CAVE CANEM

SUSAN SIZEMORE

This is for all those people who’ve e-mailed me asking,

“When’s the next Laws of the Blood book out?” . . .

ONE

This is the tradition concerning hellhounds:

Survive a year and the beast is yours.

“YOU MUST PROTECT MY BABY.” SYRILLA PUT HER hand on her swollen belly, and grimaced. “The babies. There’s more than one, I’m certain.”

“It is not possible for the child to be mine,” Corvei said to his former lover. “You know that.”

He’d been surprised to find her waiting for him in the small garden of his villa when he stepped outside to take the evening air. Not so long ago finding her there was what he expected every night but the three around the full moon. Their passion had cooled when his own existence changed, but he still looked upon her as a friend.

“The last time we met was at a feast here five months hence,” he reminded her. He remembered the night well, and how Syrilla had paid more attention to the newly acquired war dog he’d showed off to his guests than she had to any human at the banquet. “You came with your husband that evening, and left with him. I know very well that nothing happened between us that night. Nor could anything have come of it if there had. You know what I am.”

Her eyes burned with feverish anguish. “And you know what I am.”

She glanced away. Everything about her spoke of guilt, and dread. The hand clutching her belly was pale with tension. She had grown thin but for the roundness of her abdomen. Her beautiful full lips were pressed tightly into a thin line, as though she was holding back a secret she could hardly bear.

He was certain her attitude was not because she had betrayed her husband with yet another man. She could easily make Patrius believe any child she bore belonged to him. No, this fear was for something far more serious than infidelity, nothing to do with the life she lived as a Roman matron. It was something from her other life, one he knew far less about than the daylight face she turned to the world.

Corvei went to her and took her hands in his, though even with his strength it took an effort to pry the one protecting the babe away from her belly. Her skin felt dry and feverish. He drew her to sit next to him on the bench near the fountain. The spraying water cooled the evening breeze that touched them. They gazed together into the fountain pool.

“Tell me,” he said after they had sat silently for some time.

“It is hard to speak of, even to you.”

“You had best find the words if I am to be of help.”

A sideways glance showed him that she was crying. This was the most shocking sight of all, for Syrilla had always been so strong, so confident in her place and in her power. He would never forget the alabaster serenity of her expression the first time he had seen her. How she sat in the stands and watched a beast hunt in the arena with her hands folded in her lap, not joining in the howling enthusiasm of the crowd. He’d never taken notice of any of the spectators until the day he saw her. His gaze kept going back to the woman above him even though he knew distraction could bring him death. His main battle ended up just below where she sat. It was as though he’d made the kill for her alone and she leaned forward to intensely watch. She’d been close enough for a spray of blood to splash across the front of her silk gown when his spear took the giant wolf he’d been stalking. She hadn’t flinched when the wolf leapt toward her. Nor did she take any notice of the gore that stained her clothes. She had smiled and nodded, like a goddess accepting the sacrifice he presented.

He’d found out her name and sent her the tanned wolf skin and a length of dearly bought silk. She’d come to his bed, for it was easy for a wealthy woman to bribe her way into the locked cell of even the lowliest and roughest gladiator.

It was only much later, after he was granted not only freedom but a totally new life that he discovered the wolf he had killed was her own brother. Her only comment had been, “He should not have gotten caught.”

Werewolves were pitiless when one of the pack failed them. Syrilla’s brother had been a casualty of a feud with a dark wizard. His own kindred had sent him to die when the wizard trapped him in his wolf form.

Corvei began to have an inkling of why she was afraid now. “What have you done against the pack?”

She turned her head away and mumbled, “I don’t understand myself.” She rubbed her belly as she spoke. “The call to mate that night was something I couldn’t fight. I barely remember it.” She swept a hand around the garden. “But it happened here. This is where the heat took me, and where—”

“This is something to do with your child, then?”

“Children. Pups.” She spit the second word. “I hate what crawls inside me—but I love them, too.”

She was not one to love easily. He’d never heard that word from her in all the years he’d known her, living and dead, as lover and then as friend.

She grasped his hand so tightly the bones would have broken if he was not what he was. “This is your responsibility, too,” she said. A snarl escaped her throat. “You and that cursed beautiful war hound of yours.”

What she meant came to him then, shocking him too much for words. She had not mated with one of his guests, but . . .

“Uhh . . .”

Revulsion roiled through him though he’d thought he’d seen and done every dark thing imaginable, even more as a gladiator than as a vampire.

He recalled how proudly he’d showed the dog off at the feast. He called it Beast, and it was as square-built and hard-muscled as any gladiator, with a huge, heavy jaw and sleek black fur that gleamed in the torchlight. He’d acquired the dog to guard his crypt through the hours of daylight, a trustworthy companion since he wanted no mortal slaves.

“A beautiful animal,” Syrilla said. “Animal.” The word was as bitter as poison from her mouth.

Corvei made himself look into her eyes. He would not normally have been able to look into her soul, but all her guards were down. Or perhaps she was acting, because of course she was attempting to manipulate him. He didn’t mind that. One always had to play to win, and the stakes were always life and death, even the times when they didn’t seem to be. Syrilla was a high-born Roman matron as well as a werewolf, both those birthrights sent the will for power and dominance flowing through her veins.

Her fear was real, even if she used it as a weapon. He saw it in her eyes, felt it in her mind and heart and soul. It truly was a mother’s fear for her unborn babe. Babes.

“Pups,” he said. He might have thrown back his head and laughed had the truth not been so horrible. “You mated with my war hound?” he shouted. “It’s a dog’s get in your belly?”

She shuddered, and made a shushing gesture. She stood, suddenly as stately as the Chief Vestal. “Protect my offspring. I require this of you. You know my own kind will destroy them as an abomination if they discover them.”

And perhaps the werewolves would be right. “They’ll destroy you as well if they find out.”

“I’ll take care of myself. You take care of my babes. Hide them. Keep them safe. This I require of you.”

He stood as well. “You’re calling in your debt, then?”

“I am.”

Syrilla had saved his life while in her wolf form in his mortal days, when he’d been on a dangerous errand for the vampire woman who turned him. He had sworn to repay her, and now was the time. He also supposed he bore some responsibility for her offspring, since what had sired them belonged to him.

“What am I supposed to do with a litter of puppies?” he demanded.

She didn’t answer. He thought for a long time, coming to only one conclusion. Finally, he gave her what she wanted. “I’ll keep my vow to you. I’ll protect your children.”

I have to talk to Valentia, he thought.

TWO

“AND SO BEGAN THE RACE OF HELLHOUNDS,” DAN Conover murmured as though he was ending a fairy tale.

As the vivid memory faded Dan realized his eyes were closed. He felt like he’d been sleeping, although it was the middle of the night. He looked up at what few stars he could see in the sky over Phoenix from his backyard and wondered why he could still smell the night-blooming flowers in his Roman garden. Some of those flowers no longer existed in this modern world. He took a few deep breaths. Yes, there were definitely aromas swirling on the breeze that didn’t belong in this cool desert air.

And the sky didn’t look right, either.

It took him a few more seconds to recognize that he was looking at the night with human vision. Usually looking at things from a human perspective was a conscious decision, not something that was automatic upon waking. And he had been asleep, hadn’t he?

Asleep, or something more complicated?

He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d sat down on the bench on the patio at the back of the modest adobe house. When existence depended on knowing every second between sundown and sunrise you didn’t lose track of time after a couple thousand years of practice.

“Magic.”

Strong enough magic that it took him several more minutes to shake off the pleasant lethargy holding him in place.

When he could move, worry and anger propelled him into the house and straight to the back bedroom where Baby was kenneled with her three puppies. Only one pair of red eyes glowed out of the dark at him when he opened the door. When he flipped on the light, Baby yawned. She should have growled at anyone approaching her young, even him, but she only gave a placid whine as he peered into the birthing box. At five weeks the pups were outgrowing the confines of the box, but Baby liked curling up with her offspring there and who was he to argue with the wisdom of a hellhound mother?

Even though the scars healed quickly on both of them when they had the occasional confrontation. It took a firm hand to raise a hellhound, but he’d been doing it for a long time.

She’d had three pups in this litter. After gazing at him for a moment, Baby turned her head and began to lick the one that slept closely tucked beside her.

“One.”

When the word came out, Dan blinked. He didn’t know how long he’d been standing over the hellhounds. At first, he didn’t even know what the word meant. The magic was stronger here than anywhere else in the house. So strong that it was like a hood pulled over his head, like bindings on his limbs. The numbness pressed on him, making him not even want to breathe.

Then he remembered that he was a vampire, he didn’t need to breathe. Magic kept him alive, not air or food or water. Though all were pleasant, he didn’t need them. He needed magic. He controlled magic.

“It does not control me.”

He spoke the words in the Nabatean language of his birth land, not the Latin of the place where he had fought and died, been reborn and then remade, or the English he thought and spoke in this era. Only words that came to him with his mother’s milk were enough to break him free. It was the language in which the spell had been cast and controlling the language controlled the magic.

The fog around his senses was banished as soon as the words were spoken.

Baby began to bark. He knelt beside her and put out a hand to soothe her. Her frantic worry flowed into him at the touch.

There was only one pup in the bed with her.

Two of her babies were gone!

“Son of a bitch!” he shouted, rising to his feet.

Only then did he see the pile of gold coins left in the dog bed. He scooped up one and swore again. Who the hell knew what these meant to him? Who the hell among the living dead knew that he was Nabatean?

“Valentine,” he said.

THE warning came to Tess Sirella in her sleep as a dream filled with lightning and shadows, but changed to the scent of wet dog when she woke. She wrinkled her sensitive nose, then sneezed. The bedside clock told her it was 3:18 in the morning, but she knew there’d be no getting back to sleep. She supposed she should be wracked with guilt for the longing to turn over and ignore the alarm, but duty was too bred into her bones.

“Why me?” she grumbled as she got up.

No trouble had stirred for decades, and even though family was always on guard she resented that a demon was playing games on her watch. It was frustrating that she didn’t recognize the spell simply by sensing the warning. Now she was going to have to do research. Not to mention call in sick or take vacation time to hunt down and destroy whatever evil was afoot.

“If demons lived normal lives, they wouldn’t have the time to pull any of this magic crap.”

Then people like her wouldn’t have to clean up after them and everyone could get on with messing up the world in the usual mortal ways. A lot of magic didn’t affect mortals anyway, but she already knew this spell wouldn’t be that sort. There were things that could be created and summoned that found mortals mighty tasty. Heck, she didn’t mind the occasional human nosh herself under the right circumstances, and she was one of the good guys.

“I like to think of myself as a sheepdog in wolves’ clothing. Who talks to herself,” Tess added. It wasn’t good for werewolves to be alone too much. Okay, the world was about to be confronted with some sort of demonic disaster but at least she’d have fulfilled her obligation to guardian duty once she’d saved the day and she could hand over the position to the next generation, which happened to be her anime-addicted fourteen-year-old nephew.

She stripped off her pink-flowered pajamas and then went naked into the closet she’d converted into a workroom. It took a few minutes to light all the candles and set up the psychic barrier she needed to maintain her shielding. Then she settled down cross-legged on the bare wooden floor and prepared to do absolutely nothing for as long as it took.

Ritual magic was actually rather tedious. A lot of it consisted of sitting around waiting for the cosmic phone to be picked up by some other entity along the line. The vampires had fancier names for it, but she wasn’t a vampire and—

All her senses tingled, including some she’d rather didn’t when she was naked and alone.

Ah-ha! So there was a vampire involved.

Vampires smelled bad and tasted worse, but they always made you think of sex. They could also always be counted on whenever trouble popped up for her pack. It was vampires that had started the trouble in the first place. Well, to be fair, vampires had gotten unwittingly involved in a demon’s scheme and the problem hadn’t been resolved for nearly two thousand years. It was the vampires’ fault, of course. The moment they got involved in anything, it got complicated. They couldn’t just deal with life and death and black and white. Oh, no, things had shades of gray for them, not just gray, but an entire spectrum of colors and emotions that werewolves didn’t want or need. It was probably because the strigoi started out as humans to begin with and brought all that mortal baggage with them when they stepped over into the supernatural world.

Tess realized she’d let resentment of being woken lead her off on a very humanlike, distracted tangent. She smiled. “Ah, but the machinations of magic are varied and subtle—even for a werewolf well-trained in the arcane . . . and stuff like that.”

She laughed, and suddenly knew what the psychic alarm was trying to tell her, besides that there were demons scheming, monsters on the loose, and mortals in danger. The magical wards that twisted and turned like invisible smoke around Syrilla’s Litter had picked up some useful data for her. She had a clue that the most emotional vampire of them all was at the heart of it.

She laughed again as she rose to her feet. It was bravado to cover a shudder of fear, knowing she had to confront Valentine.

THREE

KRAAS COULDN’T KEEP FROM WAITING FOR THE police to arrive, though it took longer than he expected. Nothing happened with the instant efficiency the way the magic box showed police investigations. But since he wanted to know what they had to say at this first of what would be many such events, he lingered.

Hunting humans was always fun, and it was especially so at the moment, when his weapon of choice was a puppy. The victims had come into the park after it closed as Kraas had watched them do before. He’d loosed the hellhound and it had trotted forward into the mortals’ midst. The youths saw the pretty black dog and immediately surrounded it. Whether they meant to pet it or take their bats to it didn’t matter because the hellhound struck first. Kraas snatched up the hound and ran before the boys’ screams died away.

With the little one safely hidden away, Kraas returned and climbed the tree. He felt safe to indulge himself for a little while. Tonight’s work had been spectacular for the young hound and the demon was full of pride and anticipation.

Kraas breathed deeply, enjoying the stink of oozing guts mingled with the scent of blood on the warm evening breeze. Flies circled and settled on the four corpses on the park’s baseball field. They were waiting for the officer by the fence to stop vomiting so they could settle there as well.

Such a beautiful sight, Kraas thought. Such a beautiful night.

“Four bodies,” one of the detectives said. “What caused this much damage?”

A technician looked up from where she squatted, her face a stark white circle in the glare of the field’s spotlights. “Squirrels?” she suggested. When the detective glared she pointed at the wound she’d been examining. “Look at those bite marks. They’re from something small.”

“Rabid raccoons?” someone else spoke up.

“Come on!” the detective barked. “No more jokes. These people were murdered!”

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” the tech advised. She went back to her examination.

The irritated detective looked like he wanted to pace, but he stayed perfectly still. He didn’t want to contaminate the crime scene, Kraas supposed.

What a fine puzzle he’d set for them. It didn’t matter for him, of course, except as entertainment. Feeding his hellhound on soul-sucking death was what mattered. The mortals would suffer many such losses before his little darling was ready for the greatest hunt. The hound would grow strong and powerful on the blood and souls of many mortals before it could be loosed on vampires, then the vampires that preyed on vampires. And finally—

“Valentine.” Kraas breathed the name almost reverently, though in truth it was a curse.

Someday soon the hellhound would make a sacrifice of the old bitch herself. Only when the great kill was made could the work truly begin.

TESS saw the news about the killings on a podcast in the back of a shuttle on her way to the airport. She stared at the small iPhone screen, silently mouthing obscenities, mundane and magical, as she could do nothing to show her outrage in such a public place. As it was, the other passengers in the van gave her strange looks.

Putting down a hellhound was not as easy as it sounded— come to think of it, it didn’t sound easy—and this one was already feeding.

The killings stank of ritual magic and human sacrifice. Maybe the vampires had finally realized the true purpose of hellhounds and were putting their pets to work. The murders had been in Santa Barbara and reinforced her belief that the Los Angeles-based Valentine was involved.

“But why?” she whispered. She fought off the urge to howl with impatience. She had a three-hour flight ahead of her before she could even begin to find answers. She had to conserve her energy until then.

“I’M going to be out of town for a while,” Dan told Olympias, the supervisor of all the other Enforcers in the country. She even lived in Washington, D.C.

“Are you asking permission?” the rich female voice on the end of the phone line asked. “Or do you want a favor?”

“Perceptive, aren’t you?” he replied.

“I know how hard it is to find a pet sitter. You could use a vacation. How many years has it been since you left Tucson?”

“As the Law in these parts—”

He was interrupted by her laughter. “You have the best-behaved nests and strigs on the continent. Anyone who breeds hellhounds for a hobby would.”

Bringing up the hellhounds was the opening he needed. “I’m looking for a dog sitter. That’s the favor you suspected I called about. No one is better with hellhounds than you are. I could really use your help.”

“Pouring the flattery on a little thick, aren’t you, Gladiator?”

Dan wondered if she was reminding him that she’d once been a queen and he’d been a lowly slave. But he couldn’t take offense, not when the word could as easily be a nickname here in the twenty-first century.

“Are you being over-sensitive?” she asked when he didn’t answer immediately.

He used the tone of guilt in her voice. “I’d appreciate your help. Baby has a pup. When’s the last time you saw a hellhound pup?”

“Not since Bitch was little.”

“That was at least five hundred years ago.” Bitch was Olympias’s pet.

Across the miles he heard a sigh that was both longing and exasperation. “I need to get Bitch out of Washington to avoid some werewolves that will be in town for the Save the Earth rally,” she said. “But the plan was to head for Las Vegas.”

“It’s more peaceful here,” he said. “And there’s a puppy.” No Enforcer was soft-hearted, not when they ate the hearts of other vampires for snacks, but everyone had soft spots that could be manipulated. Like him, Olympias’s was for dogs.

“I love puppies.”

“I know.”

“And we could use some private time,” she said.

He didn’t ask who we were, though it was likely she had a new mortal companion. “I promise that you won’t be disturbed, with the house all to yourself. Bring Bitch and come for a visit. How soon can you be here?” he added.

“My car’s already packed.” She sighed. “Okay, Las Vegas can wait. Put Baby under a sleep spell I can break and leave a key in the mailbox.”

“I’ll do that,” he answered. “Thanks.”

Dan hung up before Olympias could change her mind.

FOUR

“WE NEED TO TALK.”

“Damn,” Valentine said. She was more annoyed with herself than with the person standing on the balcony behind her.

She knew she was distracted, and the hotel was full of vampires, which certainly messed with a girl’s brainwaves, but she should have sensed his approach. Of course, she hadn’t been aware of him since the companion connection had been severed between them several years before. She didn’t miss the time when such awareness had been a constant ache. She’d missed him.

“I’m busy, Yevgeny.”

“How busy can you be when you’ve been staring into space for the last hour?”

He’d lived in the States for going on sixty years, yet his voice still held a hint of Russian accent. She still found the sound hot. “Damn,” she muttered again.

She’d actually been staring at the lights of the Las Vegas strip far below her penthouse suite. He came closer and put his hands on her shoulders. She automatically leaned back against his wide chest. She was small and he was very large, but somehow it had always been a remarkably good fit.

“I’m pining,” she told him, “and brooding.”

“You don’t have a Russian soul, brooding doesn’t suit you.”

He was right. He generally was. She’d missed that, too.

“You feel different,” she said after a few minutes.

“I am a vampire now,” he answered.

Of course. She’d refused to turn him, so he’d gotten someone else to do it. She didn’t know why that should leave her feeling betrayed, or why the differences disturbed her. His body temperature was lower than a mortal’s. Not by much, but enough to notice. His heart beat, but at a much slower rate than before. Blood flowed, but it was different blood now than when he’d been—well, alive—though he wasn’t actually dead.

“I liked you better as a mortal, Yevgeny.”

Maybe that was the reason she’d kept him on far longer than was good for him. Maybe that was why she’d refused to change him. Maybe her excuses about not wanting to make any more monsters were just ways of pretending she had noble intentions.

“You just don’t like change,” he said. “You are remarkably, happily, set in your ways. You’ll like me better when you get used to me.”

No one had ever known her so well. “I won’t.”

He pressed her a little closer. “No one sulks as well as you do. Brooding no, sulking yes.”

“That’s not exactly a compliment.”

“It’s time for honesty between us at last.”

She continued looking at the city despite the temptation to break his grip and whirl to face him. She didn’t want to look at him. Even now that they were no longer connected, she feared seeing her beautiful blond giant might stir the old desire. Not possible, but old habits were hard to break.

“I never lied to you,” she said.

Fingers began to massage her tense shoulders. “Perhaps not, but you must own to other—abuses.”

Okay, so she’d kidnapped him away from the family and country he loved and made him her sex slave for fifty-plus years. She shrugged under his hands. “Yeah, well . . .”

“I’m ready to forgive you,” he added.

In other words, he needed something. She sighed. “How did you find me?”

“Jebel Haven’s a friend of mine. In a recent e-mail, he mentioned having adventures with you.”

Pain shot through her at hearing Haven’s name, but she managed not to flinch. Her fingers curled around the balcony railing, but the hotel had been built by vampires and the metal didn’t crush. “What’s a nice man like you doing hanging out with a mortal vampire hunter like Haven?”

“He’s not a bad guy, as long as you don’t turn your back on him. What have you been doing with Haven?”

Lady, but there were a lot of layers in that question! “Making mistakes,” she answered.

“I’ve heard rumors of dragons,” he said.

“That would make a great title for something.” Once a writer, always a writer, she supposed. “And it was only one dragon.”

“I heard that you and Haven saved Las Vegas from the dragon.”

“Haven did the work.”

“And that you gave him your blood to save his life.”

Longing twisted her, mind, body, and soul. Her blood was in Haven, but where was he? She’d given him her soul and Haven had rejected it.

“He’s mine now!” Tears blurred all the pretty lights below. She let out a feral growl. “The ungrateful bastard ran off with his girlfriend.”

“What would a nice lady like you do with a man like Haven? Is his blood in you?” he asked after she was silent for a while. “It isn’t, is it? You don’t love him.”

“Instinct says he’s mine,” she answered. “Instinct is all I have to go on.”

He laughed. “You’ve ignored instinct before.”

She finally turned to face him, though she regretted it when she saw the bitterness twisting his handsome face. “I was trying to help you.”

“By driving me crazy?”

“It was a mistake to refuse to help you turn. I admit it. Maybe saving Haven was a mistake, too, but—”

“Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons again?” He suddenly smiled. “At least you always try. That’s why I love you.”

It sounded good, and brought them back to why he was here. “What do you want? You didn’t come here to talk. You need my help.”

Yevgeny stepped back. “You know how Daniel Conover will give away the animals he breeds but he won’t sell them? How he treats them better than most strigoi do their mortal companions?”

“Dan has good reasons for that. Besides, those creatures are smarter and more valuable than most companions.”

Yevgeny, who’d been her companion far longer than any other, carefully refrained from the angry reply she saw in his eyes. “But companions are much easier to housebreak.”

“And how would you know—” She shook her head in disbelief. “Oh, no, tell me you don’t have one of those monsters? You’re too young to deal with a hellhound. Dan wouldn’t give you one.”

“Of course not,” Yevgeny answered. Before she could sigh in relief, he added, “I stole it from him.”

“He’s going to kill you. And I’m not going to protect you.”

“I’m not asking you to. That’s not why I’m here. I took the puppy knowing that the law states that if you can keep one for a year it belongs to you. I made the decision going into it that I could elude Conover for a year.”

“That’s not a law, it’s a tradition. Dan doesn’t have to stop hunting you for the theft if he doesn’t want to.”

“It wasn’t theft. I left him a generous payment for the puppy.”

“You could have just put your name on the waiting list.”

“I’m a strig, he’d never consider giving a hellhound to a vampire that lives outside the Laws of the Blood. Even if he would put me on his list of potential owners it would be a while before he considered me old enough to deal with one of his darlings.” Yevgeny laughed. “I was not prepared to wait until hell freezes over. Sebastian’s birthday is coming up soon.”

“Oh, good Goddess! You want a hellhound for a child? You’re not trying to kill him again are you?”

He drew himself up to his full height. “I have sworn to protect Sebastian Avella with my life.”

Now didn’t that sound just like Yevgeny? He was an absolutely brilliant sorcerer and had decided to use ritual magic to turn himself into a vampire when she refused to do the deed for him. He’d kidnapped young Sebastian, a dhamphir—the unlawful offspring of a vampire and a Romany woman—to sacrifice in the spell. Only at the last moment he’d come to his senses and been unable to murder a child, even one that was genetically programmed to grow up and become a vampire hunter.

“Of course you’d appoint yourself the kid’s guardian angel of death to assuage your guilt.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

“He’s a menace to our kind, and now you want to give him a hellhound?”

“He wants a puppy for his birthday.”

She didn’t understand it, but then, she’d never had children as a mortal, whereas Yevgeny had been a loving father. And she’d taken him away from being able to raise his children to serve her insatiable sexual needs. Damn, those had been fun years! So of course now he was about to play on her guilt over her own misdeeds to draw her into this birthday present scheme.

“The kid’s already a spoiled brat,” she pointed out. “If he wants a dog let his parents get him a rottweiler.”

“A hellhound will help keep him safe.” He looked a bit sheepish. “At least it will when it’s properly socialized.”

Valentine crossed her arms under her ample breasts. “That’s what you came here for? To get me to help you with dog training?”

Yevgeny smiled. “Well, Cesar Millan isn’t available.”

She had no idea what that meant. “Why do you think I can be of any help?”

“Because back when Conover called himself Corvei you helped him raise the first litter of hellhounds.”

The problem with having lived with Yevgeny for so long was that there was very little about her she hadn’t told him. “We shared too much,” she complained. “Strigoi shouldn’t be so damn—domestic.”

He took her hands. “Come with me.”

She pulled them away. “I’m busy!”

“Waiting for a man who doesn’t want to come back to you?”

“It doesn’t matter what he—” She managed to stop herself as she remembered who she was talking to.

He had no qualms about using her hesitation. “Haven doesn’t really matter to you or you’d be searching for him yourself instead of sending someone to look for him. Put your time to use and come with me.”

The sight of Yevgeny was seductive; his voice was seductive. His needing her was the most seductive of all, even if it was only to help housetrain one of Corvei’s nasty little pets. She’d thought she’d put Yevgeny out of her mind as she had every other companion that had gone into the night as a strigoi, but she’d missed him far more than any of the others. She just hadn’t realized it until now.

Maybe she could spend a little bit of time with him. It would give her something to do while waiting for Haven’s return. “You always could divert me,” she admitted. “All right. Fine. I’ll help. But if Corvei shows up to kill you to get his puppy back, I will not get in his way.”

FIVE

“YOU ARE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN I HAVE ever seen,” Corvei blurted out to the woman who’d entered his cell.

Dark curls swirled down her back and over her rich, round breasts. Her skin truly was alabaster pale, and her eyes huge and black, her mouth full and lush. Her garments were of Seresian silk, bright red embroidered in gold. The cloth was so fine and thin it revealed more than it hid of her firm, perfect body.

She smiled, bringing light into the dark world. “Women come to you often and you service them.” She stepped close to him and spoke in a whisper. “I hear even a werewolf bitch takes you into her bed. That’s a rare honor for a mortal. So I’ve come to have a look.” She put cool hands on his shoulders and he felt her drawing the heat from his body. She looked into his eyes, and he could not look away. “You are special,” she said after a long time. “I am Valentia.”

He put his hands where her narrow waist flared into her rounded hips, taking his warmth back from her. “What are you?” he asked.

“I’m not looking for a new lover,” she said. “What I’m looking for is an apprentice. But you’ll do for both. If you are truly interested in destroying Rome,” she added. “And if you want it.”

She was asking rather than ordering him. No one had done that for a long time. More important, he knew that her hatred of the empire matched his own. She wanted his help. How could he deny her anything?

DAN relished the memory of their first meeting as well as the thought of seeing Valentine again, even if he didn’t completely trust her and hadn’t since she’d showed him how to become a vampire. Valentia hadn’t explained about the dark magic and the curse of eternity that came with the many gifts she offered. But living forever sounded good to a gladiator who had existed on the sword’s edge for five long years. Killing a man to achieve eternal life had seemed no different than what he already did for a living. Just like becoming a gladiator, becoming a vampire was something he had no choice in, and a little bit of resentment at his maker had niggled at him for a long time.

He could almost hear Valentine telling him to stop being such a wimp while he circled the block looking for a parking space near her high-rise condo building. He supposed he should stop thinking about her if he wanted his visit to come as a surprise. He didn’t know what was going on, whether she’d stolen the puppies herself or why. It was best to approach her quietly and cautiously. He sat perfectly still in his car once he finally found a place to park and didn’t get out until he was certain his mental shielding was as tight as he could make it.

It was not that far from midnight and there was very little traffic on the streets of this upscale Los Angeles neighborhood. Night-blooming jasmine and pollution scented the air in almost equal parts. He crossed the street and slipped over a wall into the beautifully landscaped garden that surrounded Valentine’s building. It was instantly far darker under the palm trees than out on the street.

It grew darker with every step he took until he was surrounded by a black void. Dan realized he’d fallen into a magical trap, but by then it was too late to avoid it. Instead he stood completely still and let his extra senses roam. It didn’t take long before he detected life inside the blackness with him.

Maybe it was a trap, but he had no choice but to go toward the light of a living being.

SIX

THE MAGIC DIDN’T FEEL LIKE VALENTINE’S. NOT that Tess had ever personally encountered the Ancient Mother’s personal energy, but she was certain it wouldn’t feel like this if she did. The flow and pulse of the guarding magic didn’t have an ancient feel to it for one thing. For another, she’d didn’t think she’d be able to detect any spell Valentine cast as quickly as she had this one. And it didn’t matter that she’d detected it quickly, she was still stuck in the darkness.

Tess was in a hurry and the inconvenience of the trap did not help her mood. She growled deep in her throat, not something she normally did in human form, but the sound came out anyway.

The last thing she expected afterward was to hear a man say, “Calm down, cub.”

The voice was behind her, but where exactly was harder to determine. She was almost dizzy from whirling before she made out another shape in the thick darkness.

“Who the hell—” she began.

“Hello, werewolf,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Her sharp ears detected the remnants of a dozen lifes’ worth of accents in his deep voice. She could make out no scent in the magical dark, but it was easy enough to guess what he was. “Hello, vampire,” she replied.

“Not exactly vampire,” he answered. “Although I used to be one.”

That revelation was meant to scare her, and it sort of worked. He was letting her know he was one of the vampires who ate vampires—and who knew what else?

“What do you call yourself these days?” she asked. “Enforcer? Hunter? Abomination?” Bravado might not be a good idea, but she just couldn’t help herself.

“Dan,” he said. “You?”

Oh, shit! What the hell was Dan Conover doing here? What did he want with her? “Tess,” she told him. “What are—?”

“I thought at first that you were part of the trap, but it’s more likely that you’re as stupid as I was about Valentine’s security.”

“I don’t think Valentine had anything to do with—”

“Geoff Sterling, I bet. He’s the apprentice living with—”

“Yes,” she cut him off. “Do you make a habit of not letting people finish sentences?”

“I don’t spend much time around people. I’m not around one now,” he added.

His conversational tone really pissed her off.

Then the black bulk of him was looming over her. The darkness made it worse. “Did you take the pups, Tess?”

Though there were none there, she could almost feel hot breath and claws brushing her throat. She was werewolf, she didn’t scare easily. This—monster—could certainly do it to her. And why the hell did that turn her on?

Tess made herself concentrate. “I’m here to see Valentine about that.” She wasn’t sure if it was smart to blurt that out, but it was hard not to respond to such an obvious alpha.

“Me, too,” he said, and became all mild-mannered. At least he stopped aiming the threat of danger at her. “Let’s get out of here and get on with it,” he suggested. “You are a witch as well as a werewolf, aren’t you?”

“It’s going to take me a while to break a spell this strong,” she said. “Though I expect that once the sun comes up—”

“I may have all night,” he cut her off. “But I’m not planning on hanging around come daylight.”

“Then what—?”

“We combine our brains.”

She knew what he meant, and what he suggested was even more annoying than his constant interruptions. It was also dangerous—in a very personal way. They could get into each other’s heads, under each other’s skins. It could make things— complicated. Especially if there was anything even vaguely compatible in their personali—

He recognized her hesitation. “I promise not to peek, if you promise, too.”

He seemed to already be halfway into her head. Damn the vampires and their greater telepathic abilities.

“We’re wasting time here, weregirl.”

She growled—he really brought that out in her—but she had to agree.

“Fine—fangboy.”

He chuckled.

Tess took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Which was stupid considering they were already in complete blackness.

The energy that surged through her was pure orgasmic rush. She didn’t know how long she was lost inside pure pleasure inside pure dark.

This is nice. The voice of the vampire eventually floated through the bliss. But . . .

Shut up and let me concentrate, she snarled back, embarrassed at her reaction to this monster’s—

Do you want me to show you how—?

I’m the witch here, fangboy.

He poured more energy into her. Show me.

She concentrated, wrapped her power around his, discovered she wasn’t giving enough to control all the energy. Every barrier she had came down. They blended, but somehow she wasn’t lost. She longed to linger within this pulsing, shining vortex but she didn’t lose hold of what needed to be done. Reluctant as she was to leave these new, exciting sensations unexplored, she took their mixed energy and pushed—pouring light against the dark, conjuring counterspell against the spell that held them.

The perfectly normal night returned with a lurch that twisted her stomach even as it brought reality back into focus. The dark now had many textures, and there was plenty of light—streetlights and car lights and apartment lights and even the faint glow of starlight high above all the night lights of Los Angeles. Scent returned with vision, as acute as ever. Tess realized she’d missed this extra sense even more than she had the presence of light.

“I hate magic,” she muttered. It was a supernatural allergy, really. One that most people had little or no reaction to. She wondered what it would be like to be like most people.

“But you use your allergy well,” the vampire behind her said. “And you really don’t want to be like everybody else.”

“I suppose not, but—” She whirled around to face him and snarled. “You’d better get out of my head now.”

He stared at her in shock. His mouth even hung open for a moment.

Tess stared back, absorbing her own surprise that the vampire’s scent was—delicious. Where’d he get those sexy pheromones, she wondered. “What?” she demanded as his gaze continued to roam hungrily over her.

“Syrilla?” he questioned. There was the roughness of desire in his voice.

Oh, that.

“My name is Tess Sirella,” she growled. She pulled her hair away from her face, revealing the werewolf widow’s peak and letting him get a good look at her sharp features.

“You look very much like her.”

“Yeah, I’m descended from the old bitch.”

He showed fang at her tone. “She was dear to me.”

“And bitch isn’t an insult among my kind, Conover,” she reminded him.

“True.” He smiled, and actually had the audacity to pat her on the cheek, only laughing when she snarled. He turned and walked away.

She caught up with him as he reached the entrance of the building. He held a cell phone to his ear.

“Still only getting her voicemail.” He flipped the phone closed and put it back in his jacket pocket. “And I’ve never known anyone who could block telepathic contact as efficiently as Valentine.” He looked at her. “What shall we do now?”

“I didn’t know we were together,” she replied.

“Fortunately I know where she keeps her spare key.”

She watched as Conover moved to the brick wall, made the shadows around him darken, and began to climb the side of the building.

“Damn flashy vampire,” she complained as she watched. Her plan had been to first lay a web of watching spells around Valentine’s place the way she had around Conover’s. She found the vampire’s direct method far more tempting.

Tess stepped up to the brick wall, slipped off her shoes, and extended all of her claws. “You’re a bad influence on my family, Conover,” she said as she began to climb.

I know, he thought back.

“I hope you haven’t ruined your manicure,” he said when she joined him on Valentine’s terrace.

She looked past him at the sliding glass doors, then flexed her fingers. “As sharp as these may be, they don’t cut glass. Do you have any diamonds on you?”

He chuckled as he removed something from under the base of a potted plant.

“That really is a key?” she asked as he straightened. “Does Valentine let you use this place as a safe house?” She knew a lot about strigoi society.

“No, the old girl just locks herself out sometimes.”

The “old girl” was about a thousand years older than Conover, and he was no spring chicken. He certainly didn’t look any the worse for wear, though. He was a beefy guy, but all muscle and no fat and taller than you’d expect someone born in the Roman era to be. She shouldn’t find him attractive—it was a species thing—but he looked good to her. And he certainly didn’t smell bad. Tess took a deep breath, and nearly swayed from the rush of lust.

“Those are the same pheromones that seduced my great-granny,” she said.

“No,” he answered. “I was a mortal when that affair happened.” He unlocked the glass door and gestured for her to enter before him. “Don’t worry, there’s nobody home,” he said when she hesitated. “Surely a nosy witch can tell that much.”

Tess growled. “It’s hard to tell anything about Valentine.”

“True,” he said as she walked inside past him.

He followed her into the spacious living room. Big place, she noticed, but sparsely furnished. Frankly, she’d expected the décor to be gothic, full of a lifetime’s worth of mementoes and walls lined with bulging bookcases. The only thing on any wall was a huge flat-screen television. There was a couch, a coffee table, and a couple of chairs facing the television in the center of the room. The kitchen was on her left, a hallway led off the other side of the room. She felt the vampire come up too close behind her and stopped seeing the room.

Awareness of him surrounded her. His slow heartbeat thundered in her ears. His scent was overwhelming. His body heat rose, his warmth flooding through her. Tess wanted to run.

The fear that flashed up from her gut was all wrong. She was Tess Sirella, damn it, as scary as any vampire!

She forced herself to turn, shifting form.

When she faced him she saw that the vampire wasn’t a vampire at all.

SEVEN

OH, SHIT. HOW COULD SHE HAVE FORGOTTEN CONOVER was more than a garden variety strigoi?

Frankly, what she now faced looked more like a werewolf than she did. Only a lot bigger and a lot meaner.

These monsters called themselves Hunters. Many vampires called them Abominations, at least out of earshot. The Strigoi Council who ruled vampires named them Enforcers of the Laws of the Blood. Vampires consumed humans; the Hunters consumed vampires who broke the rules of the Council.

“I’m not of your kind,” she managed to say though her throat was dry with terror. “I’m not subject to your Laws.”

Though she probably knew more about his kind than he did. Knowledge didn’t keep Tess from shaking.

A huge paw circled her throat. Claws delicately nicked the sides of her neck.

What are you doing here? His thought drilled into her mind. Where are the pups?

“Oh, crap, I don’t have your damn puppies,” she snarled. Maybe Conover frightened her, but that didn’t stop her from being a werewolf.

Werewolves kill hellhounds, he reminded her.

“I haven’t yet.”

Tess winced as the claws drew blood. That yet had definitely been a mistake.

Words rushed from her. “I’m not interested in killing your pups. It’s my duty to keep them from killing.” She grabbed his arm as the vise around her throat grew tighter. His muscles were pure steel. “You have no idea how they can be used,” she choked out. “The magic—”

He tossed her across the room. She landed sprawled on the vast expanse of sofa. Before she could spring up, Conover had changed back to his human form. But he still moved as fast as a vampire.

She snapped at his wrist when he held her down, but had only the satisfaction of tasting his blood. Mortal teeth were practically useless! And it was a trap anyway, because he used his own blood to quickly trace symbols on her chest while he muttered a swift incantation. The magic took hold, leaving her unable to change no matter how much she wanted to.

“I never heard you were a wizard,” she said.

“I’ve been dealing with your kind for a long time,” he answered. “I’ve learned a few tricks along the way.”

His hands moved over her in ways that had nothing to do with magic, not in the technical way at least. Her body’s response to this alpha handling shorted out her brain, so that it took her a few minutes to ask, “Why did you take off my clothes?”

His knowing chuckle was as much answer as she needed.

“Okay, stupid question. You’re not looking for concealed weapons—”

“Hidden charms or spells are weapons, however . . .” After a thorough examination that had him tumbling her around like a doll, he eventually put her on her back and concluded, “No visible body painting or tattoos.”

She was panting. Damned animal instincts! “You could have just asked.”

Fingers delved between her splayed thighs. “I like to be thorough. You aren’t minding a bit,” he added when he found how wet and ready she was. He played with her swollen clit for a while, bringing her to a quick, hard orgasm with his thumb. “Life’s hard being a virgin witch, isn’t it?” he asked after her climax passed.

“How did you—”

“No woman is that delightfully tight inside in this day and age unless—”

“Let’s not talk about my—”

“Vow of chastity to increase your magical power, my furry little vestal?”

“If I was furry at the moment, I’d rip your throat out.”

“I know. And I wouldn’t blame you for trying.” He leaned back, though a hand on her chest easily held her down. “Fulfilling your vows is an admirable thing, and I shouldn’t tease you about it.” He stroked her breasts as he talked. She was all too aware of how her nipples tightened and strained to his touch.

“Excuse me, but would you mind stopping—?”

“How do you manage to stay sane when you’re in season?” he wondered.

She didn’t know if he was using magic, or if she answered because she couldn’t help but respond to his genuine curiosity. “A vibrator and a lot of chocolate.”

He nodded. “That’s better than most men at any time. But enough girl talk . . .”

He said a word that sent sharp pain through her head and left Tess’s ears ringing. But she knew he’d released her from the enchantment that had left her in human form.

“Why?” she asked.

“I don’t want you to feel under any compulsions when you answer my questions.”

Where are they?

His telepathy did not help her headache, but she opened her mind to him. I don’t know. I’m here to find out.

He probed and he prowled inside her. He hurt her. She didn’t try to fight him. Eventually Conover let her mind go free. Something of his dominance remained inside her though. It was a male to female sort of dominance every member of her kind sought. Damn Conover and his Hunter-self to hell!

It was only then that she noticed how close he held her naked body.

Then the nausea hit and all that mattered was throwing up.

EIGHT

DAN SNATCHED UP THE RETCHING WEREWOLF AND carried her into the bathroom. He wasn’t in the habit of abusing the females of any species, but he was in too much of a hurry to find the pups to question her gently. He was gentle now, knowing that she’d done them no harm. She still held information he intended to find out, but for now he saw to her needs.

He held her head so that she could barf into the toilet bowl and wiped her face with a wet towel when she was done. While she lay collapsed like a sweaty wet noodle on the floor, he adjusted the controls in the shower until the temperature was just right. He lifted her again and eased her under the warm spray.

While waiting for the water to revive her, Dan went in search of clothes to replace the ones he’d ripped and shredded between climbing the walls and turning into a Hunter. Some things it was just better to do naked.

He found a closet full of expensive black clothing in the bedroom occupied by Valentine’s apprentice, Geoff. He shook his head at the sight. Why was it vampires wore so much black? Especially the younger ones. The color had never appealed to him. For one thing it showed every speck and fiber. His pets shed a great deal, and not all hellhounds were black.

He found a shirt and slacks that fit well enough to replace his jeans and plaid shirt, then went back to see how the girl was doing.

By the time he returned, she’d dried off and wrapped herself in a white robe. Her wet hair was pulled severely back from her angular face. He stopped in the doorway, stunned and staring. Pain and longing shot through him. He shouldn’t be so attracted to a creature so absolutely different from his own kind—but his body didn’t seem to be aware that lust between their species didn’t happen.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” she demanded.

They’d already established that she was a descendent of Syrilla’s, but . . .

“Are you sure werewolves aren’t immortal?” he asked.

“We could be,” she said. “If we used the same sort of dark magic your kind is addicted to.”

Her comment reminded him of other things she’d said, and bits of knowledge he’d picked up inside her mind. The problem with telepathy wasn’t in picking up thoughts, but in putting them into context. He’d dug out the specific items he’d been looking for—she hadn’t taken the pups, she’d never killed a hellhound, she was looking for them herself, and like him sensed that Valentine was somehow involved. She was, in fact, as much a guardian of the animals as he was. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know how.

He took her hand, meaning to pull her back into the living room, but he dropped it as soon as their skin touched and an electric charge of attraction passed between them.

“Stop that!” she demanded.

“I’m not doing it on purpose!”

“You were earlier.”

“That was only to distract you so I could get into your head.”

“Sex as a weapon? That is just so—strigoi.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“You don’t have to sound so pleased about it.”

“Don’t whine when you’re not in wolf form,” he told her, and enjoyed the energy rush as temper flared in her eyes and through all her senses. He turned and walked toward the living room, wondering if she’d jump him from behind. Instead she followed him. He was almost disappointed at her ability to control her wild nature.

“Why do you think Valentine is involved?” he asked after they’d settled on opposite ends of the couch.

“Would you believe me if I told you I sensed her shadow in a dream?”

“I’ve been known to believe odder things,” he answered. “Someone used ancient magic in an ancient language to distract me. Valentine is one of the few who know the old tongues and the most powerful spells.”

“You’re Nabatean, from the Roman-era city of Petra, now in Jordan,” she said. “Your native language evolved into modern Arabic.”

“The written form did, not the spoken. And I didn’t say what ancient language was used in the spell.”

“Oh, please. Don’t go all mysterious. Could anything else have trapped you?”

Dan shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t suppose you speak Nabatean?”

“No. My turn to ask a question. Why would Valentine help a demon steal the puppies?”

“She wouldn’t.” Dan stood. “What demon? Strigoi don’t deal with demons. Valentine certainly wouldn’t. If she’s in her right mind at the moment,” he added in a low mutter.

She smiled at his reaction. “I know that vampires and demons have a formal treaty never to interfere with each other, but do you really think you can trust demons?”

Dan wasn’t sure that demons really were demons, not in the way mortals defined them. Of course, mortals had the information about every supernatural species mixed up, if not outright wrong. The strigoi’s knowledge of demonkind wasn’t much better, even after thousands of years of co-existence with the strange creatures.

“It’s not my job to trust demons,” he told the werewolf. “My duty is to make sure that the Law against interfering with them is enforced. And I don’t believe Valentine would break the—”

“Valentine doesn’t give a damn about the Laws of the Blood, remember? She’s never acknowledged your Strigoi Council and there’s not a single Enforcer who could stop her from doing anything she wants. She’s the loose cannon, the wild card, and the mother of all Enforcers. You look shocked, Hunter. Didn’t you know about Valentine’s brood?”

Valentine—Valentia back then—had made him into a vampire, but—

“She didn’t make me what I am.”

“I know. The way it works is that vampires turn their mortal companions into vampires. Only members of the Hunter bloodline can turn vampires into Hunters. It was a Hunter named Olympias who turned you into a monster that preys on vampires. But the Hunter line started somewhere, and Valentine is the first of your line, the beginning. She keeps the knowledge of what she is and how she came to be secret, but my pack of werewolf witches—”

“Know more about the strigoi than we know about ourselves,” he finished for her.

“We make it our business to find out all we can about every type of supernatural being. Syrilla’s pack protects werewolves the way you Hunters protect strigoi. My assignment is to make sure the hellhounds don’t fall into the wrong hands. Demon hands are the wrong hands, and demons have been trying to get hold of Syrilla’s pups since the beginning.”

“I was there at the beginning,” he reminded her. “No demons tried to harm the first pups. But a great many of your kind died in the attempt to destroy them.”

“A great many werewolves did die at your hands,” she acknowledged. “That’s why the werewolf community eventually came to the conclusion that my pack would be totally responsible for dealing with the hellhound problem. Not that we ever mentioned this to you strigoi.”

“Vampires can be negotiated with, you know. Werewolves are too damn secretive.”

She shrugged. “It’s a fault, I admit. Probably even a genetic one.”

“But you are going to work past this fault and tell me everything now, aren’t you?”

“Maybe if we’d simply put you on your guard about why demons created the hellhounds, me and my ancestors wouldn’t have had to live in your shadow all these generations.”

He’d always known they were out there, waiting to strike. Or so he’d thought. He shook his head. “I’ve guarded against your kind because of a promise I made to one of your pack, when your pack could have been helping me care for their cousins?”

Tess winced. “Please! Hellhounds aren’t sentient. They are no more kin to us than arctic wolves, or Great Danes.”

It pleased him that werewolves still underestimated the hellhounds’ capacity even after all this time. “They’re smart,” he said.

“For dogs, maybe.”

“Hellhounds,” he corrected.

She sprang to her feet. “Exactly! They are straight from hell. Really. That’s the whole point and always has been.”

He stared at her for a long time. Finally, he said, “I take it there was something Syrilla didn’t tell me.”

Tess shook her head. “She didn’t know. The poor bitch was under a spell when she mated with your war dog, otherwise she never would have done”—she grimaced—“the dirty deed with a dumb mutt.”

“Hardly a mutt. I paid a fortune for the animal because of his pure lineage. His ancestry was far more grand than mine.”

“But he was still a dog! No werewolf in her right mind could possibly . . . do that . . . with one of those . . .” She shuddered. “It makes me sick to think about it and it’s been two thousand years. It’s a wonder my whole pack wasn’t wiped out to erase the shame of it. It’s bad enough we’ve been tied to the hellhounds’ fate ever since.”

“You were explaining about spells and demons,” Dan reminded.

“Hellhounds were created through demon magic,” she answered. “They were brought into the world to eat souls and build power to be used in demonic ceremonies.”

He didn’t disregard this information out of hand. It was clear the werewolf witch believed it. “What sort of ceremonies?”

“How would I know? The demons have never gotten a chance to get their claws on a hellhound. You’ve protected them. My pack’s guarded them.”

“I don’t always protect them. I train them and make sure they go to good homes.”

“That’s just it—we think it’s the pups the demons want. We think that they can’t use hellhound magic once you’ve tamed them and trained them to obey strigoi. The demons need to train the pups themselves for whatever it is they want. They’ve never gotten the chance—until now.”

He was on his feet. “Your pack might have told me all this at some point over the centuries!”

Her eyes blazed with anger and she opened her mouth a few times as if to protest before saying, “Yeah. That probably would have been a good idea.”

Dan was glad that at least this pack member was able to look past the centuries of mayhem vampires and werewolves had committed on each other over the hellhounds.

“I can forgive and forget if you can. And even work with you if necessary.”

She balked at this. “If? What do you mean ‘if necessary’? Who got you out of the trap earlier? Who—?”

He’d grabbed the furious woman’s shoulders. “No offense intended,” he said.

Then the robe slipped off her shoulders and his hands were touching warm, soft flesh and Dan forgot what he’d meant to say next. Two thousand years were gone in an instant. The hot mouth he pressed against his was the same. The wild intensity that flared between them was the same. The small, high breasts he cupped responded the same.

But Tess wasn’t Syrilla.

For one thing, he was far more attracted to this werewolf female than he’d ever been to her ancestor when he was a mortal man—and that was saying quite a lot.

For another, he liked Tess far better than he had Syrilla—and that was also saying quite a lot.

“I can’t,” she said breathlessly after they’d fallen together onto the couch.

He had her naked beneath him once again. Her thighs were wrapped around his hips. He held her ass cupped in one hand. She had a wonderful little ass.

“I made vows—and you’re—strigoi and—oh, Goddess!”

She bit his shoulder in response to an intimate caress. It was a love bite, not an objection to anything he was doing.

He laughed in her ear, and bit back.

The taste of her blood was wholly different from any human he’d ever tasted. It was like being introduced to hot peppers and fresh ginger after a lifetime of bland, invalid fare. Everything that was lust and life came to him through her. He’d never tasted anyone like her and he had no intention of stopping.

He wasn’t going to drain her dry. But he was going to fuck her brains out.

Dan picked Tess up and carried her to the bedroom.

NINE

WHAT WAS SO GREAT ABOUT BEING A VIRGIN ANYWAY?

This fire burning between them was the real magic. This was life. This was real. This was important.

Tess threw her head back and draped her arms around Conover’s neck, vaguely aware he was carrying her and not caring where they were going.

He put her down on a wide expanse that was silky soft and cool. She stretched out on the luxurious bed and would have purred if she wasn’t a werewolf. The room was dark but werewolf eyes and vampire eyes met and they saw each other clearly. The recognition of like to like that passed between them shook her to the core, but not at the wrongness of their two species blending both body and soul. It was the rightness that shattered but didn’t break her.

She cupped his face in her hands and drew his mouth down to hers. She’d never shared a kiss so intense, so intimate.

She’d never shared a proper kiss at all, she realized. At least she’d never initiated one.

This is so going to get me in trouble, she thought.

Me, too, he answered.

There was no repentance in either of their minds, and no hesitation.

This is a first, he thought, a vampire mating with a werewolf.

“Well—” Tess began, then decided to let it go. They were in Valentine’s bed, but this wasn’t the time for conversation about the Ancient Mother. “This is about Tess and Dan,” she said.

“It’s about who, not what, we are,” he agreed.

She ran her hands over the thick, hard muscles of his back and cupped his rounded buttocks. Her foot stroked up the length of his calf. “Let’s make it about sex,” she told him.

Her fingers reached around to curl around his cock. She groaned as she stroked his penis and testicles, but he soon positioned himself between her thighs.

When he entered her the thrust was so hard she couldn’t stop the scream.

“Hey! I’m new to this!” she reminded him.

“Sorry!”

He made up for it by settling into a slow, gentle rhythm that sent amazing bursts of pleasure through her and made time and place disappear.

Tess eventually came down from the series of steadily building orgasms. She tossed her head from side to side and tried to catch her breath. She tried to focus. It would be so easy to stay inside the shared ecstasy forever.

She moaned and grabbed the vampire’s hair. “Come!” she begged him. “Now! You’ve only got until dawn you know.”

Dan laughed, flashing fang. And his mouth came down on her breast. There was a quick sharp pain that took her back into the ecstasy that she rode down into the dark.

TEN

HE WAS CLOSER TO THE OLD BITCH NOW. KRAAS knew the time would soon be ripe to confront her. Did Valentine suspect an evil presence just beyond her reach? Had fear invaded her dreams yet? Did the shadow of ripping fangs make her throat ache? He held his master’s enemy’s true death in his arms and stroked the velvety head while the pup whimpered. The energy released when a demon creature killed Valentine would increase his master’s power a thousandfold. Kraas’s reward would be equally immense.

“You’re hungry, I know. You’re getting heavy from all your kills, you know.” He rubbed the fat little puppy belly. “You’re growing into such a big, fine boy.”

He continued to murmur to the pup as he moved silently through the backyards of the sleeping neighborhood. He listened all the while for heartbeats.

The houses were large but most of them held no more than two or three people. The pup needed more than that to eat his fill.

“You’re a growing boy. I miss the days when families slept six to a bed with servants huddling around besides. I’m almost ashamed to bring my master into this world. He’ll whip the mortals into shape with you and me at his side to share the kills. Ah,” Kraas said as they stopped behind the center house of a cul-de-sac. He closed his eyes and listened carefully, counting as he discerned individual heartbeats within the dark house. Eight, he decided. Eight mortals sleeping peacefully. A good night’s feast for the youngster.

Kraas remembered to check around the outside of the building for any of the alarm systems mortalkind thought protected them. The house proved to be free of any warning device, and, of course, no spells warded the place from magical entry.

He returned to the back and used a diamond-sharp claw to scrape a hole at the handle of a sliding glass door. Once he had the door a little way open, he let the hellhound pup down inside the house’s kitchen.

“Run free,” he urged. The pup was already determinedly crossing the room, already on the scent. “Find your prey,” Kraas said. “Feast.”

ELEVEN

“A MOTEL IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE—HOW charming,” Valentine said as Yevgeny turned off the empty road into a gravel parking lot. For all of her sarcasm she was glad to finally be arriving somewhere with four walls and a roof. Though she’d managed to fight off the phobia on the drive west of Las Vegas, she had not enjoyed the wide desert vista or the vastness of the starry sky overhead. She regretted the bravado of letting Yevgeny drive her Cadillac with the top down.

“You shouldn’t fear the world,” Yevgeny said. “It’s the world’s job to fear you.”

“Oh, shut up.”

He chuckled. “I thought it was a very good line. You can use it in your next script if you like.”

She sighed. “Everybody thinks he’s a writer.”

This reminded her of how she’d met Yevgeny at a studio reception for Soviet diplomats back during the Cold War. He’d been an undercover KGB officer. She was a scriptwriter as well as a vampire. She’d been obsessed with him instantly. She looked at him now and he was just as big and blond and impressive as ever. An echo of the old longing stirred.

“Damn it, Yevgeny.”

His fingers cupped the back of her neck, the touch so familiar the reality of it was painful. His fingers were not so warm as they used to be, but the contact still sent heat through her.

“There’s no Law against vampires being lovers,” he said.

“Euwww!” She meant to flinch away but found that she hadn’t moved. His touch felt too good. “It’s not done,” she reminded both of them. “You were my companion—that’s incest.”

“You didn’t turn me into a vampire, someone else did. How can it be incest if you aren’t my maker?”

It would be easy to argue this, even easier to give in without an argument. But she and Yevgeny were over, done with. There was too much history, too much bad blood to even start a discussion. She didn’t want to know where the discussion might lead.

Besides, there was Haven, her runaway groom. Even if she had sent Geoff Sterling to fetch the man back instead of going herself, she still had a claim on Haven.

She rubbed her temples and stared straight ahead, out into the empty night across a road that didn’t go anywhere. “Get your hand off of me, Yevgeny. So I can remember what the hell I’m doing here.”

She heard the car door open and felt the air grow colder as he moved away. Valentine jumped in surprise when he appeared beside her. He opened the car door and took her hand to help her out. Always the gentleman. Haven was no gentleman.

“Time to check on the puppy,” he said when she was standing beside him.

Her confusion blew away at this reminder of why he needed her here. “Thank the Goddess you picked an isolated spot,” she said. “If you aren’t the only guest at this fine establishment you soon will be—not that the place is likely to still be standing when we’re done.”

He laughed. “I rented all the rooms and sent the owner away. We have plenty of privacy to hold puppy school.”

She shook her head at his humor and started forward. “Come on, let’s wake up the monster while the night is still young.”

“The puppy’s just a little troublesome,” he said as he caught up to her. “You don’t have to be so dramatic.”

“If it was only a little troublesome you wouldn’t have come to me for help.”

“I asked for help because I remembered you telling me that you were there with Corvei when he trained the first of the breed. You’ve at least had some experience—”

“Oh, yes, I was there. We had no idea what evil had been brought into the world. We had a lot to learn before the first ones were tamed.” It was her turn to laugh. “We vampires have evil at our core but we can choose how to use it. Hellhounds are creatures born to destroy. They grow stronger with every kill.”

“Spoken like a true cat person,” he said. “They’ve been kept as pets for ages.”

Valentine shook her head. “I’m not talking about a tendency to chew up the furniture and piss on the carpet. They are monsters who have to be convinced that they’re dogs.” Valentine waited until she was sure Yevgeny had absorbed her words. “Come on,” she said. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

TWELVE

WHEN TESS WOKE SHE KNEW THAT IT WAS SOMETIME after dawn. Not because of the light, since no vampire’s bedroom had windows. She knew it was daytime because Dan was no longer there. Oh, his body was nestled beside her all right, with his arm thrown across her stomach, but his skin was cool, his muscles stony. He wasn’t exactly dead, she knew his consciousness was somewhere inside the frozen shell, but he couldn’t move between dawn and sunset. The price paid for eternal life was a dangerous half-life.

As a werewolf, she did not approve of the strigoi’s type of magic. But she liked Dan Conover. She smiled as she lay on her back next to him and turned her head to look at his head on the pillow beside her. Her body was still reacting to the time they’d spent making love. Not sex, damn it, but love.

Yes, she more than liked him. She’d consider herself a slut for having fallen into bed with him so quickly if there hadn’t been the telepathic contact beforehand. And if she hadn’t been spying on him her entire adult life. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know him, even if she was mostly a stranger to him.

Did he think of her as one of his companions? she wondered, since she’d tasted his blood as he tasted hers. She gave a snort of laughter. Dan had a major surprise in store for him if he thought he could treat a werewolf like a human he’d sexually enslaved with a few drops of his sacred blood.

“Sacred my ass,” she muttered.

Speaking of asses, he certainly had a nice one.

“Maybe I can make you my sex slave, Daniel, my dear—nah, what fun would that be for either of us?”

Lifemate?

The thought struck her like a lightning bolt.

“Is that possible? For a werewolf to mate outside her own species?”

She took a deep breath, tasting all the different scents swirling around the bed. Dan’s essence was different asleep than awake; he smelled more like a vampire now. She should have found this unpleasant, off, like meat beginning to spoil. But she was as much drawn to Dan’s scent as she had been when his sex pheromones had assaulted her senses the night before. There was more to him than the vampire part of his nature. The Hunter wasn’t as prominent while he slept, but the trace of it reminded her why she’d been attracted to him from the moment they met.

Still lying on her back, Tess shrugged. She was attracted to this particular vampire because he was one of the Hunter bloodline. And it all went back to Valentine, didn’t it?

In order to achieve the change that turned her and her descendants into beings strong enough to easily kill their own kind, the magic Valentine used involved the sacrifice and consumption of the strongest werewolf of that long-ago time. And it must have been a willing sacrifice or the magic of the act wouldn’t still be working today.

So, Dan was a sort of cousin, and being attracted to him wasn’t really a perversion. And it wasn’t really important right now was it? She remembered she had a job to do.

“Personal life? Ha!”

Tess grudgingly got out of bed, got herself together, and settled down in the kitchen with her iPhone and a fresh cup of coffee.

She wasn’t surprised to find two voicemail messages from her mother. Even though it wasn’t possible, Tess suspected her mom somehow knew exactly what she’d been up to with Dan Conover. She knew she was being paranoid, but she ignored the messages anyway. She checked for relevant news online instead. And, bingo!

Eight Dead in Unknown Animal Attack in Nevada Home

Appalled as she was, Tess read the news story beneath the headline with growing excitement. It had to be the hellhound pup. It had to be!

She had to go after it. She cursed herself for following her hunch about Valentine when she should have followed the lead from the first murders. Now even more mortals were dead and it was those devil critters’ fault. The more the pups killed, the stronger the demon handler became.

She quickly pulled up a map of Nevada to find out where Henderson was located.

It’s near Las Vegas. Good. That gives me a place to start.

With a decisive nod, she put away the iPhone and stood, ready to leave immediately. Then she glanced down the hall toward the bedroom.

“Stupid vampires have stupid biology,” she complained. “Why do you have to sleep all day when I could use your help?”

Tess immediately reconsidered her instant reaction of thinking she and Dan were on the same side. What had a night of passion really changed?

Hell, losing her virginity might have cost her the ability to use magic. At least she was still a werewolf. She still had her mission to deal with the hellhounds.

For a moment she actually considered leaving him a note to tell him where she’d gone.

But Dan would be determined to stop her if it was necessary to destroy the nasty little whelps.

He wasn’t going to let any involvement with her stop him from trying to protect his little darlings.

A couple of orgasms couldn’t overcome thousands of years of werewolf/vampire rivalry over the hellhounds.

Maybe the smart thing to do would be to rip Dan Conover’s heart out of his chest while he was helpless. Could she do it with claws and teeth or would she need a knife? Was there a blade sharp enough in Valentine’s kitchen to help with the job?

Tess actually started to open a drawer before revulsion hit her so hard she ended up puking in the sink. She couldn’t kill Dan! At least not outright murder him, no matter how practical a solution this might be.

“Damn.”

She rinsed her mouth and splashed water on her face, cursing her own weakness all the while. Well, if she couldn’t kill him now, she’d do it later if she had to. Right now the important thing was to get to Nevada.

THIRTEEN

DAN KNEW TESS WAS GONE LONG BEFORE THE SUN set and he could do anything about it. He’d felt her leave and ached for her even though his consciousness had been out searching far beyond the place where his helpless body rested. Awareness of the werewolf woman seemed to have sunk into his blood and bones.

He opened his eyes on the thought, I’ll find her when I want her. His body responded that it wanted her right now, but at his age he was well able to ignore a sexual urge—even if it was the strongest attraction he could ever remember having.

He got out of bed, stretched and scratched, and went into the bathroom. His cellular phone rang as he went back into the bedroom. He almost crushed the small machine in his rush to pick it up.

“Tess?”

“Who?” Olympias’s voice came out of the small speaker.

“Good evening, darling,” Dan answered quickly. “How’s Baby doing?”

“You could ask how I’m doing first, you insane dog nut.”

“How are you?”

“Your dog is driving me crazy.”

“Why? What’s she doing?” Missing her puppies, he knew, but he wasn’t ready to tell the strigoi leader that he had a problem. She wouldn’t want to be bothered unless the world was in imminent danger of coming to an end.

“She’s growling and whining and doesn’t want me to touch the puppy. She snaps at Bitch and howled like a banshee all day—I didn’t know until today that psychic animals could get into my dreams.”

“Sorry, Olympias. She’s missing me, that’s all. She’s acting out because I haven’t left her alone in a long time,” Dan said confidently. “She’s sulking. Don’t let her get away with it.”

“And what do you suggest I do about it?”

“You could put on some InuYasha anime DVDs,” Dan suggested. “And pet her while she’s watching. It’ll help you bond.”

“You want me to watch cartoons with your hellhound. I see.”

Dan ignored Olympias’s sarcasm and skepticism. “Maybe you can help me with something else. Do you know where Valentine is?”

“You want to spend your vacation with Valentine? Please tell me that you don’t have anything better to do.”

“Not exactly spend time with her,” he answered. “I remembered that there was a spell she promised to teach me back in 1750 and I thought I’d remind her of it now that I have some free time. She’s not at her apartment. Do you know where she is?”

He tried to sound innocently curious, but he had never been a great actor. Olympias remained suspiciously silent for a long time. He carefully didn’t press her.

“Las Vegas,” Olympias grudgingly answered at last. “She called me from there a couple of days ago . . . She said something incoherent to do with dragons and saving the world. I was going to head there to check it out when you diverted me to baby-sit.”

No doubt Olympias was happy for the diversion; she and Valentine had never gotten along. Olympias had been a queen in mortal life and was used to having her will obeyed. Valentine was ever the wild card, one who could not be made to obey. It was always impossible to tell if Valentine was about to topple the universe, save it, or ignore it.

“Why don’t I check out what Valentine’s up to for you,” he offered. “It’s the least I can do in return for taking care of Baby.”

Another long silence. They were strigoi—they were tele-paths who could have felt out each other’s thoughts and intentions but the age of electronic communication had brought an etiquette about long-distance mind-reading into play among friends. And frequently it was safer not to snoop.

“Whatever she’s up to—don’t get involved in it,” Olympias finally ordered. She sighed. “Whatever you’re up to—I don’t want to know.”

“Fair enough,” he answered.

“Where do you keep the DVDs?” she asked.

Dan told her. Then he headed for Las Vegas.

FOURTEEN

“MOMMY, I DON’T WANT TO WAKE UP. DON’T MAKE me go back in there.”

Valentine slapped Yevgeny on the shoulder. She poked him in the side with her foot. “Shut up, you miserable wimp. And stop being such a trunk hog.”

They’d spent the day curled around each other in the trunk of her Cadillac. She’d never be able to forget how much room the big man took up in a bed, but she hadn’t considered how that would translate to the limited space in her car when they decided the hole the pup made in the motel roof would let in too much daylight. And possibly made the already rickety building unstable.

They’d had no qualms about leaving the little demon magically asleep amid the wreckage she’d made.

The trunk lid popped and Valentine shoved Yevgeny out. He landed on the ground with a grunt. She followed him out into the cool night air and gave him a hand up.

“You healed yet?” she asked.

“I need coffee,” he responded. “I should have remembered to bring some,” he added before she could. He began to rub her shoulders. “How are you doing, Valentine?”

“My body’s fine, but my head still hurts. Telepathy can take a lot out of a girl. Tonight you are doing all the head work.”

“Think strong alpha of the pack thoughts at her.” He repeated her instructions of the night before.

She nodded. “Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to give her some of your blood.”

He glanced at his stained, ragged shirt sleeve. “She took plenty of my blood last night.”

“That was an attack. You need to get her submissive and then share a few drops with her. It’s a bonding thing—like with a companion but without the sex.”

He frowned. “The point is to train Bela to bond with Sebastian.”

“Bela? You’ve given it a name? See, you’re getting attached.”

“I’m not.”

“Besides, I’m not so sure this Sebastian kid will be able to handle a hellhound even if he is a dhamphir. Maybe someday, but right now he’s still just a child,” she continued. “Only the strongest magically and telepathically of the strigoi have ever been able to keep the creatures. There are good reasons Dan doesn’t give them to just anybody. Now, if I was a good little vampire drone I’d encourage you to give your little Bela to the kid. Then the hellhound could kill the dhamphir and we wouldn’t have to worry about him killing vampires when he grows up.”

“Then, why—?”

“I know his parents,” she reminded Yevgeny. “Besides, I can’t kill a kid any more than you could.”

“Your plan is to wait until he grows up?”

“Something like that.” She tugged him toward the building. “Come on, let’s go teach Bela to fetch.”

FIFTEEN

KRAAS SAW IN ENERGY. THE EBB AND FLOW OF ENERGY constantly streamed across his skin, through his body. The energy of mortal lives was the easiest to read. It was as common as dirt and as dull. Since he’d taken the hellhound, energy had burned constantly around him. He’d been able to concentrate on the mortals they hunted because he must. He protected his precious one, he found it prey and helped it hunt, but all the while he was dazzled by the dog’s pure, evil fire.

“Such a nice puppy,” he said, looking down at the animal trotting beside him. It looked up at him with hellfire glowing from its eyes.

It had grown so much that its head now reached Kraas’s thigh. Huge fangs sprang out of its wide muzzle. It didn’t look a thing like any of its weakling kin the vampires kept shackled from achieving their true beings.

They’d been walking for a long time, but Kraas only now realized that he was following the hellhound’s lead, lost in the emanations of its power. They were going west, the hound padding along into the desert with swift determination. Why?

Prey, of course. There could be nothing else on the hellhound’s mind.

Kraas smiled. “You’ve started to hunt on your own. Good boy! What is it you’re after, eh?”

Kraas had to move away from the animal’s side before he could send his senses out in search of the prey’s energy.

There was another hellhound out there, wasn’t there? Just barely within Kraas’s range of awareness. Even fainter, almost covered by the hound’s vitality, there was a hint of vampire. Kraas recognized the vampire’s energy signature and threw back his head in laughter.

“It’s the child vampire that fancies himself a sorcerer! The one whose spell I rode to fetch you away from Corvei. So, he’s out in the desert with your sister. Perhaps she’s dining on his guts. Shall we go look? Shall we kill them?”

But the hellhound was already loping far ahead. All Kraas could do was run to keep up.

“FANCY meeting you here,” Tess grumbled when Dan came up beside her in the deep shadow of a tree. The thrill of delight was something she tried not to show.

It didn’t work. His hand caressed the back of her neck and down her spine. “I missed you, too, sweetheart.”

“When vampires say ‘sweetheart’ they can sometimes be taken literally,” she reminded him.

“I would never eat your heart,” he answered. “You’re not a vampire.”

She’d have preferred a promise that he’d never harm her, but why should he give her something she’d never give him? Tess turned to look at him. They were standing in the backyard of a house surrounded by yellow police tape. Mortal investigators prowled the premises, but no one noticed them.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Dan. “Surely you didn’t follow me to proclaim your undead-dying love?” She kind of hoped he had.

He held her close and kissed her. After he’d sent a major whoosh of excitement through her, he let her go and said, “I found out that Valentine was in Vegas, but it turned out that she’d already left town. Then I caught the news about the mortal deaths and decided to check out what happened. What happened?” he inquired.

Typical strigoi, letting a sexual partner do all the work.

“One of your puppies did this,” she told him.

He looked surprised. “One?”

She tapped her nose. “Does this lie? I haven’t been able to sniff around much yet, but so far I’ve picked up traces of one hound and one demon.”

“Valentine?”

Tess shook her head. “She’s not involved with this pup.”

“But a demon is?” He scratched his head, ruffling his thick hair. “Why did both of us make assumptions about Valentine if she’s not involved?” He looked at the defiled suburban house. “There are no coincidences where magic is concerned.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, and my guess is that I associated the spell used to kidnap the pups with something she’d use.”

He nodded slowly. “Maybe not something she used, but magic she taught someone else. Let’s ask the demon about it when we catch up to him.”

He smiled in a dangerous way that showed a lot of teeth. Tess found this very sexy.

Since she knew there was no way she could evade Dan’s being in on the hunt, she didn’t argue about his coming along. But there was something she had to make clear.

“The hellhound has killed at least twelve people. It’s found its true nature and you can’t fix it. It can’t be allowed to live.”

He stared at her angrily, but she wouldn’t flinch or look away. She couldn’t back down. It was Dan who turned his back on her.

While he glared into the night, Tess concentrated on sniffing out a trail among all the scents assaulting her senses.

Finally she heard Dan say, “If it’s necessary.”

She knew he wasn’t talking to her, or that she could get anymore agreement than that out of him.

“Whatever,” she muttered under her breath.

He turned back to her. For a moment his features were hard as a statue’s. Then he sighed and focused on her. “Do you have anything?”

Tess pointed. “They went that way. I’m going to transform and head after them.”

He put his hand on her arm. “Don’t be so old-fashioned. Come on.”

He led her to a car parked a street over. She couldn’t help but stare at the low-slung auto’s gleaming red surface where it sat under a streetlamp.

“Wow.”

After a moment’s reverent silence, he said, “Go ahead. I’ve heard it before.”

She glanced from the Ferrari to Dan Conover. “The dead really do travel fast.”

He went around to the driver’s door. “Get in,” he told her. “And tell me where to point your nose.”

SIXTEEN

HE’S NOT ONLY GETTING THE HANG OF IT, HE’S GETTING to like it, Valentine thought as she sat on the edge of the ruined bed and watched Yevgeny and Bela.

The pair were on the floor in the middle of the room, and neither of them was currently bleeding. He had the dog on her back, one hand on her belly and the other touching her head. His big blond Russian eyes were closed, his features stern— except for the occasional hint of a tiny smile. He and Bela the hellhound were deep in telepathic conversation. And getting along quite nicely for the moment.

Yevgeny had finally gotten the idea that the most important part of training a hellhound was conducted from the inside of its bright and stubborn little head.

Valentine nodded in satisfaction that Yevgeny had once again mastered a skill from her.

“Always my smartest pupil. Always the quickest study. Sex. Languages. Magic. This.” She sighed. “I miss you,” she told him, knowing he couldn’t hear her. She gave an ironic shrug. “Regret. The spice of life.”

A moment later, Yevgeny let Bela up and backed away on hands and knees. The pup was instantly up and coming at him. But Yevgeny shifted shape as she came, going from human form to the fanged and clawed shape vampires called the mask. He drew his lips back and growled. The hellhound dropped to her belly and whimpered.

Yevgeny stroked her submissive head. “Good girl.” He turned his head to give Valentine a triumphant, fanged smiled.

She gasped. Damn he made a gorgeous vampire!

TESS’S head jerked to the right as the car passed through a crossroad.

“Stop the car!” Tess shouted.

Dan responded immediately and Tess jumped out to taste the air more thoroughly. Dan joined her in the middle of the crossroads. Stars wheeled above and the roads stretched out across the empty landscape.

“Do you smell that?” she asked him.

“I sense it,” he answered. “Strigoi and hellhound.”

“Nearby.” She turned in a slow circle and pointed. “Demon and hellhound that way.” She glanced at the vampire. “Choose.”

He didn’t answer, but gestured her back to the car.

“WHAT’S the matter?” Yevgeny asked. He morphed back to his human semblance. “Are you all right?”

Valentine blinked, focused on his concerned face. You’re prettier showing your true nature, she thought.

Yevgeny must have caught her thought because he looked startled, but the dog came up behind him and he immediately returned his attention to Bela.

Valentine got up and went to stand by a broken window. She breathed in the cool desert breeze and rubbed her arms. More than air circulated around the deserted motel.

“Something wicked this way comes,” she murmured. “Among other things.” And stood back to see what would happen next.

SEVENTEEN

WHEN DAN KICKED THE DOOR OPEN HE WAS TRANSFORMED into full Hunter’s mask. Tess came through the window an instant after him in her wolf shape.

The strigoi male jumped to his feet, holding the brindle pup in his arms. “She’s mine!” he declared. “Back off, Conover.”

“And your little dog, too,” a voice drawled from the shadows.

Tess snarled at the other vampire.

Dan stalked toward the blond vampire. He wasn’t sure whether he was going to kill the thief or snatch the pup first. But he hesitated when the pup lifted its head and growled at him.

Still in the corner, Valentine said, “They’ve bonded.” He glanced her way. She shrugged. “What can you do? It’s true love.”

“Bonded?” the blond vampire shouted. “No, we haven’t! Bela’s for Sebastian.”

“Think again, Yevgeny,” she answered. “Do you really think you can walk away from her now? Look at how he’s holding her,” she said to Dan. “Look at how she’s protecting him.”

Tess morphed back into her human shape and adjusted the bits of leather wrapped around her to modestly cover herself. She looked like an amazon character in a role-playing game.

Dan came back to his own human form and took a long, hard look at Yevgeny. The younger vampire stared back just long enough to show he wasn’t afraid of a fight, then looked away before it became necessary for Dan to prove his dominance.

Smart boy, Dan thought. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing with my dog?” He jerked a thumb at Valentine. “And her? Did you help him steal Baby’s puppies?” he asked Valentine.

“Why’s the other one with a demon?” Tess put in.

“What other puppy?” Yevgeny asked. “I only took Bela— and I didn’t steal her. I left gold for her.”

“Oh, shit,” Tess said. “It was the spell he used. I bet I know what happened.”

All gazes turned to the werewolf witch.

“Go on, Tess,” Dan said.

“Demons have waited a long time to get their claws on a hellhound but they couldn’t get to them on their own. They’re experts at exploiting other beings’ use of magic, but not much good at working spells on their own. They more or less need hosts they can attach themselves to so they can manipulate the host’s use of energy.”

“Welcome to Witch School 101,” Valentine said.

“Don’t be mean,” Yevgeny told her. “Go on,” he urged Tess. “Tell me how I screwed up and involved a demon in this mess.”

Tess smiled at the big blond. Dan didn’t like it. Valentine sniggered.

“My bet is that a demon followed you and stole the other puppy while the spell still held Dan.”

“You let a demon into my house?” Dan shouted.

“I didn’t mean to,” Yevgeny said. “I needed the pup and was following tradition to get her.”

“I’ve left plenty of bodies lying around to discourage that tradition.”

He was not happy with what Yevgeny had done, but as he watched the pup lick the younger vampire’s chin and the vampire rub the pup’s head without seeming to notice, he knew he wasn’t going to kill Yevgeny. He’d let him get away with the theft—for the hellhound’s sake.

“How did you get involved in this?” he asked Valentine.

“Innocent bystander,” she answered.

“I asked for her help training it,” Yevgeny said. “And she taught me all the magic I know.”

“You poor dear,” Tess sneered.

“But where are the demon and my other pup?” Dan asked.

“Here,” Valentine answered.

She pointed toward the window just as a huge black body came crashing through it.

EIGHTEEN

“DAMN!” TESS SAID AT THE SIGHT OF THE PURELY malevolent hellhound. It reeked of insatiable hate and hunger. She knew death on four paws when she saw it.

She stopped thinking and morphed, missing some of the action as her perspective and vision changed from human to wolf.

The demon entered to add to the chaos in the crowded room within the instant it took her to change. The creature screamed hatred as he raced toward Valentine. The ancient vampire’s attention was on the attacking hellhound.

Tess sprang onto the demon’s bare back before the creature reached its prey. She sank her teeth through greenish skin, tasted metallic blood, crunched through bones. It still tried to crawl forward even after she’d severed its spinal cord. Tess used all her strength to hold the demon’s body down. She gnawed at the thing until it finally stopped moving.

Roars, shouts, and the crash of bodies drew Tess’s attention away from the corpse. Worry killed any desire to feast on fresh meat. She spun, ready to help Dan.

VALENTINE watched Yevgeny whirl around, using the bulk of his body to protect the animal in his arms. The heavy black beast leapt onto his back. Blood arced upward onto the walls and ceiling. Yevgeny cried in pain.

Terror raced through Valentine.

“Yevgeny!”

The demon appeared before her and blocked her view. The werewolf brought the demon down. This brief struggle kept Valentine from getting to the others, but to immortals a moment was a long time. Actions that would have appeared to happen at light speed to a mortal seemed in slow motion to her.

She shouted to Dan for help, but it wasn’t Dan Conover she saw when she looked his way. “Corvei,” she breathed.

When the werewolf tried to spring forward, Valentine grabbed her and buried her fingers deeply into thick fur.

“Calm down, Tess,” she urged when the werewolf struggled and snapped at her. “I’m saving your life. You can’t go to him like this. Corvei specialized in beast hunts in the arena. You need to change shape before he goes after the wolf as well as the hound.”

Dan Conover could change into two types of vampire shape but he faced the hellhound in human form. As an Enforcer, he always carried a silver knife, but he didn’t have the weapon in his hands now. He was a man going up against a monster, but as a mortal he hadn’t been an ordinary man.

Corvei’s eyes were cold, narrowed with concentration. His face was expressionless. The ability to kill blazed from his smallest movement. It was a gladiator against a wild beast, facing off in the center of the room.

“He’s about to kill one of his own children,” Valentine told Tess. “He can’t do this any other way.”

THE red eyes that tried to stare Dan down were full of intelligence. He wouldn’t let himself care. He didn’t feel compassion for the madness he saw in those eyes either. He never looked away as he circled slowly, assessing how to attack.

The beast circled as well, its eyes locked on his. Hot drool dripped from fangs too large for its muzzle. Its growl was a continuous diesel-engine rumble in its deep chest. Its steely claws gouged the concrete floor. Dangerous and beautiful, it studied him.

But it didn’t have patience. It didn’t have experience. It couldn’t wait.

“You’re still a puppy,” Dan said when the hellhound sprang toward him.

He grabbed its front legs while it was still in the air and swung it around. Its huge head swung back and forth, seeking flesh. It bit into his forearm, but Dan didn’t let go even as the beast worried at the wound. Vampire flesh was tougher than mortal. Dan bled, but his arm wasn’t bit in two the way a man’s would have been.

He smashed the beast on its back onto the concrete. He followed it down, planting his knees on its exposed abdomen. It snapped for his throat, raked claws across him. Dan ignored pain and the creature’s piteous howling. He extended his own hard claws.

He killed the hellhound the same way he would have another vampire. By opening its chest and ripping out its beating heart. The heart was still beating when Dan stood with it clenched tightly in his hand.

With his own howl of pain, Dan threw the ruined pup’s dark heart as hard as he could through the gaping window.

He dropped his arm and looked around for his next kill. He started toward Yevgeny. The other vampire lay still on the floor. The uncorrupted puppy was licking his face.

Tess’s arms came around him before he could take another step. She pressed her human form against him, flooding him with her warmth and life. She brought back his sanity with her touch. He grabbed her and held on as hard as he could. He mourned this loss as he had mourned all the lives he’d taken as a gladiator, strigoi, and Enforcer. Tess was a light beyond the pain. Tess beckoned him with the promise of life to hold on to.

“Let go of the hellhounds,” she whispered to him. “Now you have a werewolf to call your own.”

VALENTINE dropped down beside where Yevgeny lay in a widening pool of blood. She had to push Bela aside to ease his head into her lap.

The skin was blue around his pale lips, his heartbeat faint and slow.

She stroked hair away from his face. “Oh, no, I’m not losing you again.”

Bela was sniffing at Yevgeny’s shoulder. Valentine held her wrist out to the little hellhound. “Here.”

It obligingly bit her.

She thrust her bloody wrist into Yevgeny’s mouth and let life pour into him. “This is the second time in a week,” she muttered at sharing her blood like this. “I am such a slut.”

Within moments, Yevgeny was suckling from her as if he would never stop. She closed her eyes and let the pleasure of the sharing take her.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, she commanded, “Stop!”

His tongue slid delicately across her wrist. A thought teased her, Are you sure?

He sat up and they helped each other stand, but continued holding hands. He smiled down at her. “Why did you do that?” he asked.

“You were dying.”

“I’m a vampire now,” he reminded her. “I’m already dead.”

She opened her mouth, closed it. “Right,” she said. “I knew that.”

“Oh, yes, you knew what you were doing. Don’t play the ditzy dame with me.”

He pulled her close. They both stank of the heady perfume of blood. Her need for Yevgeny was stronger than ever. Any moment now she was going to sink her fangs deep into his delightful flesh. And he was going to do the same to her.

Fancy that.

“What about your bond with Haven?” he asked as he began to caress her.

“Haven?” she asked, and laughed beneath their kiss. “Let his girlfriend have Haven.”

Table of Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN