THICKER THAN BLOOD

By

MELJEAN BROOK

To Kat, for giving me Philly

and a lot more.

ONE

LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AGO, ANNIE GALLAGHER would have slain another vampire for this.

She’d followed the human to his home, anyway. He’d turned off the lights in his second-story bedroom, but she continued to wait; she wouldn’t feed from him until he slept. And so for the second time that night, she stood on a sidewalk and stared across a street at a pair of darkened windows—but this time, she didn’t let the ghosts overwhelm her.

Annie blinked and looked away from the house. Not ghosts. Even she didn’t believe that the spirits of the dead haunted the Earth, let alone a pizzeria in Northeast Philadelphia. And except for her father, all of the people she’d been thinking of were still living.

Not ghosts, but phantoms. Memories strong enough to bring the flavor of tomato sauce and mozzarella to a tongue that could no longer taste anything but blood.

Fighting the restlessness and hunger that began pricking the length of her spine, Annie rolled her shoulders within her heavy jacket and tugged at the neckline of her black tank. The body-hugging fabric didn’t tug far, and the movement only made her acutely conscious of the sweat soaking the material.

No air-conditioning unit protruded from the face of the brick row home, but she’d heard one rumble to life moments after he’d gone inside. His house would be blissfully cool. But it probably wasn’t yet—and although his psychic scent indicated that he’d finally slipped into sleep, it wasn’t deep. At least ten or fifteen more minutes of waiting stretched ahead of her.

Loitering. Suspicious behavior, maybe, but Annie doubted that she would be noticed by any of the neighborhood’s residents. This part of Mayfair was blue collar to its core, early to bed and early to rise. Even the weekends didn’t see much action after the local bars closed, and it wasn’t exactly bumping with traffic on a Thursday night.

Or, considering that it was two-thirty, early Friday morning.

Thursday, Friday... Whatever, she thought, suddenly impatient with herself. A vampire didn’t move to the same circadian rhythms as the rest of the city, so it hardly mattered what day of the week it was when the sun came up—it only mattered when it went down.

Of course, if it hadn’t been Thursday, she wouldn’t have been standing there now.

Annie closed her eyes. All right. So it mattered. Enough that it hadn’t been the sight of Tony’s Pizza that had stopped her in her tracks when she’d been walking down Frankford Avenue, but the stabbing realization that only a few hours earlier, her mother, her brother, and his family had probably been in the restaurant. Annie’s two nieces, and the nephew she’d only seen in pictures—all carrying on the Gallagher tradition: Tony’s every Thursday night.

Surely they’d kept going after Annie’s transformation and her father’s death. Hell, even before she’d been turned, med school and her residency had prevented Annie from joining them half the time, anyway.

But however many dinners she’d missed since then, there had been enough memories to keep her riveted to the spot, staring into the past and letting the present recede into shades of gray. And even as she’d cursed herself for letting such a little thing—such a bygone thing—get to her, she hadn’t been able to break away until a glint of auburn had burned through the haze of remembrance.

Just another phantom, another bygone. But unlike the first—the jab of pain, the re-opening of an old wound—that flash of color deepened an ache that had been lurking beneath the surface of her skin for six years, leaching into her flesh, her bones.

The man had turned down a side street as she’d pulled her gaze away from Tony’s, but even in the shadows that pooled between the streetlights, Annie had seen his rumpled hair was a shade too brown for auburn. The sun would lift out the red like the glow of a fire.

Just like Jack Harrington’s... although this man couldn’t be him.

He’d rubbed at his face as he walked, and she’d heard the sandpapery scrape of his palm over his jaw. Definitely not Jack, she’d thought, and the startled gallop of her heart had settled into a steady, relieved beat. Mayfair wasn’t Jack’s neighborhood—and she doubted he’d ever gone five hours without shaving, and never looked unkempt. Certainly his white shirt wouldn’t have been untucked, wrinkled, and clinging damply to his back. Not because of the Bureau’s dress code—it was the way Jack had been, on duty and off. He was the poster boy for “eager and fresh-faced,” intent on saving the world, and Annie had loved him for it.

But then, she’d been exactly the same.

And she couldn’t recall making the decision to follow the human; her feet had simply begun to move.

She’d hung back a block, keeping just out of sight, but she couldn’t mistake the scent of alcohol he left in his wake. The odor was too sharp for beer—his drinking had been serious that evening.

Serious, but not heavy. His face had been downturned, as if he’d had to concentrate on the placement of his feet, but he hadn’t staggered. A slow, even stride had carried him past the unbroken line of row homes, past the trash cans and recycling bins caged just off the sidewalk, until he’d reached a block where lawns grew in tiny patches and separated the concrete from the front steps of the houses.

He hadn’t appeared alert to his surroundings, but he didn’t have to be. Unlike some parts of the city Annie had walked through during the past ten days, kids did not roam in packs, laughing and hollering, their weapons bulging in their pockets and outlined in the bottoms of their backpacks.

They’d laughed and hollered at Annie until she’d gotten close. Then, like hyenas suddenly aware of a lioness in their territory, they’d settled back, watching her warily.

Her guns didn’t bulge and her blades didn’t gleam, but in the sweltering July heat, her long black coat always drew a second, apprehensive glance. So did her pale skin, glistening with perspiration; her light eyes, searching—and probably shining with desperation. As the days passed, it became more difficult to conceal.

Thankfully, the one she’d followed hadn’t looked around. Didn’t know what waited outside his home.

Five minutes now—and the night would still be young when she finished. There was more than enough time to stop by the clinic and steal a unit of blood. She should; she’d been alternating nights so the packaged blood wouldn’t wear her down too quickly. This was supposed to be a packaged blood night.

But she wanted this one. Maybe it was stupid to allow nostalgia to affect her this way—and maybe she just had little defense against her old life when it teased her with ghosts and darkened windows, reminding her of easier, brighter times.

And maybe she was too damn tired.

Not physically tired—she couldn’t fight the daysleep that came upon her every morning—just soul weary. She hadn’t stopped for a moment since returning to Philadelphia and discovering that every vampire in the city had been slaughtered over the course of a single night—since discovering that the new life she’d made had been destroyed along with them.

Annie shook herself, straightened her shoulders. Nostalgia, exhaustion, whatever. She had good reason not to go back to the clinic: Feeding from a nonliving source would eventually make her weak and stupid.

Weak and stupid wouldn’t help her find Cricket.

A twelve-year-old girl alone in the city had more things to worry about than vampires, demons, or any of the other creatures who stalked the night; there was hunger, loneliness, and fear.

And hyenas—or, more frightening, the monsters. Hyenas might laugh and holler, but most of it was for show. The monsters hid behind friendly, quiet faces, and their smiles were widest when the horrors began.

Annie could easily imagine the unspeakable things that happened to young girls alone—they’d been drilled into her from birth.

Worked a new case today, Annie. A little girl—not much older than you. They had a drawer full of pictures. A girl can’t ever come back from that, Annie, not all the way.

She was just a little kid, and once she was knocked up, he didn’t have much use for her anymore. So you make sure you wait until you’ve got his ring, Annie; a man who doesn’t give you one isn’t worth giving anything in return.

A little girl, Annie. Found pieces of her in a bag off of the turnpike.

The stories had always been accompanied by a warning not to trust strangers. Annie had later learned that advice only applied to little girls: She’d grown up, been transformed, and it had been strangers who’d taken her in.

She wasn’t going to repay them by leaving Cricket alone in a city of strangers who might not be as kind as those Annie had found.

Steeling herself, Annie focused, opened her senses, and reached into the surrounding houses. One mind after another—and although Annie had grown up only three blocks away, and had probably known many of these people once upon a time, the flavors of their psyches were all unfamiliar.

No Cricket.

Her head throbbed painfully when she finished. Too many minds in too short a time. Annie had walked through most of the city in the past ten days, touching hundreds of thousands of them, extending herself as far as possible. She didn’t know if—or when—she would hit the edge, but hunger would probably get her there faster.

Sighing, she rubbed her sweat-slicked forehead, trying to ease the ache. Another probe toward the second floor of the house touched on the man’s psyche, soft and heavy with sleep.

She started across the street, then paused. Her hand found the grip of her sword, but she didn’t draw the weapon.

Another mind touched hers—dark, searching, and powerful.

Annie threw her psychic shields up full. Probably too late. The barn doors shut, but now someone would know a cow was loose. She waited, her gaze scanning her surroundings, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. No traffic, no one on the sidewalks—and a careful examination of the sky told her that no demons lurked, ready to descend on her from above.

It hadn’t seen her, then, but had only felt her psychic presence. There was no telling how far away it had been.

And she had enough reasons to find Cricket and get the hell out of Philly—but whatever she’d sensed had just given her another one.

AN icy blast of air-conditioning welcomed her through the front door. Annie stood for a moment, closing her eyes in relief. The heat didn’t pain her, but the sweat and oppressive humidity left her feeling disgusting, uncomfortable.

Carefully, she replaced her lock-pick tools in their velvet pouch and rolled it closed. The cylinder fit neatly into the pocket she’d sewn in the lining of her jacket; from another pocket, she withdrew an instant hot pack. Fabric rustled as she slid off the heavy coat, but nothing clinked. The quiet ticking of a clock, the deep sound of breathing from the upstairs bedroom were no louder than the crinkle of plastic when she squeezed the package in her hand.

It was intended for first-aid kits—the chemical reaction created a temporary heating compress—but Annie held it in her mouth, careful not to pierce the casing with her fangs, and surveyed the room.

He must have just moved in—or was preparing to move out. The sofa faced a blank wall. No TV, no stereo, no coffee table.

Annie piled her jacket and sword on a stack of boxes near the door, but didn’t remove the holster that lay against the small of her back. With light steps, she climbed the stairs, testing the surface temperature of her lips and tongue against the back of her hand. Warm. Their touch probably wouldn’t shock him awake, but they would cool quickly.

She’d used a sedative on the others, but this one had been drinking; doping him might be dangerous. With luck, the alcohol would deepen his sleep, and he wouldn’t think her feeding had been anything but a pleasant—very pleasant—dream.

His room was as sparsely furnished as the rest of the house: a large bed covered by a navy fitted sheet, and a dresser heaped with clothes. Although he’d taken time to fold his laundry, he hadn’t put it away. Not a slob, but not obsessively neat, either.

His white shirt lay on the floor, the sleeve trailing beneath the bed. He hadn’t made it out of his pants. Annie studied the sprawl of his body, calculating the least disruptive approach, the best location to bite.

He’d landed on his stomach, his arms wrapped around his pillow and his face buried in the crook of his elbow. The position brought his shoulders up and in toward his neck; it’d be difficult to reach his throat without moving him. The sides of the abdomen and ribs had too many nerve endings. Of all the flesh exposed, his back had the fewest pain receptors.

Her gaze moved down the smooth muscles parallel to his spine, the hollows just above the low waistband of his black trousers. He looked to be of average height, and he wasn’t too bulky or too lean—just a man who kept himself fit and strong. Anticipation began to build its ache in her fangs. The bloodlust wasn’t upon her yet, but arousal sparked softly within her.

Briefly, she wished she’d warmed her hands. Wished for a connection deeper than her mouth, his blood.

But there wouldn’t be. Couldn’t be. She wound the damp, heavy mass of her hair into a bun and fastened it with an elastic band. A few red strands escaped, and she tucked them behind her ears, leaving nothing to brush or tickle, so that he’d swat at her in his sleep as he would a mosquito.

She leaned over, bracing her palms alongside his waist. The mattress didn’t squeak as she eased her knees onto the bed, straddling his legs without touching him.

Breathing wasn’t an option. An exhalation would be cold against his skin, an inhalation would bring his odor to her—and she didn’t want to be reminded that this was a stranger. Didn’t want harsh reality. She’d imagine a clean, lemon-bright scent, instead.

She’d never asked him if it was his soap or an aftershave.

Jack, she thought, closing her eyes and gently touching her lips to his shoulder.

Harsh reality caught her wrist, rolled beneath her, and shoved the barrel of a pistol against her throat.

Annie froze. God damn it. Lowering her guard to indulge in a memory and missing his shift from sleep to consciousness could only be called stupid. Inexcusably, tremendously stupid.

But she could berate herself later; right now, she needed to pretend to be weak.

The last thing she wanted to do was scare him. She’d had her throat shot out before, by a rogue vampire who hadn’t wanted to give up feeding from—and killing—humans. It wasn’t the pain that worried her; she couldn’t afford to lose that much blood.

“Do you have anything in your hands?”

His voice was flat, controlled. No, this man wouldn’t spook and pull the trigger. His heartbeat had sped up, but it wasn’t racing.

Daring a movement, Annie opened her eyes. A taut pectoral and the brown disk of a nipple obscured her field of vision; if she lowered her lips even an inch, they’d meet the crisp, reddish-brown hair that roughened his chest.

“No,” she said.

Without a word, he reached up. Light pressure against her back made her grit her teeth, but she didn’t stop him. His fingers unerringly located her weapon, and he eased the revolver from its holster.

“Any more?”

Did he expect her to answer truthfully? “No.”

“Right.” It only took him a beat to decide a course of action. “Keep your hands flat against the mattress, and slowly back off the bed.” The push of his gun against her neck emphasized slowly.

Annie could have been across the room in a blink. But feeding from humans to survive was one thing; there wasn’t yet a reason to break the other rule she’d lived and killed by for six years: preventing humans from discovering the existence of vampires.

So she edged her knees backward, her face down and her posture nonthreatening. Her compliance hadn’t eased his tension; only a marble statue might have matched the rigid cast of his abdomen. A small fold of skin stretched across the upper curve of his navel, and three tiny scars from a laparoscopic appendectomy marred—

Oh, no. Annie stopped moving. Her fingers clenched in the sheet. Please, no.

It had been at her parents’ dinner table, less than a month before her transformation. When Jack had grabbed at his stomach, pain twisting his features, they’d thought it was a comment on her mother’s meatloaf.

Fifteen minutes later, Annie had been in an ambulance, helping the paramedics prep him for surgery.

Aside from a single, impersonal handshake when they’d been introduced, it had been the first time she’d touched his skin. It had been the night he’d told her his name was Jack, not John Harrington the Third, or—as she’d thought of him until that moment—simply Harrington.

It had been the night he’d confessed he’d been messed up over her since that handshake. She’d waited until his morphine drip was off before confessing the same.

“Whatever you’re considering doing down there, lady, it’s not smart.” Cold steel slid from her neck to the underside of her chin, and he nudged it up. “Keep heading on back, and look at the ceiling as you do it.”

And she’d heard him speak softly before, but it had never been sharpened by the dangerous tone he was using. She squeezed her eyes shut and averted her face.

Don’t recognize me. Don’t see what I’ve become.

Maybe he wouldn’t. It had been so many years, and there were a few differences. Her hair color, the makeup. Both were dark now, because roses and cream belonged to the day.

Annie didn’t—not anymore.

“You picked me out as an easy mark the second I left Buddy’s. I expected you to try something when you followed me,” he said. “But to actually come into my home, that takes some... kind... of...”

The anger in his voice faded with his words. The pressure of the gun eased.

And his heart was racing now.

She should run. Should tear away, without looking back.

She stayed.

“Who are you? You can’t... it can’t be—” Jack dropped her revolver to the mattress, and his fingers tangled in the hair piled atop her head. “Look at me, damn it.”

She did, but only because she wanted to see him, too. To take one glance away with her.

His face was leaner. Time hadn’t dulled his features, but honed them—and he could still trip her breath, skip the beat of her heart.

His brows were heavy and low over eyes darkened by confusion and shock.

“Annie? Oh, Jesus love me—Annie?” His gaze hungrily searched hers, hope and disbelief spilling from his psychic scent in a rich, warm tide. His hand opened, began sliding from her hair to her cheek.

Her cold cheek.

Annie pulled away. He probably didn’t see the movement she used to collect her gun. He continued to stare as she stood and forced herself to walk—not run. There was no longer any need to pretend to be weak.

Jack had always been the only one with whom she had to pretend to be strong.

TWO

JACK CAUGHT UP WITH HER ON THE STAIRS. FROM just behind her, Annie heard him say, “Gallagher told me you were dead.”

Her brother, Brian. It shouldn’t still hurt, but it did. And she shouldn’t answer, but leave him as silently as a ghost. A dream, to doubt in the morning.

But she said quietly, “He told me the same thing.”

“That I was dead?” Jack’s reply contained a strange mixture of outrage and relief.

“No.” She allowed a bitter smile to part her lips; from his angle, he couldn’t see her fangs. “That I was.”

Jack would wonder about the sword, but Annie didn’t try to hide it. She looped the cord over her shoulder, anchored the scabbard to her hip. The coat didn’t sway when she slung it over her forearm—too many things inside, weighing it down.

She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t trust herself to keep going if she did.

“I went to your funeral, Annie.”

She hardened herself against the thickness in his voice, and reached for the door handle. “Was it nice?”

He slid in front of her, his back against the door. His hard smile was at her eye level. “I don’t know. I only got through it with the help of a fifth, so I was too drunk to see much of anything. Gallagher told me I was an embarrassment.”

Suddenly stricken, she dropped her gaze to her boots.

“Frankly, I couldn’t give a shit about decorum, or the dignity of the Bureau. The only thing I noticed was that the casket was closed, and that your mother didn’t attend. I thought it had all been too much for her—first your father’s heart attack, then your wreck two days later. It never occurred to me you might not be in there.”

She’d never asked her mother what story they’d told, but a car accident made sense. It would have been convenient. A closed-casket funeral—not because the body was missing, but because it was supposedly too mangled to view.

“Stay, Annie,” Jack urged softly. “Stay long enough to tell me—” She could almost hear every question that ran across his tongue—why the sword, why were you in my room, why do you look like you do, why haven’t you contacted me all of these years—before he finished with, “—to tell me that you’re okay.”

And there were so many questions that she wanted to ask him. Yet she turned the handle, and only said, “I’m okay,” before tugging it open, forcing him to step forward.

But this was Jack, and she couldn’t leave like this. Not without knowing— “Are you okay?”

A short laugh broke from him. He’d crossed his arms, was shaking his head, his expression torn between amazement and longing. Hers probably looked the same. “I really don’t know, Annie.”

She met his eyes, the blue so much darker and warmer than her own. Memorized his face, so familiar and so new. Then she left, because it would be far too easy to talk herself into staying, and try to help him figure it out.

NO chance in hell was Jack letting her slip away. If Annie wouldn’t stay, then he’d go.

He didn’t bother to put away his gun or grab a shirt and shoes before heading out the door, certain that if she left his sight for even two seconds, she’d disappear. Maybe one second—she was already halfway across the street.

Jack swore and broke into a run, relieved when she didn’t do the same. He might have dogged her heels, just to draw a reaction, but he came up even with her instead.

She didn’t slow her loose, sidewalk-eating stride, only glanced at him sidelong with crystalline blue eyes. That look caught him like a teeth-rattling kick to the head, clearing the haze of drink, sleep, and shock—and driving home everything he’d seen but hadn’t yet processed.

When her hair had been a light auburn and her lashes blonde, those eyes had been extraordinarily pretty. But contrasted with the black liner, her pale skin, and wine-red hair, they were stunning. And despite all the artifice, she wore it naturally.

Annie apparently had a dark side—and she’d become very comfortable with it.

What had happened to bring it out?

When it had happened was clear: No one randomly pronounced a sister dead and held a funeral for her—particularly not a man like Gallagher. The only person more devoted to his family than Annie’s brother had been Annie’s father.

Six and a half years before, as Brian Gallagher’s new partner and without immediate relations of his own, Jack had been invited into the close-knit circle only by virtue of belonging to a larger family the Gallagher men held almost as sacred: law enforcement. Jack had allowed himself to be talked into a Thanksgiving dinner, suffered through Mrs. Gallagher’s version of roasted turkey, and had been trying to escape when Annie had arrived home, worn from a three-day shift in the emergency room.

She’d offered him a handshake, a smile, then dragged herself upstairs to sleep—and Jack had finagled dinner invitations for seven months, braving the terrors of Mrs. Gallagher’s kitchen, his reward a few minutes of conversation with Annie. Those minutes had quickly become hours, extending into the living room or over a beer on the patio—until finally, finally, he’d admitted how he felt.

God, how he’d loved her, wanted her.

But there hadn’t been much fooling around. Not just because she was his partner’s sister—Annie had still lived at home, and her father was a decorated city cop who’d worked himself up to a position behind a desk. Unlike Jack’s own father, Captain Gallagher hadn’t been a complete asshole, but his style of parenting had been heavy-handed and strict. And Annie hadn’t been sheltered—no ER resident in a Philly hospital could be considered sheltered—but she’d never indulged in anything casual.

In any case, Jack had quickly learned he didn’t want something casual. Not with Annie. He wanted permanent, forever after, and he’d been willing to be patient.

Only after her funeral had he regretted that decision. Regretted never asking her to marry him, never making love to her. He’d waited for that, too—taking it as far as he could in the few private moments they’d had, but he’d wanted their first time to be better than a hasty grope in an empty hospital room. Even an overnight stay at Jack’s downtown apartment was impossible—it meant Annie would have had to face her father the next day, and have a shame placed on her that didn’t belong.

But it was obvious that something else had been placed on her. Annie’s brother must have blamed her for their father’s heart attack; it didn’t take an FBI agent to deduce that.

And a damn good thing, Jack thought, considering that he had resigned from the Bureau a week earlier. Brian Gallagher had been part of the reason for that, too.

But whatever her brother had done or said, Jack didn’t think Gallagher was the reason for the changes Annie had made in her appearance. He studied the line of her jaw, the proud set of her shoulders and neck. There was defiance there, just under the surface—but that was expected, normal.

The caution and weariness that accompanied it were not.

However often she’d had to stand up against the overbearing force of her father and brother, she’d never feared that they’d hurt her. But something had wounded her. Something repeated and long, because Jack couldn’t imagine her not bouncing back from a one-time hurt.

Anger kindled, but he tamped it down. Without a target, he might take it out on Annie. Chasing after her might piss her off, but whatever injuries had been done to her, he wouldn’t add to them.

And at least she wasn’t running. She slanted him another look as they reached the end of the block.

“Your gun is conspicuous, G-Man,” she said softly.

G-Man. It was an endearment from her, a teasing one. The tension knotting his gut eased.

“And a sword isn’t?” A sword. He couldn’t begin to imagine why she had one.

Her lips curved, but she looked resigned as she slung her jacket around her shoulders like a cape, hiding the weapon. Jack frowned, suddenly wishing he hadn’t mentioned it. No one was on the street to see them, and Annie wasn’t just glowing with perspiration, but sweating. Drops gathered at her hairline, glistened over her skin, pooled in the hollow of her throat.

She met his eyes. With a shrug, she let her gaze fall to his bare chest. “Your outfit is likely to draw as much notice as mine.”

She must have mistaken the reason for his frown. For Chrissake, compared to the sword, a long jacket in July was hardly a blip on the radar. “But I won’t faint from heat exhaustion,” he pointed out. “Or dehydration.”

“Neither will I. But if you cut your foot, you’ll be in trouble.”

“Will you stitch me up and kiss it better?”

She began to laugh, then caught herself and turned her head. “Go home, Jack.”

There was hunger in her voice. It sparked his own need, and gave him hope. “Will you come with me?”

“No.”

“But you came in before.”

“I didn’t know it was you.” She indicated his body with a sweep of her hand, then the neighborhood. “Everything said it wasn’t you.”

It was true. He looked like warmed-over shit. Self-consciously, he smoothed his palm over his hair, and something softened in her eyes.

“You don’t have to—” She broke off, drew in a breath through barely parted lips. “You look good.”

“You look incredible.” He watched pleasure and regret flash over her features. Her expressions were still so familiar; he could still read her so easily. How many times had he seen other women—a quirk of their eyebrows, a movement, heard a laugh—and been struck by memories of Annie?

Had she done the same?

She’d followed him home. Her clothing suggested a burglary, but a thief would have taken one look at his living room and left to find better pickings. Not crawl onto his bed.

“If you didn’t know it was me,” he said slowly, “then I must have reminded you of me.”

She stepped off the curb, and he crossed the street with her. Her lack of response lifted his heart to his throat. She was evading the question, but not lying. She hadn’t even offered the glib response or denial that she usually hid behind whenever she was confronted with something she wished wasn’t true. And the thing about Annie was—even after she’d shrugged something off—she eventually forced herself to face the truth.

So she’d already confronted this, had already accepted it. She’d thought of him, missed him, and had intended to use someone who looked like him.

Use him for... what? Sex? Comfort?

Hell, Jack was ready and willing to offer both—but why would she need to break into a stranger’s home for either? “Do you need help, Annie?”

“No, I just—” She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, her jaw and fists tight. Her struggle was apparent on her face, and he waited. There was her knee-jerk denial. Now she was forcing herself to face the truth—which meant she’d decide whether to let him help or not.

She slowly turned. “There’s a girl missing. Ten days now. I’ve called the local hospitals, shelters—but there are some avenues for information that I can’t access. You can.”

Not any longer. But he didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” He might not have access to the Bureau’s resources, but he had a hell of a lot of free time on his hands, and more than enough money to look as long as she wanted him to. His own project could be a second priority. “Have you filed a report?”

She shook her head, and wiped the sides of her neck and face with her sleeve. “It’s complicated.”

“Because you’re supposedly dead.”

She’d grown up around cops; even with the cosmetic changes she’d made, someone might recognize her.

“No,” she said. Grief flattened her lips, her tone. “Because everyone else is.”

Jack’s brows drew together, a dark suspicion rising in his mind. Ten days. Everyone dead. “Everyone, who?”

“Everyone who might recognize her, and that she might go to. Her legal guardians. The people we knew. Everyone.” She palmed her forehead, slicked back the tendrils of hair that had escaped the loose bun. Her gaze slid past him, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Probably too hot for him inside, hmm?”

Jack glanced around. Two and a half blocks south, male, late sixties or early seventies. A white wisp of hair, slightly hunched back, a cane. A yellow polo shirt and khaki pants. Jack looked back at Annie, and shrugged. “Probably. At least he has clothes on.”

Her smile barely lifted the corners of her mouth. That had changed, too. The night he’d met her, Jack had been certain the sun couldn’t have competed with the brightness of her smile. And when she spoke, her upper lip was still, as if she was trying to hide an overbite; she held her lower lip just on the edge of a pout.

It did things to her mouth that were as sexy as hell, but not the least bit familiar.

He recognized the worry pinching her features, though, and he frowned as Annie’s hand crept to her sword.

Her gaze was fixed behind him. “Let’s go back to your place, Jack.”

“All right. But why—”

“He’s not sweating,” she said quietly. “Even you are.”

Even him? But her urgency couldn’t be mistaken, and he scrubbed his right palm over the cotton of his pants, wiping away the moisture from it and his gun. When he was certain his grip wouldn’t slip, he glanced back again. The old man was striding toward them, his cane hooked over his forearm.

Jack couldn’t make out the man’s features yet, let alone detect any perspiration. “How can you tell?”

“I can’t see it.” She touched his elbow, briefly, and a shiver raced up his skin. Her hands were frigid. Was her fear so extreme? Taken aback, he looked at her, but she was still staring at the old man. “And his eyes—oh, God. Let’s go, Jack.”

What had gotten into her? The guy was spry for his age, sure—but there was no indication that he was dangerous. No evidence of weapons. He was simply walking toward them, without hesitation or fear.

Walking toward two strangely dressed, armed people in the middle of the night. Young or old, anyone else would have approached with some caution.

His breath suddenly came sharp and shallow, and he fought the overwhelming instinct to turn and run. Jack backed across the darkened street with her, trying to understand his reaction, his sense that he’d just fallen ass backward into a completely fucked-up situation.

Or was her fear just feeding his?

He shot a glance at Annie. Her skin had been pale before; now she was white, her lips colorless. Her grip shifted on her sword. A SIG semiautomatic pistol was in her left hand, the barrel elongated by a silencer.

“Shut up,” she hissed, and Jack blinked. Was she responding to the old man? Jack hadn’t heard anything.

The clench of her finger on the trigger and the burst of suppressed air stunned Jack to his core. The old man staggered. A dark hole opened on his forehead, and blood spilled over his face.

“Annie!” He grabbed for her gun, but she stepped away too quickly. “Jesus fuck me, Annie! What the hell are you—”

Jack froze. The old man was still upright and moving. His pace didn’t appear to have increased, but he was close enough now that Jack could see he was smiling. The blood was gone.

So was the bullet wound.

Jesus Christ. What the fuck? Jack trained his pistol on his chest, looked harder.

Horror ripped through him, left his skin cold, his gut shaking. The man’s eyes were missing—they were just two black holes in his friendly face.

“Listen, Jack,” Annie said, walking backward. Jack was forced to turn and jog in an awkward sidestepping gait to keep up with her, but his aim never wavered from the thing coming after them. “Her name’s Cricket Snow. She’s twelve. When you find her, say that Annie sent you, that you’re my sunshine boy. Then she’ll trust you.”

Those words terrified Jack more than the old man did. His head cleared; his stomach turned to lead. “Don’t you dare, Annie,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t you dare think it’s going to happen.”

Her steps slowed. “Everything I own is under the name Anne Douglas. My mom can make sure that Cricket gets all of—”

Anger rose up, burned away the fear. “Don’t you dare,” he bit out.

“Go back to your place, Jack, as fast as you can.” Her voice wavered, then firmed. “He can’t hurt you, but I don’t want you to see what he does to me.”

Jack stepped in front of her. “He’ll have to come through me.”

“Oh, Jack,” Annie said softly. Her breath was cool against his back, then his arm. She was allowing him to protect her, he realized, but moving just enough that she could still see past him. “It doesn’t matter. He can go around you.”

The old man stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, twirling his cane, his smile broadening. “Cricket Snow,” he said in a voice that should have been on television, hawking butter-scotch candies or oatmeal. “I’ve only to tell her that I’m Annie’s sunshine boy.”

Annie’s response was confident. “She knows you can’t touch her.”

The man’s eyes glinted. They weren’t missing, Jack could see now. Just a pure, deep black.

Somehow, missing would have been less sinister. More human.

With an inclination of his head, the old man said, “Not without her permission. But if I explain to her what I can do to you, I imagine she’ll agree to anything I propose. So I’ve decided to leave you alive until I come to an understanding with her.”

Annie drew in a sharp breath. The man twirled his cane again, and for an instant Jack thought he saw something else there, caught the impression of a huge figure with crimson skin, glowing red eyes, and black feathered wings.

Then it vanished.

Jack blinked, then swept his gaze in a wide arc, searching. Nothing. Annie’s voice echoed in his head: He can go around you. Jack turned in a full circle. Still nothing.

He glanced at her, his brow furrowing. Annie was hunched over, the back of her jacket poking up from her body as if she’d tried to hide a broom handle beneath it.

She whimpered. Her arm jerked downward; so did the thing beneath her coat. A wet, sucking sound filled the air, and she staggered. The old man’s cane clattered to the pavement.

Oh, Christ. Jack shoved his gun into his waistband and fell to his knees in front of her, opening her jacket. The creature had thrown the cane—had impaled her with it. Her hands were pressed over her stomach. Blood leaked between her fingers, shockingly red against her pale skin.

Jack raised his frantic gaze to her white face. “Annie—”

“I’m okay,” she said through tight lips, then turned and began walking. “But we should get inside.”

Astonished, Jack stood and stared after her, then down at the cane. Gore covered the smooth surface, from the flat tip to the U-shaped handle; the blood had smeared where she’d adjusted her grip to pull the length of it from her body.

She’d pulled it from her body. Yet she was steadier on her feet than Jack was.

Holy Christ. What the hell had happened to her in the past six years?

Jack almost shouted it after her retreating form, but stopped himself. Whatever had happened, she obviously needed help—not for him to become another problem.

He ripped his hands through his hair, tried to think over the questions screaming in his head. A flyer for a lost dog was stapled to a streetlight pole. Jack tore it down, then used it to pick up the cane by the bottom, ignoring the blood that soaked through the picture of Fido’s cocked head and friendly expression.

So many missing, but no one had been looking for them— just covering up the disappearances. He’d resigned over it. Hell, it had been past time to resign. He’d been chasing ghosts for five years, risking his career, sleep, alienating more friends than he could count—and he hadn’t cared, because Annie hadn’t been there.

Everyone dead, she’d said. But she wasn’t a ghost—and now he thought that all the answers he’d been seeking were in the one person he thought he’d lost.

THREE

“LET ME SEE, ANNIE.”

Annie didn’t respond, but kept walking through Jack’s living room, heading for the hallway and the half-bath tucked beneath the stairs. Talking meant breathing, and breathing meant that she’d smell her blood.

Pain, exhaustion... bloodlust. She didn’t want to deal with all of them, not at the same time, and definitely not when she was alone with Jack.

Pain and exhaustion were enough.

“Annie.” There was steel in Jack’s voice. “If you won’t accept my help, your mother is only three blocks away. I’m sure she’d want to know that her daughter has a hole through her gut.”

Annie stopped, turned to glare. His brows rose, and he returned her stare evenly, then opened his right palm in a gesture that said the ball was in her court, the decision hers. The cane dangled from his left hand, the tip wrapped in fluorescent green paper. Even with her speed, she had barely seen the movement the demon had made when he’d thrown it; it had been so fast, and his aim perfect. An inch to the left, and he’d have hit Jack.

How could a vampire defeat something like that, or defend those she loved against it? A lump of despair thickened her throat, and she looked away.

“Annie,” Jack said, softly now. “Please.”

She swallowed hard, nodded. His steps were light as he crossed the room. Cautious, but not for the right reasons—he probably didn’t want to frighten her.

“I’ll show you,” she said with the last of the air in her lungs. “Just don’t touch me.”

Her blocks were up, her psychic shields tight, but she couldn’t mistake the hurt that flashed across his expression— and she regretted causing it, regretted that it was necessary to protect herself.

She rolled the hem of her shirt up and, when he stumbled back a step, was glad she hadn’t let him put his hands on her. A gentle touch would have been sweet, if painful; withdrawal was excruciating and bitter.

His mouth opened, but no sound came out. She looked down at the livid, puckered crater in her abdomen. The wound had closed and was no longer bleeding, but her tank and pants were sticky with it.

Jack pressed his fingers to his jaw, then his chest, as if he was convincing himself that he was there, that this was real. His shock smoothed into a flat, searching speculation. “I’ve either had too much to drink, or I shouldn’t have traded my comic books for Ludlum and McBain when I was fifteen. What was it—gamma radiation? A radioactive spider?”

She inhaled; a wave of need swept through her. “No.”

“But it was something.”

Her fangs began to ache, and she said through clenched teeth, “Yes, but I can’t... I can’t—”

Oh, damn it. He smelled like lemon, whiskey, and healthy, red-blooded male—and he looked better than any man had a right to look. Like sunshine and home... like pulse-pounding, passion-drenched nights.

His gaze rose to her face, the speculation deepening, heating. Deliberately, he stepped closer.

Annie turned, lunged for the bathroom. She forced herself to stop with her hand on the knob. Bloodlust gripped her throat, her tongue, and the words were guttural. “I need clothes.”

His voice low, he took another step. “I’ll bring some—”

Closer. “Leave them outside the door,” she ground out, and slammed through it.

ANNIE rinsed her top until the water ran clear, then moved on to her pants. The bloodlust slowly receded; hunger remained, though not as sharp or demanding.

But she still needed to feed. And she should probably tell Jack what she was, and that she’d broken into his house intending to suck his blood.

Knowing Jack, he’d offer it to her.

Knowing Jack. Above the sink, her reflection taunted her. The medicine cabinet was a utilitarian metal rectangle with rusting hinges; the vanity’s bright pink tile looked like a stomach-churning Pepto-Bismol accident.

Outdated, ugly. Nothing like the comfortable, homey loft apartment he’d owned in Old City. What the hell was he doing in a place like this? It didn’t fit the Jack she’d known.

Annie met her eyes in the mirror, then looked away. There it was again: the Jack she’d known.

She’d been feeding off memories for so long... too long. And the thought of real intimacy, of feeding from him now was an irresistible lure.

But he was as much a stranger as she was to him—and any connection she felt could easily end up being just another phantom.

Over her head, the stairs creaked as Jack came down from his bedroom. He rapped on the door a moment later.

“I’ve put a shirt, jeans, and shorts on the hall table.” He’d raised his voice, likely thinking she couldn’t hear him through the door and over the running water. “I ripped my last bra while I was pretending to be J. Edgar Hoover, but if you need the support I can lend a hand. Or two.”

All right, so some things hadn’t changed. Annie grinned, turned off the faucet, and tried not to imagine his palms cupping her breasts, his fingers teasing their peaks to aching hardness.

It didn’t work. She shifted her weight to distract herself from the fluttering low in her belly, the tightening of her nipples.

That reaction wasn’t bloodlust, and it wasn’t just memory— though memory helped it along. Jack possessed a magician’s touch, sensitive and skilled.

“Thank you, Director Hoover,” she finally said.

“Is that a yes?”

“No.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh of disappointment, then asked, “Cosmic rays?”

His voice was light, but when she reached out with her mind, his psychic scent was as sharp as her sword. His nonchalance acting as a cover for his burning curiosity—and a deep-seated anger.

Her smile faded, concealing her fangs. A twist of her hands squeezed a flood of pink water from her pants. “No,” she said softly.

THERE was no getting around it, so Annie didn’t wait for him to ask. As soon as she stepped into the kitchen, she lifted the hem of the borrowed Eagles jersey to her ribs.

“So,” she said, and the forced, cheery note in her voice made her want to cringe, “no need to call my mother.”

Jack’s gaze rose from the smooth skin at her waist to her face, and Annie closed her eyes against his expression. Half-rebuke, half-concern—and all seeing too much.

With a sigh, she sat at the small dining table. Jack turned back to the counter and the bubbling percolator. Coffee, Annie mused, was very likely the only thing that he made in this kitchen. His cupboards probably held a few boxes of cereal and a carton of Tastykakes. His refrigerator might contain take-out leftovers, and the bacteria count in his milk would put a petri dish at the CDC to shame.

Jack poured, set a steaming mug in front of her, and snagged the nearest chair. He’d put his shirt back on, but he must have been in a hurry: He’d buttoned it crookedly. “It’s sweet, just as you like it,” he said, and took a sip of his own. “But light would involve chunks. The milk’s bad.”

Something tightened in Annie’s chest. She steadied her breathing.

“It’s fine,” she managed, wrapping her fingers around the cup. He was close. If he happened to touch her, she wanted her hands to be warm.

God, she wanted to be touched.

She met his eyes, hesitated. Where to begin?

Jack did, with a list of names. “Tanya Schiele,” he said. Annie blinked, made a sound of disbelief; Jack held her gaze and continued, “And her husband, Daryl. Noah Schmidt and Natalie Ackerson. Lucy Chan, Daniel Fleming, and—” His mouth firmed and he squinted slightly, clearly searching for the name of the third member in the partnership.

“Leon Alvarez,” she finished, her voice hoarse.

His nod was slow, but his heartbeat had sped up, his psychic scent a mixture of surprise and acceptance. He’d half-expectedher to know them, she realized, but it had still shocked him when she did.

“Twenty-seven that I’ve been able to—” Something in her expression must have told him. Jack paused, then said carefully, “How many more?”

“Almost one hundred and thirty in all.” A sizeable community, though nothing like those in the larger cities, or spread across Europe.

Though it didn’t show, the same anger she’d felt from him earlier burned through his psychic scent again, made her head throb. Annie blocked as much as she could.

“All killed by that thing.” It wasn’t a question.

“Probably more than one,” she said softly.

“But you escaped them?”

“I was in New York, on a job.” Hired out as an enforcer, tracking down and slaying a rogue vampire. She wasn’t ready to throw that at Jack yet. What was coming up would be enough. “And there were rumors flying around, about mass disappearances in D.C. and Berlin and Rome, and something in Seattle that didn’t go down. So I stayed in New York an extra two days, keeping my ear to the ground, because in Philly we don’t hear much. The community here is—was— isolated.”

Annie shook her head when he opened his mouth. She’d have to explain that later. “The extra days saved my life. These things, they’re called nephilim, and they’re a type of demon. And they’ve been going into cities, and killing everyone... like me.”

Her gaze never left his face as she watched him take that in. His expression didn’t change, but he’d been resting his forearms on the table, mirroring her posture; now he sat back in his chair, tugging at his ear as he thought it over.

“Demons,” he finally said.

“Yes.”

“Killing people.”

“Yes.”

Eyes narrowing, he leaned forward again. “Like you.”

Unable to hold that steady gaze, Annie looked down at her hands. Freckles still dusted her skin. After a few more years without sun, they’d fade completely.

“Jack—” God, she was floundering. She didn’t know whether to start with the past or the present. Overwhelmed, she spread her palms; they were pink from the heat of the cup. “There’s so much.”

Jack studied her face. After a long moment, he nodded. “Start with Cricket. That’s her legal name?”

He’d given her a reprieve, then—and the thought of Cricket steadied her. There were priorities, and dealing with her unsettled emotions was not the highest one.

“Yes. Her mother was a The Young and the Restless fan.” Annie smiled slightly at his blank look. “Never mind. Her mother died about a year after I did, and guardianship passed to Cricket’s sister, Christine, and her husband, Stephen.”

Judging by the way Jack’s voice softened, he didn’t miss the hitch in her breath. “But now they’re dead, too?”

“Yes.”

“And they were also... like you?” His eyes were warm, filled with quiet humor.

Gratitude swelled beneath her grief, lightened it. Oh, thank God for Jack. Only he could make a game out of her reluctance to reveal what she was—taking the pressure off of her, as if she’d challenged him to discover the truth.

“Like me,” she confirmed, then pushed away from the table. She couldn’t sit. “I took those two days in New York, like I said. When I returned ten days ago, I could see that Cricket had been in my apartment, but I didn’t think much of it. Not until I went to Christine and Stephen’s later that night.” She paced to the window above the sink, stared out over the little enclosed backyard.

“Did you find their bodies?”

Something in Jack’s voice made her look over her shoulder, lift her psychic blocks. He didn’t expect her to say yes... and he was right. “No. Stephen’s sword was on the living room floor, a chair had been overturned, there was a little blood. Nothing else was disturbed. And when I went looking for Cricket, thinking she’d run to one of our friends’ homes to hide, I found the same had happened to them. To everyone. And she hasn’t tried to call me, so she must assume that I’m dead, too.”

“But you think she’d been hiding at your place.”

Annie nodded. “Something scared her off, though. Someone came in or—”

She stopped. God, this was stupid. Just stupid. She had a trained investigator in front of her, and they were sitting here discussing it in his kitchen.

“I could use another pair of eyes,” she admitted. “I’m out of ideas. Maybe you’ll see something I didn’t.”

Immediately, Jack rose to his feet. “I thought you’d never ask.” His wide grin as he approached had her belly fluttering again, and she lifted her gaze from his mouth to his eyes. “And I’ll also be trying to solve another mystery.”

She pressed her lips together, torn between anxiety and amusement. “About people like me.”

“That, too. But there’s something else missing that I’d like to find.” He flicked the tip of her chin with his forefinger. The laughter faded from his eyes, his voice. “Tell me, Annie: Where has your smile gone?”

FOUR

IF I SMILED, YOU’D SEE MY FANGS.

Annie had silenced herself before the automatic response escaped. As she waited for Jack to change his clothes, another reply rose in its place, just as honest as the first: There wasn’t exactly much to smile about.

But she knew that hadn’t been what he’d meant. And the truth was, she hadn’t let herself show any strong emotions in years. There had been too much at risk, so she’d closed herself off.

Closed herself off, and lost almost everything to a threat she’d never seen coming.

Almost everything, but not quite. And so she could still smile a little.

Annie gathered her coat, the bag holding her wet clothes, and sword when she heard Jack returning downstairs.

He held her gaze as he crossed the room with that long, easygoing stride. Wearing jeans now, a black T-shirt, and a lightweight jacket—probably carrying a weapon beneath it.

The shadow of his beard was still a surprise, but Annie thought it fit him. For all of his family’s money, for all of his grooming to look the part of a spit-shined federal agent, he hadn’t appeared refined, but rough and masculine. Whether in jeans or one of his impeccably tailored suits, he’d always looked as if he’d be at home in a fisherman’s village or striding across a moor.

And if she licked his jaw on her way down to his neck, it’d be as abrasive as a cat’s tongue. She shivered and glanced away.

“You drive,” Jack said, pitching his keys at her.

She’d caught them before she realized what he’d done. That hadn’t been a slow toss, and her hands had been full. The speed with which she’d looped the scabbard cord over her shoulder and transferred the bag of clothes to her left hand must have seemed instantaneous.

She narrowed her eyes. “Sneaky, G-Man.”

He was still chuckling as they reached his SUV. Annie wedged her sword between the front seats for easy access, tossed her jacket into the backseat with an audible thunk. Ignoring Jack’s raised eyebrows, she pulled onto the street. In the rearview mirror, his garage door lowered, concealing another stack of boxes.

“Are you moving out?”

“No.” With a slight grimace, Jack cranked down the heavy metal pounding from the speakers. His thinking music, he’d once called it, and he used it whenever he was stuck on a case. Emptying his head, and letting intuition make the leaps that logic couldn’t. “I haven’t unpacked.”

“Just moved in, then,” Annie murmured, but she was trying to make a leap, too. The music suggested that he’d been preoccupied with something even before she’d shown up—and he was aware people were missing, even if he didn’t know the people were vampires. Had the FBI become involved somehow?

“A little over five years ago, shortly after my fiancée gave me back my ring,” he said.

Annie’s lungs seized up, and her gaze flew to his face. “What?”

“Didn’t wait long, did I?” His tone was rueful, but his psychic scent had a layer of frustration over it. And regret. “The road, Annie.”

“Yeah.” She looked ahead, righted her steering before she broadsided a parked Buick, and forced a carefree note into her voice. “Not a long time, but, you know, whatever. It’s not a big deal. When it happens, it happens. Lightning strikes, you get stars in your eyes. Not something you can help.”

“Jesus, Annie.” She heard the scrub of his hand over his face, but didn’t let herself look. “That’s not how it was. I—”

“I don’t need to hear it.” Didn’t want to.

“Too fucking bad, because I intend to say it.”

Shocked, Annie snatched a glance at him. Had his temper shortened, or had she just never provoked it before?

Before she could decide, Jack continued, “There was a spark. And I wasn’t going to wait until she was in an accident, until I was at another funeral. Jenn moved in a week after we began dating. Got a ring within two weeks. We thought about buying a house, and I suggested we look out here in Mayfair, for a place we could fix up together, start a family. Then we ran into your mother, and Jenn figured it out about the same time that I did. Jenn didn’t look a thing like you, but she was a nurse, had a big heart, a huge smile. I gave her the loft in Old City, then bought the house we’d been looking at. I never unpacked because I thought I’d move on.” His fist had been clenched on his thigh; as he spoke, it slowly relaxed. “There’s been a spark here and there, Annie, and God knows I didn’t wait for it to burn out—but lightning’s only struck me once.”

Her heart was in her throat, her fingers tight on the wheel. “Jack—”

“Don’t.” He shook his head. “Don’t say anything yet. Wait until you’ve had a chance to sit on it.” A wry smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “And I’m not half-drunk.”

“All right.” God. Shame and apology had lurked beneath his speech. For unwittingly using another woman as a replacement, or because he’d been with someone else? “Just don’t be sorry, okay? Not on my behalf, anyway.”

What would he think when he figured out what she was? What she’d done?

She felt him study her face before he said, “So long as you aren’t sorry, too.”

A glance confirmed that he’d been watching her, his expression grave. “I’ll try,” she said, then sighed and returned her attention to the road.

To her surprise, despite everything left unsaid, the silence that fell between them was comfortable. But it had always been so with them, hadn’t it?

And the silences had never been empty. Like now, there were his hands to think about, his lips to consider, his clean, masculine scent to draw in deep. And in that last, incredible month, their silences had been filled with breathless kisses, the slide of fingers over skin, the heat of his mouth.

Damn it, damn it. The bloodlust flared, and Annie stopped breathing. Not that it helped—Jack’s presence couldn’t be denied by refusing to smell or look at him. And she couldn’t ignore the sharp interest in his psychic scent, the flavors of it; curiosity and male awareness formed a potent, shield-penetrating combination.

Sweat trickled down the back of her neck. The silence was no longer comfortable, but simmering.

“Tell me, Annie,” Jack said. He ran his fingers down the leather-wrapped handle of her sword. “What does a person like you do?”

“What most people do. Try to hold a job, try to have a life outside of one.”

“So you work?” Metal sang as he pulled the blade half out of its scabbard and examined the edge.

“Yes.” She couldn’t resist adding, “Nights.”

“In medicine?” He tugged the sword higher, lifted his brows. “Surgery?”

She suppressed her grin. “No. Although when I can, I volunteer at the Lady of Mercy.” Donating time, and as much blood as she could afford to give.

“The urgent care clinic in West Philly?” His eyes narrowed when she nodded. “They’ve got a remarkable reputation. Normal rate of success and recovery for nonlife-threatening wounds. But for GSWs, stabbings, vehicular accidents—which a clinic usually doesn’t even handle—the mortality rates are half that of a well-equipped hospital.”

“That’s what happens when you’ve got a bunch of nuns praying next door.” Vampire blood couldn’t perform miracles, but it accelerated healing, and a transfusion temporarily strengthened the recipient. “How do you know what kind of reputation an inner-city clinic has?”

“It’s all part of the job.”

She glanced over, caught the sardonic edge of his smile. Yes, she thought. Somehow, the FBI had become aware of the vampire community. They might not know what they were looking at, but they must know it was unusual.

“Investigating miracles, G-Man?”

“Only on a volunteer basis.” His gaze fell to her waist as if he could see through the jersey to the healed skin beneath, then he nodded at the blade. “And when you aren’t helping the nuns’ prayers along, Annie, are you using this on demons?”

“No. I wouldn’t have a chance against one.”

Uneasy with the direction he was taking, she cupped her palm over the butt of the sword handle. Jack didn’t offer any resistance; he let go, his fingers dancing lightly over her wrist as she pushed it into its sheath.

A simple touch, and need sizzled, burned, from her fangs to her womb.

Shivering, she pulled her hand away, fisted it against the steering wheel. Her head began aching again; raising her psychic blocks didn’t help.

With a frown, Jack lowered the air-conditioning, then shifted toward her. “Annie—”

“I use it on people like me,” she interrupted flatly. She hadn’t wanted to frighten him, was hoping that when he figured it out, he wouldn’t see her as evil, as damned—now she was afraid he’d cast her in the role of a saint. “If they break the community’s rules, I hunt them down, then cut through their heart or take their head. And I’m paid well for using that sword, Jack. I’m good at it. Better than I ever was with a scalpel.”

Jack was silent for a long minute. “And a bullet wouldn’t do the job,” he finally said, apparently recalling the shot she’d fired into the demon’s forehead.

“A bullet works better on people like me than one of the nephilim. One in my body would slow me down, one in my brain will drop me to the ground. I’d probably look dead for a few minutes. Then I’d get up.”

A muscle in his jaw flexed. “You’ve gotten up.”

Remembered pain rose like bile through her voice. “Twice.” And the first time had been the worst.

Without a word, Jack slid his hand over her knee, squeezed. A warm touch, one she knew wasn’t meant to arouse, but the bloodlust roared through her.

God, there were times she hated it. Hated how it overwhelmed every other emotion, how it took away choice. Unless it had been satisfied, it reduced everything to fucking and feeding.

She battled the hunger, trying to hold on to the comfort he offered—and knowing that the bloodlust meant she wouldn’t be able to hold on to him. Not for long.

And he needed to know that the changes in her weren’t just surface, weren’t just about speed, strength, or hair color.

“That’s where it went,” she told him. “I’m not the one with the big heart and smile anymore.”

“All right, Annie.” Another squeeze, and his hand fell away from her knee. She was wrestling with her disappointment when he added, “You’re heading for Center City. You live downtown?”

“Yeah. It’s convenient.”

His laugh was short, disbelieving. “Convenient? What neighborhood?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Annie,” he said softly.

She clenched her teeth, then admitted, “Old City. About three blocks from your place.”

“Jenn’s.”

“Whatever.” She glanced at him, but Jack wasn’t watching her as she’d expected. His eyes were closed and he’d tilted his head back against the headrest, looking as if he intended to nap—except for the grin widening his lips.

His position exposed his throat. She swallowed hard.

“Annie.”

Her response was a low growl.

His brows rose, but he continued in a matter-of-fact tone, “As soon as I’m not half-drunk, I plan to kiss the hell out of you.” Without opening his eyes, without losing his grin, he added, “The road, Annie.”

Shit. She straightened the steering wheel, managed, “I’ll be moving as soon as I find Cricket. I can’t stay in Philly.”

“Moving on.” He lifted his head, met her gaze. “I’ve recently decided that it’s time to do the same.”

FIVE

ANNIE’S BUILDING WAS A NEWER HIGH-RISE, METAL and glass—the kind Jack’s father would have called an Old City eyesore and an insult to the city’s history. He’d spent considerable rage and money trying to block the construction of any structure that the Founding Fathers wouldn’t have built themselves.

But the old man had raged himself into an early grave, and Jack liked the contrast of old stone and modern steel—the city, moving on.

It was going around.

Six years ago, Annie living in a place like this would have surprised him; it was too expensive, and too sleek, cold. But the widening of the doorman’s eyes as he took in Annie’s jersey and loose, faded jeans told Jack that sporty and casual wasn’t her typical look anymore, either.

“It’s the security,” Annie murmured as they crossed the lobby toward the elevators. Jack frowned, and she glanced at him. “That’s why I’m here. They couldn’t stop a demon, and they’re not so good that I can’t sneak a sword in under my jacket—” She gestured with the coat she’d folded over her forearm. “—but because a human probably won’t break in while I’m sleeping. And the fireproofing and extinguishing systems are top of the line.”

Security reasons, he could believe, particularly after she’d described her job. But was she serious about the last part? That tiny smile was playing around her mouth, and Jack couldn’t decide.

He followed her into the elevator and studied the set of her shoulders as she punched the button for the top floor. The doors slid closed, her features reflected in the mirrored panels.

Sweet Jesus, but hers was a face that haunted a man. Beautiful, unforgettable. He could look at her forever and never tire of the soft curve of her lips, the stubborn angle of her jaw, the glacial clarity in her eyes.

Her gaze met his. Awareness snapped between them, bringing his cock to instant, aching hardness. She lowered her lashes, hiding her expression—but he saw the raw need and the way she fought it: her mouth flattening, her fists clenching.

The hairs on his arms rose. His breath quickened.

Not just the clothes, the sword, the smile. Something else had changed within her, and it was hungry. Dangerous enough that Jack could readily accept that those who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—control it had to be hunted and killed.

It didn’t strike him as human, yet it was nothing like the alien horror of the demon, wasn’t frightening. There was no room for fear when his instincts were telling him to hunt, capture, hold.

And do whatever it took to keep.

“Annie,” he said quietly, and stepped closer. “Don’t move.”

She didn’t, except to look up, watching him in the mirror. Her body was rigid. If he hadn’t recognized the hunger within her, he’d have thought it was the petrified stance of a doe or rabbit preventing herself from running, instead of a predator holding herself back.

He lowered his mouth, let it hover above the bare skin of her nape. Was it difficult for her to stand so still, exposed and vulnerable? He listened for the rush of her breath, but heard nothing.

Only his own.

But she shuddered as his palms curved around her waist. Beneath the jersey, her muscles were taut.

“You’re still half-drunk, G-Man.”

Remembering his promise to kiss her, he laughed softly, felt her shiver when his exhalation skimmed her neck. “Not half. Only about one-quarter now.”

“That makes all the difference.” But even as she rolled her eyes, she tilted her head to the side, allowing him easier access. His hands slid higher, and he almost groaned. Her nipples were hard.

So was he. Christ, like a stone. And being a quarter drunk probably did make all the difference. If not for the alcohol dulling the edge of his arousal, he might have come just from the perfect weight of her breasts filling his palms, the thundering race of her heart.

Annie. The sweet scent of her shampoo made his head swim. His thumbs flicked; she sagged back against him. He pressed his lips to the soft skin below her ear.

And froze.

His gaze met hers in the mirror. A long second passed, broken by the chime of the elevator, the doors sliding open.

Annie strode out of his embrace without looking back.

SHE’D looked back once before, in the form of a single phone call that had been a good-bye, and it had torn her apart. Six years ago, Jack hadn’t known what he’d heard—but he realized it now.

Gallagher had been the one to contact Jack the morning after her father’s heart attack. And although Jack had spent the day trying to get a hold of her, Annie hadn’t returned his call until after night had fallen.

Her fractured sobs had brought him to his knees, and her refusal to let him come to her had left him feeling lost, useless. He’d thought her repeated apology—I’m sorry, Jack, I’m so sorry—had been for shutting him out.

It had hurt that she hadn’t wanted to lean on him, but he’d fought his resentment, knowing it was out of place in the face of her grief. And a day later, when Gallagher told him she’d been killed in an accident, Jack’s only emotion beneath the agony of loss had been the relief that his resentment had remained silent. That the last time he’d spoken to her, it had been words of love and support.

But maybe it would have been easier for Annie if she had walked away with anger at her back. Easier if she’d thought there was nothing to come back for.

Jack had regrets—God knew he had them. He’d second-guessed himself thousands of times: What if he hadn’t agreed to give her time, had pushed his way into her grief, had stayed so close that he’d have been driving the car? But never had he imagined that she’d been out there, alive. If he had, nothing on Earth could have prevented him from going to her.

And knowing Annie, nothing on Earth could have prevented her from returning to him.

But demons might have... or a being with cold, pale skin, who wouldn’t need to breathe during a minute-long elevator ride.

What if her sorry hadn’t been for shutting him out, but because she’d been forced to leave him behind?

Shaken by the onslaught of memories, by the new, unsettling notion of what Annie might be, Jack joined her at the door to her apartment. Her head was down, and she fumbled through the pockets of her coat, producing a key. Wordlessly, he took it from her trembling fingers, let his hand linger against her cooler one.

His gaze fell to her mouth. If she happened to smile, if he kissed her, what would he find there? He suspected he knew.

But he wasn’t sure he’d convinced himself of it yet, couldn’t make it feel real. And judging by Annie’s reaction, she wasn’t prepared for him to know, either.

A few hours wouldn’t hurt, and would give each of them time to steady.

With effort, Jack forced his contemplation of cold skin and reflections to the back of his mind, and switched gears.

“She had her own key?” he asked. When Annie blinked up at him, he prompted, “Cricket?”

“Yes.” And in the space of a word, her expression changed. Gone was the hesitancy; her gaze flattened and cooled. “She has permission to come up even if I’m not available to clear her through. Security has a video of her entering from street level at oh-three hundred hours on the twenty-sixth of June. She exited, running, just after fifteen hundred hours on the twenty-eighth, carrying her backpack—which was holding, I believe, ten thousand dollars cash and two firearms.”

His brows rose, but Jack didn’t question that as he followed her through the door. Her apartment was spacious. Clean and simple, with low, cushioned furniture and teak cabinetry. “Have all nonresident visitors to the building been accounted for, the times verified with residents?”

Annie nodded. “I knocked on doors.”

“Neighbors?”

“There are four penthouses; only three are occupied, including mine. Northeast corner is a dickhead broker; he’s seen nothing. Probably because his head’s up his ass.” They shared a look. That tiny smile flashed, then she continued, “The Carlsons are in Europe. I’ve checked theirs and the vacancy. There’s no evidence that she’s been in either.”

“Access to the floor?”

“The elevator, two stairwells, and... out there.”

Absently tugging at his ear, Jack walked over to the sheet of windows and the glass doors that led out to the wide roof-top balcony—and remembered an impression of glowing eyes, crimson skin.

“It had wings,” he said.

Annie slung her coat over the frame of a shoji screen, then stepped behind it. A dragon with jade and gold scales snaked across the folding panels. “Yes. The transformation was quick; I wasn’t sure if you’d seen it.”

He hadn’t been certain, either. “You’re assuming that someone came in, spooked her, and she ran. Why couldn’t it have been a phone call?”

“Her cell is still at Christine and Stephen’s,” Annie said as he rounded the screen. A cabinet full of weaponry was open in front of her; she reached up, laid her sheathed sword across two wooden pegs. “I’ve got nothing listed on my caller ID, and the redial is still my mother’s number. Cricket doesn’t know about Mom.”

Her holster was next. Jack stopped her before she put it away; frowning, he ran his fingers over the shiny, cracked surface of the leather. The opposite side—the side that wouldn’t rest against her back—was smooth, supple.

A soft, sad smile touched her mouth. “Dad gave this to me on my fourteenth birthday—my first gun. Back then, he still intended to make a cop of me. I’ve kept the holster in good condition, but the last ten days...” She sighed, hung it on another peg. “I sweat too much.”

She wasn’t sweating now—but the air-conditioning was cranked so high that Jack was glad he’d worn his jacket. Pushing his hands into his pockets, he studied the cabinet. She’d already replaced the SIG, but there were still several empty pegs.

“The guns and the money came from here?”

“Yes. She could have grabbed them on her way out.” She closed it. No lock, he noted. Dangerous with a kid around... unless the kid might need quick access to it, as well.

“You planned for this,” he realized. “Not just defense, but escape. And you included her, prepared her.”

“Not this, exactly. I didn’t know about the nephilim until New York.” She dug a pouch from her jacket, then passed him in a blur. A second later, she strode from the hallway into the kitchen. “We have to be careful of demons—but as a human, Cricket didn’t have to fear any would hurt her. Anyway, they generally leave us alone.” A shadow crossed her face. “Generally.”

“Then it was a precaution against other people like you.” A drinking glass was in the sink, a spoon and bowl. He opened the freezer, saw the chocolate chip ice cream that matched the dried residue at the bottom of the bowl. The fridge was empty. “The dishes were hers?”

“Yes. I haven’t taken time to clean.”

And hadn’t eaten here in ten days. “Don’t start now.”

She nodded, then crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter. “And you’re right: It’s because of people like me. The community elders—we called them The Five—could be unreasonable when it came to certain matters, and any act that might expose the community was at the top of their list.”

And dead humans would risk exposure. “Hence, your work,” Jack guessed, stepping around the center island to glance into the garbage. The contents resembled his own: Tastykake wrappers, an empty cereal box, several clear plastic bags that looked like—

His stomach lurched. Units of blood. Not so much like his, then.

Refusing to let his instinctive revulsion show, he tamped it down and continued on to the pantry. Snack food, but nothing substantial; just items that Annie probably had on hand if Cricket showed up.

But Annie didn’t have any blood on hand. And she had a reflection.

Maybe he’d come to the wrong conclusion—and hadn’t it been an insane conclusion in the first place? He could have misinterpreted everything: the lack of food, the plastic bags, the rapid healing, her pale and cold skin, her speed, the new pout to her lips.

That was a shitload of evidence to misinterpret.

“Yes,” she said slowly, and he turned to find her standing by the trash bin, staring down at the contents. “And due to the nature of my work, I risk exposure—and risked angering The Five—more than most.”

Her face was expressionless when she glanced back up, but her gaze hesitated at his neck before she met his eyes, and Jack had to pretend that his heart wasn’t pounding, that his knees didn’t feel as if a mad scientist had been at them with a quart of novocaine and a blunt hammer.

She’d broken into his house to drink his blood.

Holy Christ. Welcome to reality, Jack.

“I also risk those close to me.” She spoke calmly, but there was fear in the way she stood so still. No longer the hunter holding herself back, but a woman expecting a blow—and he realized that if he didn’t step carefully here, it was Annie who risked being hurt. “And I appreciate you offering to help, but if you are disgusted or scared—”

“Annie, please. Disgusted? Scared?” He put a fair amount of sneer into the word. “I’m Special Agent Jack Harrington, FBI.”

Her lips twitched, but her gaze remained clear and steady. “If anything you discover about people like me bothers you, I wouldn’t think less of you for leaving.”

Did it? Maybe it should, but right now the image of her feeding wasn’t bothering him. No, the memory of how she’d climbed into his bed produced a much different response.

Which meant that he could be sick or perverted—or still completely messed up over her.

“Did you hear those three letters, darling? F—B—I.” Jack stalked toward her, put a swagger into it; he’d have flashed his badge if he’d still had one. When her shoulders began shaking, he maneuvered close and pushed his advantage. “That’s ‘Fucking Balls of Iron’ to people like you. You could ram your knee into my dick and it’d just ring like the Liberty Bell.”

It began as he’d expected it would, with a snicker that she tried to suppress. Then she grabbed the edges of his jacket and pressed her forehead to the base of his throat, hiding her face, laughing wildly.

Jack grinned in response. God, that was familiar and sweet. A deep, uncontrollable laugh, the type he knew would continue on, bubbling up again before she could stop it.

But his grin lasted less than a second. Then his heart expanded, filled his chest with unbearable pressure. Annie, Annie, Annie. His eyes closed, his arms enfolded her against him.

He was holding her again.

It didn’t matter how this miracle had happened. Only that it had. And he wouldn’t let her go.

His embrace tightened, but his joy and wonder slid away as her shakes became shudders, her sobs as deep and uncontrollable as her laughter had been.

He waited it out with an aching chest and a thick throat. Jack Harrington, formerly of the FBI—unable to do anything but listen to her cry.

“Annie,” he whispered into her hair when it finally subsided, but he didn’t have anything to say except her name again. “Annie.”

“God, Jack.” Her voice was small, muffled against his shirt, and he had to strain to hear. “Ten days, I’ve been walking through this city. And no one knew. One hundred and thirty of us, gone, murdered, and no one knew. No one grieved, or wondered, as if we’d never been real, as if we never existed. As if we never loved, never had families. All of us, just phantoms.”

And he knew who to blame for that. Jack stared over her head, his jaw set.

“And then there you were.” She drew back, pushing the moisture from her cheeks with the heels of her hands. No red eyes or nose; if anything, she was paler than before. “Of all people, it was you.”

He framed her face with his hands. Cool skin, cold tears against his palms. “We’ll find Cricket. And we’ll make the rest of it right.”

SIX

ANNIE LED JACK TO THE BEDROOM CRICKET HAD used, grateful of the opportunity to compose herself. How long had that been building up inside her? She didn’t know, hadn’t expected it, yet she couldn’t summon any embarrassment for breaking down.

Even shared, the weight of one hundred and thirty lives was heavy—but it was easier to bear.

And maybe, for the first time since she’d returned from New York, the dreams in her daysleep wouldn’t amplify that weight into a mountain.

Her daysleep. Damn it.

“Jack.”

His expression was distracted as he glanced up from the bureau drawer he’d opened—the one that still contained the change of clothing Cricket had brought. “She as crazy about clothes as some girls?”

“Yeah. Maybe more than some.” Cricket didn’t have many connections with kids her age; those she did, she worked as hard as she could.

“But she didn’t grab these before running.” He nodded slowly, stood up. “There’s nothing wrong with your eyes, Annie, nothing I can see you missed. All signs point to someone coming in.”

That was what she’d hoped not to hear. “Someone I can’t smell.”

“That you can’t...” He shook his head. “What?”

“You, people like me, even the old guy tonight—we all have a scent. His was human. And waffle-y.”

His brows shot up. “He smelled like a waffle?”

“Not exactly. But kind of buttery, syrupy.” She averted her face when he began to grin, and tried to tame her own. He’d probably only thought that was funny because he was punch-drunk tired, but God, he turned her insides to jelly. “My point is, I can tell when someone has been in my house. And demons—the other kind, not like the old guy—don’t have a scent.”

Jack pulled his hand through his hair, let it fall back to his side. “Shit.”

A check of the clock told her only thirty minutes remained until sunrise. Annie was starving, but it’d have to wait until tomorrow.

“I’m going to crash pretty soon, Jack. I’ll be out all day. Is there anything you need before then?”

“A picture, if you have one. Names of her friends or classmates— Why are you shaking your head?”

“Come this way.” As they walked to her bedroom, Annie explained, “I don’t know of anyone she’s close to—and she’s homeschooled.”

“You disapprove?”

Had he picked up on that note in her voice so easily? “Not in theory. And I understand the reasons behind it: Christine’s and Stephen’s schedules made it impossible to look out for her during the day.”

“But?”

“It’s no life for a kid. And Cricket has adjusted to our patterns, looks out for herself pretty well, but...” She trailed off with a sigh and a lift of her hands. “She doesn’t sleep as long as we do, especially in the summer, so she has to occupy herself for stretches of time. She isn’t allowed to go out. And even with movies, books, video games—it’s got to be lonely.”

And Jack, she thought, would know that better than most. She remembered that he’d told her the same of his own childhood: He’d had everything a kid could want, but was still isolated, lonely.

“Yes,” he agreed. “What will you do when you find her?”

Her laugh was short and humorless; she didn’t like to think beyond finding Cricket. “I have no idea. Probably the same thing. Until she’s a little older, I don’t know what else to do. I don’t even know what my situation will be.”

His curiosity filled his psychic scent, but he didn’t give voice to his question. She didn’t want to explain it yet, anyway. Didn’t want to tell him she would have to find a vampire to feed from—and do everything demanded by the bloodlust.

She avoided looking at the curtained bed against the far wall of her room. The picture she wanted was on her vanity. After sliding the photo from the frame, she turned and met Jack’s eyes.

“This is from last Halloween, at Eastern State Penitentiary’s annual scare-fest. She’s not wearing makeup or a wig; just the fangs are fake.”

She didn’t say anything about her own, and knew his gaze skipped over Cricket’s brown, curly hair, the cute face shedding the last of its baby fat, to Annie’s wide smile.

When he didn’t respond, she cleared her throat and added, “We, uh, try to do a lot of those things. Movies, events at all of the historic sites—the prison’s her favorite. We’d planned to do the Bastille Day one this weekend. I’ve been through the penitentiary three times with her, that twilight tour they do—not to mention visiting every supposedly haunted house in the area.”

“I’ve done the same,” he said quietly, and pocketed the photo. “She’s alone much of the time. What about e-mail, MySpace? Online friends?”

Annie blinked, shook her head. “I don’t know. She has a computer in her room. I didn’t think to check it.”

“We’ll pick it up tonight, have a look around their place. After you wake up.”

She didn’t miss the emphasis he put on the last. Swallowing down the vestiges of panic, she jerked her thumb toward her bathroom. “I have to get ready for bed, then...” Ah, screw it. “You must have worked it out by now.”

She loved his broad smile, the teasing glint of his eyes— loved them even more for appearing now. “I think so.”

“And it doesn’t frighten you?” she asked, then waved off whatever answer he’d have made. The important thing was, he hadn’t already pulled his gun on her. “Never mind. Balls of iron, all of that.”

“Yeah.” He hesitated for an instant. “About that, Annie.”

“What? No ding-dong?” When he grimaced and laughed, she tilted her head at the bathroom door. “Come in and tell me, Jack. And I want to hear how you knew about Tanya, Daryl, and the others—but we don’t have much time.”

HE’D resigned from the Bureau.

At her sink, Annie slowly rinsed cleanser from her face, trying to absorb the news.

It was the one thing she’d never expected him to say. In his way, Jack had been as driven as Annie. He’d once told her the FBI had figured into his plans since his teens—the ironic consequence of his father leaving him alone with super-heroes, detectives, and spies for company while the old man tended to business. And although his father had clearly believed Jack would abandon the FBI and take over the reins when he’d made Jack the sole beneficiary in his will, Jack had simply sold off stock and most of his properties to more interested parties, and carried on as he’d begun.

She’d never thought he’d give up his career—and she’d never have asked him to, any more than she’d have asked him to remove his own arm. But if she had...

God, what if she had?

Swallowing against the ache in her throat, Annie patted her face dry and sank down onto the gold brocade chaise tucked in the corner. On the sill beside the oversized claw-foot tub, candles sat in hardened pools of wax. Plate-glass windows overlooked the balcony, and a dark slice of the Delaware River showed through two buildings nearer the shore.

The bathroom was extravagant, but this was the one place she allowed herself to slow down, to linger.

And it was where she’d spent so many hours dreaming of what might have been. Remembering Jack’s touch, his mouth, the easy perfection of every minute she’d spent with him. Her fingers and imagination had been poor substitutes—and though she’d treasured every friendship she’d had in the past six years, safety had demanded that she maintain a certain distance.

Safety. No, even if she’d known he’d eventually leave the FBI, her choices wouldn’t have been different. Jack’s dedication to his job wasn’t the only reason she hadn’t gone to him the night after she’d been transformed. It wasn’t the only reason she’d stayed away in the years following.

“It doesn’t mean I can’t help you find Cricket, Annie.”

Startled, she glanced at Jack through wet lashes. He’d braced his shoulders against the linen closet door, crossed his arms over his chest. His stiff tone suggested he’d taken her extended silence as disappointment.

“It’s not that. I’m just surprised.” She tugged the elastic from her hair, absently ran her fingers through the tangles. “It was voluntary?”

“Yes.” Jack crossed the room, sat beside her. “I wasn’t asked for my resignation—but by then it was a relief to my superiors. And to Gallagher.”

She tried not to gape. The poster boy had become a problem? “Why? What happened?”

“According to your sources, the nephilim happened.”

That was too recent. He’d said by then. “No, I meant—”

“What led up to it?” At her nod, he agreed, “I’ll start at the beginning then. In any case, it’s all related.”

Her brow furrowed. “To the nephilim?”

“Apparently.” He bumped her thigh with his, and a hint of his teasing grin reappeared. “This could take a couple of minutes. We should get comfortable first. Hold on.”

She let herself relax when his arm came around her waist, allowed him to turn her until they were both reclining on the chaise, facing each other with the crook of his elbow pillowing her head.

Jack couldn’t really be comfortable, not with his jacket on and his weapon under it—but neither his psychic scent nor his expression suggested that he was in a hurry to move.

Neither was Annie. And the bloodlust burned, but even if it consumed her whole, left her weak and starving, she wouldn’t ruin this moment.

“Can you light those candles with your mind?”

She blinked; then a laugh shook through her. “I wish. Why?”

“For atmosphere.” He paused. “And I saw it at a séance once.”

He’d attended a séance? “It was probably a parlor trick.” Impatient, she prodded his ribs with her forefinger. “Talk, G-Man.”

“Five years ago—the same month Jenn and I separated— Gallagher and I got a line on a guy who’d been forging IDs. And feeling it out, we ran across what initially looked like a racketeering operation.”

“Organized crime?”

“Yes. Payouts to a circle of individuals in return for protection.” Jack shifted a little, as if settling in, and managed to pull her closer. Always sneaky. “Then one morning the guy washed up in the Delaware with a couple of holes in him—”

“Bullet holes?” And human, if his body hadn’t disintegrated in the sun.

“His throat cut open to his spine, and stab wounds to his heart from a dagger or similar blade.” Jack’s gaze dropped to her mouth. “No unexplained injuries. And that’s when an occult specialist out of the San Francisco office showed up. What we had, she said, wasn’t mob activity at all, but a Satanic cult. She had files—other cases she’d worked—and comparable evidence to back it up.”

“So you let her in on the investigation.”

He nodded. “Partly as a courtesy, and partly because it was her area of expertise. Her record spoke for itself. She knew her shit, and neither Gallagher nor I were going to waste a resource like her. Lily Milton.”

He spoke the name with the bemused tone of a man wondering, in hindsight, how he hadn’t seen the snake coiled beneath a rock until it bit him.

Then his eyes met hers again, and he smiled. “You remind me of her. Especially now.”

Annie shot up to her elbow. “What?”

Her eyes narrowed when his smile widened. “You’re thinking there was a spark. Nothing like that. I wasn’t interested in being interested, and she once said that Boy Scouts like me were the first to stab a woman through the heart.”

“And how, exactly, is that like me?” Annie asked in a dangerously low tone, tracing her finger in an X over his chest. His heart was pounding beneath her fingertip, in her ears. “I’ve got a soft spot for good boys.”

Jack made a rough noise and grabbed her hand, held it still. “I thought I did for good girls, but Jesus, Annie, this dark side of yours does it for me, too. I don’t have a single soft spot on me right now.” He stared at her for a long second; then, with a slight groan, he focused over her head. “I have no doubt that if Agent Milton expended a little effort, she could have any man on his knees and begging. Probably for a riding crop on his ass.”

Annie sputtered into laughter. “Well, now—”

“You wouldn’t have to expend any effort.”

Something inside her melted. As cover, she made a show of glancing around. “The lack of men on their knees and begging for a whip suggests otherwise.”

“Maybe it’s just me, then.”

He looked at her again, his gaze dark with need, and she dropped her head to his shoulder. Her hand flattened over his heart; her breath fluttered over his pulse. The bloodlust raged.

After a moment, he cleared his throat. “As I was saying, you both have a way of moving that suggests power beneath it—and not just physical. I used to watch you in the ER, Annie. It was chaos, but as soon as you stood over a patient, everyone fell into line around you, began controlling it. With Milton, you just wondered who she’d pissed off, keeping her in the field instead of in charge of an office. The difference is, you work with people; you don’t bump heads. She’s the type who does.”

“She bumped yours?”

“No. Gallagher’s. She started talking about some of her cases, demons and... vampires, like they were real. Only, she did it with this little smile. So I thought she was pulling his leg—and when she saw that it was pissing him off, she pulled it harder.”

“Oh,” Annie realized quietly. “She knew. And she knew Brian did, too.”

“Obvious now, right? And I’ll admit she had me half-convinced, enough that I started asking a few different questions, looking at different angles. Not expecting to find anything— except people who thought they were connected to some bloodsucking demon god.”

“Did you find anything?”

“No. Practically overnight, every single person in that payout circle disappeared. So did everyone linking us to the circle. In her report to our SAIC, Agent Milton gave the opinion that they’d run to another city—that the lack of finesse during our initial inquiries tipped them off to our interest. Furthermore, that the speed of the investigation had been hindered by my pursuing leads of a fantastical nature.”

The load of bitterness behind the word told Annie that was exactly how Agent Milton had phrased it, but she couldn’t focus on the implications of it. Her stomach had condensed into a lump of dread.

Five years ago. Every single person in that payout circle disappeared.

Oh, God. Annie knew what had happened to them. She’d been there.

“Annie?”

She swallowed, sat up, and swung her legs to the floor. Lowered her head into her hands. “I’m fine. What happened then?”

“What you’d expect,” he said slowly, then rose to his feet. “It leaked out. Mostly just ribbing, but Gallagher... Gallagher said he couldn’t believe I’d fallen for her line of bullshit.” He sighed. “I hadn’t, but she was as clever with how she’d worded and presented her report as she had been with everything else. And it wasn’t long before I was proving her right.”

Hands in pockets, he walked to the window, stood looking out. Annie couldn’t; the pale light in the sky pricked at her eyes. Sunrise was minutes away.

There was so much to ask—but time demanded that she jump to the end. “How does this relate to the nephilim?”

“Not the nephilim,” Jack said. “The cover-up. One hundred and thirty people disappear at once—jobs, homes suddenly abandoned—but no one notices?” She squinted over at him, saw him shaking his head. “I only caught on to it when one of my property managers called me. I kept a few of my dad’s buildings; this was in Kensington. The door left open, signs of a struggle. So I checked with the occupants’ references, and found the same thing at their house. And so on. I opened a case file.”

His footsteps alerted Annie to his approach before he sank on his heels in front of her. “Within a day, Annie, it was taken out of my hands.”

But who—? Oh. “Agent Milton again?”

“Yes. Under a new division of Homeland Security—and with enough power to take over the investigation. And those disappearances I knew about were suddenly being explained: sick relatives, accidents, better jobs or apartments...” He trailed off, his eyes unfocused and his anger radiating off him like waves of heat. “One hundred and thirty lives erased. The Bureau didn’t put up any resistance, and Gallagher was happy to let it go.”

The sick ball of dread in her stomach tightened. Annie scrubbed her palms over her face, wondering if she could ever explain her response.

Probably not. But it had to be said.

“It was the right thing to do, Jack.”

He rocked back a little, his baffled gaze searching her face. What he saw there hardened his jaw. “You don’t mean my resigning,” he said flatly.

“Maybe that, too.” She swallowed, got to her feet. He rose, smooth and quick. “But what Milton did—it was right.”

“How, Annie?”

Despite his confusion and anger, his question was controlled; she couldn’t do the same. She pushed past him, seeking distance.

He came after her. “How, Annie? You tell me that ‘people like you’ are just like everyone else, with jobs and family. They aren’t soldiers. They aren’t agents. They haven’t signed over their lives in the name of national security, to be swept under a goddamn government rug. You cried in my arms because no one knew they’d died. Yet it’s right? Fuck that.”

“And what would you do, Jack?” Her teeth were clenched; it was little better than a growl. She ripped aside the curtains surrounding her bed, hating them suddenly. Gaudy. Stupid and gaudy and embarrassing to need a bed with jade satin curtains. “Expose us? Let everyone know we’re here?”

“Who is here?” He flung his hands wide with a hard, disbelieving laugh. “Who is left to expose? Everyone but you is dead, Annie. You’ve said these demons can’t hurt humans. Couldn’t we have offered some protection? Prevented it? Or at the very least, if we’d known what was happening, then people like you might have, too—and prepared for it.”

She yanked off her boot, threw it across the room. “And what about protection from people like you?”

“Like me? Humans?”

“Yes,” she snapped, and the second boot made a matching dent in the wall.

His silence was sudden and cold.

Oh, Jesus. Annie turned, faced him. He’d closed himself off somehow, raised emotional shields. But she could read his expression. Could see the bleakness there.

“I don’t—” The words stumbled. She brought her fingers to her lips, as if she could drag them out by force. “I don’t mean you. Not personally.”

“No?” He stalked toward her, his gaze hot upon hers. “Tell me, Annie—why didn’t you come to me six years ago? Did you think I’d hurt you?”

She snorted. “What—afraid that you’d pull out a stake? Whatever.”

His mouth tightened, but he didn’t answer—just kept coming. Wondering if she’d back up? To test the truth of it, to see if she was afraid?

She wasn’t. Not of him. Not now.

Her hands curled in denial. She closed her eyes when he stopped in front of her, avoiding that intent gaze, trying to suppress the bloodlust it stirred. “Maybe a little,” she admitted. “But it was more than that. And everything was... confusing.”

God, what a weak word for the turmoil she’d gone through. The painful riot of emotion.

Her eyes flew open when she felt his hands at the hem of her shirt. “What are you doing?”

“Taking back what’s mine.” His voice was rough, but his movement smooth as he tugged the jersey up and over her head. A second later, he was shoving the jeans she’d borrowed over her hips.

Almost naked—and hungry.

Annie crossed her arms over her breasts, excited, terrified. “Bad idea, Jack.”

But it was too late to go anywhere. And she didn’t want to run from him. Didn’t want to fight.

“You, in your panties, on a bed? Very good idea, Annie.” He picked her up, pushed her back onto the mattress. He tore out of his jacket, let it drop to the floor. “I should have done it six years ago.”

He didn’t waste time now. His body covered hers, long and hard. Even through his clothes, he was like a furnace against her skin. His palm swept up her side. Annie clenched her teeth against the pleasure of that simple caress, the rampant need.

His lips were hot against her ear. “Maybe if I’d touched you more often, maybe if I’d been inside you, a part of you—if you’d known how I cherished every inch of you, you wouldn’t have been afraid.”

Her heart twisted. “No, Jack.” Annie turned, cushioned his cheeks in her hands, met his eyes. “I knew. I knew.”

His mouth flattened. “But it wasn’t enough. You didn’t come.”

“It was everything.” Her breath shuddered, and she traced the line of his bottom lip with her thumb. “That’s why I didn’t come.”

A muscle in his jaw worked beneath her palm before he made an obvious effort to relax it. The corners of his mouth tilted up. “Maybe you can explain that. Later.”

Nodding, she lifted her head. His lips met hers in a kiss of surprising delicacy. It shouldn’t have been so soft, not when need and hurt lay sharp and pointed between them. But it was, his mouth gentle as she parted her lips, the touch of his tongue like a whisper across hers, coaxing a moan from her throat.

Bitter coffee, a hint of whiskey. She couldn’t taste him, had never regretted the loss of that sense so much. But she could scent them, remembered their flavor, and the decadent slide of his tongue past her fangs sent a delicious shiver under her skin.

Magic hands, magic mouth.

With a groan, he deepened the kiss. Flavor struck, bright and blinding over her tongue.

Annie jerked away, scrambled to the corner of the bed.

“Go, Jack.” She wrapped her hands around the bedpost as if she could anchor herself.

It wasn’t going to matter. She couldn’t resist the bloodlust, couldn’t stop once she’d had a taste.

Not unless he resisted, too.

He wouldn’t. Jack had risen to his knees; he wasn’t running. Crimson dotted the finger he’d touched to his lip, but he didn’t look at the blood in horror.

And his arousal hadn’t abated. His hair was tousled, his chest heaving. He lowered his hand to his side.

His eyes met hers. “Come, Annie. Take what’s yours.”

Not like this. But her body didn’t heed her mind—only the thirst.

Her leap knocked him onto his back. Her hands tore at his jeans, shoved down to stroke his rigid length. Her womb clenched. He was thick, ready. She’d be filled, quenched, warmed.

His body arched beneath hers on a strangled groan.

Shaking, Annie lowered her mouth to his neck... and continued descending, into darkness.

The bloodlust shrieked a denial—but it was relief that carried her through to dreams.

SEVEN

FOR A HEART-STOPPING INSTANT, THE COMBINATION of cool skin and dead weight made Jack fear the worst: She’d been taken away from him again.

She’d fallen slack, her face buried in his throat. Her chest wasn’t moving; he couldn’t feel her breath.

He slid his fingers to her inner wrist. His blood ran cold, killing his arousal. No pulse.

Jesus, no no—

Then it was there, a soft beat against his fingertips. His guts in a knot, he waited. Almost ten seconds later, he felt another.

Swamped by relief, he pressed a kiss to the point of her pulse. She’d said she would crash soon; he hadn’t expected it would be so dramatic.

Had the sun risen?

If so, that explained the curtains around the bed. They didn’t fit Annie, now or then. But they would be practical—if she ever forgot to close the heavy drapes at the windows, the satin would still block the light.

Nights. She worked nights.

He began shaking with laughter. She’d made a joke of it, and his tired brain hadn’t gotten it until she was prone on top of him, in a sleep that felt like death.

Awake from sunset to sunrise. Even with her speed—and any other abilities she had—that didn’t give her much time to look for Cricket.

He could extend that for her.

Reluctantly, he rolled her over. No rigor; her body was simply limp. He tucked the sheet around her shoulders, let his fingers tenderly roam her face.

She’d dyed her brows to match her hair, but the makeup around her eyes had been washed away. Her lashes were pale fans above her cheeks. Naked—yet even in sleep, she didn’t look vulnerable.

The points of her fangs gleamed behind her parted lips.

The cut on his own lip was stinging now, but it hadn’t hurt when he’d scraped it on her teeth. No, it had been more like being Tasered. A hit of pure sexual need, arcing from her mouth to his cock, jolting his arousal to impossible, painful levels.

Jack hoped to God she woke up hungry.

THE early sun glared off the windows of Gallagher’s house. Annie’s brother pushed through the front door, and Jack slid on his sunglasses—more to hide his exhaustion and bloodshot eyes than to shield them from the light.

He’d stopped at his own house for a blistering shower and three cups of enamel-stripping joe, but the wait outside Gallagher’s had been longer than he’d expected, and the edge the caffeine had given him was starting to wear.

So was his patience.

The heat soaked through Jack’s T-shirt the instant he climbed out of his Land Rover. Seven-fifteen in the morning, and it was already shaping up to be a steaming bitch of a day. Hopefully, Gallagher would roast in his suit every time he stepped outside, sweating as much as Annie had searching the streets alone.

Gallagher blinked when he noticed Jack, then glanced back toward his house. The windows were empty, but a curtain was falling into place the next home down the row. Annie’s mother.

Family meant so damn much to Gallagher that he’d bought a home that shared a wall with his parents’—and made his sister unwelcome in both.

“Running late today, Brian?” Jack’s grin must have been on the maniacal side; Gallagher’s friendly smile turned wary.

“Marnie and the kids are down the shore, so there aren’t as many stops to make before heading in.” He came to a halt, studying Jack’s face. “What’s up with you, Harrington? You’re retired; you should be sleeping in, not haunting my yard.”

“I’m looking for a favor.”

“Ah, fuck me to hell. I knew this day would come.” Gallagher’s trapped expression was a good-natured, male version of Annie’s. “All of those boxes. It’ll be damn hot moving them. I’ll need beer. A keg.”

With a shake of his head, Jack passed him a folder containing latent fingerprints from the cane, Cricket’s glass, and Annie’s front and balcony doors. “I need you to run these.”

Frowning, Gallagher set his briefcase on the concrete walk, flipped open the file. “Whose reference prints?”

“A missing girl, a demon, and—”

“God damn it, Jack!” A tide of red rushed beneath Gallagher’s jaw, and he slapped the folder shut. “You might not give two shits about your career, but don’t drag me down—”

“And Annie,” Jack finished quietly.

Gallagher sucked in a breath. He fumbled through the folder, tugged out the ink impressions Jack had made of her fingers while she’d slept, and studied them as intently as he would a picture.

There was love in that gaze, and regret—and Jack wanted to ram his fist through Gallagher’s face.

Never mind that he considered his former partner a friend. Never mind that he thought meatheads who resorted to chest-thumping displays of aggression were assholes. Before him stood a man who’d told Annie that she was dead to her family—a man who’d been cozily sleeping three blocks away while a demon had stabbed a cane through her stomach.

Gallagher had contributed to the pain his woman had experienced—and by God, there would be blood.

Jack shoved his hands into his pockets when Mrs. Gallagher came out on the porch, shielding her eyes against the sun. But he couldn’t stop himself from stepping closer, nose-to-nose with Gallagher.

“I ought to drop you where you stand.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “Six fucking years, you lied to me. Kept me from her.”

“Back off, Jack,” Gallagher said wearily.

“Left her to go it alone.”

“Back off!”

The shout echoed through the street. A vein throbbed at Gallagher’s temple, but apparently he realized Jack had no intention of backing down. Gallagher retreated a step, shot a glance over his shoulder.

Annie’s mother had disappeared inside her house, but obviously intended to return; she’d left the door open.

“Christ.” With a heavy exhalation, Gallagher staggered to his own porch, sank down on the top step. The folder dangled from his fingers, his wrists limp between his knees. “You didn’t see Annie that night, Harrington. Licking the blood off her hands—her own goddamn blood—and she couldn’t stop herself. Because she hadn’t fed yet. She told us she hadn’t wanted to, because she couldn’t control the... other.”

Gallagher averted his eyes, but Jack barely registered the other man’s embarrassment. He wished Gallagher had punched him; it’d have been easier to take than the image of Annie he’d painted. Sickening, pathetic.

Heart-wrenching. She must have been terrified.

“Her own blood?” He rasped the question through an aching throat.

But Gallagher only nodded absently, either assuming that Jack already knew what had happened, or too lost in his memories of that night to hear Jack’s confusion.

“I said things that I regret, but I don’t know if I’d have changed anything. I had two little girls next door, and Marnie with another baby on the way. Dad was dead on the floor, Ma begging him to wake up. And Annie didn’t have control.” He lifted his gaze to Jack’s. “She agreed that leaving was the right thing to do. That telling everyone she’d died was.”

The right thing to do. The whole damn Gallagher family had a different definition of that phrase than Jack did.

“And I thought Annie and you hadn’t been any more than buddies, hanging out here. You two sure as hell never let on,” Gallagher continued. “I didn’t know until the funeral.”

When Jack had been shit-faced and broke down; he remembered Gallagher’s shock and discomfort too well.

With a soft curse, he looked away. The urge to hit something didn’t fade, but his anger dissipated into frustration and disappointment.

“I just didn’t think that Annie would... not with someone she didn’t know.”

“She knew me,” Jack said quietly.

“That’s what I’m saying.” Gallagher sighed, rubbed his forehead. “I didn’t understand it. Looking back, I could see how it happened with you. Yet by the time the funeral rolled around, she’d been shacked up with Dante for a week and a half. That’s not the kind of thing you break to a guy who wept through the hymns.”

Every muscle in Jack’s body tightened. His stomach hollowed. But a soft step and a pair of light blue eyes prevented him from demanding answers.

Mary Gallagher glanced from her son’s face to Jack’s, then lifted the bucket she’d carried out. Chunks of ice floated in water.

“As you boys have settled down, I won’t be needing this. Will I?” She sent a quelling look toward Jack, and he shook his head, the tension in his body fading.

He didn’t know if it was something every mother could do, or just Annie’s—but her calm manner and quick humor always put him at ease.

After setting the bucket down, Mrs. Gallagher wiped her hand on the leg of her trim blue pants, patted the blond hair clipped at her nape. “You haven’t visited in a while, Jack. A part of me wants to dump ice water over your head for your neglect—the sight of you in a wet T-shirt would make up for a multitude of sins.”

Gallagher’s groan was almost as loud as Jack’s laughter. “Jesus, Ma—”

“Don’t curse, Brian,” she said mildly, smiling up at Jack. “What brings you here now?”

Jack removed his sunglasses. With Gallagher, he’d wanted the shields. With Annie’s mother, it felt rude to wear them. “I had a visitor last night.”

Her gaze flicked to the cut on his lip. “What sort of visitor? You look like hell, Jack Harrington.”

“Not as bad as the last time he ate your meatloaf, Ma,” Gallagher said. “He’s here about Annie.”

Surprise smoothed her features, then relief. “She called you then. Is the girl still missing?”

Jack didn’t correct her assumption; there was no need for them to know Annie had broken in, or why. By the time he’d finished detailing the rest of the evening, ending with Annie giving him Cricket’s picture, Mary Gallagher was sitting on the step next to her son, her face pale.

“A demon,” she said, horror lingering in her voice. “What can we do?”

Jack met Gallagher’s eyes. “That depends on whether Brian will stick his neck out.”

Gallagher stood, his face a rigid mask. “Your crazy obsession was never about Annie before, Harrington. Don’t question what I’d do for her.”

“Good, because I need more than prints. I want everything you can find on Lily Milton.” When Gallagher swore, Jack ignored it and pushed on. “Particularly in the past eighteen months, since she left the Bureau.”

“For God’s sake, Jack. Her division’s got more layers of security than the spooks do. I don’t even know if I can get past—”

“If you can’t, I’ll go directly to her.” He saw the frustration in Gallagher’s expression, knew it matched his own. Milton was the last person he wanted to approach for information. “We don’t know anything about what Annie’s up against. Even Annie doesn’t know much. But I’d bet Milton does.”

“And when Milton stabs us in the back?”

Jack spread his palms, shook his head. Gallagher had more to lose than Jack did—and it wasn’t the job or the salary that mattered, but the badge behind it.

“You’ll be free to vacation with your wife,” he finally said. There was simply no reassurance to offer.

“Marnie did mention she and the kids were missing you, Brian.” Mrs. Gallagher stood up, patted her son’s hand. “Now go on to work, so you can get started. Jack, you look as if you could use something to eat. I planned on hiking to Haegele’s this morning... oh, dear. Try not to look so relieved.”

A chagrined smile tugged at Jack’s lips. It remained as Gallagher reversed his sedan onto the street, as Mrs. Gallagher returned with her purse.

He fought with his impatience—felt like an ass for it. He could always use more coffee and sugar, but there was too much to do before his inevitable crash. Catching up with Mrs. Gallagher wasn’t at the top of his list.

“And now you look too guilty,” she observed as soon as they hit the sidewalk. “You should leave that to old biddies like me. Do you know that for three years after Donald passed, I continued cooking for myself—because I was ashamed at how relieved I was whenever I ate something that I hadn’t made. As if being grateful that I didn’t have to eat my own cooking anymore meant that I was grateful he was gone.”

Jack opened his mouth, but every response stopped in his throat. Jesus, what could a man say to that?

She smiled kindly, then gave his hand a pat, just as she had Gallagher’s a few minutes earlier. “Of course, I knew that wasn’t true, but it took my heart those three years to catch up with my head. And the guilt still tugs at me now and then.”

Jack nodded, as if he understood, and immediately wondered if he should have shaken his head.

But Mrs. Gallagher didn’t seem to notice his inadequacy; her gaze was soft and unfocused as she mused, “He was very traditional, Annie’s father. And so long as I tended to the kitchen, he never complained about what came out of it.”

Jack frowned, recalled the redheaded giant of a man. “He expected Annie to join the force.”

The glance she slanted at him was puzzled; then realization slid over her expression. “His children were Gallaghers— and male or female, Gallaghers are cops.” She stopped walking, her brows drawing together. “He was a good man, Jack Harrington. Fixed in his ways, strong in his faith and his ideas of how the world ought to be—but still, a good man. I enjoyed cooking, even if the results were terrible; if I hadn’t, he wouldn’t have expected me to do it. And he loved Annie enough to bend, to support her when she chose medicine.”

“Yes,” Jack agreed quietly. Unlike his own father.

“He loved her enough. But he wasn’t flexible enough.” Tears suddenly sheened her eyes, and she began walking again. After a moment, she continued, “As a mother, as a wife, as a woman—the night Annie came home and told us what had happened to her was the worst of my life. Not because of what she’d become, but because Donald couldn’t bend that much. He thought he was doing the right thing. The righteous thing. And in the space of a few minutes, I went from wishing him dead to trying to save him, but his heart had just...”

She lifted her hand, as if to say there were no words, then delicately wiped her cheeks.

And that simply, it came together and ripped a hole in Jack’s chest. The row houses wavered like a mirage, and he shoved his sunglasses over his eyes.

He’d contemplated the worst: Annie, losing control, killing her father. He’d wondered if the heart attack had been a lie, just as her accident had been.

But a different picture was forming, of a father who couldn’t see a vampire as anything but damned. Who’d used his gun, and tried to destroy the evil he thought his beloved daughter had become. A mother’s grief and fury turned against her husband.

Then Annie would have gotten up.

“We Gallaghers know guilt.” She looked up at him, her gaze sharp. “Annie knows more than Brian or I possibly could, and deserves none of it.”

It was Jack’s turn to stop, a muscle in his jaw working. “Do you think I’d add to it?”

“I think that when you came to us six years ago, you were wanting a family almost as much as you wanted Annie. And you were still looking for that family after she’d gone.”

He couldn’t deny it. He’d jumped straight into a commitment with Jenn, had begun thinking of a home and children. Trying to re-create what he’d had with Annie, what he’d wanted for them.

And he’d failed, not because he’d tried to replace Annie—but because it hadn’t been Annie. If he’d wanted a life with Jenn or any of the other women, he’d have fought to keep it.

In a low voice, he said, “If that was all I was looking for, Mrs. Gallagher, I’d have had it by now.”

She studied him, then resumed their walk. “Have you considered that even though you’ve found her again, she can no longer give it to you?”

“No, I haven’t.” Because it didn’t matter. He wanted the same thing he always had: a future with Annie.

And he didn’t give a damn what form it took.

He drew in a long breath. “I appreciate that you’re trying to protect Annie—but she doesn’t need protection from me. I’m the least of her worries.”

“I doubt she sees you as the ‘least’ of anything,” she said, and her soft smile returned. “Do you know, even though Annie and I have dinner once a month—well, I have dinner—I have no idea where she lives? I didn’t know Cricket existed until last week, when Annie asked if I’d spoken with her. And she didn’t ask for my help, even then.”

There was no reproof or jealousy in her statement, but there was a question. A need to be useful.

This walk hadn’t been time wasted after all.

EIGHT

EVEN SLEEPING, JACK WAS SNEAKY.

He’d trapped Annie on her back, his bare thigh heavy on hers, his arm wrapped across her chest. There was no way to scoot out without waking him.

Silently, she turned her head, and her heart contracted. Even with his face half-buried in the pillow, she could see his features were lined with exhaustion.

The perfume of her shampoo was thick in the air, the crisp scent of mint toothpaste, a lingering dampness. He’d prepared for bed here, but it hadn’t been more than two or three hours ago.

She’d wait a few more minutes then—to let him sleep, and to savor the moment. It was the first time she’d ever woken up with someone next to her.

How wondrous that, of all people, she’d ended up waking next to Jack.

Each of his breaths was deep and even, his lips slightly open. His jaw was clean-shaven. The night before, she’d loved the roughness of it; now, she only felt the slow-burning anticipation of tracing her fingers over his smooth skin.

Had he anticipated it, too? He’d used her shower, her soap, but he’d had to have brought his own razor. Planning ahead... intending to be ready when she woke.

Intending to continue what her daysleep had interrupted.

Oh, God. The realization sent the bloodlust tearing through her. She whimpered, her hands fisting in the sheets. Her nipples stiffened, and she fought to keep her body still, to keep from arching and rubbing the taut flesh against his arm, to keep from opening her legs and rolling him beneath her.

He’d be hard after the first bite, and she’d have him inside her seconds after it jolted him awake.

Her hips rolled, once. She squeezed her eyes closed, shutting out the sight of his skin, the brevity of his undershorts, the strong length of his body that, even in sleep, didn’t look or feel soft.

No, he’d never been soft. And with the sheets bunched in her fingers, she recalled how hard he’d been six years ago in her brother’s backyard, long after everyone else had turned in for the night.

It had been his shirtsleeves in her fists then, her teeth clenched and back arched, her sundress around her waist. She’d had no idea where her panties had gone, and couldn’t care. He’d been using his hands, and his tongue, until the stars had spun out of control behind her eyes. And he’d wrapped her legs around him then, rocked, rough denim and slick heat, biting her shoulder, shuddering against her.

She’d carried the bruise for two days, and it had healed within moments of her transformation.

And soon, she’d be drinking from him.

It had to be that way. Packaged blood could ease the hunger in the short-term, but didn’t nourish a vampire. The blood had to be living.

It would be Jack’s—and when she took it, she’d take him.

Not like this, not like this. Her mind chanted it, but her body and the thirst took up the rhythm, timed it to the pounding of her blood.

Her hips undulated. Her fingers dug into the mattress. Hold still, Annie.

“Annie?” The drowsy question sharpened with concern. “What’s happening?”

No, Jack. Sleep. She just had to get to her nightstand—

Her eyes flew open as his weight shifted. He leaned over her, his hand cupping her cheek. “Tell me.”

“I need—” Blood. To take him inside her. “—to feed.”

His gaze lowered to her mouth, and she felt the rise of his cock against her thigh. “Then feed.”

“No.” She began panting as he bent his head, kissed the hollow of her throat. “Not like this, Jack—”

“Will it kill me?”

She shook her head, then cried out as his lips closed around her nipple. So hot. The bloodlust escalated, lifting her body, seeking more pressure, more pleasure.

Her hands found his shoulders. “Jack, listen, listen, please.”

His tongue halted its devastating swirl.

“You don’t know how it...” She stopped, regathered, forced it out as crudely as she could. “We’ll fuck.”

“Good,” he said bluntly.

“Jack—”

“I lost you once, Annie. It taught me not to wait. Not when I want something.” His eyes met hers, his face dark with need. “And God knows, I want you. More than I have any other— more than I ever will any other.”

Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. “There have been others for me.”

“I know,” he said, and his voice softened. “I never expected that you’d wait another six years. Do they matter?”

“No.” And that was the point. But he didn’t know—couldn’t understand. She needed to fight back the bloodlust, explain. “That’s why—”

Annie’s breath hissed through her teeth as he wedged between her thighs. Heated and thick, grinding against her aroused flesh.

Her craving spiked. With a ragged moan, she began to move with him.

“This,” he whispered roughly against her ear. “I want this. To hold you, to be inside you.”

She wanted, needed that, too, and it was shredding her control. The pounding of his blood filled her senses. “Jack—I can’t—”

“I need to fuck you, to make love to you. To hear you, to feel you.” He gripped her hips, rolled her over. Turned his head and exposed his throat. “However, whenever. Whatever it takes, Annie.”

Whatever it takes.

She moved quickly. Her chest ached and her eyes burned, but she saw his confusion when he ran his fingers over his left triceps, found the injection site. She felt his shock when his gaze fell to the syringe in her hand.

“You’ll just sleep,” she promised hoarsely.

His anger rent through her psychic shields. Swearing, he struggled to sit up. She caught his shoulders, easily pushed him back against the pillows. His voice was already weakening.

She pressed her cheek to his, drew in his scent. When he slept, she bent her head.

And she fed.

JACK sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.

Christ. He wasn’t sure if it was a head or a bucketful of wet sand. Whatever Annie had stuck him with had put him to sleep for another hour, but he was still groggy as hell.

A glass appeared below his face. “This will help.”

He glanced up. Her extraordinary eyes were cool, reserved.

His teeth clenched, but he took the orange juice she offered, and wondered how to cross the distance she’d put between them.

A distance he probably deserved. His skin flushed. Jesus, he’d gone after her like a rabid pitbull.

“You prepared well,” she said quietly. “You already took the vitamins that were on the counter?”

He nodded, then tested both sides of his neck. The left was sensitive to touch, but there were no open wounds.

Her eyes followed the movement of his hand. Her lashes were dark again, her eyes outlined in smoky gray. “My blood heals it. Heals the bite. I did your lip, too.” Her gaze settled on his mouth, then flicked away. “If you’re hungry or dizzy, I can bring in that Haegele’s box from the kitchen. I have to admit, the pastries even tempted me—but I thought you were a Dunkin’ Donuts guy.”

Her barely there smile was more barely than there.

“I am.” A gulp of juice washed away some of the grittiness. “I bought them this morning with your mother.”

“You did?” She sat gingerly on the bed, her attention never leaving his face.

Not distant, he realized. Wary. “Yes. She’s operating under the assumption that, although you’ve kept this part of yourself separate from her, you have let me in.” His mouth flattened into a bleak line. “Which makes two of us who assumed too much.”

Annie stared at him, started to say something, then seemed to think better of it. After another second, she said, “What happened to your balls of iron?”

“What do you think, Annie? You’ve got them like this.” He made a claw of his hand, then twisted his wrist. “And you know I turn into a sap when I’m drugged. Or drunk.”

“Then I’m almost sorry I went out for your coffee instead of dropping by a liquor store. Drink that first, though; your blood sugar has probably bottomed out.” She tilted her chin at his juice, and her lips slowly curved. “And I can’t wait until I get my fangs into you again.”

“Hurrah for me. Another nap.” He looked away from her fading smile and drained the glass, ignoring the twinge in his chest that told him he was being an asshole.

But it ate at him. No matter how he circled around it, the bare fact was she’d doped him so that they wouldn’t have sex.

Yeah, he’d come on strong. But for Chrissake, a sharp word or a pinch would have brought him to his senses, and he’d have remained still and just let her feed. It would’ve been torture, but he’d prefer to lie on the bed with his dick on fire than miss a single moment with her.

Hell, even if the effect of her bite meant that he couldn’t control himself, she was strong enough to hold him down. She could have stopped any guy with little effort.

So why hadn’t she done it that way?

Jack frowned and glanced over, then blinked. He’d been brooding for three seconds, tops, but Annie wasn’t on the bed. His clothes had been laid out in her place, a clear message that it was time to get ready, to work; she’d already left the room.

Fast. Strong. Yet she’d had a tranquilizer ready.

He dragged on his jeans, then stood in the cold room, staring at the bed.

Maybe it wasn’t the guy she had to worry about. A little scrape of Jack’s lip, and sexual arousal had sizzled through him like a lightning bolt. It had sent her tearing away from him. If Annie had felt anything like he had, or if the blood she drank amplified what he’d experienced—

Oh, Jesus love him.

There’d been others, she’d said. But Gallagher was right— it didn’t make sense that she’d immediately gone to another man. After waiting twenty-eight years, she wouldn’t have hopped into bed with a stranger.

I’m sorry, Jack. I’m so sorry.

Six years, and he could still hear it so clearly. But she had nothing to apologize for.

Unless that was the reason she hadn’t come to him.

JACK was angry.

Even over the anxiety twisting her stomach, Annie could sense it. And though he was trying to bury it, the bitter heat rose and skimmed the turbulent surface of his emotions.

When his footsteps sounded from the bedroom, she glanced out from behind her paneled screen, then continued choosing her weapons. Nothing that he’d been projecting showed in his expression. Five minutes before, she’d felt a spike of painful realization from him—but whatever conclusion he’d come to, he was apparently still working through it.

And knowing Jack, he wouldn’t confront her until his head had cleared.

Almost on cue, she heard him pop off the plastic top of his coffee cup, and had to smile at the rip of a sugar packet.

Maybe she’d been right, then, to leave the bedroom when she had. When he’d woken, she’d gone in with the intention of explaining everything. But he’d obviously been feeling miserable—and between his shame, his sense of rejection, and her fear of his reaction, one of them would have said something they’d regret.

They just hadn’t had enough time yet to sort through everything.

Her hands trembled slightly as she strapped on her holster. She paused, staring at her shaking fingers, her throat thick.

They wouldn’t get much time.

She was beginning to exhibit the effects of alternating living blood with packaged. Soon she’d be tired, slow-witted—and one human couldn’t supply all Annie needed.

But two vampires could drink from each other forever.

Her breath hitched. Slowly, she closed the cabinet, leaned her forehead against the door. Her heart raced, a thready beat, a need so deep that it felt like sickness.

Forever. With Jack.

It would be asking so much. Six years ago, they’d have been married, no question. But they’d both changed during their time apart, and transformation was more than marriage; it meant a completely different life, sacrificing the day, and concealing their nature.

Would Jack conceal his? He hadn’t changed his mind about the cover-up Milton had done—but if he pursued it as a vampire, still thought to expose their kind, a demon might take notice.

A demon had taken notice before, with horrific consequences. Remembered fear shivered beneath Annie’s skin.

Maybe it wasn’t even right to ask him; a vampire lived with risks humans never had to face. When The Five had ruled the community, Annie’s position had been too precarious, and she hadn’t wanted them to know Jack existed.

Now the nephilim posed a greater threat than The Five ever had. What had changed, that she could consider bringing Jack into her life now?

From the kitchen, she heard Jack’s heavy sigh, then his determined approach. Annie rubbed her face, composed herself before he came around the screen.

Cricket, first. And as they searched for her, Annie would let him see what it meant to be a vampire. He’d either choose to be the same, or let her go.

And she’d try to find the strength to move on.

Jack’s eyes were solemn when they met Annie’s, and he examined her features before his gaze dropped to her hip. “The guns don’t surprise me,” he said slowly. “You could always talk weapons and procedure with the rest of us.”

She shrugged. “Cop family.”

“Cops don’t carry swords. You’re good?”

Her fingers played over the hilt, and she nodded. “The first year, practicing was almost all I did.” Reading the question in his eyes, she explained, “The community enforcer—Dante— needed a partner. I showed up at exactly the right time, had a background that fit what he needed. And when he was killed, I took over his job.”

He frowned. “Only a year?”

“We move faster and think faster than humans, so we can fit more into a day. So that year was the equivalent of twenty years of training for a human.” Although she sensed she hadn’t taken the question exactly as he’d meant it, she continued, “I’m not as old as most vampires I hunt down, but most vampires don’t train with weapons... and they didn’t grow up with my dad.”

“They just live normal lives.”

She knew her smile exposed her fangs. “As normal as possible.”

His answering grin broke the tension between them. He held her gaze for a long moment, then glanced at the cabinet again, tugging at his earlobe. Thinking. “You prepared for an emergency with weapons, money. Didn’t that plan include where Cricket would hide?”

“Only if she was hiding from vampires. If it was anything else, she was supposed to hole up, open her shields, and wait for us to find her.”

His brow furrowed. “Open her what?”

“Her mind. I’d recognize the scent of it. The feel of it.” There was really no way to explain the psychic senses. Sometimes they registered as a taste, a scent, a touch—but were not exactly like that, either.

Jack was utterly still. “You can read thoughts?”

Annie shook her head. “Only emotions, and we can recognize an individual’s distinct flavor. But demons are more powerful psychically—and we don’t know how much more. It might be that they can take a location out of our heads. That’s why we didn’t plan one in advance.”

His breathing was unsteady, but he nodded. “And when you went searching for her, you didn’t... feel her.”

“No. Which probably means her shields are up.”

“Which means she’s not expecting you to look for her.”

“Yes,” Annie said.

He smiled faintly. “Your mother and I might have changed that. Should we go?”

“Yes, but what—”

“You’ll see.” Jack snagged her jacket from the top of the screen, his eyes widening. “Jesus. What’s in this?”

Annie stuck her arms through the sleeves, then opened it like a flasher.

“Because a woman can never have too many daggers,” he said dryly. He stepped closer, running his fingers down the lining. “And pockets filled with... ?”

“Everything.”

“No wooden stakes,” he observed.

“No garlic, holy water, or crucifixes, either.” She let the jacket fall closed. “I do have a few shuriken.”

“Throwing stars?” He put a hand over his heart. “Quieter than a gun, more distance than a sword—and with a dark/ mysterious/sexy rating of ten. How’s your aim?”

She struggled to contain her laughter, gave a cool shrug. “Decent.”

“You rock my world, Annie.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she looked away.

His grin faded. “But you knew that.”

Swallowing to clear the lump in her throat, she said, “Not until you said it. For all I knew, everything you felt stemmed from six-year-old memories. Or that you were angry and uncertain because you can’t recapture now what you felt for me then.” She moved past him. “A person can feel violent without hitting, happy without smiling. I’m walking to the door because we need to go—but that’s not what I’m feeling.”

“And if it was?” His tone teased, but she caught the intensity behind it. “If I only have your actions to judge by, I might think that you only want me for my blood and for Cricket.”

Annie pivoted. Before Jack could blink, she shoved her fingers into his hair and pulled his mouth down to hers.

She couldn’t be gentle, not when she poured her longing into it, her heart. It was fierce and passionate, hungrier than the bloodlust at its sharpest.

His kiss was, too. She felt the powerful swell of his emotions, a match for hers. Desperate to touch, tongues seeking, breath mingling. He took what she gave, offered as much.

And together, it became more, pulsing into a low, liquid need.

With a harsh sound, Annie dragged her lips away. She forced her legs to stop quaking.

“So, just blood and Cricket? Whatever, G-Man,” she said, and turned.

His breathing was as ragged as hers. “Maybe you’re only hot for my body.”

“Vampires aren’t hot for anything—and you can’t goad me into a repeat.”

“Damn.” He opened the door. “And now I can’t wait until you get your fangs into me again.”

“Nap or not?” She paused, met his heated gaze with her apologetic one. “I should have explained, Jack, and I’m sorry I didn’t.” Her fingers smoothed over his left arm. “I don’t plan to use it again.”

“Good.” He pocketed her keys. “What are you planning instead?”

“To explain,” she said.

NINE

IT HAD BEEN HOT THAT NIGHT, TOO. AND A HOLIDAY weekend, so the ER had been busy.

“Kids with fireworks, idiots drinking too much before lighting up the barbeque or getting in their car—we had it all,” Annie told him. Jack was driving this time; she stared out the passenger window, her sword across her lap. “I saw the paramedics wheel this guy in. Obviously DOA. A good portion of his frontal lobe had been sliced away, almost like a textbook cross section. Deep lacerations in his chest and neck—a near decapitation. The attending confirmed death, and then they must have taken the body down.”

“To the morgue?” Jack asked quietly, and she heard him swallow when she nodded. “That’s where you called me from. One in the morning, before you got a nap in.”

And they’d only spoken for a few minutes. She looked down at her hands, opened herself to the flood of memories. “It was quiet down there. God, I was so tired. I’d been on since that night at Brian’s—I was thinking of you when I fell asleep. And when I woke up, I was already dying.”

“He got up.” Jack’s voice was hoarse. “The DOA you saw earlier.”

“Yes. Woke up hungry, and without enough brains to have control. He hit my jugular, and I was a goner.” No chance after that. No chance but a miracle... or something else. “That’s when the demon showed up to finish the job she’d started on the vampire.”

She glanced over at Jack. “You look as shocked as I probably was. She appeared human, except her eyes were red, glowing. And by the time she’d chopped off the vampire’s head and got some of his blood on my neck to heal me, I was pretty much dead.”

“But a demon—she?—saved you.”

“Yes. It pissed her off, too; she bitched about it the entire time.” Annie allowed herself a smile. “Saying that being friends with a vampire had made her a witless idiot. Saying that Lucifer would punish her regardless for letting the DOA get away earlier, but that the punishment for a human dying would be worse than turning a human into a vampire. Saying that she’d descended so far that she was doing a Guardian’s job. All the while, telling me that I had to drink the vampire’s blood, that I had to willingly accept the change for the transformation to work.”

“And you did.”

“I did, and she dumped me outside one of the community elders’ houses. Flew me there.”

Jack was silent for a minute, absorbing it all. Finally, he said, “Lucifer?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus.” He was quiet again. “What’s a Guardian?”

“I’m not sure. There are stories about an army of men who are like angels, but I don’t know anyone who’s actually seen one.” She hesitated, then said, “But when I was in New York, I heard them mentioned several times. Tied to rumors about the nephilim who’d been defeated in Seattle, and there’s a vampire community in San Francisco that supposedly had help overthrowing a demon.”

They stopped at an intersection. Jack glanced over, studied her expression. “You’re wondering about them. These Guardians.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “I want to know. And when I leave Philly, I’m thinking about heading that way. Cricket would like San Francisco.”

“Count me in, then. Chasing down angels won’t be any different than what I’ve been doing.”

In the same instant, his answer lightened her heart and weighed it down. “And what is that?”

Jack shook his head. “You haven’t finished explaining.”

“Oh.” Dread gripped her chest, tipped the scale to heavy. “So the demon dropped me off with the elders who headed the community at the time.”

“Before The Five?”

“Yes. They took over a year later.” Remembering his story from the night before, she met his eyes. “That’s something else I need to tell you about. The demon came back.”

He shot her a puzzled look. “All right.”

“All right.” She drew a long breath. “They said the same thing as the demon did—you have to be willing, that resisting the bloodlust can hurt the transformation, and those who do just waste away and die.” Her shoulders hunched, and she barely noticed when she began rocking a little in the seat, back and forth. “And I was so hungry. Worse than when I woke up today. The DOA had had enough in him to change me, but I hadn’t really fed. But Dante was there, said I could take his blood. And I was thinking how disgusting it was... but I wanted to live, so I just told myself to go for it, to throw myself into it.”

“I’m glad you did, Annie.” Jack’s warm hand clasped her knotted fingers, and the echo of his words filled his psychic scent.

“The blood tasted incredible. Felt incredible. I was halfway done before I even realized that I was... That Dante and I were—” She closed her eyes, forced herself to finish. “Fucking. And it was good. Like it didn’t matter what I wanted, who I wanted. So after we’d finished, I was just... shattered. And so ashamed.”

“Annie.” His grip tightened. “Don’t.”

“It was supposed to be you,” she whispered. “We wouldn’t have lasted until we married—but marriage was never why I’d waited. I wanted sex to mean something. It was important to me, that intimacy. Dante and I were as intimate as animals.”

His other hand cradled her cheek, and she realized dimly that they’d parked. Her eyes burning but dry, she met his stricken gaze.

“And it stayed that way for a year. I was a tool to him, we fed from each other, but there was never anything else. I didn’t want that with you.”

“I understand that, Annie.” Jack’s voice was low and careful. “But even with six years apart, we had more between us tonight. It could never be just feeding. If all you did was stick your fangs into my neck and ride me, it still would mean more than that.”

“There’s an image.” She tried for a smile. Failed. With a sigh, she finished, “I’ve only had sex when the bloodlust was in control. But I held on to you—the memory of what we had. Now you’re here. And I’ll be damned if the bloodlust takes over the first time with us. Or the second.”

“But it’s all right the third time, hmm?” His thumb smoothed the corner of her mouth.

Her breath escaped in a silent laugh. “I do have to eat. But I promise I’ll be gentle when I ride you.”

“Ah, Annie. You destroy me.” Jack dropped his forehead to hers, and she felt the familiar anger lifting through him, a multi-pronged hurt. Felt him battle against it before he said abruptly, “Let’s go then. I couldn’t find parking, so we’ve got a three-block walk.”

The damp blanket of heat enfolded Annie as soon as she left the SUV. In the apartment above the street, a man yelled for his kid to get him a beer. Almost everyone had a TV or stereo on; some had both. Teenagers lounged on stoops, laughing, flirting, fronting. And over it all was the constant blow and rattle of ancient air conditioners.

Jack joined her on the sidewalk. He’d put on his lightweight blazer again.

“There’s no reason for both of us to cook; you can dump the jacket,” she said. “I have more than enough weapons.”

“Everyone in West Philly has more than enough weapons.”

They strode past a group of now-silent, wary-eyed teenagers, and Annie grinned. “They made you, G-Man.”

“Or they’re wondering how you escaped the Matrix.”

“Hey, now. I don’t wear vinyl and leather. Not in the summer, anyway,” she muttered, tugging at the front of her tank. Sweat was already trickling between her breasts. “You should just tell me what’s eating at you, Jack. Or I’m going to start thinking the worst—like you can’t forgive me for being with someone else.”

“Forgive you?” His brows snapped together as he rounded on her. “Jesus, Annie. The bloodlust slipped you a Mickey. You aren’t to blame, and there’s sure as hell nothing that needs forgiving.”

Emotion clogged Annie’s throat, but the hurt in him was still there, buried like shrapnel. She focused on it, precise as a scalpel. “You mean, nothing to forgive the first time.”

“No. I mean every time. You feed, or you die, right? And if you hadn’t chosen to live...” He dragged his hands through his hair, then dropped them to his sides. His voice flattened. “Did you think I’d blame you? Is that why you didn’t come?”

Whatever, she wanted to say. But his pain was at the surface now. This was the root, and it bloomed when she admitted, “I was afraid you might.”

His bleak expression ripped at her heart. “Did you think me so small-minded, trust me so little that you thought I’d consider it a betrayal? That I’d judge you? I loved you, Annie.”

She reached forward, caught his hand. Held it tight. “My dad did, too, and he—”

“Oh, Christ.” Jack stilled. The bleakness melted into a well of compassion. “I should have—”

“Listen.” He knew that her father had shot her, she realized—but she had to push past those memories. She couldn’t dwell on them now. “You didn’t have to judge me, Jack. I judged myself. I felt I’d betrayed you. If I hadn’t, I’d have gone to you first. But I was trying to find the courage, and thought my mom and dad would be behind me, help me. And instead he... and I—” She had to stop, but Jack still deserved to know why she hadn’t come. “I felt so guilty. For Dad, for Dante... for everything.”

“You aren’t to blame for either.”

She smiled at his fierce tone. “I know. It took me a while to see. But at the time... there was just too much, all at once.”

Annie let go of his hand, allowed silence to fill the space between them. Jack must have been thinking through what she’d told him; slowly, the anger and hurt faded.

They were almost to the house when he narrowed his eyes. “Here’s what I don’t understand, Annie: Dante.”

She sent a cautious glance toward his profile. “What about him?”

“Come on. Dante?” His brows lifted.

She bit the inside of her cheek. It wasn’t full-blown jealousy, but it was still some kind of male thing. “It wasn’t his real name.”

“He chose it? Jesus. Did he name himself after the poet or the guy from Clerks?”

She stopped, tilted her head. “Which is worse?”

“Did he wear flowing, ruffled shirts?”

“No,” she said, grimacing. “But it must have been the poet; Dante was about a hundred years old.”

“I bet he wore tights,” Jack said. Then the humor dropped from his tone, and he pulled the keys from his pocket. “He had a century of experience, and something was able to kill him?”

“The demon came back,” Annie said simply. “I’d actually been on the verge of contacting you—after a year of training, I’d worked through most of my guilt. But then everything changed.”

Jack’s head whipped around as the door swung open. “You would have called me?”

“Probably just showed up at your—” Her heart stopped. The scent from inside the house was faint, but unmistakable.

Buttery. Syrupy.

Annie drew her sword.

TRYING to provide backup for a woman who could search an entire apartment before he got past the foyer was a fucking joke—and Jack wasn’t laughing.

But he was surprised out of his anger when Annie returned to the stifling living room, her sword at her side, her jaw set. Before he could say a word, she lashed out with her boot. An armchair flew across the room, smashed into a sofa.

Jesus, she was incredible. Awed, he glanced from the splintered chair to her face. A warrior woman—a dark, avenging angel.

But it was a damn inconvenient time to become aroused. Jack reined it in and holstered his pistol. “What’d he get?”

“Her computer, her cell phone, and a picture,” she bit out. “His stink is all over the place.”

“Eau de Demon Eggo,” he offered.

Annie choked on a laugh.

His tone mild, he added, “If you ever go through a door like that again, Annie, I’ll shoot you myself and save anyone inside the trouble.”

She startled, then bared her fangs in an overly pleasant smile. “Whatever.”

He’d insulted her, but it wasn’t personal. “I’d have shot Gallagher, too. If we’re going to do this together, we’ll do this together. Don’t leave me hanging with my dick out, jerking off and wondering where the fuck you are.”

“Did you jerk off with my brother, too?”

Christ, how he loved her. “Annie.”

She turned her face to the side, hooking her hair behind her ear. “All right. You’re right. I’m just used to doing this alone.”

“Then get used to a partner. You know how it works.”

Even as she nodded, something passed over her expression— hope, yearning. But when she looked at him again, her features were blank, her gaze level.

“Let’s do a walk-through then, partner; maybe you’ll see something I missed.”

He suspected that her sharp eyes hadn’t missed anything— but Jack was seeing something new. He tried not to stare as Annie stepped to the side, and she observed the room with the detachment of a stranger.

That was familiar—but not because he’d witnessed it in Annie before. In the ER, she’d worn her heart on her face each time she’d fought for a life.

No, he’d seen it on her father and brother, on the faces of federal agents out in the field. And it probably mirrored his as he took in the living room, the worn, comfortable furniture, the little personal touches that declared it a home.

She was still fighting, he thought—but now, it was to prevent the harm being done, rather than repairing it... and exacting retribution from those she couldn’t stop.

Annie had become a cop, after all. She had different rules to follow, but the heart of it was the same.

Vampire cop.

It took effort to check his grin.

Annie sent him an odd glance as they walked to the master bedroom. “What?”

Jack shook his head, focused. An array of pictures sat on the bureau, the pattern broken by the missing frame. Cricket, he recognized. The female half of the smiling, fanged couple in wedding clothes must have been her sister, Christine. A candid shot of a very young Cricket and a middle-aged woman faced the bed.

The giant bed—and no curtains, because there were no windows in the room.

His brows rose. “If you’re married, why sleep with half an acre between you?” He’d buy a twin bed to share with Annie.

“Some partners sleep apart or in different rooms— especially if they’re just together to feed.” Annie hung back by the door, her hands in her pockets. “Stephen and Christine didn’t. They snuggled.”

There was a catch in her voice, and though her expression didn’t change, she averted her face.

Jack glanced at the wide expanse of the mattress. Not just a bed, but a dinner table.

After Dante died, where had Annie eaten? “I opened a file on twenty-seven missing people,” he said slowly, “and all of them lived with at least one other person. Not one was single, in twenty-seven. But you were.”

She looked at him, then at the bed. Her chin lifted, gesturing toward the near side. “That was my spot. I didn’t sleep here. I just came over every night, fed. Then they snuggled, and I either hung out with Cricket until they got up, or left for a job.”

Stunned, Jack only stared. Annie, a man, and another woman. He should have been turned on, but what she described didn’t sound sexy. Just lonely.

He finally found his voice. “Why?”

“They were my friends,” she said quietly. “And I saved Cricket. When Dante was killed, and The Five thought it’d be best to rotate me through the community, Stephen and Christine opened their bed, instead. And they loved each other, wanted only each other, so I was like having seconds. But at least that meant the bloodlust, it didn’t always—” She shifted on her feet. “Most of the time, it was just feeding.”

He fisted his hands, turned away. Seconds. What kind of world was it when a woman like Annie was made seconds? “More and more, it sounds to me as if you should have taken your sword to these Five.”

Her light laugh rolled through the room. “Oh, I would have, Jack—if there hadn’t been five of them, and they hadn’t always been together. Even at my best, I’d probably have only taken out three before the last two got me.”

He nodded, then strode to the door and captured her face in his hands. “Dark and sexy rating of ten? I missed the mark. You’re off the charts, Annie.”

She grinned. “Well, there would have been six, but I took off his head... right there.” She pointed down the hall.

He kissed her, hard and fast, then moved on to the next bedroom. Immediately, he noted the empty desktop—but it was the walls that had him blinking. “This is a twelve-year-old’s room?”

Annie pursed her lips, nodding as her gaze traveled across movie posters. There were a few elves and pirates, but most were filled with fangs and blood. “She skipped the Disney phase. We tried, but she has a thing for Dracula. Luckily, she hasn’t shown any interest in hardcore gore.” A shadow passed over her face. “Probably because she’s seen some of it.”

“Right there?” He looked toward the hall.

“Yes. And God knows what she saw when the nephilim came in. There was a lot of blood before it ashed.”

He frowned. “I thought you said there were only a few drops.”

“There were. The sunlight destroyed most of it through the windows in the living room.” She hesitated. “If we’re living, the sun sets us on fire within seconds, kills us. A dead vampire or blood disintegrates into ash.”

He’d already guessed that much. Jack nodded, idly glancing through a few brochures pinned to a corkboard. Haunted houses, theme parks, Eastern State Penitentiary’s tours.

Cricket and Annie had planned to attend the Bastille Day celebration; would the girl still go?

Nothing, he thought, would be lost if he went during the day, looked for her. Annie could join him after sundown.

His brows drew together, and he turned to her with a half-smile. “If the sun kills you, Annie—does that mean a sunshine boy is a bad thing or a good thing?”

To his surprise, she didn’t return his smile. Uncertainty trembled around her mouth until she firmed it, said, “Cricket wants to become a vampire as soon as she turns eighteen. I’ve convinced her to wait longer, because when you turn, there’s no going back. And as much as you gain, you have to sacrifice, too.”

“Like the sun,” he realized softly.

Tears shimmered in her eyes, tore at his heart. “Most people choose to transform; they aren’t forced into it like I was, and they have time to get ready. So I told her there’s no need to rush—especially if she finds something she’d miss more than sunshine.”

In two quick steps he went to her, held her tight. “Like a boy,” he whispered into her hair.

She nodded against his shoulder, echoed, “Like a boy.”

TEN

“DID YOU EVER KISS MY BROTHER IN A LITTLE girl’s bedroom?” Annie wondered. In the visor mirror, she saw the lounging teenagers watch them drive away. She’d shown them Cricket’s picture, and struck out.

“No. He never fixed his lipstick after I kissed him, either.”

“What a strange partnership this must be.” Though she kept her voice light, her heart pounded. She’d never been frightened like this. Even that night at the morgue—everything had happened too quickly. Now terror, hope, dread, and love twisted inside her, tightening, tightening.

“An unequal partnership,” Jack said. “I have more questions now than when we went in. So tell me: the elders, The Five, the demon, Dante, and headless number six.”

She nodded. How long would it be before it clicked for him? Not as long as it had taken her last night, she thought—but the elders’ deaths had been the last thing on her mind when Jack said he’d resigned.

“The elders used to collect a tithe from the community,” she began. “Money, in exchange for protection, and for contracting services from other communities and from humans: like providing identification for new vampires, or those vampires old enough to need new IDs.”

Realization whipped through Jack’s psychic scent. “Jesus fuck me.”

No time at all, apparently. “One night, they called the community together. And halfway through the meeting, in walks the demon who’d transformed me. She announced that the elders had brought the community to the attention of the human authorities.” Annie glanced over at Jack. “She didn’t say anything about the human forger who’d been murdered, but thinking about it now, the method was similar to how one of the elders had killed the elder before him, and took his position.”

“A vampire killed him.” Jack shook his head in disbelief. “And then?”

“The demon changed. One second, she appears human; the next, she’s got red skin and wings, horns, and two swords. Dante moved in on her, and—” Annie snapped her fingers. “Like that. I’ve never seen anything so fast... until the old man the other night. So then the elders looked to me.”

Jack’s pulse was racing. “And?”

“And she laughed and shot me.” Annie shivered, touched her brow. “When I got up, the place was like a slaughterhouse. All of the elders slain, and a few others who provided services. Christine told me later it had taken her less than fifteen seconds, and that she’d left them with a warning not to risk exposing themselves to humans again.”

“And when The Five took control, they took that to heart,” he guessed.

“Yes. Six, at first. But they went too far. If they knew of any vampire who still lived with a human, or had close relations with one... the Six decided that no human who could expose us should live.”

Jack’s face was grim. “Like Cricket and her mother.”

“Yes.” Her breath hissed out between her teeth. “I went to their house with him. I had no fucking idea what he’d planned, and I couldn’t stop him in time. But when he went after Cricket, I got him. Then took his head back to The Five, and we struck a deal: I continue as their enforcer, stop any vampire who might bring the demon back, and they don’t touch any humans. The damage had been done, anyway—the community quieted down, closed up. Those who had human family mostly moved away.”

“You were in New York.”

“Yeah, well—” Annie smiled, huffed out a breath. “The Five stopped tithing, and there weren’t that many vampires who needed to be hunted down in Philly. So The Five hired me out to other communities, and kept a percentage.”

“And instead of showing up at my door, you worked.”

“I couldn’t risk you.”

He looked over. “And now that they’re dead?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “There are still the nephilim, still demons.”

“Yes, there are still demons.” A frown creased his brow, and he tugged at his ear. “What did she look like, Annie? The one who transformed you.”

Annie sat up straight. “You’re thinking that it was Agent Milton.”

His eyes narrowed. “Obviously you are, too.”

“Five ten, one-forty, black hair to her waist. Gorgeous enough to make a dead gay man sit up and beg.”

“For a riding crop on his ass.”

“Yes.” Annie stared at him, felt his rising dread. “What’s in your head?”

“It’s ‘Oh, shit.’ We need to call Gallagher.”

“Why? What has he—” She gasped, turned in her seat to look behind them. “Oh, fuck fuck, the fucker! Stop the car. I’ll be right back.”

Jack pulled over, grabbed her wrist before she could open her door. “Annie.”

She glanced back. “It’s not dangerous. Two seconds.”

He nodded. Two seconds later, he ripped his hands through his hair, yelled, “You call sprinting between speeding cars ‘not dangerous’? ”

“Yeah.” She shoved a sheet of bright pink paper in his face. “The demon bastard taped this to the bus stop. ‘Found: Annie’s Sunshine Boy,’ ” she read. “ ‘Looking for a Cricket Girl to Call Home.’ And it gives...” She trailed off with a frown. “My cell number.”

“Your mother was busy,” Jack said, his voice even now, though his heart was still thudding. He put the vehicle back into gear. “Can’t cook worth a damn, but she’s a whiz with a copy machine.”

JACK had never seen Annie so nervous. He should have chosen somewhere else to meet Gallagher—maybe a restaurant in Center City, where he and Annie could have arrived first and she’d have had time to prepare. He’d picked Tony’s Pizza thinking that she’d be most comfortable in familiar surroundings, but he should have realized her fond memories of the place would only increase her anxiety.

She once regarded it as a symbol of family; now, it might just emphasize how splintered their family had become.

She took his hand in a death grip as they walked through the entrance.

Jack knew she spotted Gallagher and her mother the same instant he did, but instead of approaching their table, he spun her around to face him.

Her features were pinched with tension, and though she met his eyes, he thought her psychic senses were attuned to the table in the corner.

“Listen, Annie,” he said fiercely. He saw her focus shift, knew her attention fixed on him. “Blood is supposed to be thicker than water—but we both know that’s not always true. I don’t know what’s going to happen when we sit at that table. I only know that what’s between us is thicker than water, thicker than blood, and I swear I will always be here for you. And I will love you until I die. Maybe longer.”

For the second time in a few hours, her eyes swam with tears—and for the second time, she grabbed his hair and yanked him down to her mouth, kissed him until his brain leaked out his ears.

And when she drew away, the stubborn tilt to her chin was back, confidence glinted in her eyes. Her fingers threaded through his.

“You weren’t even drunk,” she said as they wound through the tables. The points of her fangs showed with her smile.

“I’m high on love, Annie.”

She snorted, and was still laughing when they reached the corner, as she leaned down to kiss her mother’s cheek. Gallagher stood when she straightened.

Wariness lurked in the other man’s eyes, and Jack was seconds from punching him when Annie’s mouth dropped open.

“You’re worried that I’m going to reject you?”

Gallagher appeared baffled for an instant. Then he shrugged. “Not having you around for six years gave me a different perspective. I was an asshole.”

“Was?” She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” Her smirk disappeared when Gallagher suddenly pulled her into a hug. Her eyes closed and her hands fisted behind his back.

Jack took the seat across from Mrs. Gallagher, and didn’t listen to the quick, private words Annie and her brother spoke. He was halfway through a slice and on his second coffee before Annie sat next to him.

Gallagher folded a slice, popped a circle of pepperoni into his mouth. “You batted a thousand on those prints, Harrington.”

Jack paused. “Even the one from the balcony door?”

He nodded, swallowed, and gestured to a folder by his elbow with the point of his pizza. “But get this: He’s listed in military records as MIA, presumed dead... since 1968.”

Jack looked at his greasy fingers. Annie reached, then placed the file between them so they could both see it, flipped to the first sheet. A grainy black-and-white photo depicted a young soldier with a jaunty cap, shaved head.

“Hawkins, Jacob, SP4. Out of Kansas,” Annie read.

“A grunt,” Gallagher said. “Went missing in Vietnam. And less than ten minutes after his info came up, I get a call from San Francisco.”

“Milton,” Jack said. He saw the apprehension on Annie’s face, knew it matched his own.

“Yeah, but here’s the strange thing: She was nice. Said that she understood I’d recently lost a sister, and gave me her condolences. So I said, Annie’s not dead. Then she was quiet for about a second, before telling me that if I didn’t get Annie the fuck out of Philly right away, she would personally bend my dick around backwards and shove it up my ass.” He sheepishly glanced to his right. “Sorry, Ma.”

“I can hardly be upset if you curse while repeating someone’s words, Brian.” She delicately patted her lips with her napkin. “I’m more concerned with what she said. Should Annie leave?”

“Not without Cricket.” Annie’s tone brooked no argument.

Gallagher didn’t disagree. He simply picked up another slice, continued, “So she tells me these nephilim are killing vampires because of some prophecy saying that vampire blood will be their downfall.”

Annie leaned forward. “How?”

“Your blood will weaken one. You get vampire blood on a weapon, it’s like poison to them, slows them down. But not by much—so she said not to try it unless you’ve got no other choice.”

She sat back, her jaw clenched.

Jack looked at Brian. “Did Milton say what they were?”

“Yep. They’re demons who possess the bodies of humans who’d died and were bound for Hell. And that they take on the personality of the host—which means you’ve got one perverted fuck on your hands. One who has a thing for young girls.”

Annie turned to the next sheet and paled, pressed a hand to her stomach. “That’s him.”

Jack studied the photo, felt his flesh crawl with remembered horror. Lawrence Oates. The bastard’s sheet stretched back five decades: molestation, rape, child porn. His prison cell had had a revolving door. “You got an address.”

“I checked it out,” Gallagher said. “It’s above an ice-cream shop, the ones where they make the waffle cones. His whole place smelled like them—but he’d cleared it out. Employees below said they hadn’t seen him in a day or two.”

“I need to be out there,” Annie whispered, finally glancing up from the file. “I need to get back out there, be looking for her.”

“All right.” Jack wiped his hands, stood. “You got anything else, Gallagher?”

“Yeah.” He looked from Jack to Annie. “Milton said you can expect a couple of visitors soon. She asked you not to shoot them before they can explain who they are.”

Annie shook her head, shoved to her feet. “I’m not promising anything.”

ELEVEN

ANNIE CLOSED HER EYES AND SUBMERGED HERSELF in hot water and bubbles. The throbbing in her head had eased, but her disappointment and fear didn’t soak away so easily.

An hour remained until sunrise, and they were no closer to finding Cricket. They’d spent most of the night taping up more flyers, and Jack slowly driving while Annie had riffled through thousands of minds... until the pain in her head had prevented her from searching through more.

He’d been the one to force her to stop, told her to rest. That she’d been hurting too much to fight told her he was right.

The bathwater reverberated in a soft, even rhythm: Jack’s footsteps. Annie automatically slipped her arms over her breasts, but his jolt of shock and horror had her erupting out of the water, snatching up her weapon.

Jack stood as if frozen. Then he shook his head, laughing quietly. “I forgot you don’t need to breathe.”

“Oh.” Suddenly laughing, too, she settled back into the tub—this time, with her head above the bubbles. With a toss, the dagger was back on the sill with the row of lighted candles. She eyed Jack’s T-shirt and jeans. “Are you coming in?”

He said something that might have been “Hell, yes,” but it was muffled by his shirt, already over his head. Annie bit her bottom lip, holding back her quiet growl of appreciation as each long, rangy muscle was revealed, as he discarded his jeans in record time.

Her gaze centered low as he approached. She wanted to reach out, stroke him, but she kept her hands beneath the water, soaking up the heat.

She wasn’t an icicle, but... “I’m not very warm, Jack.”

He grinned. “It won’t be a problem. Trust me.”

She nodded, scooted back. He eased into the water in front of her, and she couldn’t resist a nip at his taut ass.

“Already biting,” he muttered as he settled between her legs, leaned his back against her chest. “Uh, Annie—although this is very nice, I can’t do much in this position. And your knees are gorgeous, but I like to grab soft parts.”

“You talk. I grab.” She kissed the side of his neck, curved her palms over his shoulders, down the planes of his chest. “Our partnership is still unequal—because as hard as I try, I can’t figure out why you went to a séance.”

She felt his pained groan vibrating against her cheek. Her hands disappeared below the bubbles, her fingers running the ridges and hollows of his abdomen. “C’mon, G-Man. Spill.”

“You go any lower, and I will.” With a sigh, he tugged on her knees, wrapped her legs around his waist. His erection was hot against her calf. “All right. Milton pissed me off. And I couldn’t understand how someone like that had made it as far as she had—but considering my experience, it seemed likely that she’d twisted the truth to suit her needs before. So I looked at her past case files. Flying out to re-interview, going over evidence.”

Her hands stilled in surprise. “The FBI approved it?”

“No. It was on my own time. And I found discrepancies. Tiny ones, but when you added them up, you got a different picture than the one she painted. A picture that suggested some freaky shit, but it was still blurry—because in her files, she found a way to explain everything supernatural. But the witnesses I talked to weren’t convinced, and it was consistent: visits from people who were dead, tempting them into various sins. People who changed their faces, had glowing red eyes. A few mentions of angels.”

“No vampires?”

“Not many. And pretty soon, word had gotten out how I was spending my time—and I was ordered to back off. So I dropped Milton’s files, but I was hooked. I started checking out locals, listening for anything that might be worth looking at: the cure rate at the Lady of Mercy, haunted houses, the séances.” He paused. “Eventually, Annie, I’d have run into you.”

She smiled against his neck, her heart huge in her chest. “You think so?”

“I think of Milton, of you taking Cricket around to the same places I went, of all the different ways our paths might have crossed. Fate, God, or just dumb luck—I’d have found you again.”

Emotion flooded her throat. With her hands braced on the side of the tub, Annie slipped around, straddled him. Heat flushed her skin, water and sweat slicked it.

His gaze fell. Tiny waves lapped at her breasts, bubbles played a peekaboo tease with her nipples. With the pad of his forefinger, he circled the pink tip, cleared a path. “So we’re equal now?”

Annie arched into his hand. “Yes.”

“You don’t mind that, according to most of my colleagues, I’ve become a certifiable nutcase?”

“I suck blood, Jack.”

He laughed, bent forward to sip a drop of water from her neck. A shudder ripped through her, tore at her control.

Her fingers streaked wet trails into his hair. She took his mouth with hers, a long and needy feast. His cock rose hard against her belly.

Then his hands found her, and she was drowning. She’d been overwhelmed with need before, but it had been like a blade, flat and sharp, a single destructive edge. Now it rushed in on a caressing wave, surrounded her with murmurs of love and wonder, with an eager, seeking touch.

As devastating as the bloodlust, but made up of so much more.

She clutched at his shoulders as he drew her nipple into his mouth, as he eased a finger between her slick folds. Her legs trembled, and he deepened the invasion, gently thrusting.

Annie gasped, writhed against his hand. Water slapped the sides of the tub, her ears filled with the desperate sounds she made, Jack’s harsh breathing.

Her hands speared down, found him, stroked. His hips jerked beneath her, and he froze, strained to hold still.

Annie rose until the thick head of his cock pushed against her sex. “I can’t wait,” she panted. “I can’t wait.”

“Thank you, God.” His head fell back against the edge of the tub. “Next time, Annie, I’ll get my mouth on you for an hour—”

His words strangled as Annie took him in. Her flesh resisted for an instant, then gave way to the heated pressure of his shaft. Jack sucked in a sharp breath, and she leaned forward, cried out as he sank deeper, filled her.

“Annie...”

She rocked, took him in again. The uncertainty clouding his eyes burned through with need, but didn’t disappear. With her lips against his, she said softly, “I waited, Jack. So my first time was after my transformation—and I healed.”

He held her still when she tried to move. “Every time?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“Jesus, Annie,” he breathed, but the uncertainty fell away. His hands anchored her hips, his mouth possessed, his tongue plundered.

Mine.

It was fierce, a claiming. Annie gripped his shoulders, claimed in turn: his body, his heart.

And, when he tensed beneath her, his blood.

BATHED in shadows, the curtains around the bed drawn tight, Annie lay on her side and stroked lazy fingers down his spine, hating the coming day. But he would fall asleep with her, she knew. His fatigue would take him down, as the sun took her.

Jack watched her, and when he spoke, his voice was heavy with exhaustion. “You only drank a little.”

Her fingers reached the sheet draped over his hips, started back up. “I just needed it to have an orgasm. Not to feed.”

“I’m not complaining. It was one hell of a jolt. And tomorrow?”

Her soft smile faded. “We’ll go to the clinic. You can’t every day.”

“Annie—”

“You can’t.”

A long breath escaped him. Then he rolled, pulled her to him, chest to chest. He draped his leg over her hip. “We’re snuggling.”

She wiggled in closer. “Now we are.”

“So this is what I’ve missed. Six years of cold hands on my cock— Don’t you even think about moving them.” He tensed. “Or, all right, move them like that.”

She laughed, brought her hands back up to his chest.

“Tease.” He said it softly, pressed a kiss to her lips before meeting her eyes. “Maybe it was best that you didn’t show up at my door, Annie. I’d never have turned you away—but I don’t know if this would have been so easy to accept, either. Not without all of the changes in my life; not without losing you first.”

“I don’t think a lot of people could accept it,” Annie said. “And I couldn’t blame them.”

Jack held her gaze. “That’s why you think the cover-up is right.”

“I think many people would have the same reaction as my dad. When I weigh truth—people’s right to know—against safety, I just can’t put truth ahead of vampires who are simply living their lives. And seeing how meaningless it all is when a community is wiped out, for God knows what reason, only makes me more certain that exposure isn’t an answer. But I don’t know what is.”

The constriction around her heart eased when he nodded, then stared thoughtfully up toward the ceiling.

“But you’re right: You are different than you were six years ago,” she said. “You’re angry.”

“I’m actually about as happy as I’ve ever been.”

“Not right now. In general. The gloss has burned off—that gleam of idealism. Things touch you more personally now, you feel them more.”

She felt the hurt at the edges of his surprise. “I’ve never been a robot, Annie.”

“No, you were passionate, but it was almost all here.” She touched his forehead. “Now it’s here.” Her palm covered his heart. “And it’s wonderful, incredible.”

He grabbed her hand, kept it against his chest. “Get me drunk quick, Annie—or tell me that you’re still in love with me.”

“A tiny part of me from six years ago is still in love with you.” The words quivered, but she refused to let them break. “But the rest of me is falling again, deeper and harder than I did before. And it’s not easy this time, because I know the risks, and I know the hell of not having you. There’s fear there now.”

“Too much?”

She shook her head. “I love you forever, G-Man.”

He pressed his face to her throat, said in a rough voice, “Sunshine boy.”

“Whatever.”

TWELVE

JACK STRUGGLED TO WAKE, COULDN’T THINK PAST the heavy fog in his brain. Christ. Annie hadn’t needed to drug him this time. And where the hell was that goddamn ringing coming—

He sprang out of bed, tripped through the curtains. The glow of Annie’s cell phone in the darkened room led him straight to her vanity, and he snatched it up.

Silence greeted his hello, and his heart thudded.

“Cricket?”

He heard a gasp, a shaky breath. Young. A girl’s. “Cricket, you know Annie can’t be awake, so you must have called to leave a message. You probably saw a flyer outside, about a sunshine boy. That’s me. My name is Jack Harrington, and I knew Annie a long time ago. So you can leave your message with me, and I’ll tell her when she wakes up.”

For an endless second, there was no reply, and he felt the dreadful certainty that she would disconnect. Then there was another shaky breath.

“She’s not killed?”

The wealth of fear in that small voice made his heart ache. “No, sweetheart. She was in New York, and she’s been looking for you since she returned. We’re at her apartment now. Do you want to come here?”

“No!”

“All right, Cricket, that’s fine.” Jack quickly backpedaled, reconsidered. She’d been frightened away from here and her own house—neither location would work. Anywhere she might feel trapped could send her into hiding again. “Annie said that she’d promised to take you somewhere this weekend. How about we keep that promise?”

“YOU’RE sure?”

It was the third time since she’d woken that she’d asked him, but Jack apparently didn’t take offense.

“I’ll be more certain when she shows,” he said. “But yes.”

“God, I love you.” She smashed another kiss to his mouth, then strode past him, yanked on a shirt. “Where’d she call from?”

“Gallagher traced the number to a pay phone—only two blocks from the penitentiary, as it turned out.”

Where the Bastille Day celebration was probably in full swing. Everyone dressed as French peasants and aristocrats, reenacting the storming of the prison walls.

Giddy excitement rolled through her. She couldn’t stop smiling, laughing. “And I just hang out near the guillotine?”

“And if she determines that it’s safe, she’ll come out.”

“And you?”

His voice hardened. “I’ll cover you, and watch for Oates.”

Some of her giddiness drained away, and she methodically checked her weapons, strapped them on. “I should have invested in plastic explosives. Get close, slap it on, then blow his head off.”

“Another day or two, and I might have— Jesus, Annie! Get down!”

She dropped, rolled, and pointed her pistol in the direction Jack was facing. His gun was out, his aim steady.

Two men stood outside the glass balcony door. The nearest one had his hands up, his brows lifted almost to his shaved hairline in amusement or surprise. Maybe twenty, she thought. The one behind him—darker, leaner, older—had no expression at all.

“It’s Jacob Hawkins, Annie,” Jack said softly. “The grunt who was MIA.”

“Aged well, hasn’t he?” Annie muttered, then gestured with her gun, inviting them to slide the door open.

“About as well as a vampire ages,” Hawkins said as he stepped through, his voice Midwestern, friendly. “But we don’t wrinkle so much in the sun.”

“That’s funny. Isn’t it, Jack?”

“Hilarious,” he said, his tone as flat as hers. “You’ve been here before, and scared her little girl away.”

“I did.” Hawkins grimaced. “We were looking for survivors and cleaning up after those the nephilim killed. Unfortunately, I was on her before I noticed her. She has great psychic blocks for a little kid. Almost as good as some Guardians do.”

Annie’s heart gave a little skip. “That’s what you are?”

“Yes.” He glanced from Jack to Annie. “And I’d love to explain, but it’s more important that we go get your little girl.”

“You’d better explain that,” Jack said, his voice like ice.

Hawkins gestured to his companion. “Alejandro, my silent but deadly friend here, has a better nose than I do. We were at Oates’s apartment earlier today—and Alejandro picked up the same scent outside on your balcony.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Annie breathed in realization. Oates had gotten to Cricket’s computer before them. How could he have known to get it, unless he’d been listening or following Jack and Annie? And letting them lead him to Cricket.

“He is not out there now.” Alejandro spoke quietly, with a melodic Spanish accent. “But he may have overheard the plans you made over the phone.”

Jack shook his head. “I told Cricket to watch out for him, gave her a description.”

“But he is intending to use Ms. Gallagher to manipulate her, is he not? And he knows where Ms. Gallagher will be, and when she and the girl will come together.”

Jack glanced at her in dismay, and Alejandro continued, “We will accompany you and assist you.”

“Not him.” Annie gestured to Hawkins. “If Cricket sees you, she’ll take off running again.”

Hawkins sighed heavily, then turned to Alejandro. “Why do I always have to look like the girls?”

“Shift,” Alejandro replied, then looked to Annie. “He will be bait.”

A second later, Annie’s mirror image stood in Hawkins’s place. Even her clothes, her jacket.

“Holy shit.” Annie took a quick step back. She stared for a long moment, met Jack’s astounded gaze, then glanced at Hawkins again, shaking her head. “It’s not going to happen.”

Hawkins reverted to his own form, his own clothes. “You’re afraid that she’ll catch on, and run—”

“Yeah, that about covers it.”

“So you’ll watch for her from above—from the walls of the penitentiary.”

“When Oates moves in,” Alejandro said, “so shall I, and distract him from the girl. With luck, I will slay him. A vampire could not.”

Whatever. Annie’s teeth ground together; she couldn’t deny it. She didn’t have the speed or the strength needed.

Alejandro’s dark gaze met hers. “As humans, both the girl and your man are safe from Guardians and from the nephilim. You are the only one at risk, Ms. Gallagher. We want to decrease that risk.”

“Annie,” Jack said softly. “We could use the help.”

Her hand found his. When Jack squeezed, she reluctantly nodded. “All right.”

“Then we’re off to a beheading,” Hawkins said, grinning, and he turned to the balcony. Giant white wings sprouted from his back. “Who wants a ride?”

THE guard tower atop the old stone wall had only been used by tourists since the early 1970s, but it served the same function. Annie could see out over the prison courtyard and the front of the wall with barely a turn of her head.

Annie searched the sea of faces surrounding the silent form standing by the guillotine. Beside her, Jack lowered the binoculars Hawkins had given him.

“We were flown here,” he said quietly.

A smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Yes,” she answered, equally low—though she doubted anyone was listening. Though occasionally bumped and jostled by the humans visiting the tower, no one paid attention to them. Probably mistook them for security.

“Just checking. Did you get much out of him?”

“No.” Alejandro had been silent on the flight over. “Your guy?”

“He never stopped talking,” he said, turning to scan the courtyard. “What did you do in the bathroom with him?”

“Traded shirts, so that he’d smell like me. I think he looked at my boobs. Well, his boobs, but— Never mind. Then he sprayed water on himself, so he’d appear sweaty.”

“They know what they’re doing, then.”

“I hope.” She glanced at Hawkins’s familiar profile: her own jaw, her nose, her hair. “So he explained what they are?”

“Something about a big war in Heaven, demons going to Hell. Then a second war that the angels barely won, and only with the help of humans, so the angels passed their powers on to them. If you die the right way, a human can become a Guardian.”

There was a right way to die? Annie shook her head, kept searching faces. “And vampires?”

“That first war, some angels didn’t take sides. They were cursed. It’s their blood that created the first vampires.”

“Nosferatu,” Annie whispered, and shivered against the chill that ran down her spine. “I’ve heard of them. They’re like the monster version of vampires. I didn’t know we came from them.”

“Remember that flight that went down last year, London to New York? That was a nosferatu’s work.”

Annie frowned. “I thought it was a terrorist. They caught her, then she escaped.”

“That story was Milton’s work.” He glanced at her. “Hawkins was in Seattle when the Guardians destroyed the nephilim there—and he trains with Milton in San Francisco, as well. He said that she was a demon, but she’s not anymore.”

Her chest was a tight knot. “Are we stupid to trust them? Stupid to think of heading that direction when we leave Philly?”

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “But I think there’s a lot more to learn. And I’d like to find out.”

She swallowed her fear, nodded. Hawkins turned his head slightly, and Annie followed the line of his gaze. Hope rose, then quickly deflated. Just a teenager with hair similar to Cricket’s.

“Annie.” Jack tugged on her sleeve, never lowering his binoculars. “The courtyard, southwest corner.”

Annie looked, then had to force herself not to shout Cricket’s name. God, she was quick. She moved smoothly through the jumble of people, and though it was late, though there were mostly just adults now, no one glanced twice at her.

“I can intercept her before she even reaches the guillotine,” Annie murmured. “I could get her, leave the Guardians and the nephilim out of it.”

She saw that Jack considered it for a moment before shaking his head. “If she screamed, made any kind of commotion, you’d just draw their attent—” His fingers tightened on the lenses. “Annie, look.”

Her blood froze. Oates was threading through the crowd ten yards behind Cricket.

“He made her from her picture,” Annie realized. “Oh, God. What now?”

Jack squeezed her hand. “Let it play. This isn’t any different than what we planned.”

But she hadn’t known she’d feel so helpless. She tore her gaze from Cricket, stole a glance at Hawkins, and growled through her teeth. “He’s not even looking in the right direction. He’s expecting her to come from streetside.”

Her heart racing with panic, Annie watched Oates quickly close the gap between himself and Cricket. Too quickly.

“Oh, God, Jack.” Her fingers flexed. “I can’t stand here and do nothing. I can’t.”

He nodded. “All right, Annie. You slow him down. But listen—if he comes after you, then you run, or you get behind me, or you use any other human as cover. No arguments.”

“I don’t have any.” Annie yanked open her jacket, pulled out her throwing stars. A gun wouldn’t slow Oates down. Just her blood. “You get Hawkins’s attention, make him turn her way.”

“Doing it now,” Jack said, but Annie didn’t look to see how he would.

She lifted her shirt. Just a slice across her belly, and she’d have the poison she needed.

A hand clamped around her wrist.

Instinct took over. Annie pivoted, jabbed up with her elbow. Was blocked. Her hand slashed up—and she stopped with the razor-edged point of the shuriken against a woman’s throat.

Shock ripped through her. Annie knew that woman’s face. But the eyes weren’t red, weren’t glowing.

From beside her, Jack’s voice was cold, deadly. “Back off, Milton. Right now.”

Milton’s gaze didn’t waver from Annie’s. “Throwing that would have been a good idea... if we’d held up our end of the plan,” Milton said. Her dark eyes were fearless—and amused. “But about five minutes ago, Alejandro sniffed someone out. So we made a few changes.”

“Annie?”

The small, uncertain voice came from behind Milton. Annie pushed the woman aside, stared. “Cricket?”

Cricket’s face was pale. Her hands were fisted around her backpack straps. “The angel said you were here—”

Annie flew forward, scooped her up. Clutched her tight. “Oh, sweetie. I missed you. Are you okay?”

Thin arms wound around her neck, hugged her back. “I was so scared.”

“I know, sweetie.” Her voice broke. “I know.”

“Annie,” Jack said softly. “Come look at this.”

She led Cricket over to him, her wary gaze on Milton.

Milton waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Don’t mind me. I’m just here for the show.” She stepped close to the wall, looked over. “Fireworks.” She glanced back at Annie. “I recall that there were fireworks the night we met.”

Jack drew Annie in against his side, tucked Cricket between them. “Agent Milton—”

“It’s Lilith now. And watch, for one minute. There’s Alejandro, letting the nephil in close. If Oates’s perversion wasn’t so strong, the demon inside would have probably recognized the difference by now.”

Annie looked. Oates was only a step behind the shape-shifted Guardian, and twisted pleasure had taken over his face.

“Now, Alejandro, he’s got a special little Gift. Of all of the Guardians’ powers, it’s one of my favorites. He doesn’t enjoy it so much, of course, but it does come in handy. Particularly when he has a string of explosives to wrap the nephil in.”

It was almost too fast. Still in a little girl’s form, Alejandro turned. He caught Oates’s arm, while his own whipped around. Oates began to transform: growing, black wings sprouting. Then the Guardian’s white wings spread wide.

And they both burst into flames. Engulfed, they shot straight up into the air like the launch of a rocket.

Annie’s head snapped back as she followed the streak of light into the sky. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“Get distance from him,” Lilith said quietly, staring up. “Get a safe distance, you stupid—”

The explosion split the air, scattering bursts of colored light.

Surprise and appreciation lifted through the crowd, smatterings of applause. No fear—no one had really seen.

Annie looked for Hawkins. He was gone. Lilith stepped to the side, spoke urgently into her cell. “Tell me you caught him, Jake, or I’ll rip your wings off.”

A second later, she lowered her phone. “Burns to heal,” she announced. “But that takes almost no time. Now, Harrington, Gallagher—tell me you are coming to San Francisco. I could use you both at Special Investigations; we won’t even have to train you as much as we do others.”

Jack’s arm tightened around Annie’s waist, on Cricket’s shoulder. “To do what?”

She frowned, as if it should have been obvious. “To save the world, of course.” Her gaze shifted to Annie. “And if you need a partner, we’ll work something out.”

“She has one,” Jack said.

Lilith’s brows lifted, and she looked pointedly at his mouth. “Not yet.”

THIRTEEN

ANNIE CALLED BRIAN FOR A RIDE. HE SHOWED UP with their mother, and Annie and Jack sat in the backseat with Cricket between them.

She’d hidden in the penitentiary, she told them, in a little, unused office that she could slip off to during the last tour of the night, and curl up under the desk.

“I’m sneaky,” Cricket announced.

Annie nodded. “Just like Jack.”

She stole a shy glance at him, smiled. “And during the day, I went to the theaters. I saw the new Batman thirty times,” she said, with something that sounded like pride, and Annie didn’t let herself break, though all she could imagine was a squalid, dark little room—and Cricket sleeping, cold and alone, with nightmares of the nephilim for company.

And then spending her days in darkness, too.

Halfway to Annie’s building, Cricket went from animated to sound asleep. She didn’t stir when Annie carried her from the car, and the girl felt as insubstantial as a feather in her arms.

But maybe it was only Annie’s own strength that made it seem so.

“Kids are resilient, Annie,” her mother said as they rode up the elevator. “She’ll be all right.”

Annie closed her eyes. “She’ll be alone most of the day.”

Making sure the night-light glowed in the corner of the guest room, Annie placed Cricket on the bed. Sat with her, listened to Jack describe the night’s events to her mother and brother. And finally stood up when she heard him at the bedroom door.

Love shone in his gaze, and she went to him, let him hold her. She was on the verge of crumpling when Cricket rolled over, said in a voice that had no trace of a little girl, “Are you leaving again, Annie?”

“No.” She dashed her tears from her cheeks before she turned, stalked to the bed. “And if I ever have to go, I’ll take you with me.”

Cricket sat up. “Swear?”

“Yes,” Annie said, and drew one of her daggers. With a quick slice, she opened her own palm. “Give me yours.”

Cricket’s eyes widened; solemnly, she held out her hand.

The cut was tiny, and Annie threaded their fingers together, palm to palm. “You’re my blood now, my family. I might not always be there when you wake up, but I will always look for you if you are lost, I will never turn you away, and I will fight to the death to keep you safe. You’re my sunshine girl, Cricket.” She felt the weight of Jack’s hand on her shoulder, the warmth of his body at her back. “And someday, when he knows you better, loves you like I do, my sunshine boy will swear this, too. And you’ll have both of us. All right?”

“Yes.” Tears trembled on her lashes, and she looked at her palm. Annie used a tissue to wipe it clean; the wound had already healed.

“You’re the bravest girl I know, Cricket,” she said, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Someone will be here when you wake up. I swear that, too.”

IN the kitchen, Brian got to his feet when she and Jack returned from Cricket’s room. “She’s sleeping?”

Annie nodded, not trusting her voice. She didn’t know what to do. Simply did not know. Cricket needed a normal life—but there was no way Annie could let her go.

Jack rounded the counter, opened the Haegele’s box. After selecting three pastries, he took a bite of the first. “Mrs. Gallagher,” he said, “would you be willing to stay overnight, be here tomorrow while we’re sleeping?”

“Of course.” Her eyes were worried, Annie saw. She kept looking beyond Annie to Cricket’s bedroom door. “But, Annie— will that be enough?”

Jack was already working on the second, a bear claw of apples and cinnamon. “What do you mean?”

“You mentioned California, Jack. Are you and Annie considering moving there?”

“Yes,” Annie answered while Jack licked sugar from his fingers.

“Well, as much as I enjoy living near my grandchildren, Brian doesn’t need me.”

He frowned, as if wondering how he’d been brought into this. “Ma—”

“Hush. I’m still young, I’ve got a big empty house with no one in it, and I’d prefer to be useful. I think Cricket and I could get along fine during the days. Here or in San Francisco.”

“And I’m sure we’d love to visit, Annie,” Brian put in before she could reply. “My girls are about her age now.”

Annie held up her hands. “Give me a second. Jesus.” She looked at Jack. “What do you think?”

He polished off the last Danish. “I think it sounds about perfect.”

The wonder of it swelled in her chest, and she nodded, fighting tears. “Yes. Absolutely perfect.”

ANNIE was in her bedroom, standing at the window with the drapes open when Jack returned from Mayfair. He dropped a duffel bag by her closet, wrapped his arms around her.

“It makes a difference, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Knowing the Guardians are out there—that it’s not just us against the demons.”

Us. Warmth and hope spilled through her. She and Jack would move on, leaving nothing but phantoms behind.

And they’d take the memory of one hundred and thirty lives with them.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “And knowing that we can help.”

His arms tightened. “Your mom went straight to Cricket’s room,” he said. “Long night for her.”

“For me, they’re never long enough.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “You smell like Tastykakes.”

“I ate a cartonful on the way back. My last meal. Oh, Jesus, Annie—don’t cry.” He turned her, smoothed his thumbs down her cheeks. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes. More than anything.” Overwhelmed, she closed her eyes. “But do you want it? For yourself.”

His hands slid down over her bottom. In a quick move, he hitched her up, her thighs around his waist, his erection hard between her legs.

He began walking toward the bed, and Annie bit back her moan. His voice was rough in her ear. “Doesn’t that feel like it’s for me?”

“I hope it’s for me, too, G-Man.”

Jack grinned, tumbling her onto the mattress and following her down. “My dark/sexy rating goes up. I can lick you underwater until you scream. I can toss cars. I can love you forever.”

“Oh, Jack.” Though she was laughing, tears rushed in. “You won’t see the sun again.”

“Annie.” He turned until she rose over him. Gently, his fingers traced the curve of her smile. “Yes, I will.”

Table of Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN