t be together?”

We were treading on dangerous territory. I wasn’t really prepared for this conversation about emotions and empty black holes with a man I couldn’t really have. It felt like trouble, and I already had enough of that to begin with. “Look, Declan, let’s just eat. It’s been a long day. Maybe tomorrow Dr. Reynolds will get back to us.”

“He will. I don’t doubt it. He’s a serious dick, but I really think he can help you. Then you won’t have to deal with all of this, deal with me, with horny assholes like Jackson sniffing around you. You can go back to your regular life and normal men who can be with you when they want to be.”

I reached across the table and grabbed his hand. It was currently clenched into a fist. “Normal guys are completely overrated, just so you know.”

His hand relaxed in my grip. “I’m about as abnormal as they get.”

“Feeling sorry for yourself tonight?”

He gave me a humorless smile. “That’s just the problem. I’m not feeling anything. And yet . . .”

“What?”

“The thought of you with Jackson . . . I wouldn’t call it jealousy, exactly. But it bothered me. I didn’t like it.”

That was interesting. Not jealousy, but something that triggered some sort of reaction in the emotion-free dhampyr.

I intertwined my fingers with his. “I’m not having a luxurious fast-food dinner like this with him, am I?”

“No.” He leaned back in his chair, pulling his hand away from mine. I tried not to take it personally. “He was right about one thing.”

“Which is?”

“That you’re a woman of passion. You deserve more than this.”

I glanced around the small room. “More than . . . burgers and fries at a seedy motel?”

“For starters.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. His jaw tightened. “You said something earlier. I think I want to take you up on it.”

“What’s that?”

“What you said about experimenting.”

I remembered exactly what I’d been talking about. “Declan—”

“No. Jill, don’t say anything.”

This was coming totally out of left field. I was ready to question him, but I couldn’t say anything because he stood up, pulled me against him . . . and kissed me.

I’d kissed him a couple of times since he’d been shot full of the permanent serum, searching for a response, and was disappointed when I didn’t get one. This time he’d initiated it; he was kissing me. And I was responding. Earlier I’d decided on a cool shower, but the heat of Declan’s kiss warmed me up immediately.

“Do you think . . . you can . . . ?” I whispered against his lips, not wanting to finish the sentence.

“This isn’t about me, Jill. This is about you. That is . . . if you want this to happen.” He held my face between his hands. “Say yes.”

“Yes,” I said, without thinking twice.

When he kissed me this time, he picked me up and carried me to the bed.

I locked my arms around his neck. “My hair’s wet.”

“Do you care?”

I grinned. “Not really.”

He placed me gently down on the bed and began kissing down my throat, filling his hands with my breasts. I could barely believe this was happening. A potential solution to my Nightshade troubles earlier. An experimental Declan now. This could all be a dream.

It didn’t feel like a dream. It felt real. And I didn’t want to question it a second longer.

Grasping the edge of my tank top, he pulled it up, skimming it over my skin. I wasn’t wearing a bra underneath, which saved some time. I gasped out loud as his mouth closed over my right nipple and he slid his tongue around it in a hot, wet circle.

He looked up at me. “Let me know if I’m doing this right.”

I struggled to breathe normally, but it came out like a needy moan. “So far, so good.”

He moved to the other side, making me shiver, goose bumps breaking out along my skin. I helped him to peel my top off over my head, then squeezed my eyes shut.

Experimenting with Declan was a very good idea. I was so very glad I’d thought of it.

When he kissed me again, sweeping his tongue against mine, I pulled at his black T-shirt, sliding my hands under to feel his skin beneath, down over his hard, rippled abdomen. I started to unbutton his jeans and slide the zipper down, but he grasped my wrist to stop me.

“No, Jill.”

I looked up at him with surprise. “Why not?”

“I already told you, this isn’t about me.”

“I want to touch you.”

He pulled my hands away from him and raised them up above my head. “If you can’t play by the rules, then this game will have to end.”

He was easily strong enough to keep me pinned, but his grip on me was loose enough that I could have broken it if I wanted to. “I’m not sure I like those rules.”

He moved his mouth to my ear, and my bare breasts flattened against his T-shirt-covered chest. “I want to make you happy, Jill.”

I believed him. His expression held no fire to match what I was feeling, but rather, endless sincerity. He couldn’t make love to me, not completely—not the way I wanted—but he still wanted me to be happy after what he’d overheard Jackson say to me.

Jackson had offered me no-strings-attached sex.

I’d said no because I wasn’t attracted to him. I didn’t want a quick lay, and I didn’t want Jackson. I wanted more than that, even though I knew that wanting more would only leave me frustrated.

Declan wanted to take away some of that frustration. Here. Now.

Which meant my clothes came off. But his stayed on.

“I can stop.” His deep voice got raspy when he spoke quietly. “Or I can keep going. Your call.”

My throat felt thick. It was a mix of cool disappointment and hot desire. I could have Declan, but not all of him.

“Do you want me?” he asked when I didn’t answer right away.

I nodded wordlessly.

“Do you need me?”

“Yes.”

“Then keep your hands like this.” He pressed them up against the headboard, curling my fingers around the cool metal rails.

I drew in a breath. “So I can’t touch you at all?”

“Those are the rules.”

I gripped the headboard tighter. “Fine. Your move, dhampyr.”

A shadow of a smile played at his lips, and he sat back on his heels, his feet still clad in his heavy-laced boots, and slid the palms of his hands down the front of me between my breasts. His hands were calloused and rough against my skin—it made my nipples tighten and I shivered. I arched my back off the bed unconsciously to meet his touch.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“So are you.”

He chuckled deep in his throat. “You’re lying. My scars—”

“Are part of you. And that makes them beautiful. I think we’ve had this conversation before.”

“Jill—”

“I wouldn’t be in a situation like this with somebody I found unappealing, Declan. Trust me on that. You make me so hot I can barely sit still.”

He leaned over, his mouth only an inch from mine. “How hot?”

I inhaled sharply as I felt his hand slide under the waistband of my leggings and down between my legs where he’d easily feel the proof of just how much I wanted him. My grip on the headboard tightened.

“You’re right,” he whispered. “Very hot.”

I gasped. “You’re teasing me now.”

“Maybe a little.” He hooked a finger in either side of the elastic waistband of the leggings and slid them down my legs until they were off. I lay naked on the bed, my arms still above my head, while Declan, fully dressed, swept his gaze over me.

I had to admit, me being naked and vulnerable at the moment and him being fully dressed and totally in control was hotter than I thought it would be.

“How’s the experiment going so far?” I asked, my voice breathy.

He raised an eyebrow. “Good, I think. You?”

“Excellent. A-plus.”

He kissed me. My lips parted and he slid his tongue against mine, which made me groan low in my throat at the chance to taste him deeper. My breath caught as his hand returned between my legs and he stroked me there until I felt boneless with need.

He didn’t say anything as he kissed his way down my body. I watched him, my hand now held against my mouth as he parted my legs and pressed his mouth against me there. I cried out and let go of the headboard completely so I could grip the back of his head when I felt his tongue slide over me.

“Declan—” But I couldn’t form actual words anymore. His name was barely understandable.

Pleasure crashed over me, so intense it was close to pain. My body quaked against his mouth and hands, raising off the bed, but he held me in place until I came again. A scream escaped my lips then, despite my attempt to muffle it with the back of my hand.

He brought his face back to mine and kissed me hard and openmouthed so I could taste myself on his tongue. By this time I was utterly ravenous for him.

“Please, Declan,” I begged. “I need you inside of me. I want you so much.”

I wrapped my legs around his fully clothed body and ground myself against him as if he were naked. I desperately needed him thrusting deep inside of me. I wanted him even more now than I had before. He’d given me two incredible orgasms, but I wasn’t satisfied. A small taste had only intensified my hunger.

Slowly, very slowly, I regained control of myself until I found I was kissing him more than he was kissing me. I held his face between my hands and stared up at him, dismayed to see his expression held some regret.

Tears stung my eyes. “Please don’t look at me like that.”

He looked pained. “I’m sorry, Jill. I want to be more for you, but—but I can’t be.”

Every bit of hot, aching desire I’d just felt for him hadn’t been matched. He felt nothing. The mind was willing, but the body couldn’t comply. My skin felt electric, sensitive, as though if he touched me again, he might send me right back over the edge.

I sat up so we were face-to-face and hugged him against me. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

“For now it is.”

“The experiment . . .”

I pulled back so I could see his face. “Speaking for myself, the experiment was a complete success.”

A smile touched his lips. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“I am a fan of science.”

I kissed him, sad that this time he only briefly returned it.

It had been a short detour, but we’d returned right back to square one.

At least there were some French fries waiting as my consolation prize.

FOUR

I’d had bad dreams every night since I was injected with Nightshade. This was the first time I had one about Declan.

It started off well enough.

We were having dinner, and it wasn’t salty, greasy fast food scarfed down in a cheap motel room. We were at a restaurant—one of my favorites, a little Italian place that was just around the corner from my apartment in San Diego.

He placed his hand on top of mine, and I looked up at his face.

It was Declan, but it wasn’t the Declan I’d come to know. The black eye patch was gone, and he had two beautiful green eyes instead of one gray one, which was a trait of a dhampyr or vampire. He didn’t have any scars marring his handsome features. His hair was a bit longer than the short-cropped cut I was used to. And he had an easy grin on his face that was as unfamiliar as the dark blue suit he wore.

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he said.

“Feels a bit like it.” But I wasn’t as shocked as I could have been at his appearance. It felt right, as though I was accustomed to seeing him like this. “You look really good.”

“Better than normal?”

“Well . . . different. What happened?”

“Nothing happened. That’s just the thing. I’m not a dhampyr. I’m not a hunter. I don’t get a scar every time I get cut or shot. I didn’t lose my eye because I never fought with the vampire who clawed it out with his fingernails.” He raised an eyebrow. “What do you think of that?”

“I’m speechless, that’s what I think. You look—”

“Like I could be part of your real life.”

“Actually, you do.” I smiled and entwined my fingers with his. “No more vampires. No more running for our lives. We can be together. It’s perfect.”

His expression shadowed. “It’s not perfect.”

“What?”

“Your blood . . .” His brows drew together.

I felt something warm on my face and swiped my hand under my nose. I was bleeding, dark red blood that looked almost black. My heart sank at the sight of it. “I’m the one who doesn’t fit in now, aren’t I?”

“I wish I could help you.” His gaze moved to the right and his expression tensed. “Maybe he can.”

I turned my head to look. The sun was bright outside, and there was a man standing in the doorway staring at me so intently I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed him yet. It was Declan—the scarred version. One eye. Ragged from ten years of hunting vampires. Wearing a black leather jacket that had seen better days.

He wasn’t smiling.

“Jill . . .” he said.

I immediately rose from the table and went toward him, but it felt as if the air had thickened, making it difficult to move. Panic snaked through me.

Declan jerked forward a step as if he’d been hit from behind. He gasped for breath, then clamped his scarred hand against his stomach and looked down at it. Bright red blood gushed through his fingers. When he looked up at me, I noticed his throat was now slit as well. Blood pumped out of him with every beat of his slowing heart.

I couldn’t breathe. I tried desperately to fight through whatever this was that was holding me back.

“Declan!” I woke up screaming and clutching at the solid form in front of me.

“I’m here,” Declan soothed, stroking my hair. “It was just a nightmare. It’s okay, Jill. You’re okay.”

I pulled back from him and searched his face, my eyes wide. He was here. He was alive. “I thought that I . . . I thought that you—that you were—”

“Whatever it was, it wasn’t real.” He held my face between his hands and wiped my tears away. “I know all of this has been a struggle for you, but it’s almost over. Try to be strong for just a little while longer. Can you do that?”

I nodded soundlessly.

“Jill . . .” Declan began after a few silent moments went by. He was frowning.

“What?”

“That experiment last night . . .”

I eyed him. “What about it?”

“Do you regret it? Do you wish we hadn’t even tried?”

I hesitated. “You really want to know how I felt about it?”

“Yes.”

“It was amazing, but . . .”

His brow furrowed. “But what?”

I looked directly in his gray eye and pressed my hands against his warm chest. “But I’ve been thinking about it. And as good as it was . . . I—I don’t want you to touch me or kiss me like that again unless you really, really mean it and feel something in return. Understand?”

He held my gaze before nodding firmly. “I understand.”

There was a ringing sound. Declan fished into his pocket for his cell phone and held it to his ear. “Yeah?”

He didn’t take his attention off me for a moment. He stayed seated at the edge of the bed.

“Got it,” he said, then ended the call, his jaw tightening. “That was fast. Reynolds is ready to see you again.”

“The doctor is in,” I said, my voice shaky.

“You ready?”

The dream troubled me. What did it mean? That I wanted Declan, but only if he was perfect and normal? But if he was normal, that meant I wasn’t. The only thing I knew for sure was that when I saw the real Declan injured, dying, all I wanted was to get to him. To help him. To comfort him. But I couldn’t.

And then it was too late.

I guess I didn’t need to hunt too far to find the symbolism there.

I nodded firmly. “I’m ready.”

WE RETURNED TO the warehouse. I got the same strange feeling I’d had yesterday as we entered the main doors, unguarded apart from the security camera.

“What’s wrong?” Declan asked.

“This place . . .” I shook my head. “It freaks me out knowing there are vampires downstairs that Dr. Reynolds is using as test subjects.”

“This is how it’s done, Jill. If you want to test ways to exterminate vampires, you need vampires to exterminate.”

“So this is nothing new.”

“No. And this isn’t the only facility like this in the country—both government and privately funded. The vampires used in programs like this are the most messed up, the ones that can’t keep their fangs out of humans. They’re brought here instead of ending up on the wrong side of a stake.”

I hesitated and looked at Declan. “You’ll stay with me?”

“If you want me to,” he said, holding my gaze.

I nodded, though my throat felt thick. He’d stay with me until all of this was over. Through the pain. Through the drama. When everything was pain free and drama free, he’d be gone. I guess I’d just take things an hour at a time. Hell, a minute at a time might be a better idea.

Jackson was waiting for us at the elevator. “Dr. Reynolds wants me to take care of a little matter downstairs. But first I’m supposed to take you down to his examining room so you can . . . do what you have to do.”

His gaze flicked to Declan.

“Problem?” Declan asked as we got into the elevator and Jackson punched in the code.

“No. Nothing. Just business.” He turned his attention to the digital floor numbers above the doors that showed our descent.

He seemed grumpy today, not that I was an expert on the varying moods of Jackson Gale, vampire hunter. Maybe he was pissed about my rejection yesterday. I doubted it. I didn’t get the impression he was actually serious about me in a romantic way. He just wanted to get laid by a woman he perceived as horny enough to say yes. I wasn’t quite there yet.

I thought about what had happened between me and Declan last night. While it had been rather . . . satisfying . . . it was also entirely unsatisfying, which is why I said what I had to him. Sex wasn’t just the means to an orgasm for me—although it was a lovely gift with purchase. I needed to have the emotion to back it up. When I looked at Declan’s face, I wanted to see the same desire that I felt reflected there—the same desire I had seen on his face in the past. Otherwise the one-sided sex experiment was fun and more than enough to get me off, but ultimately hollow.

Soon it might not be an issue at all. With me cured, my blood cleansed, and no reason to stay with Declan any longer, I figured it would be unlikely that I’d see him again. I’d go back to my regular life—my succession of unfulfilling jobs, socializing with friends and coworkers, visits with my sister and my nieces, random dating of entirely normal men, ones a lot like the unscarred, non-dhampyr version of Declan in my dream—and that would be that.

It would be strange to know he wasn’t close by, watching over me. The thought made me feel something I could only describe as grief. Grief for a man who’d come into my life unexpectedly and disappeared just as quickly as he’d arrived.

I stayed close to Declan, nearly, but not quite, touching him. He was motivated by wanting to help me get better. So was I. I think I might have followed someone into the very depths of hell in order to get my blood cleaned out. The thought of the pain that was to come was an issue for me, but not enough to stop me from moving forward.

We got off the elevator and went down the hallway to Dr. Reynolds’s examining room where we’d been yesterday. Other than the sparse furnishings of the stainless steel table and metal chair, there were cupboards on the walls, a sink, and a filing cabinet.

Jackson spoke briefly with Dr. Reynolds at the doorway, then nodded at us and took off down the hall.

“Come in,” Dr. Reynolds said. He reserved his smile for me, an expression that froze at the edges when it became obvious that Declan was staying at my side. “My assistant’s joining us in just a moment.” His gaze moved toward the open door. “Here he comes now. Please, don’t be alarmed.”

I didn’t have to wonder about what he meant by that for long. Another man entered the room—he had dark red hair and was wearing a white lab coat. His skin was very pale, his cheeks gaunt.

Declan tensed and pulled me back by the edge of my shirt so abruptly I let out a small shriek of surprise. He grabbed for his stake.

My stomach lurched and every muscle in my body stiffened the moment I saw the assistant’s fangs.

He was a vampire.

He smiled uneasily, his gray eyes moving to Declan’s sharp silver stake. “I guess Dr. Reynolds didn’t mention me yet?”

Declan moved himself in front of me. “No. He sure the hell didn’t.”

“Please relax. I mean you no harm.”

“Wish I could say the same,” Declan growled.

Dr. Reynolds’s face looked tight. “Lawrence is my assistant. I’m so accustomed to having him around that I sometimes neglect to let others know beforehand what he is. It’s not an issue for me.”

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded. This unexpected revelation had choked me and I struggled to breathe normally. It was one thing to think there were vampires downstairs, safely locked away. It was an entirely different thing to have one in the same room, wearing a lab coat just like Dr. Reynolds. A little warning would have been nice. A little warning and I wouldn’t have shown up in the first place. “If he gets close enough to get a whiff of the Nightshade—”

“He won’t.” Dr. Reynolds moved to stand next to the redheaded vampire, protecting him in a near mirror image to what Declan was doing for me.

“I already know about you,” Lawrence said. “And I’ll be staying well back just in case.”

I glared at them. “Nice that one of us had some warning.”

Dr. Reynolds spread his hands. “Lawrence has been my research assistant for five years. He was turned against his will a year ago but retained his good sense and human morals, enough for me to trust him to stay on as my assistant. He believes as I do that most vampires are a threat that needs to be eliminated.”

Lawrence stepped out from behind Dr. Reynolds, keeping a wary eye on Declan, who hadn’t budged or said a word, but I could feel the menace coming off him in waves. He wasn’t happy about this little unexpected turn of events. That made two of us.

“Many vampires keep their human personalities,” Lawrence said evenly. “I’m one of them. I value my job here. Victor and I have a great deal in common.”

I wasn’t letting down my guard yet. “Like what?”

His expression shadowed, and I could see pain there. “He knows what it’s like to lose a wife.”

I shivered at his bleak tone. “What do you mean?”

His throat worked as he swallowed. “Susan accepted me after I was turned. But—she disappeared without a trace six months ago. I’ve been searching for her, desperate to find her.”

“We think she was taken by another vampire,” Dr. Reynolds said. “But I don’t think anyone should give up hope yet.”

Lawrence took a shaky breath and nodded. “I’m trying.”

“I know.”

“We should have been told about this up front.” Declan’s voice didn’t hold a whole lot of empathy. He held on to me so tight I thought my arm might bruise—sometimes Declan didn’t know his own dhampyr strength. But I didn’t try to pull away. “You having a vampire assistant, no matter what the story is behind it, doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy about being here. It’s fucked up.”

“If I had told you, you might not have returned.” Dr. Reynolds adjusted his glasses. The stiffness in his expression made me think he was having trouble speaking cordially to Declan. With his prejudices against dhampyrs, the two would never become best friends. “You might think I had ulterior motives in bringing you here, but you’re not the only ones who were kept in the dark.”

I watched him warily. “What are you talking about?”

“You, Jillian.” Dr. Reynolds turned to look at me directly, his gaze sweeping over me from head to foot. “When I heard about the Nightshade formula, I had assumed it was a slow-moving poison that would weaken its victim over time, something that would lead eventually to death. But it’s not like that at all, is it?”

I let out a shaky laugh. “No, it’s a bit more immediate than that.”

“It’s amazing, is what it is.”

I grimaced. “I have other words to describe it. Amazing isn’t one of them.”

“When a vampire bites you, only seconds need to pass before it dies.”

“Pretty much. But it’s still enough time for them to kill me if they want to.”

His jaw tightened. “It’s such a waste.”

“Why?”

“I can’t re-create it.” His expression reflected his deep disappointment. “The original composition has changed too much since bonding with your blood. However, I discovered something I’d like to show you.” He nodded at Lawrence. “Go get him.”

Lawrence left the room without a word.

Declan finally tucked his stake away and let go of my arm. “We didn’t come here for any more fucking experiments. We came here because we thought you had a solution for us. Do you or don’t you?”

“Patience,” Dr. Reynolds snapped, casting a fiery glare at him. But then he cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “I apologize for my rudeness. But as a hunter, you, I think, will appreciate how important this discovery is. Will you just give me a couple minutes to show you what I’ve found?”

Declan was silent for a moment but then nodded. “A couple minutes. That’s it.”

“Thank you.”

Lawrence returned with another man whose gray eyes were glazed. With a push, he stumbled forward into the room.

“Sit,” Dr. Reynolds said, and the man sat down heavily in the chair without being asked again.

Uneasiness moved through me. “What’s wrong with him?”

Dr. Reynolds went over to the chair and walked a slow circle around it. “He’s been chemically subdued so he won’t cause us any problems.”

A breath caught in my chest. “He’s a vampire?”

“Yes.” The doctor grasped the vampire’s chin in his hands and squeezed. “Last week he killed a family whose car had broken down at the side of the road. Three children and two adults died to feed his hungers.”

“I needed to feed.” The vampire’s voice was weak. “I couldn’t stop myself.”

“You’re a murderer who killed five innocent humans. You’ll get no sympathy from me.” Dr. Reynolds let him go, and the vampire’s chin dropped to his chest. The doctor wiped his hand on the front of his lab coat.

My stomach churned at the thought of it. At the moment he didn’t look that dangerous. “You have him on drugs?”

“Yes. We have very powerful tranquilizers on hand here, but they still don’t last long when it comes to monsters like this.”

I eyed the other vampire in the room, the helpful one. If he didn’t show his fangs, he looked as human as anyone else, apart from his pale gray eyes. He stayed on the other side of the room, a good twelve feet away from me. Most vampires didn’t have a problem with the scent of the Nightshade as long as they kept their distance. I’d really rather not have any more problems today.

I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. “Look, I’m not letting him bite me, if that’s what you want me to do.”

“I don’t want that.”

“Then what sort of experiment is this?”

“It’s to show you how your blood can be used when it’s outside of your body.”

I shook my head. “I suggested that to someone else, but if it hits oxygen, it’s useless as a poison. Something about the air keeps it from working properly.”

“Then it shouldn’t come in contact with oxygen.” Dr. Reynolds opened a case on the table to our left and removed what looked like a gun. It was small and silver, with a short, thick needle protruding from the end of it. “Inside this is a vial of your blood.” He held the device in his right hand, just as he might a gun. He approached the vampire.

I tensed. “What are you going to—”

I didn’t have the chance to finish my sentence. Dr. Reynolds pressed the device to the vampire’s throat, jabbing the needle into his flesh, and squeezed the trigger.

FIVE

The vampire gasped as he was injected. He looked around as if seeing us for the first time.

“What did you—” He drew in a shaky breath, and his face began to show strain. “Please, no—I need to—”

His words broke off, followed by a chilling moment of silence. Then he screamed, raising himself up off the chair. Before he could get fully to his feet, fire poured out of his mouth and quickly consumed his entire body. A moment later, just after the stench of burnt flesh filled my nostrils, he exploded in a scattering of fiery ash. It was the usual death of a vampire—one I’d seen several times before this. Quick. Efficient. Scary as hell.

I stood frozen in place, my hand against my mouth, my eyes wide with shock. I’d known what was coming, but that hadn’t made it any easier to see. It was exactly the same as what happened when a vampire bit me. It was my poisonous blood—the take-out version.

“Holy shit,” I managed to say.

Dr. Reynolds smiled widely. “It’s amazing. This is the third vampire we’ve tried it on.”

Lawrence nodded. Considering he, too, was a vampire, I was surprised he didn’t look more disturbed. “It’s worked perfectly every time.”

Declan stood stoically beside me as he watched the proceedings. “The Nightshade formula alone was useless. It had to be bonded to a human’s blood to work.”

Dr. Reynolds’s smile faded as if he’d forgotten the dhampyr was still in the room. “That’s right.”

“Then it’s too bad you can’t replicate it and find another volunteer to take Jill’s place.”

The doctor looked down at the silver gun. “That would make everything much simpler. The source is Jill’s blood itself—and any new blood her body creates is immediately infused with the poison. Jill’s blood is the beginning and the end of the Nightshade program.”

This was one situation where it wasn’t that great to be popular. It was too bad that the very thing that was killing me could be a huge help to others. Talk about a lose-lose situation.

A million possibilities sped through my mind. “Why don’t we take a couple of days and you take all the blood samples you can from me before we start getting the Nightshade out of my system?”

Dr. Reynolds’s expression held relief. “I’m glad you’re willing to help.”

I leaned against the examining table. “Of course I’m willing to help. This isn’t my world, this isn’t anything I want to be a part of for longer than I have to be, but I’m not naïve. I know that my blood can kill vampires and that this is a very good thing. If the Nightshade wasn’t also killing me, I’d be all for making regular donations.”

“But it is killing you.”

Apart from the poison, I’d been bitten, bruised, and beaten nearly senseless. This roller-coaster ride sure as hell didn’t come with a safety harness.

I nodded. “Yes. It is.”

His jaw tensed. “I don’t want to hurt a civilian, Jill. You’re a civilian.”

“It’s time for this to be over,” Declan said sharply. “You can either help or you can’t. Which is it?”

I could tell he didn’t approve of my blood donation suggestion. It wasn’t on our current to-do list.

Dr. Reynolds glared at Declan, then back at me. “You care about your companion a great deal. I wasn’t sure at first, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Her safety is my first priority.”

Dr. Reynolds laughed under his breath. “My wife and I were opposites, too. Two different worlds, but we made it work.”

I wasn’t sure how we’d moved into this area of conversation without any warning. “Whatever Declan and I are to each other isn’t exactly important right now.”

“You care about him.”

“Of course I do.”

“Even though he’s a dhampyr.” He made the word sound more like an accusation than an observation.

I looked at the dhampyr in question. He had his eyebrow slightly raised, his gaze on me, as if waiting for my reply. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Declan.”

Not the most romantic of declarations, sure. But it was still true.

Dr. Reynolds pursed his lips. “I met my wife four years ago after I’d decided to accept my confirmed bachelor status. My days were spent with test tubes and chemical formulas. Parachemistry, para-science, it’s an obsession for me. Always has been. But Clara . . . she made me see that there was more to life.” His voice caught. Lawrence moved toward him and squeezed his shoulder.

I swallowed hard. Seeing other people in pain affected me. “She sounds like she was an amazing woman. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“So am I.”

“You said a dhampyr killed her.”

“Yes.” His jaw tightened.

I shivered. “I—I haven’t seen too many monster dhampyrs, but the ones I have seen have been scary as hell. It must have been horrible for you, but I’m sure there was nothing you could have done to save her.”

He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “You’re wrong.”

I was confused. I looked at Lawrence, whose gray eyes flicked to me.

“It wasn’t a monster dhampyr,” he said.

I was surprised. “It wasn’t?”

“Lawrence . . .” Dr. Reynolds began.

Lawrence hissed out a breath. “It’s time you faced this once and for all, as we discussed. Maybe then you can finally move on.”

“I could say the same to you.”

“You lost Clara two years ago. It’s only been six months for me.”

“It’s different.”

I watched them warily. Declan stood like a statue beside me, his hands clasped behind his back like a soldier at ease.

“No, it’s so similar I’m surprised you can’t see it.” Lawrence wrung his hands and looked at me. “My wife is human—a human married to a vampire. Victor’s wife—she was a vampire.”

My mouth fell open. “A vampire?”

Reynolds put his glasses back on. His face was still. It looked as if he’d managed to put a lid on his grief for the moment. “She was already a vampire when I met her. It was difficult for her sometimes to control her hungers, but she maintained herself with class and dignity. Right up until she was murdered.”

“Murdered by a dhampyr,” I said.

“Yes.” Dr. Reynolds’s expression had rapidly turned from raw emotion to absolute ice. “The very dhampyr who stands with us in this room.”

Shock slammed into me by the cold, blunt statement. My gaze shot to Declan. He watched Dr. Reynolds carefully, no outward reaction showing at this accusation.

“You’re saying that I killed your wife,” he said.

“Yes.” The word was a hiss.

I felt the tension in the room rise to a sickening level. I waited for Declan to deny it, to say it was impossible that he’d killed Dr. Reynolds’s wife.

But he didn’t.

Declan didn’t move from where he stood, his expression didn’t change, but his gaze grew more intense. Dr. Reynolds had gotten his full attention. “I don’t kill innocents. I don’t creep up behind them and slit their throats. I face them. They know who I am and why I’m there. That’s when they usually attack.”

The low-level hate I’d sensed previously from Dr. Reynolds now spilled over. I’d assumed he hated dhampyrs in general. I had no idea it was specifically focused on Declan. “I watched from the shadows when you staked her. Yes, she was defending herself. Of course she was. What other choice did she have?”

“To explain who she was. To deal with me on an intelligent level. If she’d done that, I might have given her the benefit of the doubt. I’m sent out after rogue vampires who cause damage and death, not loving wives of scientists. If I slayed her, it means that she was dangerous.”

“You can justify it any way you want to. It doesn’t change what happened.”

Declan hissed a breath out between his clenched teeth. “Jill, we’re out of here. This isn’t a man who wants to help you. Not today anyway.”

He was right. Dr. Reynolds didn’t seem focused on the Nightshade anymore. While what he’d said was chilling and it turned my stomach, I also believed Declan. If he’d killed Clara, he’d done so because she was a serious threat.

I took his hand and he pulled me toward the door. Lawrence stepped back so he wouldn’t come within smelling distance of me.

“You’re not even willing to apologize to me for murdering my wife?” Dr. Reynolds said softly.

Declan froze and looked over his shoulder. He let go of my hand. “You yourself admit that your wife was a vampire. One who found it difficult not to give in to her hungers.”

“And I feel her loss like a hole in my heart every day.”

Declan faltered, just a little. If I hadn’t been watching for it, I would never have seen it. A microscopic sliver of doubt slid behind his gaze, and his forehead furrowed. “To my knowledge, I’ve never killed a vampire that didn’t deserve it. It’s a war out there, one we need to protect humans from. Bad shit happens every day. But if I was the cause of your wife’s death and she didn’t truly deserve it, then yeah, I’m sorry as hell for that.”

Dr. Reynolds stared at him for so long I wasn’t sure if he’d ever speak again. A scattering of emotion played on his face—grief, sadness, doubt, pain.

I knew Declan’s life was one filled with violence. His emotion-repressing serum was actually a bonus in that respect. It kept that part of him, the part deep inside that went past the scars, past the damage, relatively pure and untouched. For all the killing he’d done, that he’d have to do in the future, it hadn’t broken him. For all the horror he’d had to face in his life, Declan’s heart wasn’t dark.

That’s why that glimmer of doubt, of regret, in his otherwise emotionless expression troubled me. Just a couple of days off his original serum last week was enough for him to experience emotion—all kinds of it. Once you experienced something you’d never had to deal with before, was that something you could just forget?

“When Jackson contacted us to meet with you,” I began, “you would have known Declan was with me, that he was protecting me. They’re friends.”

“Yes. I knew.”

My chest felt tight. “So is that what this is? A lie saying you could help me just to get us here so you could drag an apology out of Declan for what happened to your wife?”

It wasn’t that I didn’t empathize with his pain—I did. But the relief I’d felt, the hope I’d allowed myself for my own solution, was fading with every second that passed. I hated being used, no matter what the motivation was.

Dr. Reynolds’s face tensed. “I didn’t lie to you. I had—I have every intention of helping you to the best of my ability. The fact that you’re aligned with the dhampyr who murdered my wife is an unfortunate complication.”

It was difficult to breathe. “So what now?”

“I need to make my peace with what has happened and find a way to move on.” He glanced at Lawrence.

The vampire nodded. “You can do this.”

“My research has always come first. If I would have had to choose between Clara and my work, I would have had a very hard time with that decision. In the end, I think I would have chosen the research over love. She knew this. She accepted how important it was to me. It’s everything. My research is me.”

I watched him, feeling a swell of pity. “Sounds lonely.”

“It can be.”

Declan crossed his arms. “I hope you can put your feelings about me aside, even if it’s only long enough to help Jill.”

“Like I said, my research is everything.” Dr. Reynolds held his hand out to Declan. I was surprised that he seemed so ready to shake the hand of the man he held responsible for slaying his vampire wife.

Declan hesitated only a moment before he grabbed hold of Dr. Reynolds’s hand and shook it. “If there’s anything I can do for you . . .”

“There is. You can help in my research.”

“I can?”

“Yes.” Dr. Reynolds pulled a syringe out from his pocket and plunged it into Declan’s chest. I watched in frozen shock as Declan batted his hand away and immediately ripped the needle out, glaring fiercely at it before casting it to the side.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snapped.

“Research,” Dr. Reynolds said again, backing up a step.

Declan fell hard to his knees and braced his hands against the ground. It was a tranquilizer. He’d been injected with a tranquilizer.

I’d stopped breathing. “What’s going on? Why are you doing this? Research? What does that mean?”

Lawrence grabbed the back of Declan’s jacket and pulled him up to his feet. Declan’s eyes were already glazed, and he now moved like a rag doll. Lawrence pushed him down into the chair. Around it was the scattering of gray ash—all that was left from the vampire, other than the lingering burning scent.

Dr. Reynolds moved closer to him, his gaze flicking to my stunned expression. “Stay where you are, Jill. Don’t come closer to Lawrence, just in case he’s affected by the Nightshade. We don’t want any accidents here.”

I ignored him and ran toward Declan, but Dr. Reynolds caught my arm. I tried to pull away, but his fingers dug into me painfully. I glared at him. “Explain to me what the fuck you’re doing to Declan. Now!”

“I need him.” There was a steely look of determination in his eyes. “I’ve seen what your blood can do to a vampire, but I don’t know what it will do to a dhampyr.” I noticed with horror that he had the silver gunlike device in his hand again, which he tossed to Lawrence. “And I want to find out.”

Before I could say anything, before I could take a breath or even scream, Lawrence jabbed the needle into Declan’s neck and pulled the trigger.

SIX

Now I screamed. But it was too late to stop this.

A gasp caught in Declan’s throat. His face tensed, and his teeth clenched and then parted as a roar escaped from him.

“No!” I pushed away from Dr. Reynolds with all my strength, then ran directly to Declan and grabbed hold of his arm. The vampire stumbled back from me to keep his distance. Hot tears ran down my cheeks. “Declan, no! Please—”

When he looked at me, I could see the pain in his single gray eye. “Jill . . .”

My name sounded broken, jagged.

His head slumped forward.

“No!” I scrambled to touch him, fumbling to feel for a pulse at his throat, scared to death that there wouldn’t be anything there. Scared to death that my blood had killed him.

It had been a big question up till now and we were about to learn the answer—what did my blood do to a dhampyr?

Declan was half vampire and because of this, he was affected by the scent of the Nightshade inside me—drawn to it. To me. He hid it well, but I knew it troubled him. He’d never drunk blood before, he had no need to. But just because there wasn’t a need didn’t mean his vampire side didn’t still crave it.

For all I knew the Nightshade could kill a dhampyr as easily as a full-blooded vampire. It wasn’t something I’d wanted to put to the test.

But here we were anyway.

His heart was still beating, too erratic and too fast, but it was strong beneath my touch. Fear was still a bitter taste in my mouth. I was afraid that the next moment his heart would stop and he’d be taken from me forever. He was unconscious, either from the pain my blood had caused him or from the tranquilizer, but he was still alive. I wanted to sob with relief, but I couldn’t allow myself the luxury.

I turned to Dr. Reynolds and the look on my face must have showed every bit of the rage I felt. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

He actually took a step back from me, which was a surprise. I wasn’t the scariest thing on the planet, not compared to somebody like Declan, but he reacted as if I might be a threat. “He’s alive.”

“And you’re damn lucky he is.”

“Or what would happen? Would you kill me in revenge?”

My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “Feeling the way I do right now? I just might.”

“Then who would help you with your little problem, Jill? I’m not aware of another person alive in the world who has as much knowledge as I do when it comes to parachemistry.”

“I guess I’d just have to deal. Because if you had killed Declan claiming it was for research when it’s clear to me that it was vengeance, pure and simple”—I swallowed hard—“I would have taken his stake and plunged it into your throat.”

His brows went up. “Violent. You struck me as a nice girl, Jill.”

I glared at him. “Maybe I was once upon a time. Things have changed.”

The phone on the wall started to ring. Keeping a wary eye on me, the doctor went to it and picked it up.

“Reynolds here. Yes . . . just a moment.” He held the phone out to Lawrence. “He says it’s important.”

Eyeing me as he gave me a wide berth, Lawrence went to the phone.

Dr. Reynolds had used a horse-load of tranquilizer on Declan. He was strong—easily the strongest man I’d ever known in my life—but he was completely out of it right now.

I touched his face, stroking his eye patch back into place, since it had shifted a little. I traced down his deepest scar, the one that started on his forehead and ran down past his patch to his jawline. I leaned closer and brushed my lips against it.

Declan protected me ninety-nine percent of the time. I would protect him for the remaining one percent. And if Dr. Reynolds or his loyal vampire assistant wanted to get to him again, they’d have to go through me first. An empty threat normally, but at the moment I felt ready to tear someone’s finger off with my teeth if they so much as pointed it in my direction.

I stroked his forehead. “Declan, please wake up.”

His eyelid fluttered but didn’t open.

“You’re alive,” I told him, just in case he needed the reminder. “My blood didn’t kill you. I’m sure it hurt like hell, though, and I’m sorry for that. As soon as you wake up, we’re getting the fuck out of here.”

“Jill, it’s time we got started,” Dr. Reynolds said.

I glared at him. “With what? Fixing me?”

“No. I need more time to work on a viable serum. You said we could take more samples of your blood to keep in reserve.”

“So we’re here not because you were ready to start helping me, but because you wanted me to help you. After you tried to kill Declan. That makes a ton of sense, you bastard.”

His jaw tightened. “Perhaps my personal feelings got in the way of what I should be focusing on.”

“Wow, you’re fucking brilliant. No wonder you’re a scientist.” My eyes narrowed. “Can’t really say I’m in much of a mood at the moment to be all that cooperative. All I want to know is if Declan’s going to be okay.”

“If he’s survived this long after being injected with your blood, I don’t see why not.” He looked openly disappointed about that.

“You don’t honestly believe Declan set out to kill your wife just for the hell of it, do you? She must have—”

“Must have what? Deserved it?” he snapped, but then his expression softened again. “I—I don’t know anymore. In a war, sometimes it’s hard to tell which side is right. I myself have had to do many things outsiders might consider evil. But in order to learn, to grow, I had to find a way to—”

His voice broke off with a grunt of pain and he spun around. It took me a second to register with shock that there was now a knife sticking out of his back. He grappled to pull it from his flesh, and it clattered to the ground.

Lawrence stood behind him, his hands fisted at his sides. The look on his face left no question as to what he was feeling.

Rage.

My eyes widened with horror. “What the hell are you doing?”

Lawrence didn’t take his attention off Dr. Reynolds. “I trusted you, you son of a bitch.”

His eyes had turned to black—normally what a hungry vampire’s did. Dark blue veins branched down along the sides of his face to his neck. That was another very bad sign.

The fact that Dr. Reynolds was still on his feet made me think that the knife hadn’t been deep enough to kill him. Blood stained his white coat.

“What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“That phone call? That was somebody I had searching for Susan. They finally figured out where she is.”

“You need to calm down, Lawrence. We need to talk about this.”

“All of this time I’ve trusted you, Victor. You gave me a chance when everyone else wanted to have me staked. You saw that I still could be a help to you, despite what I am. I thought you and my wife—you were the only ones who gave me a chance.” He let out a shaky breath. “And this is what you do to me? To us?”

I was listening, but I didn’t understand. Something had broken in Lawrence; his voice had a pitchy quality that made me think he wasn’t in complete control of his sanity at the moment. Whatever he’d heard on the phone had broken him.

“Lawrence—” Dr. Reynolds began, his voice filled with pain.

“She’s been here all the time, hasn’t she? In the rooms that are off limits to everyone but you. You son of a bitch. You stole her from me and have been using her in your goddamned experiments, haven’t you? Haven’t you?”

He came forward enough to grab the doctor by his coat and shook him hard enough to rattle anyone’s brain.

I crouched next to Declan, holding on to his arm tightly. “Declan, wake up. You have to snap out of this now.”

That feeling of dread I’d had in my gut ever since we arrived at this place—maybe I should have paid attention to it. But I never could have predicted this.

“I knew what you’d do if I told you the truth,” Dr. Reynolds said, his voice strong but now with a naked edge of fear to it. “Lawrence, listen to me, you didn’t know this, but—but Susan was pregnant. She was keeping it a secret from you.”

The rage on Lawrence’s face faded, replaced with shock. “Pregnant?”

“It was your child. A dhampyr was growing inside her.”

“Jesus.”

“She didn’t want you to know—she knew you’d take it badly. She came to me to get an abortion.”

A shiver went down my arms. Abortion was the normal way to deal with a human woman pregnant with a dhampyr. Since most of them turned out to be the monster kind, a birth that only happened when the dhampyr literally clawed its way out of its mother’s womb, which inevitably led to the mother’s horrific death, there really wasn’t much choice. Births of the more human dhampyrs like Declan were the rarity.

“Did you abort the fetus?” Lawrence demanded.

Dr. Reynolds shook his head. “The fetus was to be kept alive, monitored.”

“Another damn experiment.”

“Yes.”

“All this time I’ve been beside myself with worry and she’s been here. The same place I come to every day, working by your side. And you never told me.”

“There was no other way.”

“It’s always about research for you, isn’t it Victor?” His expression twisted into something ugly, and he raked a hand through his red hair. “I have a secret, too, one I’ve kept so it wouldn’t hurt you. Clara wanted to leave you before she was killed. She’d fallen in love with another vampire. She hated that you spent all your time here, working on ways to kill her kind. Our kind. If you hadn’t been such a damn workaholic, then maybe she wouldn’t have ended up on the wrong side of that hunter’s stake.”

“No, it can’t be true.” Dr. Reynolds’s expression filled with sick shock. His lovely vampire wife hadn’t been so lovely after all.

“Where is Susan?” Lawrence shook Dr. Reynolds. “Where? Tell me and maybe this can end well for you.”

There was silence for a few very long moments.

“She’s dead.”

“No!” Lawrence’s expression shattered, and he shoved the doctor back from him.

“The birth, it—it happened only yesterday. I did everything I could to find a way around it. To try to save her. It was impossible. The other woman we have up on the next floor—the one set to become our next test subject for dhampyr breeding—she tried to help. She held Susan’s hand the whole time until it was . . . too late. The dhampyr was killed immediately; it was too vicious to keep for further testing. I’m so sorry, Lawrence.”

“She died yesterday.” His voice was barely audible.

“Yes.”

Lawrence looked down at the floor before slowly raising his tear-filled black eyes to Dr. Reynolds. “I’m going to kill you.”

He surged forward with inhuman speed. I shrieked as the doctor grabbed hold of my arm and threw me toward the vampire. Lawrence caught me. I felt the strength in his grip; the vampire was strong enough to break me in half.

Lawrence inhaled sharply, and his lips drew back from his sharp teeth. It seemed impossible, but his already black eyes grew even darker, like shiny, soulless buttons.

Dr. Reynolds moved toward the door. “You can’t resist the Nightshade inside of her. Take her. Bite her. Drink her blood. Give in to it.”

My fear ratcheted up another level. “No—” I pushed at the vampire, but his grip on me only grew tighter. “You don’t want to do this.”

I knew from the crazed look in his eyes that if he bit me, he’d tear my throat out. It would kill him and me at the same time.

Lawrence’s upper lip peeled back farther, and a growl sounded in the back of his throat. “It’s so powerful.”

I felt as if my bones were going to snap if I fought him any harder. “Bite me and you die.”

There was barely any human intelligence left in his gaze—he was a grief-filled monster who needed to feed. “I want to die.”

“No—”

“But first I want everyone else to die. Starting with him.” His black-eyed gaze moved over my shoulder.

“Let go of me,” I snapped.

He did what I asked, pushing me so hard I flew backward until my head slammed against the side of the examining table. I crashed to the floor. My vision blurred as the pain swept through me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Declan rise shakily from the chair and reach toward the sharp silver stake at his belt.

“No . . .” I said, but it was too weak for anyone to hear.

Declan flicked a glance at me before training his fierce gaze on the vampire before him. Lawrence wasn’t unarmed. He’d snatched the already bloody knife off the floor, and I saw a silver flash as it arched through the air toward Dr. Reynolds’s throat and the spray of red as it met its mark.

It was like my dream—everything slowed down, and the air thickened. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t scream. The vampire turned his attention toward Declan and surged forward to attack just as I lost consciousness and the world all around me faded to black . . .

SEVEN

The alarm woke me.

When I forced my eyes open, my head screamed with pain. I lay on my side in an awkward position on the floor, staring straight into the glazed eyes of Dr. Reynolds. Blood oozed down his forehead.

Dr. Reynolds was supposed to help save my life. He was my beacon of hope. My beacon of hope was now dead as a doornail.

The ear-piercing alarm made it difficult to think, but I knew I had to get out of here. I pushed myself up to my feet and scanned the room. White walls, gray linoleum floor, empty metal chair, stainless steel examination table to my right.

My heart slammed against my rib cage when I saw Declan lying on the opposite side of the room. He was badly hurt and not moving. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. There was blood—a lot of it. Stumbling, I ran to his side and fell to my knees next to him.

“Declan, no!” I could barely hear my panicked voice above the sound of the alarm. “Please, please don’t be dead!”

For a long, horrible moment there was no reaction. But then his chest hitched and he opened his gray right eye. He blinked. “Jill—” His deep, raspy voice sounded as weak as I’d ever heard it, and that worried the hell out of me. “You—you need to get out of here. Now. It’s not safe. Get out and run as fast and as far as you can.”

I nodded. “Sounds like a good plan. Come on”—I grabbed hold of his muscled arm—“get up!”

He shook his head, the movement barely noticeable. “Leave me. Save yourself.”

Anger pushed its way forward. “Stop being a bad movie cliché and get on your feet. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

His jaw clenched. “I’m hurt.”

“You’ll heal.”

“I’ll be slow. I’ll try to catch up. Find Jackson. He’ll help you get out of here, and then—”

“No, listen to me, Declan.” I gulped a breath to help give me courage. “We got into this mess together and that’s exactly how we’re getting out.”

He glared at me. “Jill—”

“No.” My throat hurt from shouting over the alarm. “I’m not leaving without you. If you’re going to just give up and die right here, that means I am, too. So if you really want me to live to see another day, then you’re going to have to do the same damn thing. Do you understand me?”

The fire in his gaze, ignited thanks to my stubbornness, faded a bit around the edges.

“Well?” I touched his face, wiping the blood away from a cut on his forehead. “What’ll it be, dhampyr?”

His eye narrowed before he finally answered. “Fine. Help me up.”

“That’s more like it.”

I grabbed his arm and helped him to his feet as much as I could, considering I was a full foot shorter than him. He leaned his nearly six and a half feet of solid muscle against me. His gaze moved toward Dr. Reynolds and the growing pool of blood forming a wet, red halo around the dead man’s head.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath.

“Just what I was thinking.”

“You know what this means.”

“Yeah,” I said, grimly. “It means I’m definitely going to die. But it won’t be here. And it won’t be now.”

One look at Declan confirmed to me that he’d fought with Lawrence and lost. Several deep knife wounds were in the process of healing. I tried not to worry about that, but it was difficult. He wasn’t dead, and for that I was very grateful.

“I’m still feeling the tranq effects,” he growled, straining to be heard over the loud alarm. “That’s going to make this harder. And I don’t have my stake—Lawrence must have taken it.”

“Let’s try to stay positive.”

“You go ahead and do that. I’m going to be a realist.”

“And what does your realist self tell you?”

“It tells me that I’m in rough shape and healing slower than I’d like.” His grip on me tightened. “My phone’s set to vibrate—someone’s calling. Grab it.”

Without thinking twice, I slipped my hand into the inner pocket of Declan’s jacket and took out his cell phone, stabbing at the answer button and holding it to my ear.

“Yeah?”

“Jill? Is that you?”

“Who the fuck is this?”

“It’s Jackson. Glad to hear your voice, too.”

My grip on the phone tightened as I shouted into it. “Where the hell are you?”

“A level down from you, I think. What the fuck happened?”

I hurriedly explained to him about the vampire on the rampage.

“Shit. That explains it. The vampires have been let out of their cells down here. At least a dozen of them, maybe more. You need to get out fast. Is—is Declan dead?”

“No. But he’s wounded.”

There was silence for a moment. “Find the nearest stairwell. Don’t try to use the elevator, it’s been knocked out. If you see a vampire, kill it. Just don’t let them get too close or you won’t have a—”

The line cut out.

“Jackson? Are you there? Shit.” I shoved the phone back into Declan’s coat and tried my best not to worry about what just happened to Declan’s vampire-hunting pal. “We have to move. Lawrence must have gone completely batshit crazy because he released everybody from their cages and they’re hungry. We have to get out of here.”

He looked understandably grim. “It’s daylight. They won’t be able to come outside.”

Sunlight didn’t kill vampires. However, it did fry their eyes, making them blind and much easier to kill. Because of this, they much preferred the nightlife. Point for us.

But that was only if we could get outside.

I’d known this felt wrong from the moment we got here. I’d been so greedy to find a solution to my problem that it had blinded me to everything else.

“Come on.” I pulled Declan with me toward the door before I froze. Something Dr. Reynolds said came back to me. “There’s another woman, other than Lawrence’s wife, who’s being kept here for his dhampyr breeding research. She’s in danger. We can’t just leave her here.”

His arm was tense, his expression flat and hard to read. “If we can get to her, then we will. If we can’t, my first priority is to get you out of here in one piece.”

“But Declan—”

“No, Jill. This isn’t up for debate. We’re out of here.”

Faster than I thought he was currently able to move, he pulled me along with him to the door of the office. It was already open, the hinges broken as if Lawrence had taken out some of his rage on them.

Dr. Reynolds had chosen his research over friendship and loyalty. He tried to convince himself he was one of the good guys, but keeping a woman locked away until she gave birth to a monster that ripped her apart—that wasn’t something a good guy would do. I felt Lawrence’s pain, but this wasn’t right. I was just thankful he hadn’t killed me or Declan yet. All we could do was try to get out of here before he found us again and finished what he’d started.

Declan leaned against me as we walked, and that worried me. He was also dripping blood from his more severe wounds. As a dhampyr, he’d heal quickly, but not quickly enough.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Never better.”

Emotionless, yes. But not without the capacity for sarcasm.

We had to keep moving. The underground facility was huge, with mazelike hallways. The debilitated warehouse on the surface was only the proverbial tip of the iceberg to what lay beneath.

The lights flickered in the hallway. Suddenly the blare of the alarm cut out, and the resulting silence seemed as loud and as frightening as the noise had been. I strained my ears, trying to hear beyond the sound of our own steps, but there was nothing.

“It’s not the wounds that are slowing me down like this,” Declan said after a moment, cutting through the eerie silence. “It’s something else.”

“What is it?”

His grip at my waist tightened. “It’s your blood. It didn’t kill me, but it’s messing me up. I feel it.”

Shit. “What does that mean?”

He brought his hand to his temple and rubbed as if he had a headache. “I don’t know. My head’s all cloudy, and I don’t think it’s simply from the tranquilizer.”

I was used to Declan being so strong and capable. Seeing him in this weakened condition scared me even more than I already was. And since my blood caused it, I felt that it was my fault.

My jaw set. “I’d rather not have to carry you up those stairs, but I will if I have to.”

His lips curled. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“I’ll let you know when I do. I’m not quite there yet.” I froze when I saw the outline of someone standing in our path. No, he wasn’t standing; he was moving quickly toward us. It was a vampire, his glossy black eyes almost glowing, the veins throbbing on his pale face. He looked like a monster straight out of one of my nightmares.

He hissed, baring his fangs, and his chest hitched as he inhaled my scent. Declan had told me that vampires didn’t actually need to breathe. They did it more out of habit from having once been human than out of true necessity. I wouldn’t exactly call them undead—they were still a strange and unnatural form of the living—but they were no longer human.

And this particular nonhuman wanted a taste of me. I guess he hadn’t gotten the memo about Jillian Conrad, Nightshade carrier. Tasty death on legs.

The vampire grabbed me and dove for my throat, no conversation, no explanation, just a need to feed. Jackson had said that the vampires were kept near starving so they’d make for better test subjects.

This one wanted blood, my blood. Buckets of it. And he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

EIGHT

Before I felt more than his cool breath on my throat, Declan grabbed the vampire and threw him against the wall. I heard several bones crack with the impact, but he leapt to his feet immediately as if he felt no pain.

He hissed at me. “I . . . need . . . blood.”

“Too bad.” I staggered back as he drew closer again. I’d let the thing bite me so my blood would kill him, but then I’d run the risk that he’d kill me, not to mention that a loss of blood weakened me. I needed my strength.

He didn’t get the chance to bite me. Declan grabbed the vampire’s head and twisted it sharply to the side. There was a sickening crack. He fell to the ground in a heap only inches from my feet, his black eyes staring upward. Cold sweat slipped down my back.

“Is—is he—?” I stammered.

“No. He’d be ash by now if he was dead. It’ll take him a few minutes to recover.”

“Recover from a broken neck?”

“Yeah. So let’s move.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me along the hallway with him.

The fluorescent overhead lighting flickered out completely, plunging us into complete darkness. A couple of seconds later there was a whirring sound as the emergency system came on. There still wasn’t much light, only enough to see the vague outline of where we were going.

We came to the elevator. Even though Jackson said not to use it, I jabbed at the up button anyway, hoping for a miracle. Not surprisingly, nothing happened. The stairway was another fifty feet down the hall. It was so quiet now. All I heard was our breathing, the sound of our feet against the floor, and my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

Fear was useless to me at the moment. It was an emotion that only worked to freeze one in their tracks, like a deer in the headlights. Easy prey to be picked off one at a time.

Paranoia was another thing. That was helpful—a survival instinct that kept me moving, kept me holding tightly on to Declan’s hand as we walked swiftly to our only escape route.

“So this is your life,” I said. “Danger and death around every corner.”

He eyed me. “Enjoying yourself, are you?”

“I can barely contain my glee.”

“And you thought I got all these scars from having a cushy desk job?”

“You might want to consider a change in careers.”

He snorted. “That’s doubtful.”

“No interest in settling down?”

“Only when they lay me down in my coffin. That is, if there’s anything left of me then.”

I grimaced. “That’s a charming thought.”

“This is a regular day’s work for me—maybe a bit more fucked up than normal—but fairly regular. You deserve a safe and happy life where your neck isn’t constantly on the line.”

I met his gaze. “So do you.”

His jaw tightened. “This is my life.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. I know where I belong.”

“Two hundred feet underground with a dozen hungry vampires running amuck.”

His humorless grin returned. “It pays well.”

He could laugh it off—gallows humor, I supposed—but my heart still ached for him. He’d never been given the chance to have a normal life. Being what he was—a dhampyr—left him with few options.

I thought about the Declan in my dream, the untouched one, the unscarred one—the one who hadn’t experienced violent battle like this Declan had. Dream Declan was somebody I could see myself making a life with. He was normal. He was handsome. He was as close to perfect as it got.

But he wasn’t really Declan; he was just some guy who sort of looked like him. And that was enough to give me second thoughts about my previous ideas of perfection.

We reached the stairwell, and I was disturbed by the sounds I could now hear—screams and crashes—they were coming from the level lower than we were.

Declan looked at me. “Probably not a good idea to go down there.”

“That’s where Jackson is—if he’s still alive.”

His expression turned grim. “I need to get you out first. Then I’ll come back for him.”

Fear knifed through my gut. “Like hell you will. You’re hurt.”

“I can’t leave him here.”

“I feel the same way about that woman.”

He eyed me. “The woman you don’t know. That you’ve never met.”

“I don’t care. I have to help her.” I stopped climbing at the next floor, the one above where we’d been. This was where she was being kept—at least, that was the impression I’d gotten. “Come on.”

I pushed open the door. The hallway seemed identical to the floor we’d been on. It felt a bit like a hospital hallway, and it smelled hyperclean, as if it had been recently flushed with antiseptic.

It was dark here and very quiet—too quiet—as if everyone had already escaped. If there had been anyone here to begin with.

I stopped walking and listened hard . . . and heard something. A steady pounding noise. “That might be her.”

“Might be.”

“Worth checking.” I picked up my pace and moved down the hall until I reached the door from which the sound was coming. I pressed my hand up against it. “Is somebody in there?”

The pounding stopped. There was silence for a moment and then, “Help! You have to get me out of here! I’m locked in!”

I tried the handle, but she was absolutely right. I looked at Declan.

He nodded. “Step aside.”

“Stay back,” I told the woman through the door. “We’re going to break the door open.”

Declan kicked the door hard. It only took a few good kicks with Declan’s heavy boot—not to mention his dhampyr strength—before it flew inward.

The woman was dressed in a pink hospital gown, her face pale with fear as she stared out at us with wide eyes. “Who the fuck are you?”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Now let’s get the hell out of here. We can do the meet and greet later.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” She looked warily at Declan, and whatever she thought of his fearsome looks made her noticeably cringe. “Where’s Dr. Reynolds?”

“He’s dead.” I said it bluntly, but it made me flash back to what happened in the examining room. I shuddered. “And so are we if we loiter around here for much longer.”

“Dead?” Her voice broke.

“I’m surprised you care. He’s the one who locked you up.”

“No—” She looked confused. “He’s paying me a lot of money to help him with his research. I need the money. My parents—I’m supporting them. I’m all they have.”

I stared at her with surprise. “You agreed to be here? Do you know what kind of experiments he was doing?”

“Reproductive studies. I know I was agreeing to be artificially inseminated. For the money I’m being paid, it’s worth it. I already agreed to give up the child when it’s born.”

I felt sick at hearing her story, knowing what she didn’t know. She might have signed up voluntarily, but it was unlikely that she knew the results—that being artificially inseminated by a vampire would likely leave her torn in at least two very bloody pieces.

“Are you pregnant right now?” I asked cautiously.

She shook her head. “We were going to officially start tomorrow.”

I let out a shaky sigh of relief. “We need to get out of here.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“You know there are vampires here, don’t you?”

“Vampires?” she repeated, frowning hard. “Are you crazy or something?”

We didn’t have time for this. “Yeah, I’m crazy. Now let’s go.” I grabbed her arm, happy that she didn’t fight against me as I pulled her out of the room.

She looked over her shoulder at Declan. “He’s scary as hell, isn’t he?”

Despite everything, that almost made me grin. “He’s an adorable puppy dog compared to what’s downstairs. Come on.”

“Just keep climbing until we get to the surface,” Declan said. When we reached the stairwell again, Declan swung open the door. Before I had the chance to go through, pale hands grabbed the front of Declan’s shirt and dragged him over the threshold. The door closed behind him with a click.

I felt as though the breath had been completely knocked out of me.

“No!” I let go of the woman and grappled for the door, pushing it open so hard it bruised my hands.

I saw Declan fly backward, down a flight of stairs, and he hit the cement wall hard at the landing before tumbling down a couple more steps. Blood streamed down his forehead.

“Declan!” I screamed.

His pain-filled gaze locked on mine, and he must have seen the terror in my eyes. “Go, Jill! Take the woman and get out of here! Now!”

The vampire—no, there were two of them—drew closer to him. Normally, I had no doubt Declan could take them. But my blood had weakened him. He could fight for a while, but it wouldn’t be long before they tore him apart.

He wanted me to leave him, to save myself and the woman. And maybe I would have done just that—in a previous life.

I glared at the woman. “Stay right here. Don’t move.”

“What are you doing?”

“Whatever I have to.”

“Leave him. Let’s just go! He said we should!”

I shook my head. “He should know by now I rarely do what I’m told.”

There wasn’t any more time to explain, to figure out a plan, to think things through. I had only a few seconds to save Declan. And I had only one weapon at hand. The same weapon I always had at hand.

Myself.

I took the stairs two at a time until I landed between the vampires. Declan was down a few more steps, and he sent a fierce look my way. I noticed his leg was twisted in an awkward position, and a chill went down my spine. He’d broken it in the fall. It would heal just like the rest of him did—quickly. But that was only if he lived.

“What the fuck are you doing, Jill?” he snapped at me.

I didn’t have time for a Q&A at the moment.

“Hey.” I tapped the vampires on their backs. In unison, they turned to me, their nostrils flaring, their lips curling back from sharp white fangs. I tried to see past the monstrous veiny exterior, the sunken cheeks, the black eyes. These were human once—a man and a woman. For all I knew they could have been husband and wife; accountant and journalist; teacher and lawyer. Whatever. I didn’t know where they came from or what their stories were. I didn’t really care.

All I knew was that they were a threat—to Declan, to me, to the woman I’d committed myself to rescuing. And I knew they were drawn to the scent of the Nightshade inside of me. Since they weren’t well fed like Lawrence was, they didn’t have his control—the control that kept him from sinking his fangs into me to get a taste of my irresistible blood.

These nameless vampires had no control. That was my hope. And, frankly, that was also my worst fear.

“Jill!” Declan’s pained cry echoed in my ears.

I staggered back a step as the vampires changed their direction and started moving toward me.

NINE

All I could do now was hope the vampires didn’t rip me apart before they tasted my blood. Declan grabbed a step and pulled himself closer, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop what was about to happen.

“Delicious, right?” I said. Fear wasn’t something I could control at the moment, so I gave in to it, wrapping myself in it like a thick blanket. “You need to drink my blood.”

“Yessss,” the female hissed. She had hair so pale blond it was almost white. I think it was a bleach job, since nobody had that color hair naturally. Her skin seemed even paler in contrast to the dark veins that branched along her jawline, and her lips were deep red, as if she’d already been drinking her fill of blood before they got to this floor. I could barely see the whites of her eyes, her irises were so large and black. She looked like some sort of angel, actually. An angel of death.

She grabbed hold of my hair, fisting it so tightly that I let out an involuntary cry of pain. The male vampire drew closer. I shuddered as he slid his hand over my stomach and pressed me back against the wall.

He sniffed along my neck. “Smells so good. Never smelled anything so fucking good in my life.”

My heart pounded so fast it made me dizzy. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Declan was trying to get to me. I shuddered with fear and disgust as I felt the male vampire slide his cold hand down between my legs and I felt his erection hard against my hip. I’d expected it, but it didn’t mean I was prepared.

For vampires, blood and sex went hand in hand. Lust for blood turned into a lust for other things. It was all I could do to not beg them to let go of me. The female had a tight hold of my hair and she wrenched my neck to the side. Her other hand grasped my chin and she nipped at my jaw, not quite hard enough to break the skin. Her fangs were as sharp as scalpels.

This was typically the part in the movies where the good guys would arrive, stakes in hand, and make mincemeat out of the monsters, saving the damsel in distress who’d been foolish enough to wander off into danger and get herself eaten. But my life wasn’t a movie. And I’d chosen this distress with full knowledge of the potential consequences. I didn’t have nightmares every night because my life was big fun.

Do it, I begged inwardly. Bite me. What the hell are you waiting for?

Maybe if they’d been kept elsewhere, fed well, this might have gone differently. Hell, it might have gone even worse. I could have first been brutally raped before they killed me. The male obviously had sex on the brain, judging by the way he was pawing me, but it wasn’t first on his list. It was likely a close second, though.

I thought I had braced myself, but the pain was always a horrible shock. And they weren’t taking turns. The female was at my throat, her razor-sharp fangs slicing into my flesh. The male was at my wrist and I winced, feeling hot tears splash down my cheeks as he pierced my skin so deeply I was sure he’d hit bone. It hurt like hell, but I couldn’t move or struggle anymore. Something about a vampire’s bite rendered the victim paralyzed while they were fed on. I could feel everything, see and smell everything. But I couldn’t try to protect myself or fight back, which made it even more dangerous.

I looked past the woman’s pale blond hair and met Declan’s horrified gaze. Strange—I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen so much emotion on his face. His serum shouldn’t allow it, even in a situation like this. Maybe it was only an illusion.

It felt like forever that they fed on me, but I knew it was only a few seconds.

The female gasped first, pulling back from me and touching the dark red blood on her lips. The male was next, his eyes wide, his brow furrowed.

She gasped. “What is this?”

I glared at her as the feeling came back to my limbs and I was able to speak again. “It’s heartburn, bitch.”

She opened her mouth to scream, and I could see the fire coming up from deep inside of her. Before she could make another sound, she exploded in a fiery, smelly, ashy cloud. I tried to pull back from it so I wouldn’t be burned, but I was already up against the wall. All I could do was wave at the scattering ashes.

The other vampire turned his stunned gaze to mine, mouth dark with my blood. I saw fury in his eyes. The female meant something to him and now she was gone forever. He grabbed my throat, hard enough to crush me, but his hands had already begun to crumble. His growl of anger turned into a scream of pain as the fire consumed him. A moment later there was nothing left of either of them. I brought my hand to my throat, which was tender, raw, and bleeding. The phantom stench of burnt flesh hung in the air, and I wiped the fine coating of ash off the front of my tank top and arms.

So close. He would have killed me if he’d had more time. Luckily for me, he hadn’t.

Declan was on his feet now, favoring his left leg. He pulled himself up the remaining stairs and grabbed my shoulders. I expected him to yell at me for being so careless, for nearly getting myself killed. He roughly pushed my face to the side and took my wrist in hand so he could inspect the bite wounds.

“Damn it, Jill.” He held my face between his hands. “Are you okay?”

I smiled genuinely, so happy I was still alive, that he was still alive. When I’d seen the vampire grab him when he opened the door, I’d thought that was it. We were living on borrowed time anyway. I’d thought our meter had just expired.

I nodded. “I’ll live.”

He met my gaze. “You saved my life.”

“I think I owe you a few of those.”

His jaw set. “Don’t let it happen again. When I tell you to move, I want you to move.”

“Yes, sir.”

His lips twitched, as if he wanted to smile, but he held it back. “Let’s collect your new BFF and get the fuck out of here.”

“Your leg—”

“It’s healing as we speak. I reset it already. I’ll be fine, just slow.”

Declan had reset his own broken leg before it healed wrong. I wasn’t sure if I should feel sorry for the pain that must have caused him or be impressed. He was a serious badass.

I pulled the door open, expecting to see that the woman had taken off, but she was still there, sitting on the ground in the hallway, pressed up against the wall with her legs pulled close to her chest.

She looked up at me with fear. “Vampires.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know they really existed.”

“They do.”

She let out a shuddery breath. “What’s your name?”

I gathered my long black hair, pulling and twisting it to the side to keep it out of my face. “Jill. That’s Declan. You?”

“Laura.” Her gaze moved to my throat. Whatever damage she saw there made her gasp out loud.

“Well, Laura. Let’s get the fuck out of here, shall we?”

“Good idea.”

We went back to the stairwell and started climbing. We were deeper than I thought. I was in decent shape from being a bit of a gym rat back in my regular life, but this was rough going, especially after being knocked around and fed upon. Declan brought up the rear, but he kept pace with us, which was pretty impressive considering his injuries.

Finally, we reached the main level, which appeared to be nothing more than an abandoned warehouse. It was dark in here. A hundred feet ahead of me was the exit. I saw the line of light around the large door through which we’d entered.

“Leaving so soon?” The voice froze me in my tracks before I took another step.

Declan moved to stand in front of me and Laura. “Get out of our way.”

Lawrence came far enough into the dim light for me to see him. His eyes were still black. The crazed look in those black eyes seemed worse now. Bigger. Scarier. Mostly because he was smiling, drawing my attention to his mouth stained with blood right down to his chin. “Can’t do that.”

He wasn’t a bad guy. I’d seen him before he’d received that phone call. He was smart and reasonable. And, yes, obsessed with finding his wife. And willing to assist Dr. Reynolds with injecting Declan with my blood without a second thought.

Maybe he’d been crazy all along, just better at hiding it before.

But maybe he could still be reasoned with. “Lawrence, this can end here. You don’t have to do anything else you’re going to regret.”

He laughed, and the sound sent a shiver down my spine. “I don’t regret anything. This was meant to happen. I’ve been a pawn, a flunky. So eager to embrace my past that—do you see what I’ve been doing?” His voice broke and his bloody smile disappeared. “I’ve been betraying my kind. I’ve been offering up vampires just like me like lambs to the slaughter. Months now. So many have died here.”

Declan wiped at the blood on his face with the sleeve of his coat. “Those vampires deserved to die.”

He wasn’t quite as good at negotiating.

Lawrence glared at him. “Are you God? Do you have the right to say who lives and who dies?” His expression grew pained. “You—you’re just like Victor—taking other people’s lives and using them for your own gain. It makes me sick.”

I pressed my hands together to keep them from shaking. “Lawrence, please, listen to me. You’re not thinking straight right now.”

Lawrence laughed again and it sounded sharp, like breaking glass. “Wrong. Blood brings clarity, and I’ve drank my fill today for the first time in my new life. Why have I resisted for so long?”

I was wrong. He couldn’t be reasoned with. I had no idea how many people he’d killed in the basement after he’d dealt with Dr. Reynolds. A lot. Enough to change him from a conflicted research assistant to a single-minded mass murderer. There was no coming back from that. At a glance, it didn’t seem as if he wanted to.

I locked gazes with Declan, but I couldn’t read his expression past his black eye patch. Mine, however, must have been clear. I was scared to death, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet.

“Lawrence,” I began. “Dr. Reynolds was wrong in what he did, but you need to think about—”

“Shut the fuck up.” He took a step toward me, and Declan pushed me farther back.

“Don’t come any closer,” Declan snapped.

Lawrence’s brows drew together, and his head cocked to the side. “You care what happens to her, don’t you?”

Declan’s expression was dark. “Yes.”

“She’s poison to my kind.”

“Jill can’t be blamed for what’s in her blood. It wasn’t her decision.”

“Doesn’t change anything. Blood is something that should never be tainted—it’s a sacred communion. I’ve tasted blood today, felt it hot in my mouth while a heart ceased to beat beneath my touch. I’ve never felt anything so amazing in my life. It was primal. Incredible.”

Declan’s expression didn’t change, although I’m sure mine paled, as did Laura’s. She trembled next to me, her arms crossed over her chest.

“How many have you killed?” Declan asked. “Guards? Researchers?”

The eerie, wistful smiled returned. “All of them, I think. I lost count.”

“What about Jackson?”

“You care about his life. How interesting. Do you know he’s the reason behind all of this?”

He wasn’t making any sense to me, not that I was surprised about that.

Declan’s fists tightened at his sides. “What?”

“Jackson knew what happened to Victor’s wife and who was responsible. He offered to bring you in. Kill two birds with one stone. Victor wanted you dead. It was all he could do to not kill you the moment he first saw you yesterday.”

Declan’s stony expression shifted a little to something more raw. “Jackson sold me out. Sold us out.”

Lawrence nodded, his smile growing wider. “Don’t trust friends with huge gambling debts. One of many lessons for the day.”

The vampire hunter hadn’t made a great first impression on me, even less when he hit on me yesterday, but I’d been convinced he was trustworthy. Declan had assured me of that and I’d believed him. He’d been wrong. Jackson knowingly brought him here to be killed or tortured—with my blood.

The thought made me see red. I wanted to tear Jackson apart with my bare hands for betraying Declan.

Declan was a bit more reserved than I was. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You don’t. And you won’t ever know for sure. He’s dead—four vampires were gnawing on his bones last time I saw. I would have joined in, but I was already full.”

“Lawrence,” I managed to say through clenched teeth, my anger helping to push away a bit of my fear. “Enough of this. You need to—”

Lawrence stormed toward me so fast I barely saw it. When Declan blocked me, the vampire instead grabbed hold of Laura. She screamed.

“Let her go,” Declan snapped.

Lawrence searched her face as she cringed away from him. “You’re the one, aren’t you? You were with Susan when she died.”

Laura sucked in a breath, her eyes were red from crying. “S-Susan . . . yes, I was. Yesterday. It was h-horrible. I didn’t understand what was going on.”

His expression held so much pain it was difficult not to look away. “She was my wife.”

“She said your name. She whispered it . . . before—” A sob caught in Laura’s throat. “Oh God. I tried to help her, but there was nothing I could do.”

“Then it really is true.” Lawrence blinked hard, his black eyes shone with tears. “The last of my hope is gone.”

“No.” She shook her head. “There’s always hope for new beginnings. Everyone has to deal with horrible things in our lives, but we need to move past them and start again.”

“Start again. Even for something like me?”

“Everyone deserves a second chance.”

Lawrence exhaled deeply. “Leave now. Don’t look back.”

He let her go. She hesitated only a moment, looking at me and Declan, before she took off for the door, wrenching it open to give me a brief glimpse of the bright sunlight outside. It was painful to realize how close we were to safety.

Laura ran through the door, and it closed behind her. The light disappeared, leaving us again in shadows.

I was glad she was safe, but that hope she’d mentioned disappeared right along with her. I didn’t chance looking at Declan again; I kept my attention focused on the vampire who’d just surprised me by doing a kind thing, letting Laura safely escape.

It was a little bit encouraging.

“What about us?” I asked after a long moment of silence passed. “Can we leave, too?”

Lawrence studied the ground as if transfixed by it. “No.”

My stomach twisted. “Why?”

He raised his gaze to mine, and he didn’t look as rational as I’d hoped. “Because what’s in your veins kills my kind. Before, I thought it was for the best—that vampires were monsters and that I was one of the few that deserved to live. Funny how things change.”

When he pulled the silver stake he’d stolen earlier from Declan out of the back of his pants, every muscle in my body clenched with fear—for myself, for Declan.

This vampire wanted blood. He’d already consumed as much as he could drink, so now he just wanted to watch it spill.

“You need to stop this.” Declan’s voice was much more controlled than mine was. “It doesn’t have to end like this.”

“With death?” Lawrence studied the stake he clenched in his hand. “Everything ends with death. I would have done anything for my wife, but I wasn’t given that choice. Victor chose my destiny. This is all his fault.”

Declan looked at me, his expression tense. His eye moved to the door fifty yards away from where we stood. He was giving me a silent order. He wanted me to make a run for it while he held Lawrence back.

“Your wife wouldn’t have wanted this,” I said instead. “She loved you. She accepted you even when you changed. You tried to be human so you could stay together. She wouldn’t want to know you became a cold-blooded murderer. There’s still time to stop this.”

His gaze tracked to me. “I’m not human. The more I kill, the better it feels. The more right it feels.” He looked at Declan. “I’m sure you know how that is.”

Declan shook his head. “I’ve never taken pleasure in what I have to do.”

I’d tried to talk sense into Lawrence, but he wasn’t seeing reason. He’d embraced the monster within him. And that monster was the only one in the general vicinity with a very sharp, very deadly weapon in hand.

Lawrence was silent for a long moment. “I’ve seen you protect this woman. You’d kill for her—anyone who’d threaten her life. Am I right?”

“Would I kill for her?” Declan glared at him. “In a heartbeat.”

Lawrence didn’t look away. “Would you also die for her?”

Declan didn’t hesitate to answer. “Yes.”

My breath caught. Despite the fact that he couldn’t make love to me, I knew he put my life before his. I just hadn’t heard it stated so bluntly before. He wasn’t lying. This was the raw, honest truth. He’d kill for me. He’d die for me. In a way, it made things easier, since I felt the same way about him.

Lawrence nodded. “Then you know how I feel.”

“There’s a difference. Your wife is already dead. And nothing you do now will bring her back. The man responsible for her death is gone. You killed him. You had your revenge. It’s over.”

Lawrence was silent for so long I thought Declan had finally gotten through to him, shown him the futility of what he was doing here.

“You think this is over?” he finally said. “It’s not. It’s just begun.”

He turned toward me, and whatever life, whatever hope, I’d seen in those black eyes was gone. This was a man who had nothing to live for. Just rage and pain that he wanted to share.

He came at me fast, and I stumbled back from him, twisting my ankle and falling to the ground. I screamed just as Declan caught his arm, stopping the sharp stake only a few inches from it being a death blow to my heart. Declan’s expression was strained as he fought to pull Lawrence away from me.

“Get out of here now!” Declan snapped over his shoulder at me. “Get to the sunlight!”

If I left, he’d die. I felt the truth of it deep in my gut.

I shook off the fear and panic, knowing I had to do something to help. I scanned my surroundings. There wasn’t much in the warehouse—nothing useful, anyway. Cement floors. Large wooden crates stacked against the wall by the door. The scent of sawdust. That was it. If there was another security camera in here, it was hidden. Not that it would do us any good. Whoever monitored that downstairs was likely dead. We were on our own.

I screamed when the stake arched through the air and stabbed into Declan, piercing his shoulder. Declan let out a sharp snarl of pain.

“First I kill you.” Lawrence pulled out the bloody stake. “Then I kill the woman. I can resist the Nightshade enough to do it. You’re both murderers. You both deserve to die.”

He kicked Declan hard in the leg that had just been broken, and Declan went down hard, crashing to the ground. Blood gushed from the stake wound.

Lawrence turned toward me, moving so fast I didn’t have a chance to take another step back. He grabbed my shirt and pulled me closer. I fought against him, slamming my fist into his face, my knee into his groin.

Bleeding and injured, Declan grabbed hold of Lawrence’s ankle. The vampire kicked him hard in the face and Declan landed on his back. Lawrence crouched down over his prone form, his silver stake aimed for Declan’s heart this time.

I launched myself at him. Normally my blood was my weapon. This time it was my entire body. Not quite as deadly, but effective enough as a diversion. I caught his shoulders and pulled him off Declan. We both hit the ground hard. The stake skittered away on the cement floor.

Lawrence snarled and rose up above me. He clamped his hands around my throat and squeezed hard enough to cut off my breath. I reached out for the stake, felt just the edge of it against my fingertips, but it was out of reach.

It was too late, anyway. I was going to die.

TEN

“Jill! No!” Declan yelled.

Black spots appeared before my eyes, and my hands dropped to my sides.

Lawrence’s face blurred. “There’s no other way this can end. The moment you were injected with the Nightshade, you had a death sentence. Victor couldn’t help you, even if he wanted to. I think you already knew that.”

He was right. I’d been grasping hold of sand with every solution I’d chased after, watching as it slipped through my fingers. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t given up yet and accepted my impending death without wasting energy trying to fight it. The Nightshade was a lot like Lawrence. It wasn’t letting go until I finally stopped breathing. Until my heart stopped beating. Until my poisoned black blood went still in my veins.

Something about being with Declan—it was enough to keep me going. He was a warrior, this kind of thing was his life. He didn’t know any different.

The Declan in my dream—the glimpse I’d had of him if he’d never been touched by death and darkness and violence. He was clean and handsome and unscarred.

But I wouldn’t choose him over the Declan I already knew.

It was my last thought before more darkness spread across my vision.

There was a loud bang. Lawrence jerked backward, and his grip on me loosened. I tried to focus enough to see that there was now a spot of red on his chest. He looked up.

“You’re dead,” Lawrence said, then he jerked again as another bullet hit him squarely in the chest.

Someone came into my peripheral vision—it was Jackson, with a gun held in his right hand. He was covered in blood; he was leaving a trail of it as he walked toward us. And there was something wrong with his left arm, which hung awkwardly at his side, as though no longer fully attached to his body.

“Nearly dead isn’t really dead, asshole.” Jackson pulled the trigger again, but the chamber rang empty. He fell to his knees, breathing hard.

Lawrence rose shakily to his feet. “Regular bullets don’t kill vampires. As a hunter, you should know that by now.”

“No, they don’t.” Declan had managed to drag himself up to his feet and come closer, despite the fact that he looked almost as injured as Jackson did. “But this does.”

His hand was curled around the silver stake that had been lying just out of my reach, and he sliced it into Lawrence’s chest.

Lawrence staggered back, staring down at the weapon. When he looked up, there was a peaceful look on his face, replacing the earlier rage. “Thank you.”

And then he was gone, his fiery ashes scattered in a horrible cloud, some drifting down to land on my face. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Declan kneeled down next to me and grabbed for my hand. “No, Jill—please don’t be dead.”

I would have smiled if the expression was currently possible. It sounded exactly like what I’d said to him in the examination room downstairs.

“Not . . . quite yet,” I managed to say. “But . . . almost.”

“Vampires,” Jackson muttered. “I fucking hate vampires. Jesus, look at my arm. I seriously need an ambulance.”

Declan looked up at him. “How the hell did you escape? He said you were dead. That four vampires were feeding on you.”

“Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.” Jackson grinned shakily.

“He also told me you sold me out to Dr. Reynolds.” His expression darkened. “I’m sure you’ll deny that, right?”

His grin faded. “I can’t deny it. I did it.”

Declan’s grip on my hand tightened. He was more surprised than I was at the confirmation. “I want to kill you.”

“I’m a lowlife scum sucker. You already knew that. Hell, you were one of only a handful who could tolerate me before this. May as well burn all my bridges while I’m at it.”

“At least you admit it.”

Jackson’s expression was bleak. “That I’m a lying, selfish sack of shit? You got it. Now let’s get into the sunlight before the vamps I didn’t kill decide to climb the rest of those stairs.”

It wasn’t a victory parade as we dragged ourselves to the exit, but it would do. The hot sun felt so good on my face I nearly cried with relief. My throat felt sore, I was woozy from the loss of blood, and it would take a good long while for me to get over the last half hour of horror I’d experienced.

But I was still alive. And so was Declan.

And so was Jackson. Total asshole—no argument there—but he’d saved our lives. We would have died if he hadn’t intervened. I was sure that fact hadn’t escaped Declan’s attention. Maybe we didn’t owe him for that, since he’d gotten us into this in the first place, but it helped to even the scales a little bit.

Jackson looked at the warehouse exterior. “I’ll call for containment. Luckily those vamps aren’t going anywhere in the middle of the day. I’ll get some guys to come in and do a sweep, exterminate the rest of them. See if there are any human survivors. Hell, what a fucking mess.” He patted the pocket of his jeans with his uninjured hand. “Can I borrow your phone? I think mine got eaten.”

Declan threw him his cell phone.

“I’ll just go bleed over there and leave you two alone.” Jackson nodded at the parking lot before heading off in that direction.

“How’s your leg?” I asked, placing my hand on Declan’s knee as we sat side by side on the ground just outside the warehouse door. Laura was nowhere to be seen. She’d taken off running and hadn’t stopped. I hoped she’d be okay and not sign up for any more research programs that required one to be locked in a room deep underground.

He raised an eyebrow. “Healing. How’s your throat?”

“I need ice cream. And a couple Band-Aids.”

His jaw tightened. “I’m sorry everything didn’t work out, Jill.”

I laughed a little at that. It hurt. “Not working out is a bit of an understatement.”

He nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry that in our search for a solution to your problem we were nearly torn apart by bloodthirsty vampires.”

“That’s better.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it, tracing my thumb over an old scar that ran across his knuckles. “We’re still alive, so I’d say the day was a success.”

“Your blood—”

I cringed at the memory. “If it had killed you, I’m not really sure what I would have done. I think I might have gone ballistic on Dr. Reynolds long before Lawrence got to him.” I searched his face. “Did the Nightshade do anything to you? Anything bad that you might not recover from?”

He shook his head. “I think its effects are fading.”

“Your human side was enough to counteract the poison.”

“Yeah, but—but it did something else to me. Something that really messed me up.”

“What?”

“It threw off the serum I’m on. It messed up my emotions. Made it fucking hard to think straight.”

I knew I’d seen emotion on his face before. This was the confirmation.

I grimaced. “How do you feel right now?”

“I thought it might be permanent, but I can feel it fading as we speak. I don’t think it was a cure for the permanent serum, just a glitch. Besides, the pain I felt when I was injected—not really something I want to experience again if I can help it.”

I studied his face. “So you’re back to normal?”

“Almost.” His brows drew together. “You said something earlier—about our experiment last night.”

This wasn’t a good time to talk about that. “Declan—”

“No, hear me out, Jill. You said that it wasn’t unpleasant for you to let me . . . do that.”

The memory of his mouth on me and his hands skimming my body played in my mind. “Not unpleasant is also a vast understatement for what I felt last night.”

“Yeah, but you also said you didn’t want me to touch you or kiss you again if I wasn’t feeling something in return.”

I swallowed. “That’s right.”

“That means I better do this now while I still have a window of opportunity.”

“What?”

He took my face between his hands and kissed me. This wasn’t a one-sided kiss, one that lacked true feeling on Declan’s part. Even with the salty taste of sweat and the faint copper tang of blood, this was incredible, amazing. Passionate. Real. The feel of his mouth against mine trumped any suit-wearing, perfect Declan in any stupid dream. A shiver of pleasure coursed through me.

When he finally pulled away, my cheeks were flushed and my entire body tingled. I stared at him with surprise, and he rewarded me with a grin.

“Was that better?” he asked.

I smiled back at him. “It was . . . not bad.”

His grin widened. “It was better than not bad.”

“Practice makes perfect.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” The smile faded. “Shit, I can feel it. The effects of my serum . . . it’s coming back fast. I’m sorry, Jill.”

I shook my head. “Don’t be sorry.”

I kissed him again, quickly, and already I felt it wasn’t the same as a moment ago. I’d have to keep that one passionate, incredible kiss firmly in my memory. If it had happened once, it could damn well happen again.

Laura was right about hope. Even after everything that had happened, I was surprised how much I still had in reserve.

Declan stood up and held out his hand to help me up. “Let’s get out of here.”

I felt shaky, my body ached, and my throat was tender. I’d lost a whole lot of blood. I hadn’t found a solution to my Nightshade problem. The scientist who claimed he could help me was dead, an act of vengeance for the sins of his past. There was a nest of vampires beneath our feet that had an extermination to look forward to rather than a juicy, human jugular to snack on.

I’d nearly died, but I was still alive. I had a chance to heal and to figure out what my next step was going to be.

And surprisingly enough, I felt rather hopeful about that.

One amazing kiss from Declan had made me see that nothing was permanent—there were always loopholes . . . or glitches. If his so-called permanent serum could be brushed aside once, it could be again. And if he could be healed, then so could I.

It was far from perfect, but I was okay with that. I already knew perfection was highly overrated.

Turn the page for a preview

of Jill and Declan’s first thrilling adventure

by Michelle Rowen . . .

Nightshade

Now available in paperback from Berkley Sensation!

Life as I knew it ended at half past eleven on a Tuesday morning.

There were currently thirty minutes left.

“What’s your poison?” I asked my friend and co-worker Stacy on my way out of the office on a coffee break.

She looked up at me from a spreadsheet on her computer screen, her eyes practically crossed from crunching numbers all morning. “You’re a serious lifesaver, Jill, you know that?”

“Well aware.” I grinned at her, then shifted my purse to my other shoulder and took the five-dollar-bill she thrust at me.

“I’ll take a latte, extra foam. And one of those white chocolate chunk cookies. My stomach’s growling happily just thinking about it.”

Stacy didn’t normally go for the cookie action. “No diet today?”

“Fuck diets.”

“Can I quote you?”

She laughed. “I’ll have it printed on a T-shirt. Hey, Steve! Jill’s headed to the coffee shop. You want anything?”

I groaned inwardly. I hadn’t wanted to make a big production out of it, since I hated making change. Unlike Stacy, math was not my friend.

By the time I finally made it out of the office I had a yellow sticky note clenched in my fist scrawled with four different coffee orders.

Twenty minutes left.

The line-up at Starbucks was, as usual, ridiculous. I waited. I ordered. I waited some more. I juggled my wallet and my purse along with the bag of pastries and take-out tray of steaming caffeine and finally left the shop, passing an electronics store on my way back. It had a bunch of televisions in the window set to CNN. Some plane crash in Europe was blazing. No survivors. I shivered, despite the heat of the day, and continued walking.

Five minutes left.

I returned to my office building, which not only housed Lambert Capital, the investment and financial analysis company where I currently temped, but also a small pharmaceutical research company, a marketing firm, and a modeling agency.

“Hold the elevator,” I called out as I crossed the lobby. My heels clicked against the shiny black marble floor. Despite my request, the elevator was not held. The doors closed when I was only a couple of steps away from it, a look of bemusement on the sole occupant’s face who hadn’t done me the honor of waiting.

One minute left.

I nudged the up button with my elbow and waited, watching as the number above the doors stopped at the tenth floor, ISB Pharmaceuticals, paused for what felt like an eternity, and then slowly descended back to the lobby. The other elevator seemed eternally stuck at the fifteenth. Another bank of elevators were located around the corner, but I chose to stay where I was and try my best to be patient.

Finally, the doors slid open to reveal a man who wore a white lab coat and a security badge that bore his name: Carl Anderson. His eyes were shifty and there was a noticeable sheen of sweat on his brow. My gaze dropped to his right hand in which he tightly held a syringe—the sharp needle uncapped.

That was a safety hazard I wasn’t getting anywhere near. What the hell was he thinking, carrying something like that around?

Glaring at him, I waited for him to get out of the elevator so I could get on, but he didn’t budge an inch.

Behind thick glasses, his eyes were steadily widening with what looked like fear, and totally focused on something behind me. Curious about what would earn this dramatic reaction, I turned to see another man enter the lobby. He was tall, had a black patch over his left eye, and wasn’t smiling. Aside from that, I noticed the gun he held. The big gun. The one he now had trained on the man in the elevator.

“Leaving so soon, Anderson? Why am I not surprised?” the man with the gun growled. “No more fucking games. Give it to me right now.”

I gasped as Carl Anderson clamped his arm around my neck. The tray of coffees went flying as I clawed at him, but my struggling did nothing. I couldn’t even scream; he held me so tightly that it cut off my breath.

“Why are you here?” Anderson demanded. “I was supposed to be the one to make contact.”

The gunman’s icy gaze never wavered. “Let go of the woman.”

My eyes watered. I couldn’t breathe. My larynx was being crushed.

“But she’s the only thing standing between me and your direct orders right now, isn’t she?”

“And why would you think I care if you grab some random hostage?” the gunman growled.

Random hostage?

Panic swelled further inside of me. I scanned the lobby to see that this altercation hadn’t gone unnoticed. Several people with shocked looks on their faces had cell phones pressed to their ears. Were they calling 911? Where was security? No guards approached with guns drawn.

Fear coursed through me, closing my throat. My hands, which gripped Anderson’s arm, were shaking.

“We can talk about this,” Anderson said.

“It’s too late for negotiations. There’s more at risk than the life of one civilian.”

“I thought we were supposed to be working together.”

“Sure. Until you decided to sell elsewhere. Hand over the formula.”

“I destroyed the rest.” Anderson’s voice trembled. “One prototype is all that’s left.”

“That was a mistake.” The gunman’s tone was flat.

“It was a mistake creating it in the first place. It’s dangerous.”

“Isn’t that the whole point?”

“You’d defend something that would just as easily kill you, Declan? Even though you can walk in the sunlight, you’re not much better than the other bloodsuckers.” The man who held me prone sounded disgusted. And scared shitless—almost as scared as I felt.

Bloodsuckers? What the hell was he talking about? How did I get in the middle of this? I’d only gone out for coffee—coffee that was now splattered all over the clean lobby floor. It was just a normal workday—a normal Tuesday.

More people had gathered around us, moving backward toward the walls and door, away from this unexpected stand-off, hands held to their mouths in shock at what they were witnessing. I spotted someone from the office to my left rounding the corner where the other elevators were located—it was Stacy with an armful of file folders, her eyes wide as saucers as she saw me. She took a step closer, mouthing my name.

No, please don’t come any closer, I thought frantically. Don’t get hurt.

Where the hell was security?

I shrieked when I felt a painful jab at my throat.

“Don’t do that,” the man with the gun, Declan, snapped.

“You know what will happen if I inject her with this, don’t you?” Anderson’s voice held an edge of something—panic, fear, desperation. I didn’t have to be the helpless hostage in this situation to realize that was a really bad mix.

He had the syringe up against my throat, the sharp tip of the needle stabbing deep into my flesh. I stopped struggling and tried not to move, tried not to breathe. My vision blurred with tears as I waited for the man with the gun to do something to save me. He was my only hope.

“I don’t give a shit about her,” my only hope said evenly. “All I care about is that formula. Now hand it over and maybe you get to live.”

The gunman’s face was oddly emotionless considering this situation. He wore black jeans and a black T-shirt, which bared thick, sinewy biceps. His face didn’t have an ounce of humanity to it. Around the black eye patch, scar tissue branched out like a spider web up over his forehead and down his left cheek, all the way to his neck. He was as scary-looking as he was ugly.

“I knew they’d send you to retrieve this, Declan.” Anderson’s mouth was so close to my ear that I could feel his hot breath. His shaky voice held a mocking edge. “Who better for this job?”

“I’ll give you five seconds to release the woman and hand over that syringe with its contents intact,” Declan said. “Or I’ll kill both of you where you stand. Five . . . four . . .”

“Think about this, will you?” Anderson dug the needle farther into my flesh, prompting another wheeze of a shriek from me. “You need to open your fucking eyes and see the truth before it’s too late. I’m trying to stop this the only way I can. It’s wrong. All of it’s wrong. You’re just as brainwashed as the rest of them, aren’t you?”

With his chest pressed against my back, I could feel his erratic heartbeat. He feared for his life. A mental flash of memories of my family, my friends, sped past my eyes. I didn’t want to die—no, please, not like this.

“Three . . . two . . .” Declan continued, undeterred. The laser sighter from his gun fixed on my chest.

Several onlookers ran for the glass doors, and screams sounded out.

“You want the abomination I created that goddamned much?” Anderson yelled. “Here! You can have it!”

A second later, I felt a burning pain, hot as fire, as he injected me with the syringe’s contents. It was a worse pain than the stabbing itself. Then he raggedly ripped the needle out and pushed me away hard enough that I went sprawling to the floor. I clamped my hand against the side of my neck and started to scream.

The sound of a gunshot, even louder than my screams, pierced my eardrums. I turned to look at the man who’d just injected me. He now lay sprawled out on the marble floor, his eyes open and glassy. There was a large hole in Anderson’s forehead, red and wet and sickening. He had a gun in his left hand, which he must have pulled from his lab coat when he let go of me. The empty syringe lay next to him.

Declan went directly to him, gun still trained on the dead man for another moment before he tucked it away, squatted, and then silently and methodically began going through the pockets of the white coat.

My entire body shook, but otherwise I was frozen in place. There were more screams now from the others who’d witnessed the shooting as they scattered in all directions.

Declan swore under his breath and then turned to look directly at me for the very first time. The iris of his right eye was pale gray and soulless, and the look he gave me froze my insides.

My throat felt like it had been slit wide open, but I was still breathing. Still thinking. A quick, erratic scan of the lobby showed where I’d dropped my purse and the coffees and pastries six feet to my right. Most of the people in the lobby were now running for the doors to escape to the street outside. A security alarm finally began to wail, adding to the chaos.

“You—” Declan rose fluidly to his feet. He was easily a full foot taller than my five-four. “—come here.”

Like hell I would.

The elevator to the left of me opened and a man pushing an empty mail cart got off. The murderer’s attention went to it. I took it as the only chance I might ever get. I scrambled to my feet and ran.

“Jill!” I heard Stacy yell, but it didn’t slow me down. I had to get away, far away from the office. My mind had switched into survival mode. Stacy couldn’t get anywhere near me right now; it would only put her in danger, too.

I left my purse behind—the contents of my life scattered on the smooth, cold floor next to the spilled coffee and spreading pool of blood. I pushed through the front doors, fully expecting Declan to shoot me in my back. But he didn’t.

Yanking my hand from my wounded neck, I saw that it was covered in blood. My stomach lurched and I almost vomited. What was in that syringe? It burned like lava sliding through my veins.

I was badly hurt. Jesus, I’d been stabbed in the throat with a needle by a stranger. If I wasn’t in such pain, I’d think I was having a nightmare.

This was a nightmare—a waking one.

A look behind me confirmed that Declan, whoever the hell he was, had exited the office building. He scanned one side of the street before honing in on me.

I clutched at a few people’s arms as I stumbled past them. They recoiled from me, faceless strangers who weren’t willing to help a woman with a bleeding neck wound.

My heart slammed against my rib cage as I tried to run, but I couldn’t manage more than a stagger. I wanted to pass out. The world was blurry and shifting around me.

The burning pain slowly began to spread from my neck down to my chest and along my arms and legs. I could feel it like a living thing, burrowing deeper and deeper inside me.

Only a few seconds later, I felt Declan’s hand clamp around my upper arm. He nearly pulled me off my feet as he dragged me around the corner and into an alley.

“Let go of me,” I snarled, attempting to hit him. He effortlessly grabbed my other arm. I blinked against my tears.

“Stay still.”

“Go to hell.” The next moment, the pain cut off any further words as I convulsed. Only his tight grip kept me from crumpling to the ground. He pushed me up against the wall and held my head firmly in place as he looked into my eyes. His scars were even uglier up close. A shudder of revulsion rippled through me at being this close to him.

He wrenched my head to the left and roughly pulled my long blond hair aside to inspect the neck wound. His expression never wavered. There was no pity or anger or disdain in his gaze—nothing but emptiness in his single gray eye as he looked me over.

Holding me with one hand tightly around my throat so I could barely breathe, he held a cell phone to his ear.

“It’s me,” he said. “There’s been a complication.”

A pause.

“Anderson administered the prototype to a civilian before he tried to shoot me and escape. I killed him.” Another pause. “It’s a woman. Should I kill her, too?”

I tried to fight against the choke hold he had me in, but it didn’t help. He sounded so blasé, so emotionless, as if he was discussing bringing home a pizza after work rather than seeking permission for my murder.

His one-eyed gaze narrowed. While talking on the phone he hadn’t looked anywhere but my face. “I know I was followed here. I don’t have long.” Then finally, “Understood.”

He ended the call.

Finally he loosened his hold on me enough that I could try to speak in pained gasps. “What . . . are you going . . . to do with me?”

“That’s not up to me.” Declan’s iron grip on me went a little more lax as he tucked the phone back into the pocket of his black jeans. It was enough to let me sink my teeth into his arm. He pushed me back so hard I whacked my head against the wall and fell to the ground. I’d managed to draw blood on his forearm, which was already riddled with other scars.

I scrambled up to my feet, adrenaline coursing through my body. I was ready to do whatever I had to in order to fight for my life, but another curtain of agony descended over me.

“What’s happening to me?” I managed to say through clenched teeth. “What the hell was in that syringe?”

Declan grabbed me by the front of my shirt and brought me very close to his scarred face. “Poison.”

My eyes widened. “Oh my God. What kind of poison?”

“The kind that will kill you,” he said simply. “Which is why you have to come with me.”

I shook my head erratically. “I have to get to a hospital.”

“No.” He grabbed me tighter. “Death now or death later. That’s your only choice.”

It was a choice I didn’t want to make. It was one I wouldn’t have to make. More pain erupted inside of me and the world went totally and completely black.