“Please,” she pleaded. “Your name.”

Ruby turned her face into him. Lips on his cold skin, she whispered against his scratchy cheek, ignoring the slight softening inside her at the utter maleness swirling around her in a heady mist. “You’re hurting me.” She tried to lift her arms, but his hands pinned them down.

“God help me,” he groaned.

Fresh panic flared to life inside her. And a spark of response. His pain, the agony of his hunger, threatened to consume her… but this emotion, his desire, made her purr and arch against him.

He nudged Ruby higher and released one of her arms. Instead of shoving at him with her hand, she curled her fingers into a naked shoulder, hissing at the contact, at the sensation of smooth male flesh… instantly infused with all his need, all his dark wanting. For her.

Her mouth opened wide against his bristly cheek. A sharp cry ripped from her throat.

God help her, as his desire rose, the blackness receded, faded to nothing.

“Sebastian,” he spat out, his cheek rippling against lips as he spoke.

“What?” She felt drunk, addled in the head.

“My name… is Sebastian.”

“Heated passion, fast-pnation or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Sharie Kohler

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Pocket Books paperback edition September 2009

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Cover art by Chris Cocozza. Cover design by Min Choi.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

ISBN 978-1-4391-0158-2
ISBN 978-1-4391-2700-1 (ebook)

For my talented, wonderful friend,
Tera Lynn Childs— who just plain gets me.
And loves me anyway.

To Crave A Blood Moon

Prologue

The slam of the screen door cracked on the night. Ruby crawled from bed, dropping to her feet and sliding into her waiting slippers. Light glowed softly through the open door of her room. Voices rolled on the air.

Angry. Mad.

Her tummy cramped. Whimpering, she hugged the wall and peered out the door, bringing her stuffed duck to her mouth to gnaw.

“Richard,” she heard Mommy say. “Please. Don’t go.”

The screen door creaked as it always did when someone stood in the threshold, holding it open.

“You made your choice,” he snapped. “Now I’m making mine.”

Something that felt very close to hate rolled off him, finding Ruby where she huddled. She bit down on her duck’s floppy bill. Her stomach cramped tighter, twisting, and she felt her dinner of peas, potatoes and meatloaf rise up in her throat.

“For God’s sake, Richard. What choice is there? She’s our daughter—”

“No, she’s weird, Diane. She’s a weird kid. And I can’t stand to be around her. My own goddamned daughter!”

Tears burned her eyes. Ruby burie manacles, his body could not regenerate.

“Your hospitality has lacked somewhat.”

“Indeed?” The alpha cocked his head to the side, amusement lacing his voice. “Any number of men would be glad for the attention you’ve been given. Fucked daily by beautiful women. What complaint can you possibly have?”

Sebastian’s lip curled. “Is that what you call them? Women? I think sewer rats a more apt description.”

Gunter tossed back his head with a laugh. After a moment, he sobered, his silver eyes a steady molten stream. “All for naught, it would seem. None of them are breeding. It appears we are not a compatible species, after all. Shame.”

Sebastian tensed, both relieved and alarmed. Since he never made it a habit to sleep with lycans, he had not known if he could impregnate any of the females who had used him for stud in the last weeks.

Gunter continued, “Unfortunate, I know. I cannot breed your special talents into my pack. So what shall I do with you?” He cocked his head in contemplation, tapping his lip. The room’s shadows cast menacing lights to his features.

“I’ve an idea,” Sebastian murmured, lifting one manacled wrist to his propped knee as if he were not chained to a wall in a dungeon. “You can let me go.”

Gunter tsked. “So you can continue picking off my kind at your leisure? I have enough to worry about as it is without setting some hybrid loose who fancies himself the annihilator of my race.”

Sebastian shrugged, trying to appear unaffected as he lied, “Who says I have to continue my ways?” Hunting his distant brethren was what Sebastian did best. Until now, until he’d been captured, he’d excelled at it. He would never stop.

“No. Can’t have you running about,” he continued as if Sebastian hadn’t spoken. “I’ve other problems. We’re at war with a particularly bothersome cell of lycans on the rise in the west.”

There’d always been feuding between packs. A territorial species, they could never come to an accord, which was man’s greatest defense against them. “You mean I might be lucky enough and you might kill each other off.”

Gunter’s eyes glittered an unholy silver. “I had hoped you would be a useful weapon. And you may yet.”

Unease crawled through his chest, cracking at his armor of numbness, just a fissure, but the first crack nonetheless. “How is that?”

“I need merely convince you to join our side.”

Sebastian snorted. “That will never happen.” He possessed a soul. Nothing would change that… change him inustify">Rafe Santiago woke with a scream thick in his throat. Instantly, his wife was beside him, wrapping her arms around his sweat-dampened chest in a fierce hold.

“Rafe, what is it?”

“Sebastian,” he spit out between gasps. “He’s in trouble.”

His eyes locked with Kit’s. The green pulled him in, a calming balm to the stark horror he had just felt. His brother’s horror. They had always felt a connection, a bond that could stretch across the ocean which separated them.

Seb had felt Rafe’s turmoil when he turned Kit into one of them—a hybrid lycan, a dovenatu, a rare species created through the mating of a lycan with a female descendant of Etienne Marshan—the world’s first lycan.

Kit’s voice swept through him. “Then we’ll find him.”

Slowly, he nodded. Rafe had been unable to reach his brother for months now. Not unusual. Sebastian was like that. Aloof. Solitary. He had broken free from Rafe years ago. Still, Rafe had suspected something was wrong. Whenever he tried to tap into his brother’s head, he only got gray static.

He suspected. And now he knew.

Rising from the bed, he faced the window, staring down into the yard and beyond at the gently swelling waters of the bay. The swing on the porch where he and Kit sat after dinner creaked in the breeze.

“Did you… sense where he is?”

He recalled the dream, saw the awful room, felt Seb’s pain, his battered body as if it were his own.

Seb’s tormentor had spoken in Turkish. “Turkey. The last time I heard from him he was hunting a pack in Vienna. Something took him east. I can track him.” He splayed a hand against the cool glass, fingers curling, pressing as though he would shatter the delicate barrier. “We’ll need help.”

He felt her move behind him. Her small hand came to rest on his shoulder. His brother would never have been taken easily. Only an army of lycans could bring him down. They would need their own to go after him.

“Darius,” he said.

“Gideon,” she added.

He nodded. The four of them would be a force for any army to face, mortal or otherwise.

2

Ruby Deveraux woke with a sharp gasp tight in her throat. Her dream vanished like fast-fading smoke. She willed it gone, willed the frightening images and sensations from her head. She was good at that. Good at tossing up barriers.

Pulling the comforter tighter, she burrowed into the hotel bed, groaning as she eyed her murky surroundings. Sleep rarely gave her any sense of peace. How could it? Her defenses fell then. Dropped like a row of dominoes. Eidth="1em" align="justify">“I can’t hide away forever.” God knew she had hidden long enough.

“Well, what good are you to yourself or the girls when you get exhausted before noon? You should have stayed holed up at your farm.”

Ruby swallowed down the lump in her throat. True. What kind of chaperone was she if she had to hide away instead of chaperoning the girls?

“What are you doing here? I hope you didn’t skip dinner to check on me.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I came back here to look for Amy and Emily. Hoped they were in their rooms.”

Ruby frowned. “Shouldn’t they be at dinner?”

“Should is the operative word. I just checked their room. They both complained of stomach aches and took a cab back here earlier.” She shook her head. “Those two. I never thought I’d ever have a kid under my care that could give me more grief than you, but they take the prize.”

Ruby sat up, ignoring the jibe. “You believed they both had a stomach ache? And you let them return on their own?”

“I didn’t want to miss the tour of the Blue Mosque.” Rosemary’s eyes glinted defensively. “And they did share a plate at lunch today.” She shrugged. “Maybe it was food poisoning.”

“Right.” Ruby swung her legs over the edge of the bed and pushed to her feet. Amy was a good girl, but easily misguided. Ever since she paired up with Emily, Amy had turned into someone else. A perfect parrot of the wilder Emily.

She hastily put on her shoes. “We should have split those two up from day one.”

“Should,” Rosemary said again. “That word comes up a lot with these kids.”

Ruby resisted reminding her that the word should needed to be applied to the parents who brought children into the world and then failed them. Rosemary always had a way of blaming the kids. “I suggested you split them up.”

Ruby had been one of them. Rejected. Abandoned. Left to the system. Ruby knew. She knew well.

“Any idea where they went?”

“Kevin said they were talking to some older guys earlier when we were browsing tapestries at the Bazaar. They invited them to a party. He heard the girls agree to meet them at six at that pastirma shop where we ate.”

A party in a strange, exciting city. A pair of fifteen-year-old girls. Older exotic men. Great. It was a formula for disaster. Rising, she faced Rosemary. “Ready?”

She blinked. “Where are we going?”

“And you’re okay with that? What if they don’t? What if they get into trouble? Or hurt?”

“Look. I’m not about to scour the city for them. And I don’t know why you think I would.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Because it’s your job.”

“I don’t get paid enough for that.”

“Fine,” Ruby bit out. “Where’s John? I’ll get him to go with me.”

“Don’t bother. He can’t leave the rest of the kids to go off after two troublemakers.”

She inhaled deeply. “All right. I’ll go alone. I’ll find them and bring them back.”

“How?” Rosemary glanced at her watch. “You’ll never make it there by six. The traffic—”

“Maybe.” If she could get close enough it would be enough. She just had to get close enough. Her gift would do the rest.

Rosemary shot her a skeptical glare, and Ruby read the doubt there. More than that. She felt it. As always. Buried beneath Rosemary’s general ennui and dissatisfaction with her life was her skepticism that Ruby could do nothing more than hide away in her farmhouse—the oddball loner everyone thought her. “You don’t do crowds.”

“I’ll be back soon.” She clicked her money belt into place around her waist, beneath her tank. Adele had bought it for her, insisting she wear it instead of using a handbag, so that her money, passport and visa never left her body.

“The girls will be long gone by the time you get there,” Rosemary predicted. The bed creaked as she lowered her square, solid frame onto it.

Maybe. But not what they left behind. Not the lingering trace of their emotions. Not their blind, youthful enthusiasm. She should be able to feel them, track them. As long as she lowered her guard and let them in…

Rosemary continued. “You’re wasting your time. They’ll be back sometime tonight.”

Ruby placed one hand to the door’s latch. “I can’t do that.” Without another thought, she stepped out into the hall, into the waiting world with all its people, all its pain, ready to sink their teeth into her.

3

“Wait here, I’ll be right back,” Ruby instructed the cab driver before hurrying out into the labyrinth of streets, into a fog of spices and herbs.

In the fading dusk, she scanned the narrow streets for Amy’s blond haivile, poisoned sensation. Good existed, too. Amusement. Joy. But those faded amid the onslaught of negative feelings. The mean, the ugly, the sinister—they always hit harder.

She staggered from the force of emotions swirling around in the sultry air, bombarding her in wave after wave, eddying along her senses. Her stomach twisted and knotted. There was little time to process. Closing her eyes, she breathed thinly through her nose, swimming through the thick fog, searching until she located the girls.

She found them.

Emily and Amy. Excitement. Eagerness. Pride.

It thrilled them to have attracted the notice of men. They knew they were being bad, breaking the rules. But they reveled in it too much to stop themselves.

Ruby walked, following the heady sense of euphoria the girls emitted. Ferry horns blew low and deep from the nearby port. Eyes thinly parted, she pushed ahead, following only her awareness of them. She strode from the center of the bazaar quarter, down a street of busy shoppers vying with vendors for their evening fare.

Mingled with Emily and Amy’s emotions lurked those of their companions. Two of them. Ruby’s stomach knotted and clenched. She had never felt anything like them before. The sensation they emitted was more of a condition than a feeling. Black hunger. A mawing ache. And in that hunger, nothing else existed. Bleak emptiness. And that was even more frightening. Because there should be something. Some feeling. Some sentiment. There always was. She could always feel something. No one felt nothing. It simply wasn’t human to feel nothing, to possess only that unnatural hunger. Even a starved man must have other thoughts in his head, feelings in his heart. But these men with Amy… they felt empty. Dead.

Weaving through the warren of streets, Ruby’s stomach twisted tighter. She had to reach the girls. Fast.

She shook her head as one determined vendor waggled a dead chicken in her face. Pushing ahead. Ruby tuned everything else out as she clung to the thread of emotions from the girls. Dodging a cyclist, she hurried. The thread suddenly grew thinner. Gasping, she jerked to a stop. Looking left and right, she concentrated. Listening to her instinct, she ducked into a small side street.

Sheer curtains billowed off windows high overhead as she hurried down the narrow cobbled street. The market’s volume faded to a dull purr behind her, and the thread grew stronger again.

She passed an old lady. Sitting on the stoop of her building, she stared out at Ruby with night-black eyes and spat something in Arabic from lips that moved as quickly as the fingers shelling chickpeas into a bowl.

A sense of urgency stole over her and Ruby quickened her pace. Tenements reached for the sky on either side of her. A baby cried from inside the one to her left, the wail stretching and twisting into the twilight until it died suddenly.

She stopped abruptly amid the growing shadows as the street came to an end at a courtyard. A fountain sat at its center, its gurgling water the only sound in the silence of impyou, I think.”

The door closed shut then. The sound of the bolt falling into place on the other side sent a vibration straight to her heart. The servant was gone.

Amy’s breath changed beside her, released in a nervous titter. A shaky smile curved her mouth.

“Open those doors,” Ruby demanded.

“I can’t.” Gunter lifted one shoulder in a mild shrug. “It’s locked from the outside.”

“Chill out, Ruby.” Despite the flip words, Ruby felt the niggle of unease worming through Amy. She needed to build on that, needed to get the girl on board with her so they could get out of this. Whatever this was…

“Freak out enough?” Emily rolled her eyes and turned back to her tattooed friend.

“Sit. Relax. Enjoy.” Gunter waved to the table behind them, very much the host. “Have something to eat. The fun is about to begin.”

Ruby pressed close to Amy. “What kind of fun?”

“Oh… entertainment. If you would excuse me a moment.” With an enigmatic smile, he left them to talk to someone else.

Ruby wrapped a hand around Amy’s arm, vowing to never let go. Whatever happened. And something was about to happen. A thread of expectation laced the air. Readiness. Faint but there.

Emily lounged on a couch on the other side of the room now, smoking a cigarette with a growing collection of admirers.

Ruby swept her gaze over the room. No windows. Just enclosed space and stale air that swirled with tobacco smoke and a heavy shot of black hunger. That hunger deepened. Swallowing the strange void of before.

“Amy, we have to get out of here.” The girl’s skin quivered beneath her grasp. Apprehension. Fear. “Something really bad is going to happen.”

Loneliness. Regret. “I think you’re right,” Amy whispered.

“You’re not alone, Amy,” she assured, flexing her fingers around the girl’s slim arm, as though she could inject comfort with the promise. “I’m here. I’m with you.”

Surprise. Amy’s wide eyes locked with Ruby. Relief. Biting her bottom lip, she nodding. “Yeah.” Her nodding increased as if she grew strength from Ruby’s pledge. “Yeah. Okay. How? How are we going to get out of here?”

Scanning the room, that question echoed with a chill down her spine. Her gaze snagged on a vent set high in the wall. She shook her head. Everyone would notice the two of them clawing the wall to climb through the air duct. Still, it wed from her nose, running over her lips, dripping down her chin.

Swiping at her mouth so she didn’t swallow, she pressed herself into the hard edge of the table and clung, shaking from the pain, from the brutal sledgehammer of death after death.

Dark spots danced before her eyes. Blackness threatened, trying to pull her in—an escape from the overwhelming agony.

One of the beasts caught her in his sights. She felt his awareness of her, his excitement, his rush of conquest. Gunter. He no longer looked like a man, but she knew.

Her mouth dried, a scream trapped in her lungs as the monster charged her, launching over his fellow brethren busy mauling the victims caught in their clutches. That black hunger reached her, stronger, darker, crazed in its absolute power.

Another guest, arms flailing with panic as she tried to escape, staggered between Ruby and the oncoming creature. Ruby ducked and slid beneath the table, cringing as the woman’s scream added to the screeching din of misery… a scream that could have been hers. Might as well have been her own for the pain that twisted inside her. White-hot torment surrounded her and urged her to curl into as tight a ball as possible and vanish. Disappear.

Only she couldn’t.

Sucking in a deep breath, she crawled atop the table, her movements rushed, clumsy. Standing, her hands brushed the screen. So close. On her tiptoes, she wedged her fingers beneath the screen and wall and yanked the thin metal sheet free, sending the tiny screws flying.

Adrenaline fed her with a strength she did not know she possessed as she pulled herself up. Arms quivering, she hefted herself inside the narrow air duct.

Air sawed from her lips in deep pain-filled drags as she crawled. She didn’t dare stop to rest. To think. To regain her breath. Her elbows slammed against metal as she worked.

Heart hammering, pulse racing, she swiped again at her bleeding nose. Pain still chased her. If she didn’t escape, she’d probably bleed to death. If the monsters didn’t get to her first.

Hot tears streamed her face as she crawled. Every fiber of her being ached, screaming as she moved at feverish speed.

She dragged herself along, not knowing where she headed, only caring that she moved away from the slaughter, the pain and fiendish creatures that she could not yet wrap her thoughts around.

It seemed like hours. Cold air washed over her flesh. The narrow tunnel shook, vibrating with the cries and screams of those left behind. Pain trailed her, dug deep into her bones.

She reached another vent. Peering though the screen, she eyed below, recognizing the area from earlier—mosaic tiles, the great front room she had passed through after entering the building. Empty. Palms out, she shoved the screen free. It" align="justify">Hearing nothing, she slowly stuck out her head. The duct was too small for her to turn her body around, so she had to grit her teeth and plunge out into the room, praying she did not break her neck.

She fell shoulder first onto the cushioned seat of an armchair, breaking it into several pieces. Amid the broken furniture, she clambered to her feet and rushed to the front door, ready to burst free into the night, away from the madness, the nightmare from which she would wake at any moment.

She felt him before he grabbed her.

Elation. Thrill.

A hard hand spun her around and she faced the same man who had led her into that cesspit of carnage and then bolted the door. “How did you escape?”

He began pulling her deeper into the building. She resisted, envisioning him tossing her back in that room. Despite his slim frame, he was stronger. Her heels slid over the slick floor.

“This is a first. No one has escaped before. Very clever of you. They’re going to be furious, though.” He scowled. “Now what am I going to do with you?”

“No!” she screamed as she fought, crazed. He would have to kill her before forcing her back in with those… things. With so much torture and agony. And death.

She could almost hear Adele’s voice. This is why you should have stayed put in Beau Rivage. You have no business moving about in the world.

Just as her grandmother claimed all those years ago following her mother’s funeral service, only not as harsh as her: You should be locked up.

In a final surge of strength, she stomped on his foot and bolted.

She didn’t get far. He tackled her from behind, the force sending her tumbling with a hard smack onto the floor. Flipping her over, he glared down at her.

“I won’t go back in that room.” She would not experience those deaths again. Not the pain. Not if she could help it. “I won’t go back in there. I won’t!” Her voice rang shrill.

Tsking his tongue, he explained, “I can’t open those doors until sunrise. I wouldn’t be fool enough to risk my own life.”

It all happened slowly then. She watched his fingers curl into a fist.

“But I can’t let you go. For now, this should be sufficient. They will be pleased with me in this at least.”

Pain exploded in her face, then… nothing.

“I can’t imagine how she escaped, Master. No one has ever done so before.”

Ruby did not stir even as the voice with the plaintive edge penetrated the heavy fog in her head. She froze every muscle, held her breath and waited, thinking, trying to assess her situation with her eyes closed. Her face ached, especially the area below her red her blinked in surprise. The other three, two men and a woman, seemed more intrigued than surprised. Heads angled, they observed her as if she were some sort of carnival exhibit, their gazes an eerie silver that glowed in the sunlit room. They filled her with coldness, as if ice hardened their veins. She recognized Gunter instantly.

“You,” she breathed, throat tightening as the memory of him shifting into a beast froze her heart cold.

He nodded, a scary smile fixed to his face. “Sleep well? Sorry you had to rush out last night. You missed a lovely party.”

A curse rose on her tongue, ready to fly, but it never fell. Tears burned her eyes as the memory of last night—Amy—slammed into her, locking her in fresh horror.

Her gaze slid over each of them. She spied an open door just beyond Conrad’s left. She vaulted toward it.

Hard arms locked around her waist. Her legs flailed, kicking wildly in the air. Her captor laughed. The hollow sound scraped her nerves, echoing the humming silence she felt from him. Nothingness. Bleak desolation.

“Put her down, Yusuf.” The silver-eyed devil released her, his hands sliding off her body with agonizing slowness.

She dropped on the edge of the bed.

Yusuf smoothed back his long hair and repeated the familiar request. “Give her to me. I like her fight.”

“Enough with your selfish desires.” Gunter sliced a hand through the air. “You should be well sated after last night. I have another plan for her.”

The ominous words shivered down her spine. Ruby dug her fingers into the mattress, a fingernail cracking from the pressure, not liking the sudden intent look coming over Gunter’s face.

“W-what?” she managed to get out, feeling every bit of his satisfaction. His self-congratulatory attitude swept through her, raising the tiny hairs at her neck.

“Have no fear,” he assured her in mocking tones, moving toward her, one hand outstretched. She cringed at the sight of his long nails, buffed to a pink sheen. “You may have missed last night’s fun. But I have something even better planned for you. I’ve been looking for a special female, and I’m convinced you’re just the one.”

5

Sebastian raised his head at the sound of the door unlocking. Gunter entered the cell’s dank confines, impeccably dressed, hair neat and crisp from a recent shower. And yet he brought with him the odor of death. Last night’s kills clung to him, imbedded in his pores as he moved into the room.

With the glow of dusk fading from the small window set high in the wall, Sebastian knew the second night of moonrise neared. He marked it in the pull of his bones, in their overwhelming ud ankles. Only he didn’t feel the relief he should. He snatched at the irons, as if he could put them back on. Annika hastily stepped clear of him.

“No!” he shouted, surging to his feet. He couldn’t be free to move in this cell with a human. Not in his condition.

Gunter laughed. He lifted his hand. The girl’s dark hair fell like water through his fingers. “Enjoy.” He moved to the door, Yusuf and Annika preceding him. His chuckle grated on Sebastian’s tightly strung nerves.

“Take her with you,” Sebastian shouted.

Gunter’s gaze clung to his for a moment before the door banged shut, leaving Sebastian alone with the female.

Free of his chains, he staggered to the door, pounding it with his fists until they felt like two boneless hunks of flesh.

His stomach tightened and twisted, its clawing pain refusing to let him forget his hunger. He had not eaten in days. His strength was low… along with his will. And now he had this to contend with. Her. Weeks had passed since Gunter announced his intention to starve him and force him into feeding. How much longer could he last?

Turning, he did not move from the door. With his back pressed to the hard length, he watched as she rose to her knees, his gut tightening with her every motion. She lifted her head, staring at him from tangled strands of hair. She shoved the hair from her face and sent it rippling down her back. She watched him carefully, her pretty face guarded, bright splotches burning her cheeks at the sight of his nudity.

“You’re not one of them,” she declared, looking away.

He drilled her with his gaze, finding her eyes through the murk… a deep brown, not quite as dark as her hair. Flecks of gold surrounded her irises. Shards of amber buried in dark earth. It’d be a shame to watch the life fade there. An even greater shame to be the one responsible for that loss of life.

He registered her fear, felt it on the stagnant air, tasted it with a salivating mouth. Not so different from a wolf in the wild. Sniffing out their prey.

Blood smeared her face, a dark brown stain beneath her nose, nudging her pretty lips. She pushed to her feet, wincing. Her hand brushed a bruised cheek as though movement gave her pain.

“Stay where you are,” he growled, his voice thick and garbled, warning him just how close he was to losing control. She smelled so sweet. Creamy vanilla. And looked even better. A feast for his eyes.

Her mouth was almost too full, plump and moist, bringing on a surge of carnal images. Those luscious pink lips surrounding him, drawing him in deep. The image sent a bolt of need straight to his cock, waking that part of him that had betrayed him so many times over the last months. After the savage treatment Gunter’s bitches had dealt him, he wondered how he could even hunger for a woman again.

A cruel smile twisted his lips. The first tasty bit of mortal to cross his path and his blood pumped hard. Just spoke to the resilience ne was forcing him to crave her now. Not the impending moonrise. Not even the hunger clawing his insides. It was simply his body’s natural response.

She sucked in a sharp breath. The color in her cheeks deepened… almost as though she read his mind. Impossible. She was not him, or a lycan, capable of sensing things outside a human’s natural range of ability. More than likely it had to do with his raging erection.

He inhaled her from across the room. If her clothes hadn’t already told him, her scent did. She was foreign to these parts. Hadn’t even been here long enough to soak up any of the odors. She came from somewhere else. She smelled of ripe woman and earth and something else, something he had never come across before in all his years… clean and woodsy, warm wind-blown hills, whisky-sweet.

He felt her stare land on his wrists and ankles. Even in the deepening dusk, she couldn’t make out the full extent of the damage… couldn’t see the exposed bone and shredded flesh. “Are you all right?”

When she made a move toward him, his pulse spiked against his throat and he knew he was not all right. And she wasn’t either. Not if she kept coming toward him.

“Stop right there,” he barked.

She froze. Her gaze traveled his shoulders and torso, skimming over the dried blood stark against his skin. “You’re hurt.” She made a move toward him again.

He threw a hand up in the air. “No.” The word fell likeet-smelling blood with the back of her hand. “It’s nothing.”

He licked dry lips. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” she snapped, pressing her fingers to her nose. “Sometimes my nose bleeds. It’ll stop soon.” Opening her eyes, she looked up. Again, as if she knew more than she possibly could. As if she heard the sounds of death. Killing. Inhaling a steady breath, she fixed molten brown eyes on him. “How long have you been down here?” Her gaze scanned the scruffy growth of beard on his face.

“Long enough.” He drew away along the wall, eyes devouring her, the fruit of temptation that he must resist. He would resist.

Her eyes followed him.

“Why do you… fear me?” she whispered.

Her words—the truth—sliced through him. There was no denying he feared her. He feared her before he ever knew her, when Gunter told him she would be coming. He feared what she would do to him. Drive him over the brink, steal his soul…

But how did she know that?

Then he understood.

Incredible as it seemed, she could read his mind. Somehow. Some way. Maybe she was a witch. He knew they existed, one had started the lycan curse.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he lied.

He tried to clear his mind, to not think about the fear she roused. To not think about himself. About the beast that prowled inside him whose instinct refused to let him starve.

“Whatever.” Sighing, she chafed her hands harder along her arms, clearly attempting to warm herself against the room’s chill. She turned in a small circle, stopping to consider the window set high in the wall. Again. The window was narrow, not large enough for anybody to squeeze through.

“You won’t fit.”

She looked at him again. “I see that. What are we going to do, then?”

He dragged a ragged breath into his constricted lungs, battling her presence, battling the inner demon she awakened. “Do?”

“Yes, what’s the plan?” She took a step in his direction, bringing her sweet scent closer.

“The plan,” he gritted, sidling further away. A humorless smile twisted his mouth. Strange for him to fear her so much. He was stronger. More powerful. Experienced in ways this mortal—or witch—never could be. And still, she struck fear in the shadows of his heart. He would not become all that his mother feared and reviled.

“The plan is for you to keep your mouth shut. For you to stay on that side of the room and keep the hell away from me. Become invisible,” he demanded. “And just maybe you’ll live.0em">

“As you said, we’re stuck here. Together.” A deep sigh rattled loose from him. “Hell.” His arm lifted and she squinted into the gloom as he dragged a hand through his short-cropped hair, scratching fiercely at his head. “Very well. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

Wariness rippled through her. Even as he asked the question, she sensed he didn’t want to know anything about her. He didn’t want to know her. Caginess and dislike seeped from him. “Suddenly you’re interested?”

He sighed again, and she felt a new emotion rise. Something resembling desperation. “To pass the time, sure. Go ahead. Talk. Tell me how you came to be here.” He hesitated. “Tell me who you are.” His desperation reached across to her, a toxic fume. Urgent and grim. So much that she felt inclined to appease him.

“My name is Ruby Deveraux.”

“You’re American. What are you doing in Turkey?”

She rubbed her aching temples. “It’s complicated.”

“We’ve got time.”

“I volunteered to act as a chaperone for a group of foster kids. They got a grant for this trip but needed chaperones that could pay their own way…” her voice faded. Those details weren’t important.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he muttered. “You’re some sort of damn Mary Poppins?”

“I’m not—”

“Right.”

“Hardly. I just…” she paused for breath. “I was a foster kid. After my mother died. This is something I wanted to do. It’s not my job or anything.”

“Oh, not a job. You’re a true altruist, then. Yeah. Not Poppins at all.” He made a low, animal-like sound in his throat. “So what do you do when you’re not escorting lost little souls through Europe?”

“I own a catering business.” Work she loved, a vocation she could do in the safety of her home, private, alone, hidden from the world except during the brief time she emerged to deliver her food. And cooking made her feel better, connected to the mother who loved her as no one else had. The best moments of her life were of them in the kitchen. Baking cookies, fresh fruit cobblers. Crawdaddies in the sink. A big pot of gumbo on the stove.

“What kind of food?”

“Down-home. Southern. Barbecue. Some fusion. I’m not classically trained, but cooking is something I picked up from my mother and kept d you were in foster care after that?”

The skin of her face tightened at the memory of those years. “Yeah. Only four years. Not like some kids stuck in child services all of their youth.” She swallowed down the tightness in her throat as she recalled Amy and Emily. Amy. She jammed her eyes closed against the pain. Amy wasn’t stuck in foster care anymore.

“What? What is it?”

Her stomach cramped, recalling the pain, the horror of Amy’s death. “I came here last night looking for—” She stopped at the strangled, unrecognizable sound of her voice. “Looking for two girls—” She buried her face in her knees, freezing the burn of tears in her eyes, refusing to let them fall in front of this stranger, refusing to let her emotions out. Keep them in. Funny, considering all she ever did was fight to shove out the emotions of others.

“Let me guess. Dead.” The coldness of his voice felt like an injection of ice in her veins. “They were dead the moment the pack had them in their sights. You should never have followed them here.”

She shivered at his coldness. “They were my responsibility.”

“Your mistake then, to ever let them leave your care and come here.”

His words fueled her temper. And partly because she believed them. “How do you know so much about it? You don’t appear to be doing that great yourself. If you’re here, I’m guessing you screwed up somewhere along the way, too.”

Who the hell was he anyway? Her jaw clenched. While she had disclosed a great deal about herself, she knew next to nothing about him. “Who are you? How did you land in here?”

Silence held for several minutes… and there was still that desperation humming in the cold air, strumming through her nerves. And underneath it, always danger.

His voice sounded hollow, wearied. “No. You talk to me. Tell me more about you.”

“Can’t I at least know your name?”

In the shadows, he shook his head. “It won’t end there.”

“Where are you from?”

His sigh floated on the air. After some moments, he answered. “I was born in Spain, but I don’t live anywhere. I have apartments in Barcelona, Vienna, Dublin. No home really.”

“Wow.” His life sounded exciting. Completely opposite from hers. Travel. People. Adventure. “You must do well for yourself to live that way.”

“Well enough.”

“What do you do?”

He cleared his throatting. Contract work?”

“You could say that.”

“How’d you get here?

“Enough questions,” he snapped.

Fingers squeezing around her calves, she demanded, “Why?”

“Trust me. You don’t want to know me. I’m not the kind of guy sweet little Southern belles need to know.” A thread of warning hung in his words. The dark rumble of his voice made her shiver, and she didn’t doubt he was right. But what choice did she have? She was stuck here with him. She needed to get to know him so she would not feel so terribly alone in this nightmare.

For a while, neither of them spoke. Strange emotions stirred from him, reaching her across the distance. A gnawing ache that made her rub her own belly in hunger. “You’re starving,” she murmured.

He laughed a dry, broken sound. “You can tell that, huh?” He stretched his broad torso and held his arms wide, his skin flexing over ridged muscle and his flat, washboard belly. He looked a bit thin, with a lean ranginess that reminded her of a starved wolf. She winced at the comparison, remembering last night again. Werewolves. She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it herself.

“They don’t feed you down here?”

“That’s not part of their plan for me.”

She tensed. It was the first time he owned up to knowing any specifics. “And what is their plan for you?”

Their gazes locked, clung. Instead of answering her, he asked, “Who will miss you, Ruby? A boyfriend back home?” His gaze flicked to her bare ring finger.

She fidgeted where she sat. “No one.”

“No one? Come. I don’t believe that.” And again she felt that spike of desperation, a jump in the room’s temperature, a sudden blast of need from him. He needed to hear she had someone—a clan of family waiting eagerly for her return. His dark eyes glittered with light across the distance. A chill chased across her skin, puckering her flesh.

“Well. There’s Adele. My best friend. She’ll freak when I don’t make my plane.” That was putting it mildly. “She’s supposed to pick me up at the airport.” The redhead would probably be on the phone with the U.S. Consulate. Their meeting in a grocery store years ago had sprung an unlikely friendship. Somehow Adele had known, had recognized that Ruby needed a friend in a town fond of gossiping about that peculiar Deveraux girl. She ran the back of her hand against her nose, muffling her sniff. Adele would care if she went missing. No one else.

The moon sat higher. Silvery light streamed through the window, casting her companion in a chalky luster. Her gaze skimmed the muscled calves stretched out before hher hand between them, she found his hard length. With a shuddering sigh, she wrapped her fingers around him. He seemed to grow even larger in her hand.

“You’re playing with fire,” he growled, his other hand sliding slowly down her arm, dragging over her bare flesh, sending shockwaves of pleasure through her.

“I know,” she gasped, flexing her fingers over him and giving him a gentle squeeze. The gnawing ache in him receded, replaced with stark, unadulterated lust.

And she did know.

Deep down, at a basic level, she understood how she could let him touch her, how she could touch him like this—a man whose face she would not even recognize on the street.

Stoking his desires obliterated all those dark, soulsucking emotions. Her survival led her to this.

Above all, Ruby had always been a survivor.

She couldn’t stop from responding. Couldn’t stop him as his hand undid the drawstring at her waist and unzipped her pants. His pulsing need hit her like a sledgehammer, leaving her breathless… willing, an accomplice in an act her rational self opposed.

The back of his fingers brushed her belly. The touch spiked heat straight between her legs. Pleasure. Need. She hissed at the sensation, loving what he was doing. What he felt. What she felt. There was no distinction.

Desire like this—for her—had never rolled off any man before. If it had, she would not have been able to resist.

Just as she couldn’t resist now.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped as he leaned down and pulled off her pants in a single move. “I know you don’t understand… but I can’t stop. I have to have you. So beautiful, so clean.” They hit the floor nearby. Cool air caressed her legs. Goosebumps puckered her flesh. She shook her head, beyond words.

Remorse mingled with his passion as his weight came over her again, the feel of his hard muscled legs a shock sliding against her own. Hot need drove him and spilled over into her, leaving her writhing and aching with need.

He swiped a thumb over her cheek. His dark voice rumbled through her, hitting every aroused nerve as he spoke. “This may be the only thing that saves you.”

Strange words, but she knew them to be true, felt his conviction.

“Yes.”

He ripped her panties off then, leaving her exposed. Vulnerable.

He wedged himself deep between her legs, hard hands falling on her hips, holding her still.

She widened her thighs for him, offering herself up, welcoming him inside her body as if she did this sort of thing all the time. As if the large hard press of him was wet with desire. For him. For this.

Her own climaxes had not subsided before she was swept away on his own ride.

He groaned, the sound strange, more animal than man.

He moved faster then, ruthless as he pounded into her, his hands digging into her hips, raising her from the ground. She looked up into his face, his eyes. They changed for a second, brightened at the centers. Glowed like the moon itself outside their cell. Then his eyes closed. He shouted. The sound reverberated through his body and into hers.

She took his climax deep inside her, crying out at the intensity, the savagery… ten times what her own climax had felt like. This was wild, brutal, unearthly… like soaring into the sky and leaving her body behind.

He fell over her, his hard length still buried inside her… filling her, pulsing, a reminder, evidence that couldn’t be escaped.

She pressed at the muscled shoulders stretched above her, the skin slick against her palms. She sensed his utter, deep gratification. His sudden drowsiness. Safer than the dark killing hunger. Safer than the rampant lust that just swept her away.

“Please. Get off me,” she murmured in a voice so soft and quiet she wasn’t sure she had spoken aloud.

He rolled off her and she sat up, snatching her ruined panties. She used them to try and clean herself, refusing to look at him, too mortified.

Oh, God. Her hand shook as she worked. Not only had she let some stranger take her virginity on the floor of a basement cell—a prison—she had not even used protection. She had lost herself entirely. Tears burned her eyes. How could she have let another’s emotions so rule her that she blocked out her own?

Because his emotions were stronger, overwhelming. Too tempting.

She nodded, dragging her khakis on. Everything about him was more intense. More powerful than anyone she had ever met—felt. She’d gone on dates where the guy entertained sexual feelings… it never made her jump into bed with him. Quite the opposite. Those feelings had always made her feel too self-conscious.

Adele was right. She wasn’t ready for the world.

Maybe she never would be.

“Hey.” His shadowed form sat up. “I’m sorry—”

“Leave me alone.”

“You were a virgin—”

“Shut up,” she bit out, hating the reminder of what she lost. All that she surrendered to him. Not that she ever could forget it. Still, she didn’t need him saying it aloud. Scurrying to the far side of the room, away from him, she tucked her knees to her che30; the aching throb.

“Why didn’t you say something before we—”

She laughed, the sound hollow and brittle. “There wasn’t much time for talking, was there? And would it have stopped you?”

He moved, stood, a towering shadow. “No. I had to do it.” His words were flat, without apology. “There was no other way.”

She shook her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

None of it made sense. Not this, not what they had done. Not him, not her. Not the damned werewolves who locked them in here. Nor the fact that, deep down, she wasn’t sorry it happened either.

She breathed in, filling her lungs with stale air. At least the terror was gone. For now.

She opened her mouth, ready to ask him about that… about why she felt the same black tide of hunger from him as she did from those lycans, but she bit her lip, stopping herself, reluctant to remind him of the emotions that ruled him… that convinced her it was okay, necessary even, to stoke his lust. To enjoy it as her own.

He wasn’t one of them. That was enough. She was alive. Only a deep sense of satiation hung on the air. For whatever reason, he no longer emitted the terrible gnawing ache and she wouldn’t question why. She was just glad for it.

“You did want it to happen, right?” His question cracked the air. He prowled the space, his hands flexing at his sides, tension singing through his every pore. Regret. The sour taste of it coated her mouth.

She wanted to deny it, wound him. Wanted to insist that she hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t reveled at the sweet fullness of him inside her. She wanted to call him a bastard.

“It was… fine,” was all she could manage to get out.

“Why did you let me—”

“I won’t let you do it again,” she broke in, her voice hard with defiance, unwilling to answer his question . . . that his own want and desire had swept her away. The last thing she would do was confess her ability to feel his emotions even better than her own. Everyone who ever knew what she was thought she was a freak, looked at her like she was some sort of witch. Besides, telling him she was an empath wouldn’t change anything, anyway.

His voice reached her, deep and low as thunder in the distance. “I can’t promise you that.”

Her eyes flared wide at the words. Alarm knotted her shoulders. And a secret thrill. “You will. You will leave me alone. I’m telling you now I don’t want to do…” she couldn’t even say it. She settled for: “I don’t want to do that again with you. Understand?” Desperation made her voice shrill. She wouldn’t let herself get swept away by him again. “You’ll promise d only be lying.” His deep voice rolled over. Like some kind of ancient aphrodisiac, she felt herself responding to the sound of it. Her nipples hardened against the cotton of her bra. She palmed one breast and felt the wetness from his mouth still there, soaking the cotton fabric, caressing the beaded peak.

“Bastard,” she hissed, dropping her hand and curling it into a fist so tight her nails cut into her palm. Once she could excuse, forgive. Herself and him. But a second time… “I’ll hate you.”

For a long moment he said nothing. She followed his tall, wiry form as he moved to the far side of the room and sank down. He propped one arm over a bent knee before speaking, his voice cold, matter-of-fact. “I can live with that.”

“What are you?” she demanded, wild emotion sweeping her. “What kind of man would—”

“It would be best for you to stop thinking of me as you would a typical man. I’m not like any man you’ve ever known.”

She sucked in a breath, confused and wishing she could see his face in the gloomy cell, unable to believe that she had just invited this man inside her body, shared with him what she had shared with no one else. And he had as good as vowed to do it again. “You’re right. Only a monster would take a woman against her will.”

Hardly the truth. She expected him to challenge the lie, but he laughed. The sound, disturbing and horrible, scraped her spine. “How right you are. You would do well to remember that.”

A monster. She was closer to the truth than she realized.

But he would be a monster if needed. He could live with taking her again. And again. Whether she wanted it or not, he could do it again if he had to. If her death were the alternative, he would take that lesser evil on himself.

There’d been women. Plenty. Brief encounters where he took and gave little in return. He had little to give. He was a creature whose own mother afforded him little love. Only enough to stay her hand from slitting his throat. She taught him well just how contemptible a thing he was. Not a creature of God, but an unholy aberration. Not a man to live his life in a normal fashion. No home to speak of. No roots. No woman for him to take to bed, to heart, to live with each dan and silky dark hair and eyes that glowed fire. Long limbs, ample curves—she was built like women used to be. Before they aspired to be runway thin. And she felt like paradise around his cock, snug and tight.

Yes. He could live with her hatred. What he couldn’t live with was her death.

Even though his survival depended on killing her, he could never live with himself if that happened. He had lived over a hundred years without taking an innocent life. He wasn’t going to start now. Especially not with someone like Ruby Deveraux. An innocent, strangely untouched.

At least, she had been. A virgin. He closed his eyes in a severe blink, hating that he had been the one to take that from her. To steal her innocence away.

He was already cursed to hell for taking her like any well-used whore. Opening his eyes, he grimaced, watching her curl into herself across the room, as far from him as she could get. The distance wouldn’t matter. If he had to take her again in order to stave off the hunger, then he would.

Hardening his heart, he tore his gaze from Ruby, studying the moon’s glow filtering through the room, understanding, perhaps for the first time, the frightening power behind the call of it. His mother had known, but he had denied its influence on him, arrogantly thinking himself stronger, better than the lycan dogs out there.

The moon would begin to wane tomorrow. Maybe then the beast would be easier to control and Ruby wouldn’t be in as much danger. From him, anyway.

He snorted. Right. He dragged a hand through his short hair, his nails scraping his scalp.

He looked at the woman again. She was on her side now, her eyes closed but he knew she was still awake. Sensed it in her every breath. Her hair formed a dark puddle, shiny as water in the night. He remembered tangling his hand through it and his fingers itched, eager for the feel again.

If, by some miracle, they got out of this alive, he would do her the favor of disappearing from her life and return to what he did best. His lip curled over his teeth.

He wasn’t a lycan… but he wasn’t human either. As a dovenatu, the moon might intensify his impulses, but he could shift at will—the main reason the pack so badly wanted him for their own. They would use him if they could convert him to their side. Their mistake was in underestimating what he would do to them when he broke free.

He’d have his vengeance.

Lycans had done this to him… to her.

An angry fire burned in his chest. Hunting them would never be sweeter.

8

Yusuf entered the room, Annika trailing one step behind him. Sebastian surged to his feet. His eyes fell on the tray of food Yusuf he">“Down, boy. This isn’t for you.” Annika stood between him and Ruby, revealing her weapon. He inhaled deeply. Silver bullets. A subtle aroma, but he recognized it after packing the same kind of bullets for years.

Not lethal to him. But they didn’t know that. An advantageous difference between him and his lycan brethren. They simply thought he lived—and died—by their rules. He had thought the same, too. Before his brother’s wife, Kit, also a dovenatu, took a silver bullet and lived. Good information… and not anything he felt inclined to share with them. Let them think it would kill him.

“You’re going to feed me?” Ruby looked hesitantly from the tray to Sebastian. “Why? Why me and not him?”

Yusuf blinked and lowered a hand to her head, smoothing his palm over the dark mess of her hair. She knocked his touch away. “You don’t understand, do you? How remiss that Sebastian here failed to explain…”

“Shut up,” Sebastian growled, tensing, waiting, bracing himself. Now she would know. Now she would understand and look at him with disgust. Hatred. His stomach knotted.

Yusuf’s smile vanished like a wisp of smoke. “What’s this?” Head cocked, he breathed in and moved from Ruby. Sebastian watched, feeling a little sick as he bent and picked up Ruby’s torn and discarded panties. A sick thought came to him then. He was little better than the lycan who raped his mother. A rape that produced him and Rafe, sons she both loved and hated.

“Ah, Sebastian.” Eyes glinting, Yusuf fisted them. “You beast. You didn’t waste any time, did you?” He brought the underwear to his nose.

Sebastian watched Ruby shudder and press as tightly as possible against the wall.

“Ah, just as I thought. A virgin. Well, you used to be, at least.” His laughter raised the hairs on Sebastian’s arms and he leaned forward, ready to grab the gun from Annika and lodge a silver bullet in the bastard’s chest.

The female lycan glared darkly at him, the gun aimed at his chest. Her lips curled in a sneer. “Guess we didn’t tire you out enough if you still had appetite enough for her.”

Yusuf crouched beside Ruby. “Was it so very bad, love? Tell Yusuf about it. Was he rough with your delicate body? Humans… you tear so easily.” He dropped a hand on her shoulder and Sebastian surged forward. The barrel of Annika’s gun directly in his face stopped him.

Holding still, he forced a deep breath into his lungs. Steady. They’ll leave her be. They’d given her to him. Gunter wouldn’t tolerate Yusuf toying with her. They wanted him to feed on her, after all. He stared down the barrel, hatred filling his heart.

Ruby shoved the hand off her. Yusuf lifted it again, ready to touch her, when Annika’s voice stopped him. “Leave the bitch. Let her eat so we can go. I have other things to do.”

With a grunt, Yusuf hhed the small loaf and began eating, her movements savage as she ate. Sebastian tried to look away—the sight of her teeth tearing into that bread was too much—but his eyes kept coming back to her.

Yusuf handed her the glass of water after she finished off the bread. She drank, watching the lycans closely over the rim. Finished, she set the cup back down on the tray and carefully wiped her mouth. “Why so concerned that I eat?”

The lycans exchanged looks, smiling. “You don’t know anything, do you?” Annika shook her head. “This is really too delicious.”

Sebastian clenched his hands, a low growl rising from his chest. They would tell her now. He couldn’t stop them. No matter how much he wanted to.

His feet shuffled backward on the cold floor, sinking into the shadows as if distance would protect him from the coming revelation, from the look in her eyes when she learned the truth.

“We have to keep you alive and well so that our Sebastian here”—Annika’s smile deepened, her lips an obscene stretch of glossy red as she paused for dramatic effect—“can feed on you.”

Ruby blinked and stared at Sebastian for several moments, her eyes blank. She opened and closed her mouth several times as if preparing to speak. “That’s impossible. He’s not one of you. His eyes…” She motioned to his body where he lurked in the shadows. “He did not change last night. It was a full moon. He’s not a lycan. You’re wrong.” This last she uttered with absolute conviction. His disgust with himself twisted inside him, a dark, living serpent that he could not escape.

“You didn’t think your lover boy here was some sort of prince, stuck in a dungeon with you? Is that why you let him fuck you?” Annika laughed then.

Sebastian’s fingers curled into fists, yearning to strike.

Yusuf joined in her laughter. “More like a firebreathing dragon with an appetite for damsels in distress.” He wrapped an arm around Ruby and this time she did not even flinch from the unwanted closeness. Sebastian cursed beneath his breath. Why did she not speak? Move? No matter how she felt about him, she should care that a snake held her so close. Where was her self-preservation?

“Love,” the lycan breathed near her ear. “He will feed… on you. He’s brethren… even if a mongrel cousin. A dovenatu.”

Her lips barely moved. “What’s that?”

Yusuf’s lips pulled into a cruel smile. “He’s a half-breed. He can shift at will, not just during moonrise, although the compulsion is certainly stronger then. Along with all other instincts.” Yusuf lifted his head and called out cheerfully in his direction. “That right, Sebastian?” Turning back to Ruby, he continued, “And he doesgn="justify">She fell still. “What are you saying?”

He angled his head, cutting his gaze into her meaningfully. “I think you get what I’m saying.”

She pushed herself close to him. “No. I want to hear it. Say it. Explain it to me. No more omissions or lies.”

He leveled a steady gaze on her, forcing all sentimentality, all emotion out. “You’re one of them now. Or you will be. You’ll begin transitioning in the next few hours. Maybe later.” He nodded toward her neck. “The point of infection was small. A larger bite and transition would be immediate.”

She pressed her palm against her temple, her voice a tormented whisper, as she closed her eyes. “This can’t be. I’m going to wake up and this will all be a dream.” Her voice grew into a faster rush. “I’ll be back in Louisiana, in my own house, in my kitchen, there’s a pot of gumbo on the stove, my tomato basil bread in the oven…” She shook her head harder, her voice a fevered rush. “I just want to go home.”

“Ruby—”

“Guy Fieri’s on TV and I’m diving for a pen to jot down his chow-chow recipe. I can see it. Smell home. I’m there.”

He closed his hands over her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Ruby, stop it.”

Her eyes burst open, glittering with tears. “No! Why should I? You just told me I’m going to turn into some damned werewolf!”

“There’s a chance—”

“What? What chance?”

“We just have to kill Gunter. The pack’s alpha. Before…”

“Before what?”

“Before you shift… and feed next moonrise. After that, your soul is lost. All hope of ever returning to normal will be gone after that.”

She quivered in his hands and closed her eyes in a pained blink that he felt radiate through his dry and starved bones.

“Oh, God. Well. Since it sounds easy. Sure.”

“We can do this.” He nodded, even though his gut clenched at the avowal. How in the hell was he going to accomplish that when he couldn’t break them free of this room? He could scarcely drag himself to stand.

Some of the angry fire died in her eyes, replaced with weary despair. “What are you talking about?” She shrugged free of his hands. “You’re not going to help me. According to Yusuf, you won’t last that long before you break down and—and—”

“I won’t,” he vowed, even though he doubted the truth of his own word

“So, you’re quite a prize for them.”

“If they can recruit me.”

Which they planned on doing. Through using her. Her throat thickened.

“They won’t,” he vowed. “I don’t have to feed, don’t have to kill.”

“Unless you’re starving,” she injected, the bitterness back.

The first man she had given herself to would be the death of her. But he was more than that. He was the first man she had ever felt anything for. Suddenly the thought of him, over her, inside her, filled her head. The stark pleasure, the need he drew deep inside her, made her quiver. She moistened, dry lips had rubbed at her chest, over the throbbing ache beneath her breastbone that kicked in at the very idea of him killing her.

“I’ve hunted lycans since I left home at seventeen. I hunt them down like dogs and kill them. As far as I’m concerned they need to be wiped from the earth.”

She swallowed. He was talking about her. Did he realize that? At least she knew where they stood if they didn’t kill Gunter and break her curse. “Big job for one man.”

“There are others. Organizations of hunters. Both in Europe and the States. And don’t forget I’m blessed with long life.” His lips twisted as though this were not necessarily a blessing. “I’ve killed many lycans. And I’ll kill more yet. Once I get out of here.”

Eager to change the subject from his dedication to killing lycans… killing the likes of her, she asked, “Were your parents like you? Dovenatus?”

“No. As far as I know, there aren’t many of us. My brother. His wife. I know of no others. That’s not to say they’re not out there. Blending in. Suppressing the part of them that’s more beast than human.”

“If your parents aren’t dovenatus, then how did you—”

“My mother descends from Etienne Marshan . . . before a witch cursed him into the world’s first lycan. Meaning that my mother descended from the son born to him before he was cursed. Lycans cannot procreate with humans. Different species and all that. But a Marshan descendant like my mother shares compatible DNA with lycans. Meaning she can breed with a lycan where humans cannot.”

“So your mother slept with a lycan?”

“A lycan raped my mother. And my brother and I are the result. Dovenatus.”

“Oh.” Her voice rang with reproach. “So you’ve got the lucky side of the gene pool. All the perks and none of the disadvantages.”

His eyes glit"0em" width="1em" align="justify">“No?” she snapped. “Well, neither do I. I’m sorry if I don’t extend you my sympathy. I’m reserving it for myself.”

“I didn’t get you in this,” he reminded. “You stuck your nose where it didn’t belong.”

She sprang to her feet and approached him in a furious stalk, forgetting about keeping to her side of the room. “So this is all my fault?”

“If I were you, little girl,” he growled, lifting a finger, “I’d take myself back over there.”

She stopped, looking down at him where he sat, utterly still, legs stretched before him in a deceptively reposed position. His eerie gaze traveled the length of her, and she felt the desire that was becoming so familiar. Addictive heat pooled low in her belly, and she was swamped with the memory of his body locked with hers.

She shook her head, her hair brushing her cheek. That couldn’t be ordinary. Couldn’t be just because he was a dovenatu. This chemistry had to be him. Her. Her breasts tightened, tingled against her top, and she knew she wanted him again. If he made the slightest move, gave her the slightest sign, she’d fall on him, greedy for more.

Then his gaze shifted, stopping to rest on her neck where Yusuf had scratched her. Her fingers flew there, brushing the gritty, dried blood.

Hunger. It slammed into her, the bleak ache clawed her in a savage swipe that nearly bowed her over.

Reminded of the predator he was, she quickly retreated, tossing up her barriers, doing her best to guard herself from the deadly beast that lurked so close. She shoved back the tender thoughts she’d harbored for him, her first lover—the consuming desire.

She couldn’t let that blind her to what he was, to the very real danger he posed. Sinking to the floor, she drew her knees close, closed her eyes and thought of home.

9

Two days passed and still she slept. He knew it was the way with every newly infected lycan, just as was the fever raging through her. He knew she was senseless to the world—to his presence—and he was glad for that small favor. He moved from the corner where he had tracked a trickle of water and lapped what he could from the wall. Settling down on the floor, he propped a hand on his bent knee and watched her. In the deep silence of her sleep, he could almost pretend she wasn’t there. Almost.

Sitting on his side of the cell, bitter cold, his blood a slow chug in his starved, constricting veins, he fought down sympathy for her. What would be the point? He never sympathized for his prey before. He killed them. And she was prey now. A lycan. His enemy. It didn’t matter that the scent of her was buried on his soul. That he craved her. That he wanted her again. That he would likely never forget the shattering release he found in her body.

Through the darkness, he scanned the curve of her neck. The blood had long dried to a rusty brown on the creamy flesh. His mnst her ear. Not a monster. Not a monster. He couldn’t be… she wouldn’t have done what she did with a monster, wouldn’t relish the hard press of his body, a predator who would devour her…

Shudders shook her. She moaned, fighting his embrace.

Sympathy. It felt good. The arms strong, supportive.

He hugged her tighter, compassion rolling off him and into her. She stopped fighting. His heartbeat sounded louder against her ear. “Don’t fight it, Ruby. Don’t resist. It will go easier for you.”

“I don’t understand.” She turned her face, her lips brushing his chest as she spoke. With a will of its own, her tongue darted out to taste salty skin. Her eyes burned, tears pricking at the corners and she clung to him tighter, pressed her body closer, moaned at the sudden needy clench of her belly.

He gasped, his arms squeezing her back, tightening even more around her. A shot of desire trickled through the awful, aching burn of hunger dwelling inside him. Liquid-hot want.

She latched onto it, her fingers digging into his arms, clinging. “Yes,” she growled. “Take me. Please. Again.”

Then his desire faded. The flame dimming, dying. For the arrival of a new emotion.

Sour regret. Heavy grief.

He gripped her arms. Dragged her away from him.

She shook her head, hair tossing, catching in her mouth.

“You don’t really want that. You just want to escape the—” He stopped and she knew he was trying to think of a way to make the truth sound better—not so bad. She got that, but she wouldn’t accept it. She had to know what was happening. Why he felt so sorry for her.

“What? Tell me,” she gritted through teeth clenched tight against the sweep of tearing heat in her bones and muscles… incinerating pain.

“Your death.”

Her belly cramped, the terrible sensation reminiscent of other times. Sometimes she accidentally flipped to a news station when the horrific footage of a shooting flashed across the screen, zooming in on a victim writhing pain. But then she could flip the channel and sever the connection before her nose started gushing blood.

She couldn’t flip the channel right now. She could only endure. A deep keening moan poured from her lips.

This time the pain was her own. The death she felt hers.

Her lids drifted shut. Blackness rolled in.

Sebastian flexed his hands and eased them off Ruby, even though the heat of her skin felt good—she felt good. Warming to his cold, cold flesh. But he couldn’t let himige, not to sink into her softness and forget where they were.

Knowing he had to, he lowered her back down and dragged himself to his side of the cell. Away from her. His gaze fixed on her where she curled into a small ball. Even mindless with the fever, her human DNA dying, making room for the new, his pulse leapt at the sight of her. His cock hardened in the chill air, remembering the warmth of her tightness.

During transition, she was weak, feverish, vulnerable. Willing. It would be so easy…

He cursed and dragged a hand over his face, shoving down the base, dark instincts at war inside him. He couldn’t do that. The one time had been bad enough. But even as he told himself this, he knew he might have to. A lycan fed and fucked. Not always in that order. Right now, he was operating at their level. His state of starvation blinded him to all his long-held principles. To the humanity and morals pounded in him by his mother, and then his brother—a far better man than he.

He fully intended to survive this. To kill Gunter. And Yusuf. All of them. The entire pack. With great and slow pleasure. And then Ruby would be all right. Her curse would be broken. She would be human again. He would make all this up to her.

Make it up to her? He dropped his head back to beat against the wall.

Where the hell had that sentiment come from? His life wasn’t one of sentimentality. There was no room in it for anything besides hunting down the bastards like the ones upstairs. That hadn’t changed. There wasn’t room in his world for her.

He wasn’t like his brother. He didn’t go for missions of mercy. Didn’t get married and do the whole domestic thing. He hadn’t lost so much of himself that he didn’t remember who he was. And who he would be again when all of this was over.

Who Ruby Deveraux was would fail to matter to him then. It had to.

The sound of the door scraping open woke her.

She lifted herself on limbs that felt surprisingly light and limber given her cotton-stuffed head. Holding a hand against her eyes, she blinked against the light flooding the room through the door, limning several large figures. Lycans.

She tensed at their arrival, at the strange emptiness they emitted. Now she could identify that bleak gray she felt. Evil. Noxious as toxic gas.

She pressed fingers to her lips, as if that would stop the rising tide of bile in her throat. She felt sick from it—them—and sicker yet when she remembered she was one of them now. A lycan that would feed on the next moonrise.

“Sebastian,” she murmured, even as she resented that she should call out to him, that she had come to rely on him. Need him so much. Her lifeline in this frightening new world. Her gaze found him, already standing across from her, his body poised and ready, taut as wire worked tight.

Then she felt him. Rage. Killing fury. Dark suspicion radiated from him.

His paast. Just a strange peace. Ease.

Blood covered her, sputtering from her lips as she tried to speak. The metallic odor filled her nose.

Sebastian leaned over her. She stared up into his horribly beautiful face, a creature of nightmares, skin a gleaming bronze where hair did not cover. His lips parted, peeling back from his teeth. Fingers like talons gripped her arms and pulled her toward him.

As his face neared, descending, she let loose a choked sob. This was it. They had broken him. He would have her now.

10

His touch returned her to the pain. To living agony. It forced her head up off the ground with a shrill cry.

Agony drowned him, swimming with the frothing fury and hunger. It pressed down on her like a great, heavy blanket from which she could not escape. His hard hands flexed around her arms and she hissed, tossing her head. Sebastian stared from her face to her stomach… to the open, blood-gushing wound there.

It was a strange thing smelling one’s own blood. So much blood. She remembered Gunter’s words. His assurance that this wouldn’t kill her. Only it would. The wound spilled too much blood… the sight, the scent, the copious amount would break the last of Sebatian’s will.

Clawing hunger ripped through him. Torment. She gasped, struggling against it. She couldn’t take it, couldn’t stand it another moment…

With every effort left to her, she brushed a hand against his cold cheek and managed to speak. “Make it stop.”

At least the suffering would end. Ending it for him would end it for her.

“Go ahead!” The growl of her voice startled her, reminded her that she wasn’t herself anymore—just some monster that the world needed to be rid of.

At least Sebastian would not die. The thought comforted her more than she would have thought possible. Better that she had known him. Tasted desire with him. Through him. She could have died with Amy and Emily and not known. Instead, she had had this time with him. For maybe the first time, she had well and truly lived.

A stark, unwelcome realization struck him, sinking through the deluge of dark, twisting hunger. She wanted him to kill her, to feed on her. His anger rose so swiftly, so furiously, it actually beat out the sweet scent of her blood, the temptation that threatened to consume him.

“Damn you, Ruby,” he bit out, shaking her fiercely. “Talk to me. I need to know you. Tell me who you are.” It was the only way.

Her eyes stared up at him, confused, glazed, lost.

Damn her. He couldn’t believe she was giving him permission to feedlips, avoiding looking down at all that blood again. Delicious moisture for his tight, parched arteries. He avoided breathing, avoided taking in the aroma that tormented his starved body.

“No,” her voice rasped.

“Yes. I knew it the moment I saw you. You’re… different. Special.” A part of him suspected it was why he’d been able to resist her. She was no ordinary girl.

She laughed then. The dry, brittle sound like crackling leaves on the air. Without humor. Dark. Tormented. “Sure. Why not? It doesn’t matter anymore.” Her head lolled on her shoulders and she smiled a silly, drunken grin.

“C’mon. Give me something. A reason.” A reason not to kill you. A reason to believe you’re as important as I think you are. Give me the strength to fight the darkness…

She groaned. The sound tore through him. “I thought I couldn’t be any weirder than I was. A freak my family didn’t even want. And now this.” She paused before saying. “I’m an empath.”

He thought for a moment, struggling to think as he held down the beast, keeping it pinned. “You mean you know what others are feeling?”

She laughed that awful laugh again, her eyes fixing on him, glittering cold silver. She looked a bit more lucid. Regenerated. He didn’t dare look at the wound to verify this. The blood would still be there, pushing at the fine edge of his will.

“I know what others are feeling because I feel it. I live it.” Her voice dropped to a mutter. “I can’t stop it.”

“Christ.” What hell must she have been through?

He nearly dropped his hands from her, afraid at all she must feel through him… his torment, the hunger. She must think him a monster. She must know. Her uncanny awareness made sense now.

This woman possessed power. People weren’t always truthful… even with themselves. Mostly with themselves. They may not think certain thoughts… but the sentiment, the emotion was always there. That couldn’t be denied. She could look inside the heart of anyone and see what hid there. He’d felt she was special. Now he knew.

Burning determination filled him. He would destroy himself before he destroyed her. His mouth curled in a savage smile. Releasing her, he moved back to the far wall. Away from her. Away from temptation.

She watched him, her pewter eyes eerie in an entirely different way—different from the lycans he hunted. Different because he cared about her.

“Sebastian?” she whispered.

He said nothing, not trusting himself to speak. Closing his eyes, he fought to feel nothing. To empty himself of everything. To spare her and let her heal.

11Pain. Ripping agony.

“Are they feeding again?” she whispered, swallowing.

“It doesn’t work like that. They can’t do that right now. Not until the next moonrise.”

“Then… what is it?”

“They’re being attacked. By outsiders.” His head cocked deeper to the side and he sniffed the air, so much resembling an animal just then that a chill chased down her spine. “A rival pack, I’m guessing. The one they’ve been worrying over.”

“What does that mean for us? Is that bad?”

He frowned and she wondered if it was her question or the us that made him frown.

“Packs are territorial, but I’ve not heard of them making outright war on each other. Not in generations.” In the shadowed cell, his lips twisted. “They’ve grown too civilized for that and don’t encroach on each other. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

His gaze found hers, glittering across the distance like an animal peering out from the brush on a dark night. Light glowed and twisted at the centers like flame.

One of her many foster families had hunted, relying on game for most of their meat. Not uncommon in their corner of Louisiana. So Ruby knew how to hunt, lay a trap, skin and gut a kill. She also recognized the eyes of an animal watching her. Only before it had always been prey. Frightened. Hiding.

He was no one’s prey.

“Unless,” he answered, “the rumors of packs allying themselves and forming a confederation are true. They’ve grown sick of organized hunters, of NODEAL and EFLA.”

She shook her head. She’d just learned of the existence of preternatural creatures—had become one—and now he was discussing things like lycan confederations and organizations of hunters. “Why are they doing that?”

“In order to unite, to let mankind know of their existence, defeat the hunters… and then take on the rest of the world.”

Hot and cold intermittently washed over her at this. She opened her mouth with another question when he waved a hand. “Silence. Someone’s coming.”

Her heart picked up speed. “What do we—”

“Stay there.” He sprang into the air like a jungle creature.

The door swung open and she held her breath, commanding her eyes to stay trained on the door, to not glance up where Sebastian hugged the ceiling like some sort of spider.

She rushed to one door, then another, shaking the latches. All locked. Her nostrils flared, ripe with the scent of her own rising panic.

Hands balling into fists, she braced herself, her chest lifting high with each breath. Several gave chase. She could hear them, their feet slapping hard on the floor. Ferned, ready to disappear back into the streets and find her way out of this mad world and catch the first plane home. Back to her life. Her house. Her kitchen with its familiar pots and pans. Adele. And the solitude that she was convinced would never feel lonely or oppressive again.

She found the stairs and descended, plunging back outside. She darted down another street. Certain the fierce pounding of her feet could be heard within miles, she fell into a fast clip. Of course, covered in blood as she was, they could likely sniff out her scent.

The call to prayer ended, and she knew the streets would soon fill with more people again. She needed to change clothes before that happened. Fortunately, her fanny pack still clung to her hips.

Another block and she found a small shop. Ducking inside, she suffered the shop keeper’s shrewd stare. He observed her in silence as she picked a woman’s caftan from a rack. Hoping to blend in more with the locals, she hurried to the counter, dug out money from the zippered pouch and handed it to the man. She clutched the garment close. As though she could will it on her body and shed her ruined clothes. The shopkeeper pointed to a narrow door shielded with dangling beads. He shot off several words, one of which she understood. “Tuvalet. Tuvalet.”

With a grateful nod, she ducked through the beads and found the bathroom, quickly changing into the flowing garment, her fanny pack beneath the copious fabric. Stroking the purple fabric, she inspected herself in the small cracked mirror above the sink, startled at the silver eyes looking back at her, for a moment thinking she had been discovered, that another lycan had hunted her down. Then she realized it was only her reflection, her new eyes, new face. That of an animal.

Vowing to think about that later—to solve that new, not so small glitch in her life after she was safe—she shoved her ruined clothing into a trash bin and hurried from the shop, growing more at ease with every moment. More people merged onto the streets now, and she tried to appear natural as she strolled in—she hoped—the general direction of her hotel. Amid all her running, she had gotten turned around.

“Pardon me? Would you mind helping us?”

Ruby jumped at the soft touch of a hand on her arm before she realized that the voice spoke English. With an American accent. She followed that hand up to the arm of a woman wearing a trendy plum-red trench coat. Her head was bent as she struggled with a city map of Istanbul. Beyond her stood a tall man, very GQ in his black shirt and jeans. He looked slightly bored with his companion’s difficulties. He gave Ruby a look of apology, one shoulder shrugging.

The woman muttered over her map. Ruby wanted to hug her in that moment, so relieved to be around someone that reminded her of home. Just looking at the woman made all that she fled seem far away. A distant dream. She felt that much closer to home.

She stepped nearer, ready to confess that she was actually the one in need of help.

Then the woman lifted her face and locked her gaze on Ruby. Her silver gaze. Knowing and calculating. Smug. A predator Ruby knew welt even utter a sound as they secured her in the back seat. Still, she worked her lips, trying to speak, put her vague thoughts into speech, to push the words up past her throat. No use.

The dovenatu climbed behind the wheel.

Then they were moving, the motion of the car rhythmic. She slumped, sliding to her side. The seat beneath her nose smelled of worn leather and sweat. Their voices rolled on the air, but she could not concentrate on their words no matter how she tried. Her thoughts ran a sluggish trail, like a train chugging up a mountain.

Her eyes drifted shut, only one thought able to stick, to penetrate. Sebastian. He’d helped her escape, threw himself into danger for her. For nothing.

She prayed that he, at least, had escaped. That at least one of them found freedom. One of them would survive.

Sebastian jumped from building to building, legs launching him far and high. He inhaled the air. The fresh smell of his own blood mingled with the soft aroma of settling night. He bore several wounds. A gouge at his neck. Chest. Arm. He was almost fully regenerated, but blood still soaked him.

His stomach was his first priority. Before he lost it totally—finally—and took down some innocent bystander in a starving fit. He broke into a darkened bakery and gorged himself on breads, sticky baklava and spinach-stuffed pies, and swallowed a gallon of juice from the back refrigerator. And he still hungered, could eat more, but he forced himself to stop. He could eat again later. The clamoring ache had been appeased. For now, he had to find Ruby.

Soon he prowled atop another building. He snatched a man’s shirt off a laundry line, studying the streets far below as he pulled it over his head. Ruby was out there somewhere. He felt her. Knew she still lived. He had to reach her. Before any other lycan did… or before the dovenatu that he had escaped from at Gunter’s nest found him. At least what once was Gunter’s nest. Now some other pack had seized it. A pack who had a dovenatu at the helm—a fact that settled like rocks in his gut.

Apparently Sebastian, his brother and Kit weren’t the only ones out there. Looking out at the night, he picked up a scent. One he knew all too well. His throat tightened.

“Rafe,” he breathed, not really all that surprised his brother was in Istanbul. He would have come, too. The moment he sensed Rafe was in danger. He would have sensed his pain these last weeks. It had been simply too intense for him to disguise.

He soared onto another building, the scent growing closer as he moved, landing like a cat on the balls of his feet from one surface to the next.

His brother was close. He moved toward him, following the thread. In the deepening twilight, he landed on the rooftop of a crowded restaurant. Voices and laughter floated from below, rising on the night with the tempting smells of grilled lamb. He stood, waiting, only a moment before his brother burst through the roof’s door.

“Seb,” he cried, embracing him. “I knew you were alive.”

They had lived apart for so long, Rafe co role of savior, infiltrated deep in EFLA, the European Federation of Lycan Agents, saving all Marshans marked for death. That was what he did. He helped people, used his skills to save lives, whereas Sebastian simply hunted and destroyed every lycan he came across… even the occasional lycan agent if the urge seized him. If he felt justified.

Rafe pulled back to look him over. “God, you’re thin.”

“A little starvation never killed anyone.”

His brother failed to laugh at that. A face identical to his own, only fuller and lacking a beard, stared at him intently, the eyes knowing, traveling down the dark paths that Sebastian had lived in the last months, “Seb… you didn’t…”

“No,” he ground out, jaw aching in a tight clench, knowing what his brother was asking. “But it’s what they wanted me to do. Bastards.” An image of Ruby flashed in his head, bleeding and suffering, enduring her transition in that dank little cell. And all because of him. Because they wished to corrupt him.

And she was still out there. A lycan now. He blinked hard. He had to find her. Before some lycan did. Or that dovenatu he’d narrowly escaped. Or a trigger-happy lycan hunter. His head spun from the possibilities of all that could happen to her. She needed him.

He noticed his brother was not alone. Beyond him stood a petite blond. “Kit, I take it.”

With a sharp little twist of her lips, his brother’s wife stepped forward and astonished him with a hug. “Thought you two were twins.” Pulling back her arm, she scratched warm fingers across his bristly cheek. “Guess we need to work on that.”

“You’re married to this little thing?” he teased, hiding his unease at suddenly having another relation—a female relation. It had only ever been his mother and Rafe.

He felt pity for his mother, compassion for all his mother had endured… raped by a lycan… then giving birth to him and Rafe. But he suspected she despised them, even if she had raised them and stood by them. Only he knew of the night she had tried to kill them both. He had never shared that information with Rafe. But he knew, and he never forgot.

A tall man with dark blond hair, arms folded across a well-muscled chest, hovered behind his sister-in-law. Kit’s brother, he guessed. A lycan hunter who once worked for NODEAL, America’s National Organization of Defense against Evolving and Ancient Lycans.

They nodded to one another. In his old life, Gideon March would have killed him without blinking an eye. Would have seen him as just another lycan to be hunted and destroyed. Until he saved a woman from a lycan’s curse, and then married her. The precise thing you must do for Ruby, a small voice whispered across his head. Minus the marrying part.

“I" width="1em" align="justify">“Indeed?”

Sebastian’s gaze flew to the owner of that voice. His nostrils flared, immediately recognizing what he was even before seeing the pair of pewter eyes. Eyes without the faintest remorse. As chilling as any lycan’s.

“Don’t tell me. Darius. The lycan with a soul.” Doubt rang in his voice; he didn’t care. Not after what he’d endured at the hands of Darius’s brethren.

“The lycan who wants a soul,” Kit corrected. And there was a difference. A lycan with a soul was Ruby. An innocent who had not fed, not taken a life. But she would. If he did not find her before moonrise. If he did not protect the world from her… protect her from himself. Darius did not possess a soul. He had given it up centuries ago. One look at the hard set of his face and Sebastian knew he had fed, killed countless innocents in the course of his life.Not Ruby. He would not let Ruby go down that path.

He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat, telling himself it was nothing more than obligation, his basic sense of rightness that drove him to find her. Nothing more. Not the overriding need to see her again, smell her, feel her, taste her, have her…

He looked back at his brother. “You have rooms somewhere not far, I hope. Guns, ammo.” He didn’t doubt his brother’s ability to infiltrate any government’s rules and regulations. If he hadn’t come fully armed, he would have been so upon the hour of arrival in the city.

“Yes. We’re at the Four Seasons.”

“Good.” He strode for the roof’s door. “Let’s go and get suited.” It felt good. Familiar. To be himself again, on a mission, on the hunt.

Rafe’s steps fell hard behind him. “Go where?”

“I have to find someone.”

“Someone who?” Rafe demanded, his footsteps and that of his companions reverberating throughout the old building’s stairwell as they descended to the street.

Sebastian didn’t answer at first. The memory of warm, giving skin flooded him.

He should forget her. Logically, he knew it. He had refrained from killing her. No small feat. He hadn’t been the one, after all, to drag her into Gunter’s nest. She’d done that all on her own. The mess she was in was her own. He could call it quits. He could. He should.

Ruby’s face drifted through his mind, her eyes—even silver, the warm brown long gone—gleamed at him with knowing, a deep awareness of him. She could see him, the core of him, read him. No woman had before.

Shaking his head, he cursed. He would never forget her. An empath. A person who knew him no matter what barriers he tossed up. She was both compelling and frightening. And she needs you.

“Bro, we need to care for you first, put some meat back on you, and then we’ll talk and plan a way to take out the pack who did this to you.”

He didn’t have time to wait and lick his wounds. Ruby didn’t have that much time. He needed to find her. Then he would go back for her alpha.

Then she would be free.

And so would he.

14

Ruby woke on a comfortable bed, cheerful rays of light spilling through partially-slitted shutters. Gone was her caftan. A simple white tee hugged her torso. Soft velour jogging pants encased her legs. And her body was clean. Her fingers brushed her head, trailed through clean strands of hair.

Despite her state of comfort, an awful taste filled her mouth at the thought of someone undressing her. Bathing her. Either the female, Lily, or the dovenatu, it didn’t matter. She felt violated. A hot wash of anger shuddered through her.

She sprang to life, vaulting from the bed, not pausing to acclimate to her new surroundings. She didn’t need to. She took it all in at a glance. The sparsely furnished yet well-appointed room, the open bedroom door. Open?

On her feet, she stopped before the open door. Her captors felt comfortable enough with their prowess that they did not bother to lock her in?

She resisted running through the door, convinced more stealth was required. Turning, she raised the shutters from the window, hoping to find a way out. She growled at the bars lining the window. No escape that way.

“You’re awake.”

Ruby spun around, facing the female from yesterday. At least she supposed it was yesterday. Who knew how long they drugged her?

“Good afternoon. Have a good rest?”

Ruby sidled along the wall, palms skimming the cool wallpaper, watching Lily carefully. So far she had met with only brutality at the hands of lycans. “Where am I?”

“My husband and I have rented this house while we attend to our business in Istanbul.”

Business. She made it sound so professional. Wasn’t their business killing and dealing savagery on the world? And who was her husband? That dovenatu? How could they be together? Sebastian made it seem such an impossibility. There were lycans. And there were dovenatus, and never the two mixed. Except with these two. Oh, and the golden dovenatu she had seen back at Gunter’s nest. He’d been in league with lycans. Apparently the rules were changing. At least as Sebastian knew them.

“And what does your business have to do with me?”

“Well, you’re a lycan.” She gestured at Ruby, light glinting off the very large diamond weddiv>
Angling her head, she studied Ruby. “You’re young. And I don’t just mean in human years. Newly turned, I’m guessing.”

“How can you tell?”

The dovenatu emerged in the doorway then. His large frame dominated the space and Ruby shrank even deeper against the wall.

His wife moved closer to his side, as if linked by a magnetic force. Her husband wrapped an arm around her waist. Ruby stared at the pair. Something was wrong. Well, maybe not wrong, but just… off. They seemed genuinely besotted with each other. In love. And love was not something she had witnessed—or felt—among the lycans of Gunter’s pack. According to Sebastian, after a lycan fed, all humanity was lost. Hope stirred in her heart. Maybe there was a way to live with this curse and keep her humanity.

“When were you turned?” Lily asked.

“What day is it?”

The female blinked. “You haven’t fed yet, then?”

“No.” Ruby stared back and forth between them. “Why should that matter to you?”

“Of course it matters to us. If you haven’t fed, then you’re… you’re—” She looked to her husband before turning back to Ruby with unmistakably kind eyes and announcing with great emphasis, “I’ve never fed either.”

Hope swelled over. She took a jerky step away from the wall. “You haven’t? Why? How?”

“Because I don’t want to,” she answered simply, as if there were a choice in the matter. As if stopping herself from shifting and killing every moonrise posed no difficulty. As if sheer will alone could prevent that from happening.

“Every moonrise, I sedate my wife,” the dovenatu answered, apparently reading her mind.

She stared at the arm he wrapped so securely around her waist and felt a flash of envy that Lily had such love and devotion from another soul that she could rely on him to see her through every moonrise. She felt the lack in her own life all the more keenly. She didn’t have anyone. Perhaps Adele could be counted upon, but Ruby hated to put her at risk. And how could she rely on Adele forever? Adele was mor with his fingers on his mate’s tender flesh. He wished he could read him better. After thirty years, he thought he would have figured the young hybrid out. He’d found him starving in a London slum and instantly known what he was. Taking him under his wing, he trained the dovenatu to be his second-in-command, pleased he’d found another dovenatu to one day breed with his daughters and help toward his goal of creating a master race.

Jonah stared at him, cocking an eyebrow. “Aren’t you pleased?”

“Very much,” he murmured. “The pack reputed to be the toughest in Istanbul has fallen into my lap with relative ease.” There had been far harder conquests. Barcelona had nearly defeated him. He’d wiped that entire pack out for refusing to bend to his authority.

His hand drifted to Danae’s belly, the slight bulge there deeply satisfying. Their fifth child. He hoped for another son. Three daughters were well and good, but with Jonah the only male dovenatu around with whom he might breed them, they weren’t entirely useful. Too bad his cousin Luc had disappeared years ago, stricken with an overly active conscience. Ivo would have forgotten about the close familiar relation and bred his daughters with his first cousin so that he might create the dynasty of which he dreamed. For now, Jonah would have to be enough.

“You mentioned two escaped?”

“They were prisoners.” Jonah shrugged one broad shoulder. He was strong, well-trained from years of fighting and subduing lycans. “I questioned Gunter and learned something you may find interesting, though.”

“And that is?”

“One of them was a dovenatu.”

Ivo sat up in bed, the silk sheet sliding to his hips. “One of them? The male or female?” His blood burned at the thought of a female dovenatu, one whom he might use to further strengthen and multiple his progeny on the earth. He loved Danae. But love had nothing to do with fidelity. If other female dovenatus existed, he would gladly use them for his purposes.

“The male. The female was a lycan, newly turned.”

“Oh.” He sat back, only slightly disappointed. A male could serve him just as well, he supposed. As Jonah served him. “Find him. Bring him back at once. Alive. He’s no use to me dead. Take a few dogs with you to be of assistance. And don’t cause him too much harm bringing him to heel either. Explain our purpose. You might find him obliging.” A male dovenatu. He nodded, a smile curving his lips. He would be quite useful. Now he would own two studs for his daughters.

“Of course.” Jonah turned.

“And Jonah.”

His second-in-command stopped and faced him again, those eyes cool and unreadable as ever. “Yes?”

“When you return, we’ll discuss you takld not tell exactly what Jonah felt at his declaration.

He continued, “No more talk of her youth. Fifteen is more than ready.” At Jonah’s stoic expression, he added. “Otherwise, I’m sure this other dovenatu will make a fine stud and have her breeding within the year.”

Jonah nodded curtly. “Very well.”

Ivo slid his hand back along his wife’s thigh. “Now leave us.”

The door shut, the sound resounding in the cavernous room. Facing his mate, he shook his head. “I just don’t know about that boy.”

“Such a prig. Reminds me of your cousin Luc at times. He has that scared look about him.”

Ivo shrugged, not too bothered about that. “He’s my second-in-command. Wouldn’t want him too brave and bold. He might think to oppose me.”

He smiled then, thinking of his cousin, likely cowering and living the life of a hermit monk somewhere… too frightened of himself—of Ivo—of the dark powers that simmered inside them. Luc had not even tried to oppose him. Not even when he claimed Danae. He just ran. “You once liked Luc. You even preferred him to me for a time.”

“Never,” she purred, wrapping a satiny thigh around his waist. “You’re the one I was always after. The big fish. Luc was weak, not even close to the man you are.”

“Not a man, my dear. A god.”

Danae stripped her nightgown over her head then and straddled him. His eyes feasted on her as she came down on him. He caressed the large breasts swaying above the belly that carried his seed, one of many offspring that he would breed to serve at his side as he reigned supreme over the world.

Dovenatus. The perfect race. All the strength and prowess of lycans. The ability to shift at will, to think. They killed when they willed it. The moon did not rule them. Nothing did.

Soon his sixth child would be born. Soon his daughters would breed. And once EFLA was at his mercy, he would find the location of every Marshan female, drag the information from the EFLA archivists through whatever means necessary and release his lycan soldiers on them. He would have his population of dovenatus. A new world was on the rise.

When he met this other dovenatu, he intended to teach him that particular lesson first thing.

Sorcha whirled around at her younger sisters who crept up behind her with all the stealth of a herd of horses. “Go back to your rooms!”

“You’re supposed to be in bed.” Rochel, only eighteen months her junior but already bigger in the chest, taunted. “What are you doing? Following Jonah around like a little puppy again? Must sting to know he doesn’t want you… no matter how many times Father offers you to him. Face it. You’re too ugly. Too fat—”

“Shut width="1em" align="justify">The light at the center of his blue eyes ignited and she knew he understood her meaning. He inhaled deeply. “Sorcha…”

It was the tired way he said her name that did it, convinced her he would never love her. No matter that her father commanded they mate, no matter that they were two of a rare species, ideally suited for each other. No matter how much she cared for him. She was nothing more than the doting puppy her sisters accused her of being. Rochel was probably right. She repulsed him. He thought her too ugly. Too fat.

She held up a hand, stopping him from saying any more, stopping him from delivering her more humiliation. “I understand. Say no more.”

With pity in his gaze, he watched her. Unable to stand it, Sorcha turned, walking quickly, just shy of a run. There was nothing left to keep her here anymore. Hope for a future with Jonah fell dead in her chest.

He would continue to serve her father, and maybe someday he would take one of her sisters to mate. She would never know. Because she wouldn’t be here.

Soon, she vowed, she would forget his face. Eventually, his name.

And one day she would not even remember this killing pain in her heart.

15

Dressed, fed again, Sebastian strode through the bazaar near Gunter’s nest with swift purpose, feeling almost himself again. Almost. All expect the tightness seizing his throat when he thought about Ruby. Out there alone. He detected traces of her, hints, but nothing substantial lingered. She was long gone, beyond tracking. It was as if she had disappeared like smoke from the streets. Plucked off the ground and whisked away on the wind.

Since they’d mated, he was tuned in to her. He knew the earthy scent of her skin, the aroma of her hair. Wind that passed over her tasted different on his lips, felt different against his face. Lifting his chin, he breathed, drawing air deeply into his chest, probing. There was a bite in the air. It nipped at his newly shaved cheeks. Lowering his chin, he settled his gaze before him, eyes straight ahead as he walked.

He could pick up nothing.

“So,” Kit murmured, keeping pace beside him. “Is this lycan pretty?”

Sebastian glared at his sister-in-law. In the last day, he had learned how strong-willed she could be. And nosy. There was no leaving her behind at the hotel. In fact, they all insisted on joining him in his search.

This close to the pack’s nest, he knew he risked discovery. Darius, it seemed, knew this, too. Several times, the lycan would pause and lift his face to the air. Then his gaze would find Sebastian’s, lock in silent message. They risked much. And yet Darius never objected as they circled dangerously close to the pack’s nest again and again. He supposed a thousand-year-old ed out of his brother’s and Kit’s hold. “Let’s go.” Vowing inwardly to leave her and forget her, he didn’t stop when he heard her call his name. She could have her damned hybrid. She could shift at the next moonrise and kill, feed, lose her soul…

He did stop, however, when a female lycan arrived breathlessly in the door, her dark hair wild and windtossed around her shoulders, as if she had run a great distance at the speed only one of their kind could achieve.

“Luc,” she rasped, her gaze landing on the hybrid before skimming each of them, assessing them for threat. Her throat worked, her pewter gaze wild. “Are you okay?”

“Everyone, just stop! Don’t move!” Ruby sliced a hand through the air. “We’re all on the same side here.” She flicked Darius—dark, imposing Darius—a nervous glance. “I think.”

“He’s all right,” Sebastian ground out, to which Ruby release a shaky little breath of relief.

“Isn’t all this… interesting.” Darius looked between Ruby and the new female with burning intensity, his interest in the pair palpable. They were him, after all. Full-blooded lycans driven by hunger—moon hunger, blood hunger—and ruled by the impulses of their libido. Either one would be a perfect mate for him… at least that must be what his instinct was screaming.

Luc strode past Darius and took hold of the other female’s hand in a possessive display. The brunette pressed close to his side. Luc sent Ruby a pointed look. “Ruby, who are these… people?”

She motioned to him. “Sebastian is the dovenatu I told you about.”

Sebastian bristled at their familiarity, but stood his ground.

Luc looked hard at him. “And these are your friends, I gather?”

“That’s right.” He guessed it was the easiest explanation, although he didn’t know whether he would call Gideon and Darius friends. Gideon—he supposed he was family now. But Darius? He didn’t trust the guy. Doubtful he ever could trust a lycan—

He stopped hard at the thought, thinking of Ruby. His gaze snapped back to her. Dressed in fresh clothes. Body washed and clean hair shining darkly. She had been covered in blood and filth most of their time together. He drank this sight of her hungrily. Even with her silver death gaze, she was better, sweeter on the eyes than he remembered.

“If we’re all on the same side, maybe you could help us, then,” the female lycan suggested.

“Lily,” Luc murmured, his gaze sliding over each of them warily. “We know nothing of them.”

“Well, they aren’t over there, are they? With them? That has to mean of course.

“I came for Ruby.”

“Oh. And why is that?” Luc pushed out his chest and crossed his arms.

Lily elbowed him in the side and addressed Sebastian. “Of course you came for her. Ruby told us all about your imprisonment together.” The lycaness smiled widely, a dose of civility that ran opposite to the moment. “You saved her life.”

Sebastian’s gaze locked on Ruby. Color flooded her cheeks, and he knew she was thinking about their imprisonment together. Specifically the portion of it spent having hot, wild sex with him. Had she told them about that?

“Look,” Luc announced. “We’re here for one reason only, and that’s to track down and destroy the family of dovenatus in that building.” He nodded to Ruby. “We found Ruby and she helped us pinpoint Ivo’s location.”

“Dovenatus?” Kit broke in. “How many are we talking about?” Like Sebastian, she clearly grappled with the information that more of their kind existed.

“I suspect there are more of us than we realize,” Luc answered grimly. “Ivo’s a madman, determined to promote our species by enslaving lycans, then using them to… come out.”

“Come out?” Sebastian asked.

“Yeah,” Lily announced, with obvious disgust. “With an army of lycans at his disposal, he intends to proclaim himself to the world and subjugate man.”

“And if we don’t want to be enslaved?” Rafe asked, lines tightening around his mouth.

“Then he kills you. Or sics his lycan soldiers on you.” Luc shrugged. “He’s got an army of them pledged in service to him.”

“How can that be?” Kit questioned, “Don’t lycans outnumber him?”

“Lycans are fiercely pack-loyal. They serve one alpha and war against all other packs. Their inability to unite is their greatest weakness. Ivo’s army grows with every pack taken, he becomes their alpha…” Luc stopped, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine how many packs he’s taken since he started on this mad scheme. It might be too late. He should have been stopped long ago.”

“You sound like you know this Ivo well.”

“I do.” Luc glanced at his wife. “He’s my cousin. We grew up together. Perhaps we’re even half brothers.” He shrugged. “I’ll never know. Our mothers were sisters, Marshan descendants both raped by lycans, together. On the same day.”

“And you’re here to destroy him. Your own relative.” Kit snorted, crossing her arms and spread height="0em">

Luc nodded, eyeing Darius warily, as if he was unsure whether he wanted his help.

“What the hell?” Gideon shrugged. “Came all this way. Suppose I will, too.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Kit shook her head fiercely. “Claire will have my head if anything happens to you. You have a baby at home waiting for Daddy. Rafe and I will help. Not you.” Rafe nodded in agreement.

Gideon scowled. “Claire knew I was taking a risk coming here. I’m in.”

Shaking his head, Sebastian stepped forward and closed a hand around Ruby’s arm, the warmth of her flesh instantly familiar and sweet. “Let’s go.”

He’d spent enough time in that warehouse. As had Ruby. He’d fantasized about revenge for weeks, but now he cared more about keeping Ruby safe. He owed her that.

He wasn’t inclined to risk her another moment to the bastards prowling that warehouse. He would let the others rig the explosives. They’d do the job right. Kill Gunter.

Right now Ruby needed him. He wasn’t leaving her until this was over.

He faced his brother. “See you back at the hotel. Be safe.”

With one hand wrapped around Ruby’s, he hurried them from the building to wait out the outcome across town.

16

“Why did you come back for me?” She spoke quietly where she sat on the backseat of the cab, looking out the window rather than at him. Anywhere but him. She gnawed the edge of her thumbnail. A bad habit she thought she’d outgrown long ago.

With his face shaved, body clean, dressed in a simple black t-shirt and jeans, he was overwhelming to her senses. Her gaze skittered to him. Outside the cell, he seemed even larger, his shirt stretched taut over his defined chest. And who knew that face hid beneath all that hair? Her heart beat an erratic rhythm in her too-tight chest. Gorgeous in a very David Beckham way. The square jaw, the chiseled lips that looked made for kissing.

She felt his answer before he even spoke, felt it rise up inside him and reach out to her. Bewilderment. Anger. The anger was not with her, but at himself. This she knew.

She lowered her hand from her lips. Her fingers floated above the seat for a moment, the barest tremble over his. The urge to wrap her fingers over his hand seized her. He came for me. Her throat grew tight. That was more than anyone else in her life would do. He cared enough to track her down, find her and keep her from returning to that nest again. Sitting beside him, so close she could smell the light scent of shampoo, something inside her loosened, unfurled inside her chest. Then she regained her senses and snatched her hand away to fist it in her lap.

“I don’tone with any of it until I knew you were safe. Free.”

“Well.” She fingered the edge of the seat. “Now I am. So you’re done.” She moistened her lips, her mouth suddenly dry at speaking words she didn’t want to be true.

“Almost.”

She sent him a sideways look on the seat, gazing at the hard line of his jaw. A muscle flexed in his taut cheek and her insides quivered—all the way deep, to the core of her. Where she remembered him. Where the hard burn of him had filled her. Thrilling. Terrifying. Wrong. Right.

“What do you mean, almost?”

“When they set off that bomb and Gunter’s dead, then it will be truly over.”

Her nails dug into the upholstery. “That shouldn’t be too long.”

Tension swam between them. Except for the driver, they were alone again. Every fiber of her being radiated with awareness of him, his arm so close it nearly brushed her. His tightly-muscled body hummed with vitality beside her. Strength. Power. Her palms itched.

When they finally arrived at the hotel, she slid out eagerly from the cab. Side by side, they entered the luxurious hotel. At the front desk, Sebastian acquired a room for her on the same floor as his. “Your room is nger a walking corpse.”

He lifted a hand and brushed the hair back off her shoulder. She jumped at the contact. His thumb grazed her cheek and he tilted her face up to his.

Step back. Move away, Ruby.

Instead, she gazed up at him, his face limned in red from the city lights outside their window. He looked menacing, but she didn’t care. Danger had become as natural to her as the air she breathed, and she discovered she craved this particular brand of danger. She craved him.

Tonight her curse would end, and she would go back to Beau Rivage. She could forget that she had ever been some terrible creature of myth. She could forget him and pretend that she had not given herself to him on the floor of a dirty cell, like a pair of wild animals.

“You know what I’m feeling,” he murmured, his eyes penetrating. “So why are you still standing here? Letting me touch you like this?”

She swallowed. She did know. And the desire swelling through him, the hot sexual need, should have her demanding that he leave.

Except she felt it, too. Deep inside her. It drove her to the edge. Drove her to forget everything except the hot pulse of lust.

“I’ve always been safe. Done what I should.” Except for this trip. This trip had been her first foray into the unknown. And after everything that had happened, she should have learned her lesson about taking risks, venturing into the unknown. But she still stood here. Welcoming danger head-on—him. “Tomorrow I’ll be safe again.” Human. On a plane to the States.

She licked her lips. The memory of his hands on her hips, warm and firm, anchoring her for his every penetrating thrust, flashed through her head. Her hips tingled, as if she could feel his hands on her again, now, holding her for his driving pleasure.

Her voice slipped past her lips. “I want you. Without the fear.” No rushed, desperate coupling. She wanted it to be right this time.

“Ruby.” The callused pads of his hand chafed her cheek.

She thought of those few dates she had risked over the years… the men that had repelled her with their lukewarm emotions, their lack of interest reaching her before their drinks even arrived. Or those whose obnoxious and lewd thoughts made her skin crawl.

“You don’t want me. This is the lycan talking. Your libido is overactive now. It’s one of the many changes—”

“No.” She shook her head. He was the first person she ever felt this way with—it was him. “It’s not that. It’s me. You.”

“You only think—”

“And who else? Who else can you rely on? She is mortal. What about when she dies? Or falls ill?”

All the questions Sebastian had posed.

He continued, “You need to have a fail-proof method in place.”

“And I suppose you do?”

He nodded. “I have several safeguards in place. I won’t risk setting myself loose on mankind.” In a softer voice, he added, “Not again.”

She hugged herself, hands chafing her arms. “How nice for you.”

His expression turned annoyed. “I’m offering my resources to you.”

Her gaze narrowed. “And what’s the catch?”

“You and I would share those resources, naturally.”

The skin of her face began to prickle. “Naturally.”

“We share resources,” he repeated. “We share everything.”

Everything. His eyes swept over her then, and she understood his meaning perfectly. His next words made no mistake. “I was a monk once. Ages ago. I have no wish to be that again. I want a woman. A mate. A companion.”

“And because I’m a lycan, it might as well be me?”

“I can’t have a mortal. I won’t. You’re ideal.”

She pressed a palm to her forehead. “This is insane.”

“I’m promising you safety, the protection of your soul. Is sharing your life with me such a sacrifice?”

“Sharing our lives? You mean you get to… possess me.” She shivered. “Sharing hints at equality. Freedom. Somehow this smacks of anything but that.”

His silver gaze sparkled, and he closed the distance. One hand stole around her neck. His fingers pressed fiercely into her nape, forcing her to look up into his eyes. “Your soul does not mean much to you, then?” His nostrils flared. “Or you just crave that hybrid between your legs so much you can’t stomach the thought of another, is that it? Let me assure you that I haven’t had any complaints when it comes to that.”

“I guess you’ve had a lot of practice over the years. Alongside all the killing you’ve done.”

If possible, his silver eyes grew even chillier. Downright wintry. “That’s right. I’m cursed, soulless. I’ve fed on innocents. So many I can’t recount. I only remember their screams in my ears… their taste.”

She shivered, closing her eyes. Was this her future?

He shrugged one of his massive linebacker shoulders. “Perhaps I take cruel, perverse pleasure in keeping you out of Santiago’s clutches. I have no great fondness for lycan hunters. Especially the ones that don’t discriminate, which are most of them.”

His lips curved slowly, the closest thing to a smile Ruby had seen on him. “I rather relish disappointing him. He wants you. I’m keeping him from having you. Bloody hybrid. They have it all. The gifts that go with being a lycan—in this case, I’ll count you as a gift.”

She stiffened.

He continued, “And none of the negatives. Like loss of soul, and the fact that innocent lives are in peril simply from my ungodly existence.”

Unwilling to lecture him on why he should not begrudge Sebastian for simply being what he was, she strode to where she dropped her money belt, grateful that she had retained it—specifically her passport and visa—through all she had been through.

Securing it around her waist, she faced Darius and told herself she was doing the right thing. “Let’s go.”

18

Sebastian walked the streets, hands buried in his pockets, the myriad of smells and sounds doing nothing to distract him from the thought of Ruby, alone in her room. Alone. Afraid. A lycan.

They’d been through a lot together in a short time. He should turn himself around and march back into that hotel and give her a hard shake for even thinking he would destroy her. Destroy her as if she were any lycan he had come across in the course of his life. A depraved, soulless killing machine she was not, and how could she think he saw her that way?

He would not let her become that. Not even if he had to stand guard over her.

Didn’t she know that?

She’d saved his soul in that room. He couldn’t have continued as long as he had if not for her. With the heavy press of hunger on him, he’d felt a connection to her, and only that had staved off his descent to hell. Anyone else, and he would have broken.

She had given herself to him, deepening the connection so that he did not fall to the darkness that urged him to feed, to fulfill the gnawing ache clawing his insides. As though reminded of that hunger, he stopped and bought a döner kebab from a street side vendor. Taking a bite, he pushed on, the savory meat fueling him.

He’d give her the night, then he would sit her down and explain again why they needed to hunt down Gunter. Even if it took years, they would find him. Not that he believed it would take that long. Tracting over the explosion across town. His keen hearing picked up words like terrorist and insurgents. Mankind was clueless about the darker forces at work, too busy creating their own conflicts and destroying themselves to notice otherworldly threats closing in.

At least after tonight, one such threat had been disposed. Ivo and his friends wouldn’t be furthering their foul plan against humanity anymore.

Upon reaching his floor, he hesitated outside Ruby’s room. No sound reached him. She probably slept. He lifted his hand to knock, then let it drop to his side.

Tomorrow would be soon enough. For now, he would let her sleep.

At eleven the following morning, Sebastian’s patience came to an end.

He rose from a chair in the sitting area of Rafe’s room, where his fingers had been tapping a heavy staccato on the arm. Their luggage sat near the door, waiting for their departure.

Kit and Rafe rose as one from the couch across from him, apparently reading his intention. “You sure you don’t want to join us?”

“Ruby and I need to get on the trail before it grows cold.”

Rafe drilled him with a knowing stare. “You have absolutely no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

Gideon snorted from where he sat.

Sebastian inhaled deeply. “Yeah, I do. I’m keeping her alive. And making sure she doesn’t hurt anyone in the process.”

Rafe shook his head and brought his wife close to his side. He was always doing that. Touching her. Pulling her near him. As if he couldn’t breathe without the feel of her against him. He’d never seen his brother like this. Happy.

“When will you visit us?” he asked. “Fishing’s great this time of year.” They lived in the small Texas town of Palacios, keeping a low profile since they had been targeted for elimination by NODEAL.

“Soon,” he promised.

“Keep us informed, Seb.”

Sebastian nodded.

Darius had left sometime in the night. Eager to be in his own home… and closer to his staff and steelenforced room. One look at that hard-faced bastard and Sebastian felt only relief. Hunger brewed inside him. If that lycan ever broke loose, the world was in trouble.

He gave Rafe a quick hug before departing. He even hugged his sister-in-law. The little firecracker made Rafe happy. For that alone, he loved her.

As he shook March’s hand, his thoughts drifted to Ruby. Several rooms over. His blood thickened in his veins, body tensing with eagerness.

Soon he was striding down the corridor. Rounding the corner, he pauhoving the cart aside, he stalked into the room. The maid squeaked and clutched a cleaning rag to her chest.

“Where is she?” he barked.

The woman shook her head wildly, and he cursed. Sweeping the empty room another look, he cursed again. He didn’t need to interrogate the maid to learn the truth. The truth glared him straight in the face. Ruby was gone.

Sebastian inhaled. Only a faint whiff of her remained. She had left some time ago. Probably last night. Damn her.

He charged from the room and headed back down the hall. After several pounds of his fist on the door, Rafe opened it. Kit peered around her husband, her carry-on bag slung over her shoulder and sunglasses pushed back on her head.

“She’s gone.” He drove a hard line into the room, slamming the door behind him. “Left in the middle of the night. Can you believe it?” But the thing was… he could. When that building exploded and she hadn’t reverted back, he’d seen the desolation in her face… her despair.

“What?” Rafe shook his head, clearly sharing his frustration. “Doesn’t she want to hunt the alpha so she can break her curse—”

He snorted. “Apparently she doesn’t put a lot of faith in that plan. Or me.”

“Maybe you didn’t give her a reason to stay,” Kit suggested.

He glared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Kit rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Sebastian. Anyone with eyes could see there’s something between you two.”

“So what?” Rafe snapped. “The woman shouldn’t let her emotions get the best of her.” Kit snorted, but he continued, waving a hand. “The moon’s coming. She can’t hide from it.” He looked at Sebastian. “Where do you think she went?”

“I know where she went.” Home. Where she usually hid from the world. He grimaced. She was accustomed to hiding what she was. This was only another reason for her to bury herself away.

Only Sebastian wouldn’t let her.

“I know where she went. And I’m going to get her.”

“She might not have gone home, if that’s what you’re thinking,” March murmured.

Sebastian’s head snapped in his direction, a dangerous churning starting in his gut. “What do you mean?”

“Darius left last night. Remember?”

He stared for a long moment at Gideon March, understanding sinking in. Rage erupted in his chest, spreading outward in a feral heat. The sensation grew, only burning hotter when he recalled Darius’s i

“Get a hold of yourself,” Rafe warned, watching his face closely, no doubt seeing the evidence of his rage.

“She went with him,” he muttered, her betrayal a hot knife to his flesh.

“You don’t know that.” Kit shot her brother a fuming look-what-you-did glare.

March shrugged. “He tried it with Claire when she was infected.”

“Tried what?” Sebastian’s fists flexed at his sides, bones stretching, bending, edging toward the beast. He took a deep breath, trying to regain control.

“When my wife was a newly turned lycan, Darius stole her from me. Tried to make her his mate—”

“I’ll kill him,” he announced.

March held a hand up in the air. “Now hold on. Claire wanted no part of him, so he let her go. He offered her the protection of himself… and his resources.” He paused. “To someone scared and newly turned, that kind of guarantee of safety is tempting.”

“You’re saying she went with him to Houston? Willingly.”

“If she even went with him,” Rafe inserted, staring intently at Sebastian, trying to reach that part of him that threatened to spill over and consume him in a blistering burn. “This is all just speculation.”

He clenched his jaw and gave a tight nod. “Well, let’s make it fact, then.”

Rafe settled back on his heels. “You’ll go to the States.”

“First Louisiana, then Houston.” He hoped he found her at her home, but either way he was beyond pissed. And he was going to let her know it.

Kit shook her head. “Looking at you right now—” She broke off with a sigh and dragged a hand through her hair, ruffling the dark blond strands. “Hell, I feel sorry for her.”

“Yeah?” he bit out. “Well, don’t. She chose her path.”

And he would make certain she regretted it.

“Thanks for picking me up,” Ruby said as she slid inside the front passenger seat to a welcome blast of air conditioning. Relieved to be home, she couldn’t help smiling. Buckling her seat belt, several moments passed before she realized the car hadn’t pulled away from the curb.

As jets swooshed overhead, she turned to face Adele and felt her smile falter. Never had she seen her friend look so furious. Her gray eyes glittered, and her knuckles clenched white where they gripped the steering wheelv height="0em">

Adele yanked the car into drive. Ruby winced.

“I oughta kick your ass to the curb, Ruby Deveraux! The nerve of you calling me an hour ago with an I’m back! Can you pick me up?” Her thumb began a furious beat on the steering wheel as they left the Lafayette airport behind.

“Dead. Do you hear me? That’s what Rosemary told me to expect when you left the hotel looking for some girls who ran off. That was over a week ago!” She stopped at a red light, shaking her head. Her abundance of russet-brown hair tossed against her shoulders. Truly wild hair. Some strands curly, some just wavy, some frizz. Even a few pieces fell straight. “Do you know what I’ve been through?”

Ruby’s voice fell soft, regretful. “No.” She’d been too busy surviving to consider how her disappearance may have affected Adele.

The light turned green, and Adele gunned her hatchback as fast as it could go. Ruby’s head slammed back on the headrest.

“Take it easy.”

“Easy? Easy? Where the hell have you been? Rosemary has been no help whatsoever. I started to wonder if she had something to do with it. Maybe she sold you into a white slave ring or something.”

Ruby laughed. She couldn’t help it. Then the thought of all she had been through hit her and her laughter died an abrupt death. The reality of the last weeks seemed even less probable than being sold into white slavery. And she needed to explain the truth to Adele. Every incredible, implausible detail. When she could hardly believe it all herself.

Back on American soil, Istanbul—Sebastian—seemed a lifetime ago. By now he would have woken, would have realized she’d left during the night. And likely with whom. The thought made her stomach knot.

Darius had been true to his word. He kept to his seat on his side of the plane, never even engaging her in conversation. Except when they landed. Then the dark-haired lycan had shoved his card into her hand and told her she could count on him should she change her mind. Strangely, it gave her some comfort. Until she remembered that taking his protection meant taking him as a mate. She was certain that caveat hadn’t changed.

“I understand your anger. Let’s just wait until we’re home and then I’ll explain everything.” She would hate for Adele to run off the road. She’d always been an emotional driver—she had always been emotional—and this would likely send her into a ditch.

“Fine,” Adele grumbled. “I didn’t let Rosemary know you’re home, but you’re going to have to call her. She’s in a real temper. Her supervisor is expected home any day. He flew over there to work with the local police as they investigated the girls’ disappearance.” Adele lifted a hand and made quotation marks with her fingers at the word investigation.

That Adele did not include her in the mention of an investigation did not surprisNot that Ruby expected much of a search to continue for the girls either. Not without parents pressuring from home. Her throat tightened. Soon they would be forgotten. Two files in some foreign office. Lives lost, histories never told, never known. Bleakness filled her heart.

“I’ll call tomorrow and let them know I’m back.”

Adele sent her a sly glance before looking out the front windshield again. Ruby knew she sounded ambivalent, which she wasn’t. Far from it. She simply knew the girls were dead. What good would it do to call Rosemary and have her rush over with a barrage of questions that would serve no purpose now?

Almost an hour later, they pulled up in front of Ruby’s old farmhouse. Her Corolla sat beneath the two-vehicle carport she’d put up last year. Two-vehicle. As if she had been holding out hope for another soul to take up residence with her.

She sat in the car for a long moment, staring at the house through the window. It looked smaller. A forlorn shape beneath draping cypresses and sycamores. The once-cheery yellow paint had faded more than she realized. So much that the house she loved, that she clung to like a life raft, looked dingy.

She remembered when her mother painted the house. It had been one of those projects she created following an incident. Her projects would take her mind off whatever happened, let her pretend it had not occurred, keeping her preoccupied, away from Ruby for a spell. Until she got over it.

The time her mother painted the house, it involved Ruby’s refusal to spend the night with Ritabeth, the Methodist preacher’s daughter. When Momma asked why, Ruby told her that Ritabeth didn’t really like her. That Ritabeth’s daddy had the hots for Momma and made his daughter invite Ruby for a sleepover. Just so he could see Momma. Of course, all this she had gleaned through her gift. Momma understood that at once.

Soon after, Momma stopped asking questions that began with why. Around that time, she just gave up. Period. When she died two years later, Ruby felt her relief as she drew her last sip of breath. Even Momma turned out not so very different than her father. Her method of escape just differed from his.

“Getting out?”Adele’s question snapped her to attention.

Nodding, she stepped from the car and walked to the front porch. Adele, who had kept her keys for safekeeping, handed them to her. Unlocking the door, she stepped inside.

The house smelled musty, airless. She dropped her keys on the table near the door and made a beeline for her couch. A refuge of sorts. She had spent many a night there, both with Adele and without, a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in her lap, watching movies. The old ones were her favorites. Jimmy Stewart movies. Shenandoah, Rear Window, It’s a Wonderful Life. Dropping onto the worn cushions, she kicked off her shoes and curled her feet beneath her.

“All right.” Adele dropped on the loveseat. Perfect breasts pushed against her bright orange tank top where the words

Hopefully, Adele would accept what Ruby was about to tell her. Adele knew the extraordinary existed. They never discussed the extent of Ruby’s abilities, but Adele knew. Accepted.

“So,” she began, clearing her throat. “Have you ever heard the word lycan before?”

19

The night hummed outside her window. Alive in a way she had never noticed before and her new animal self felt acutely linked to. Even the trees outside her window seemed to breathe, leaves rustling, life pulsing deep beneath the bark.

Ruby moved from the window, setting her alarm to seven. She would prefer not setting it at all, but she needed to resume life, and that meant facing the day bright and early. After Adele left, she’d gone into town and bought groceries—enough for herself and enough to get back into the swing of work.

At the top of tomorrow’s list: a call to Rosemary. Her second goal came as the result of her long, exhausting conversation with Adele. After explaining everything, Adele had promised her support and the two of them put their heads together, trying to figure out how they were going to cope with the coming full moon.

Adele’s cousin seemed the natural solution. A pharmacy school drop-out, Dwayne’s abuse and marketing of prescription drugs was widely known throughout the parish. Suddenly his criminal activities were to their benefit. When they began contemplating how to get their hands on sedatives, his name was the first on their lips.

Sighing, she stretched. Her sheets felt good, the cool, crisp cotton a welcome chill against her bare legs. Even with the air conditioner running a steady purr, the old house never got too cool, baking all day in the wet heat. She laced her fingers over her stomach and stared into the dark. In her mind, she calculated the time in Turkey. What was Sebastian doing? Was he still there? An unwanted throb started in the core of her at the thought of him. He could have gone to any one of his apartments. She supposed none really qualified as a home. But with his nomadic existence, he didn’t require one. Without her as a rock about his neck, he had probably returned to his hunting.

She thought about how intensely she had wanted—needed—to return here, to reach home, refuge. She did not have much in the way of people, but she had this house.

Sebastian didn’t have that. Nor did he seem to want it—to want anything or anyone. It only reminded her of their differences and confirmed in her mind that leaving was for the best.

She closed her eyes, commanding herself to sleep. To forget. To forget him.

The world outside hummed and pulsed in rhythm to her heart, a primeval symphony. Soon her breathing fell soft, even and regular with that world. And she drifted off to sleep.

She woke with sudden alertness, pouncing up on all fours on the bed. The old mattress’s springs gave the barest squeak. easily tear her apart. Only this time, he would feel justified in doing so. Because she was a creature that needed slaying. For the sake of mankind.

His hands on her didn’t budge.

Closing her eyes, she stopped struggling. She just . . . stopped.

She couldn’t beat him.

“Just make it quick.” The words slipped from her lips in a hushed rush.

“What?”

Bewilderment. Confusion.

She felt his frustration heighten and she rushed to clarify, “I know you don’t relish this. You think you have to do it… so do it.”

At least my soul will be safe. There was that to appreciate.

“You little fool.” His rage grew to a burning sear.

She hissed, the heat of it singeing her. She strained against his grip.

“You think I’ve come all this way to destroy you?”

“How likely is it we will find Gunter?” She shook her head. “You said yourself that you kill lycans. Hunt them down like dogs. That’s what you do.”

“But I wasn’t talking about you!”

He shook her slightly, dark, glowing eyes scanning her face. “Is that what you think of me? You probably saved my life, my soul at least, in that dungeon. And you think I would just destroy you?”

She opened her mouth, trying to explain that was what she felt from him. Even now. Rage. Conflict. Frustration. Feelings so intense and frightening she had to run. What else could any of it mean except that he was torn by his duty to destroy her?

“I feel you,” she whispered. “I feel everything you feel.”

His expression turned stoic. “Is that a fact?”

“Yes.” He knew it. She had not forgotten the way he turned from her when she told him she was an empath. “It sucks, but it lets me know things.” She thrust out her chin. “Like how you feel about me.”

A shutter fell over his eyes. “Oh, yeah? Well, then you don’t interpret emotions very well.”

She scowled. “Of course, I—”

“You might feel what I feel, but you don’t understand what any of it means if you think I’m out to kill you,” he bit out.

She angrious and filled with a killing rage for wanting this when I’ve already taken from you what I had no right to take?”

He kissed her then, his mouth hot, hungry and thorough, forcing her lips open for him. And like last time, his passion ran over. Blistering lust. Consuming her until she couldn’t identify her feelings from his. They were one and the same. She tasted her own desire on his lips.

This was not the kiss of someone bent on killing her. That much she knew. She didn’t know what he was to her anymore, but she knew right now that she needed this. Needed him.

He broke their kiss, his gaze scanning her face, heat erupting everywhere he looked. Desire. “No one is forcing us together right now. I’ve no excuse for doing this—”

“It wasn’t force then,” she uttered with absolute conviction, her blood a desperate burn in her veins. “It isn’t now.”

Tugging his head back down, she kissed him with all the dark need running rampant inside her.

Still kissing, they dropped to the ground, grass and twigs crackling beneath their bodies. Ruby had thought she wanted tenderness, wanted sweet, gentle lovemaking like she had fantasized about—before she knew what desire really felt like. But this fever couldn’t be slowed, couldn’t follow an easy pace.

Muttering about the uncomfortable ground, he settled on his back and splayed her body over his. The night sang around them, heavy with locusts and the rustling of small animals in the thick undergrowth. Their lips never broke as their clothes dropped away. Her hands trailed over every inch of him, following the hard lines and ridges, seeing him perfectly in the dark.

A scar puckered the flesh of one shoulder. She hadn’t noticed it before in the darkness of their prison. She traced it with one hand, following its winding path over his shoulder and descent down his back.

“I thought you regenerated.”

“That happened before I turned. An accident when I tried to clear the blades of a plow.” The rough rasp of his voice scraped the air. Goosebumps broke out over her flesh.

He caught her hand and brought it back to his chest. She felt the deep thud of his heart beneath her palm, beneath the smooth, supple texture of his skin.

He dark eyes gleamed. “I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you.”

“I’m not a woman anymore,” she dared to remind, moistening her lips. “Not that I’ve ever been… normal, Sebastian. Even before…”

His lips twisted. “Are you trying to scare me off? Look who you’re talking to. ‘Normal’ isn’t me.”

A heartbeat passed. The light at the centers of his eyes grew. Fire in the night. “Whatever you are, Ruby Deveraux, I want you. Not to hunt you. Or hurt you. But you. All of you.”

“You didn’t hurt me.” Her smile deepened. “I’ve learned that I am quite resilient.”

Yes. Staring into her pewter eyes, he wondered how he could have forgotten that. Those were eyes he had hunted for as long as he could remember. Eyes he had watched fade to mortal shades following the death shots he delivered.

A sound emerged, low in the distance. “Someone’s coming,” he growled.

Ruby slid her legs to the floor and darted to the front door, peering out through the curtains. “I don’t see anyone—”

“Listen.” He tucked himself back in his jeans. “You’ll see soon enough.”

She cocked her head to the side, gaze shifting, flitting about as she listened. “You’re right. I hear a car.”

Several more moments passed. Sebastian moved to stand beside her. “Are you expecting anyone?”

She shook her head. “No. Later—”

“There,” he cut in as the gleaming hood of a car cleared the trees that crowded the end of her dirt driveway.

“Oh. It’s Adele. My friend.” She straightened, shifting on her feet, frowning at him. “Maybe you should go upstairs.”

“You want to hide me from your friend?”

“Just—”

“Have you told her what happened to you in Istanbul?”

“Yes.”

The skin of his face tightened. Whatever she had said about Sebastian must not have been good if she wanted him to hide. It wouldn’t be the first time. His mother had treated him like a dirty little secret—her shame.

Ruby waved a hand. “Just until I explain you—”

“No problem.” Turning, he marched up the steps.

“Give me a few moments and I’ll get rid of her. I made breakfast. You must be hungry—”

He continued, not looking back.

“Sebastian,” she called, but he didn’t stop. He walked until he was in her bedroom. Once there, he looked around, trying not to inhale the scent of sex emanating from the bed. Dragging a hand through his hair, he wondered what the hell he was doing with Ruby Deveraux.

21

“He’s here?” Adele lifted her gaze to the ceiling, then dropped her voice to a whisper. “What’s he doing here? Why haven’t you ere, angry with her. And she wasn’t quite sure why. “You don’t need to whisper, Adele. He can probably hear you anyway.”

The color bled from her friend’s face. She looked up at the ceiling again, big hair tossing as she dropped her head back.

“And no, we shouldn’t call the police. What would I tell them? I have a half-breed lycan in my bedroom? Oh, and I’m one, too, by the way. Well, worse. I’m a full lycan, so don’t come ringing my doorbell when the moon’s full or I might—”

“Whoa, back up.” Adele waved a hand, palm up, fingers splayed wide. “He’s in your bedroom? What’s that about? Guest room too small?” She arched a brow and crossed her arms over the large breasts pushing against her tight purple tee. “Did you forget to mention any other details about when you were in Istanbul?”

Ruby bit her lip. Maybe a small detail. Like losing her virginity. Lying would be pointless. Even if telling heat did not sweep her face, Adele could always sniff out when Ruby was less than honest. Inhaling, Ruby looked her squarely in the eyes and let her read what truth she would.

“You did not!” Adele tossed her handbag to the floor and propped her hands on her waist. “All these years you held out, and then you just give it up to him?”

“Don’t get mad. You’re the one who always told me I put too much importance on sex. That I should just do it and—”

“You’ve known this guy for how long? What happened to all that talk of holding out for someone special?”

She swallowed, stopping herself from declaring that it was special… that it had been special. That being with Sebastian felt right. And more than that. It was a compulsion she couldn’t resist. But with Sebastian upstairs, she didn’t dare say any of that.

Adele shook her head. “What a hypocrite.”

Adele’s disappointed gaze hurt. Which, in turn, angered Ruby. “At least I don’t give it up to just any guy.”

Adele pulled back, inhaling sharply. “Meaning, I do?” Over her anger, Ruby picked up her hurt. “At least I’m out there living, enjoying my life instead of hiding. And last time I checked, the guys I take to bed are human.”

Ruby flinched. “I don’t need you judging me right now.”

“Right.” Adele snatched up her purse and dug through the contents. “You just need me when I can do something for you.” She slammed a box of syringes and a couple vials of liquid on the side table beside the couch. “According to Dwayne, it takes about thirty minutes to go into effect after injection.” She marched toward the door and pulled it open. “Call me when your friend leaves and you need me again. I’m a slut, remember? I’m good at being used.”

“Adele.” Ruby stretched out her hp height="0em" width="1em" align="justify">She moved into her living room and dropped down on the sofa. Shaking her head, she lowered her face into her hands. “Shit.”

“That was quick.” Between her fingers, she spied Sebastian’s feet stepping in front of her.

She lowered her hands. “Not my best moment.”

“Yeah, well. Personalities have been known to change after infection… boldness and aggression come hand in hand with being a lycan.”

“I guess calling my best friend a slut is… bold.”

Sebastian picked the bottle of pills off the table. “What’s this?”

“Sedatives.” She smiled without humor. “I told you I would look after myself. That I have friends who can help me.”

“Your friend is a doctor?”

“No. Her cousin’s a pill pusher.”

“A pharmacist?”

“No. Dwayne doesn’t exactly have a license.”

His dark brows pulled together. “You went to some drug dealer?”

Ruby pushed to her feet. “I couldn’t exactly go to a doctor and get a prescription.” She stalked past him, stopping at the stairs. “I didn’t think someone who spends his life killing could be such a moral prig.”

“Ruby.” He spoke her name as if striving for patience. She felt his frustration… his disappointment. Fantastic. Apparently she was all about disappointing those close to her this morning. “The less people who know about you the better—”

“She didn’t tell Dwayne what it—”

“So he’s just wondering why he gave you enough to knock out a horse. You don’t think he’ll mention that to someone else when he’s chatting it up in a bar one night? What if he gets busted? What if he rats out all his customers and suppliers . . . you.”

Ruby blinked. She hadn’t considered that.

“Dwayne won’t talk.” She curled a hand around the railing. “Look, I didn’t ask for you to come here. And I didn’t ask for your advice.”

He strode across the living room. “Regardless, I’m here. And I’m staying through moonrise to make sure you can handle all this as you claim.” His voice dripped skepticism.

“And if you think I can’t?”

“I’m taking you back to Turkey. To pick up Gunter’s trail.”

t at the thought of leaving home again. Of diving back into the world that had shown her nothing but cruelty and brutality. “I won’t go.”

“Yes,” the word fell hard, clipped. His eyes glinted. “You will.”

“So what are you going to do? Babysit me for the rest of my days? You really want to be stuck together that long?” Her chest heaved, and she regretted the question the instant it dropped from her mouth. She sounded needy, like she was fishing for a commitment from the guy.

A muscle in his jaw flexed wildly. “That would suck, wouldn’t it?”

Her brows pulled together. He emitted bitterness. Anger. Mockery.

He continued. “You insist you can handle this? Then prove it. Then I’ll leave.” He swung around into the kitchen. A plate rattled and she knew he was helping himself to the breakfast she had prepared. She had made it with him in mind… the memory of their night in every whisk, every seasoning sprinkled. Now all that seemed a long time ago. Even their quick coupling in the living room seemed to belong to some other time, some other people.

Prove it.

She would. The sooner she proved it to him, the sooner he would leave her alone. She just had to endure him until moonrise and not make a fool of herself by revealing how much he affected "justify">The deputy frowned. “So you concur that Ms. Deveraux did not leave the hotel with the girls?”

Rosemary pressed her lips tight, splotches of color breaking out over her pudgy cheeks. Her nostrils flared wide. “Y-yes. I do recall that.”

The man released a heavy sigh, and lifted his gaze from his notepad, settling his eyes on Ruby. “And did you locate the girls?”

She shifted on her feet. “I never found them. But I’m fine though,” Ruby said tightly, flicking an angry glare to both of them. “Thank you for asking.”

“Oh, you always were one to land on your feet.” Rosemary nodded. “I told Deputy McCall all about you.”

Ruby just bet she did. No doubt telling him how her own father didn’t want her when her mother died. Relating the number of times she had had to be placed because no foster family wanted her for very long… simply claiming she was too… strange. More often than not, they just gave her back because she scared them with her “odd ways.”

“I’m sure it was an interesting conversation. Sorry I missed it.”

“Ms. Deveraux, where have you been all this time?”

“I got into a bit of trouble when I went looking for Amy and Emily.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Ruby wet her lips. Fabricating a story that couldn’t be verified with authorities in Istanbul could get tricky.

“She was abducted.”

All eyes swung to gawk at the new arrival. Ruby scowled at Sebastian. He smiled at her in a way that indicated he knew she didn’t want him here. Knew and didn’t care.

“Who are you?” Rosemary demanded.

“You could call me a retrieval expert.”

“Retrieval expert?”

“Yes. Private contractor. I retrieve people who get themselves into trouble.”

Apparently the detective found this plausible. He started scribbling notes. “Who hired you?”

“Friends of the family,” Sebastian lied smoothly.

Rosemary snorted. “Ruby’s family wouldn’t care enough—”

“Apparently they do,” Sebastian cut in, his eyes glinting, daring her to contradict.

With narrowed eyes, Rosemary swung her attention back on Ruby, her curiosity clearly piqued. “ing her, thaw her resolve in any way. She had nothing left with him. He would soon learn that she could cope with this lycan thing as she did with everything else in her life. She would cope. Without him. He’d see that. See she didn’t need him and then he’d be gone.

As she scooped flour into a large glass bowl, letting her fingers trail through the cool white powder, she wondered why the usual calm and comfort did not wash over her in the act.

Instead, her nerves stretched uncomfortably tight. She felt him watching her, just behind her—waiting for instructions, she supposed. His warm breath fanned her neck, and her breath caught in her constricting throat. Her nipples grew taut and aching, straining against her blouse, craving him… his touch, his mouth. She palmed a breast, hoping to assuage the hard tip, make it go away. The act only made her burn hotter, the ache intensify. The core of her clenched. Moisture dampened her panties.

He brushed against her. A hard bulge nudged at her ass. She bit her lip to stop a moan from escaping.

“Will you get the eggs from the fridge?” she asked in a strangled voice, grateful when he moved away.

She swallowed a ragged breath, focusing on stamping her desire, on blocking him. She concentrated, fighting the heat behind his gaze. The hot steady flow of desire he emitted that licked fire at her will told her exactly how he would like to spend the remainder of his time with her. And it wasn’t in the kitchen.

A whimper tugged at the back of her throat. She felt his dark arousal. It only increased her craving for him. Damn. Damn. Damn. How could she fight this? Him?

Her belly tightened and her breath came a little faster. Turning from her bowl, she found him directly behind her again, a carton of eggs in his hand.

His eyes drilled into her, dark relentless chips of obsidian, that strange white light dancing in the centers. A single step was all it took. She flattened herself against the hard wall of his chest, pressing her aching breasts into him.

He dropped the carton of eggs, his arms going around her, clutching her in a savage hold. She slid one hand through his short-cropped hair, yanking his head down with a growl.

Hard fingers dug into her hips as their mouths met, open and eager, tongues thrusting, licking, tasting one another. Voracious beasts coming together in desperate hunger.

They had this. For now, it was enough. She wouldn’t think about tomorrow.

22

Ruby led Sebastian from the swinging doors of Ernie’s back kitchen, after having dropped off the pies and cakes she’d made that afternoon—with Sebastian’s help, of course.

The last few days she had spent cooking and baking, catching up on her orders for the local eateries. Oh, and having sex. Lots of sex. Sweaty, panting sex.

She had discovered multiple orgasms could be achieved in the time it took to bake a pecan pie. She didn’t know whwas more driven, more insatiable—her or Sebastian. Their lust for each other showed no signs of abating. They no longer discussed the future. And yet it was there just the same. A thick mist from which they could not escape, surrounding them in a tangible fog neither dared acknowledge. They knew it approached. Why discuss it?

Eight o’clock, and Ernie’s dinner crowd packed the old diner. Sebastian held her hand as they moved between tables, his strong fingers locked with hers. A sweet sensation. She couldn’t remember holding another man’s hand. Never remembered wanting to. The contact would have frightened her. Who knew what she might feel? With Sebastian she felt only desire, a steady pouring of warmth from his hand through her. Into her. The same thing she had felt all week.

“Smells good,” Sebastian commented.

“That would be the chicken-fried steak. Everyone comes here for it. It’s Ernie’s specialty.” She winked. “Nothing says home cooking like buttermilk, flour and a deep fryer.” She motioned to a table. “Want to eat—”

The words died in her throat when she spotted the family sitting in a nearby booth. The perfect family of four. Father, mother, two sons. “Let’s go.”

“What?”

Dropping his hand, she moved to the front door. Practically ran.

Sebastian clamped a hand on her arm, that hunter look about him again. He looked at her, then swept the room as if looking for a threat he had missed. “What? What is it?”

“Nothing.” Her breath tightened in her chest as, one by one, the family stood to leave. They hadn’t noticed her yet. But they would. He would. She’d seen him over the years. In a town the size of Beau Rivage, how could she not? But she had always pretended not to see him… and allowed him to do the same. Even when their eyes locked. Even when aversion washed over him, swiping its claw at her, she pretended not to feel. Not to know.

Sebastian followed her gaze to the gray-haired man with the same brown eyes she had once possessed. Sebastian tensed, and she picked up on his awareness. Understanding passed through him the moment he focused on her father’s face.

“That’s your father?”

She nodded.

“He lives here, too?”

“Never left,” she murmured.

“Christ.” Sebastian dragged a hand through his hair.

“Let’s go,” she repeated, ready to run through that door. From the brothers she had never met. From the father who wouldn’t have her because she was a freak. She’s weird, Diane. She’s a weird kid. And I can’t stand to be around her. My own goddamned daughter.

It wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. That sole mantra burned like a locomotive through her head ashe linoleum.

She was almost to the door when she stopped. Turning, she faced Sebastian. He cocked one dark brow.

“Excuse me,” she said, in a voice that held an edge of surprise even to her own ears.

With sure strides, she crossed Ernie’s diner and stopped at her father’s table.

He looked up from dropping a few dollar bills on the table. Astonishment crossed the lines of his face. Then something else. Emotion emanated from him in a slow trickle. Fear. Bilious and suffocating. The same fear she had evoked in him when she was just a child. Some things never change.

“Hi.” Her voice rang a bit too loud. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she looked from her father’s bloodless face to his wife—a small woman with frosted blond hair and pale blue eyes. The complete opposite of her mother. Ruby had seen her around town before. She knew that she was a dental hygienist. Her gaze drifted to the boys. Both in high school. The elder was featured in the local paper a lot for football or baseball. The younger one she knew was big into Eagle Scouts.

Ruby held out her hand to her father. He stared at it as if it were a serpent. She moved her hand to his wife. Nothing. Keeping tight control of her smile, she turned to the boys. Troy, the older, accepted it. The grip warm, firm. His hair was a dark brown. Like hers.

“Hi. I’m Ruby.” She took a small sip of air. “Your sister.” The words felt good, better than anything she had said before.

Her father sputtered. Outrage. Horror. Helplessness. His emotions rushed her in a flashing burn. His wife pressed close to his side. “Richard,” she hissed. “Do something.”

“I know,” Troy said. “I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

His mother whipped her head to stare at her son. “You know?”

“Uh, yeah. Beau Rivage is a small town, Mom.”

Smiling suddenly became easier.

Her younger brother shook her hand now. “Hi, David,” she murmured. Remembering Sebastian’s presence at her side, she stepped to the side and included him. “This is my friend. Sebastian.”

Sebastian shook hands with the boys. Her father and his wife stood several steps behind their sons, not coming forward to greet him either.

“What are you doing?” her father bit out, glaring at her.

“Saying hello.” She released a deep breath. “Something I should have done a long time ago.” She shrugged. “Why not? We’re family, whether you like it or not. Whether I like it. I’m done pretending we don’t know each other. You are my fatherht="0em" width="1em" align="justify">Her brothers nodded, murmuring agreement over the appalled sputters of their parents.

Sebastian’s hand slid into hers again. For a moment their gazes connected, clung. The emotion she felt from him was different—sweet, tender.

Pride, she realized with a start. A totally new emotion for her. At least when directed at her.

She led him from the restaurant without giving her father a chance to say anything more.

A lightness brimmed inside her. “There’s a place out on the highway. Fewer locals. Lots of truckers, but they make a helluva burger.”

Behind the wheel of her car, Sebastian smiled. “Let’s go. The last thing I want on my hands is a hungry lycan.” His smile slipped. And just like that, tension returned, attention called to the very thing they had become so adept at ignoring in the past. “That was stupid,” he muttered.

She sighed, turning her attention outside the window, studying the flashing blur of trees.

For a moment, it had been all about her triumph. She had forgotten about that other part of herself. The part she would rather forget.

Ruby’s stomach growled the moment they stepped from the car into the cool dusk, the aroma of a charcoal grill and searing meat from the truck stop slamming into her. She could smell it all. The sizzling, succulent beef, the pungent richness of boiling crawfish and andouille sausage.

Her stomach grumbled. “It smells like heaven. I don’t think food ever smelled so good.”

“You’ll get accustomed to it.”

She slid him a glance. “Why is that?”

“Your heightened senses.”

Again, hating the reminder of what she was, she fell silent as he held open the glass door. They took a booth near a window facing the highway. Cars and trucks rolled past, a steady roar in the distance.

They ordered cheeseburgers with a large side of onion rings. The waitress didn’t spare Ruby a glance, her gaze glued on Sebastian and with his gorgeous David Beckham looks. Even walking away, she nearly ran into a bus boy, too busy staring at Sebastian.

“Guess you’re used to that.”

“What?” He glanced up from rotating a ketchup bottle between his thumbs.

“Women falling over themselves for you.”

He snorted. “And you’re not used to men fawning over you?”

She angled her head. “You’re kidding, right?” She took a sip of iced tea. “I don’t exactly have an actp>

“Maybe.” She shrugged, looking away from his burning gaze, uncomfortable with the subject. She knew she wasn’t an easy person to be with… everyone who ever entered her life made that clear to her.

Moments later, her gaze returned to him. She studied the hard line of his profile as he gazed out into a black night punctuated with the flash of passing headlights. “You always sit where you can see the door, don’t you?”

The waitress arrived with their food. She left after making a fuss arranging Sebastian’s plate before him.

“You’ll learn to do the same. If you’re going to survive.” He stared at her with dark intensity. “You’re going to need to get colored contact lenses for your eyes. They’re a beacon for anyone who knows about us. You’re lucky you live in such a remote area.”

Lucky. She didn’t feel it.

She started to point out to him that Lily didn’t wear contacts, but stopped herself just in time. Lily didn’t need to disguise herself from the world to survive. She had Luc. “The lycans in Istanbul didn’t wear contacts—why not?”

“Some pack lycans do. It just depends how confident they are. How big the pack. Strength rests in numbers. Gunter’s pack was fairly large. You won’t have a pack to cover you.”

No, she didn’t have a pack. She didn’t have anyone. After pissing off Adele, she wasn’t even sure she had her.

“Beau Rivage is pretty much off the radar. If a pack of lycans lived here, our population of forty-five hundred would have noticeably suffered.” And she could only assume no lycans meant no hunters were hanging around either. So she didn’t have to worry about some agent picking her off coming out of the supermarket.

A pair of motorcycles pulled into the parking lot just then. The riders climbed down, set their kickstands and entered the restaurant with helmets tucked under their arms. They were different from the other patrons. Hard eyes with cruel lips. Those pitiless eyes traveled the room, missing nothing. They landed on Sebastian and Ruby.

And stayed there.

Ruby tore an onion ring between her fingers, her stomach inexplicably knotted.

The pair exchanged glances as they took a table beside their booth, hardly sparing a glance at the menus the waitress brought them, gazes intent on Ruby. She shifted on the booth’s seat. Somehow she didn’t think it was because she looked cute.

Sebastian arched a brow at her, appearing relaxed and easy with his arm flung behind the back of the booth. Except his eyes told a different story. The light at the center writhed. The muscle in his jaw flickered. Tension simmered in him.

“Whe out to dinner. “Look at them, Ruby. What are they?”

Sipping her tea, she studied them covertly. The hardened features, the eyes like ice. One of them sat with his hand buried in his jacket pocket.

“Hunters,” she murmured, quite sure they were human even with their inhuman eyes. Hunters passing through, probably heading their way south to one of the bigger cities—Lafayette, Baton Rouge or New Orleans.

“Yeah. NODEAL agents. So much for Beau Rivage being off radar.”

She didn’t bother explaining that they only ran into them because they’d left town for a truck stop on a busy highway. She’d think twice before doing that again.

“What do we do?”

“Finish our food and leave.” He finished the last of his burger as if two hunters didn’t sit feet away, staring them down like prey.

Ruby played with a crisp onion ring, no longer able to eat.

Finished, Sebastian tossed a couple bills on the table. “Let’s go.”

Ruby slid from the booth. Sebastian gripped her elbow, guiding her from the restaurant. She didn’t need to look over her shoulder. She felt them follow. Felt their adrenaline on the air, pungent as sweat in a locker room.

Her heart accelerated in her chest. Sebastian led them outside, as if he were unaware of the two agents on their heels. At the door of her car, he stopped and turned.

“Evening,” he greeted. “Can I help you guys?”

The pair exchanged looks. Both buried their hands deep in their jacket pockets, and she knew they were armed, that she and Sebastian probably stood in the line of fire.

One of them spoke. “We’re not after you. Just give her to us and you can walk away.”

Clearly they didn’t realize Sebastian fell in the nonhuman category, too.

He cocked his head as if considering. “I don’t think so.”

“Look,” the other one bit out. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Do yourself a favor and get in your car and drive away now. While you still can.”

“I think it’s more accurate to say you don’t know what you’re dealing with. Walk away, forget you ever saw her, and you can live.”

They laughed, the sound a low chuckle that grated her nerves. “You should keep better company.” Their laughter stopped. “You’re a dead man now.”

Guns flew free. Her heart seized.

Ruby smelled the burn of silver on the air as bullets exploded from the chamber.

Suddenly the control she thought she had claimed for herself since returning home began to slip between her fingers, elusive as water. “Like hell I will.” Rational or not, she wouldn’t let that happen. The choice would be hers. He wasn’t taking it from her.

“Damn it, Ruby.” He shot her a frustrated glare. “You can’t pretend this will all go away.”

“Especially with you alerting the world about me.”

With a groan he dragged a hand through his hair. “Look.” He inhaled. “For now, we’ll just focus on getting through the next few days.”

“Fine.” The next few days. She dragged a shuddering breath into her lungs. The memory of lycans as she had seen them… mauling Amy and Emily… made her chest tighten. She knew this had been coming. Despite trying to ignore its approach. Despite pretending it couldn’t reach her, couldn’t get to her here. It would. It had.

Sighing, she propped an elbow on the door and stared out the window into the dark night. Woods crowded the narrow road. Another car approached and Sebastian hugged his side of the road. Branches scraped her door. The car passed. Dirt and rocks ticked against the side of the car.

The moon followed their vehicle, nearly full, a great glowing eye peering between a latticework of branches. “I’ll call Adele.”

“Sure she’ll still come?”

“One fight doesn’t break a friendship.” At least not theirs. Ruby needed her. Adele wouldn’t let her down. Adele she could rely on. No one else. Not Sebastian. She wouldn’t let herself need him.

Sebastian followed one step behind Ruby as she hurried inside the house, staring at her slim back, the rigid set of her narrow shoulders—and cursed beneath his breath.

He rubbed a palm against his nape. Was he trying to sabotage her efforts? Force her to stay with him? Leave with him? Need him no matter what? No matter that she had a plan in place that actually might work. Might make his staying with her totally unnecessary.

His feet thudded up the porch steps.

He should have killed those hunters. He wasn’t into mercy. Not when it came to hunters. He would have killed them before. Before Ruby.

Just who am I anymore?

The old Sebastian would have squeezed the trigger without blinking. Instead, he’d let them live. And he was afraid he had let them live so that Ruby would have to leave. With him.

On the porch, he paused. Skin tightening, he turned and faced the night, a sudden awareness settling in his bones.

“Sebastian?” A board groaned. He heard her step away from the front door, the porch creeping imperceptibly beneath her feet as she moved toward him.

& out into the night even though he knew he would see nothing. Nothing was there. Yet.

Her gaze burned into his profile. Wind rustled through branches, tugging leaves loose. Silvery moonlight drifted through the branches, casting patches of light on the ground. He sniffed the air. It was still there. That faint hint, a whiff…

“The hunters from the diner?” Panic fed her voice.

He shook his head, his features tight, itchy as he turned his face into the breeze. “No. They’re gone. This is something else. Something…”

“What?”

“Something distant.”

“Distant? Then how do you even know anything’s coming?”

He heard the incredulity in her voice, but he’d spent a lifetime honing his instincts. First, running. With his brother and mother. Always one step ahead of lycans and hunters. Then tracking. Hunting. Always hunting.

Years of hunting. No friends to speak of. No parents. Even his brother he let slip away. All so that he could bury himself in the hunt, the kill. Maybe not the best life, but one that had taught him how to survive… how to detect threats when they were only a whisper on the air.

He’d been at the game long enough to know when the tables turned and suddenly he became the hunted.

“Let’s go inside.” Grasping her elbow, he led her into the house. But not before casting one more lingering look over his shoulder. They needed to move. As soon as moonrise ended. He would give her no choice.

In days, they would be gone from here. And far from whatever was coming for them.

24

Ruby paced the floor of her vegetable cellar. The concrete was cracked in several places, leaking moisture from the earth. The air felt cool even without the benefit of air conditioning. In summers past, whenever the AC gave out, she and her mother would fold laundry down here with only each other and the radio for company.

A lone mattress sat on the floor, a blanket tossed over it. For her comfort. She shuddered. It was hard to imagine ever feeling comfortable with what was coming.

Sebastian leaned against the wall, watching her beneath a heavy-lidded gaze as she prowled the cell, waiting for Adele. She couldn’t help it… her mind drifted to another room about the same size halfway around the world. Her mouth dried. But this time it would be only her down here.

“You’ll be okay down here?” Adele called, her feet falling soundly as she descended the wood steps. She carried a pillow and a jug of water with her.

“Sure.”

Adele stst. She wouldn’t put herself to that test.

“You can’t be here.”

“Ruby.” He shook his head. “I can handle whatever comes.”

“I’m alone on this. I have to be.”

His indecision hovered between them. His compassion. It undid her. She had vowed to do this alone, had vowed to handle it. To keep control of something in her life, of this at least. She couldn’t rely on him. Couldn’t let herself need him.

“I’m always alone,” she added. “That’s the way I like it.”

Her words seemed to affect him at last. His features hardened. “Of course. I understand exactly.” And that’s because he did, she realized. They both felt the safest in solitude. Trusting only themselves. Neither would have it any other way.

With a brisk nod and a curt “good luck,” he took the steps two at a time.

Then, halfway up the steps, he stopped. Turning, he drove a hard line back down the steps toward her, his mouth pressed into a hard, determined line that made her stomach clench.

Before she realized his intent, he seized her by the shoulders and kissed her long and hard. Just when the kiss began to swing into something else, something that sent licks of heat twisting through her belly, he broke free. Nose to nose, he stared starkly at her for several moments. His ragged breath fogged her bruised lips and she leaned forward for more, another taste.

But then he was gone.

She listened as the door clicked shut and multiple locks fell into place, resounding in the silence of her cellar, echoing in the hollows of her heart. For now, and all the generations to come.

As the sun dipped behind the trees standing guard over the house, Sebastian strode a hard line over the floor, walking from the bookcase to the edge of the living room and back again. Impending night hummed outside. His ears picked up the slightest sounds, detected the life beginning to stir, insects and animals that had lain low all day moving now, ready to prowl free.

Adele sat on the couch, legs curled under her, flipping through a copy of Food and Wine, a sweaty bottle of Dixie hanging loosely from her fingers.

Being up here—while she was down there—didn’t feel right. He was here to watch over her, protect her—from herself and others. That’s why he’d come after her.

Was that why? Really?

He shoved back the small voice inside his head and listened for the smallest sound from below, even though he knew she wouldn’t have shifted yet. It took a high moon before that could happen.

“Pacing the floor isn’t going to make the night pass any quicker.”

painful and darkly satisfying.

“Adele. Get upstairs. Now. Hide yourself.” Even as he instructed this, he knew it wouldn’t matter. Whatever coming wasn’t human. If the creature defeated him, Adele couldn’t hide.

“What—”

“Go!” he barked.

She scrambled from the couch. Her feet thundered up the stairs.

The familiar heat of the beast rose up inside him, preparing to battle whatever advanced as his hand closed around the doorknob, his mouth dry as sandpaper. He couldn’t lose. Ruby was just below. Defenseless, sedated.

Growling, he shook his head. How could he have thought he could ever leave her? He would never feel satisfied with the notion of her alone during every moonrise with only Adele, a mortal, to serve as watchdog. How could he have thought that would be okay? Right now, in this moment, with darkness closing in, the moon rising on the night, and a faceless threat drawing closer, she needed him.

And she always would.

He opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. A figure emerged from the trees, his strides slow, deceptively easy, the rolling gait of a predator.

Sebastian marked him instantly: the golden dovenatu from Istanbul. A vengeful light glittered at the centers of his eyes. Apparently he had survived the explosion… and was pissed as hell.

“You’re alive,” Sebastian announced, his voice thick and guttural, teeth gnashing. The words rang with deadly calm—a direct contrast to the wild stretching, turning, tightening of his muscles, readying to battle.

“Yeah.” He carried a backpack over one shoulder, but tossed it aside as he squared off in front of Sebastian. Wind whispered through the night, lifting the dovenatu’s dark blond hair.

In an instant, he shifted, muscles straining, swelling against his clothes, his face blurring into felinelike lines. “But you’re not.”

They sprang for each other, bodies a hiss on the wind. Only one thought churned through Sebastian as he smacked into hard flesh and bone. He had to win. His own fate didn’t even register.

If he lost, the bastard would find Ruby and destroy her. She needed him. He wouldn’t fail.

25

Ruby breathed heavily from where she sprawled on the mattress. Her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths, air sawing from her lips and nose as if she could not draw enough inside her. Heat smoldered through her, flaming her insides raw.

Sitting up, she blinked free of the grogginess in her head and glanced at the digital alarm clocp height="0em" width="1em" align="justify">Feet pounded up the stairs.

Then Sebastian was there, in the doorway, his gaze wild. He grabbed hold of Ruby as if he expected her to launch on Adele in a raving fit.

“Sebastian,” Adele called, but he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze crawled over Ruby with furious intensity as she stood calmly still in his grip, not even resisting the hard hands on her arms.

“Ruby,” he breathed, staring at her in wonder. Awe. Relief. And something else. Something Ruby had never felt before. “You’re not…”

A monster. A killer. The thing you’ve spent a lifetime hunting.

She nodded. “I know. I’m okay.”

His gaze continued to drill into her. “Of course.” His expression of wonder turned to understanding. His mouth curved into a stunning grin. “You’re an empath. You can’t kill anyone. Not without suffering, too. Do you know what this means, Ruby? You’re saved.”

Saved.

And she didn’t need him.

She nodded. Sebastian’s hands on her arm softened. She glanced down and closed her eyes at the sight of his hand, masculine, strong, beautiful.

Her flesh was sinewy, lightly dusted with hair, a grayish-brown next to his tanned hand. The sight was just… wrong.

Her fingers drifted up, brushing the strangely taut skin of her face. The monsters she had left behind in Istanbul flashed across her mind. She was that now. She shut her eyes tightly against the thought.

“Hey.” Sebastian’s voice bit out. “Don’t. Don’t close your eyes.” He gave her a hard shake, his anger, determination, sinking into her.

She opened her eyes to look at him.

His gaze settled on her, eyes as dark as slate, the centers glowing white light. “This is you now. Accept it. Live with it. Don’t hate it—don’t. This does not define you. You’re…” His voice faded, mouth working. Emotion swelled in him, sweeping over her in a warm, tender caress. It was there again, that indefinable feeling. Something she’d never felt before.

But it felt good.

Before it disappeared.

She gasped, surging in his arms. Black fury. It swamped her like an icy cold douse of water. So cold she hissed from the killing sting. She turned, twisting in Sebastian’s grasp, listening to the ominous fall of footsteps, shivering where she stood at whatever drew near. Stalking them with unhurried menace.

“Oh, God! Sebastian. What—. “I gave a great deal of thought about what I would do to you when I found you. The entire flight over here, that is all I thought about.” His lips twisted in a savage grin. “I wanted it to be extra-special for you.” With a flick of his wrist, he opened the lighter. The tiny blue-orange flame flickered. In his other hand, he clutched a small bottle of lighter fluid. “Figured death in flames would be the most appropriate. Suitable, all things considered.”

Grunting, Sebastian shoved to his knees. He pressed harder at his neck, as though that could help, could staunch the flow and restore him.

Facing his enemy, his thoughts drifted to Ruby, emotions a burning rush inside him at the thought of leaving her alone to face this merciless bastard.

Run, Ruby. Get away. He hoped she read him, inferred his emotions correctly. Hear me, Ruby. Run. Run. Don’t make my death have been for nothing. Get away.

At that moment, a truth asserted itself. Maybe the only thing in his life he ever knew to be true. Absolute and unwavering.

If Ruby lived, he could die.

Her life meant more to him than his own. He’d be okay with dying. His gaze dropped to the twisting blue-gold flame. With ending it like this. As long as she lived.

His gaze lifted, stared into the other dovenatu’s face, into cool eyes. Vengeance. No mercy there.

Lighter fluid rained down on him in a swaying arc, splattering his jeans, soaking him to the skin. The pungent oil stung his nose, the black odor rising up. Death mingled with the coppery aroma of his own blood. He followed the single spray as it squirted a path over his body, unable to move. To resist. To even run from it.

“She didn’t do it,” he ground down against his teeth, swaying, trying desperately to stay upright on his knees. “She wasn’t involved. Let her go. Leave her be.”

“Is that what matters to you right now? Her life?” He cocked his head, eyes glinting a glacial blue.

Sebastian managed one jerky nod.

“Good,” he bit out. “After you, I’ll finish her. Know that.” He drew a ragged breath. “Know my pain as you die.”

After you, I’ll finish her. The words dug a blade to his heart, greater pain than the wound in his neck. A greater pain than he had ever known. “No!”

He lurched forward in a desperate surge of strength, diving for the dovenatu’s legs, hoping to take him down.

The bastard sidestepped him. With a snap of his wrist, he tossed the lighter high in the air. Sebastian twisted his neck to watch as it descended.

A muffled howl reverberated inside him. Slowly, sinking, winding… the scream rippled th lodged in his heart.

Ruby.

She charged from the house straight toward him, fully formed, her lithe lines undulating like a lioness in movement beneath her tattered clothes. For the first time in his life, the sight did not strike deep contempt inside him. Because it was Ruby.

Their eyes met, clung. Her pewter gaze wild with terror. For him.

The lighter struck his shoulder and bounced, skidding down his body, sparking, igniting with a sharp hiss, then a deafening roar.

In a swoosh, flames erupted everywhere, engulfing him. Devouring his scream.

Ruby staggered, nearly losing her footing at the sight of the inferno rushing Sebastian in a roaring wind of red and gold.

She forced her legs to work, pushing ahead, over the torment, over the burn, the damned burn. Determined to reach him, help him, save him. To push beyond the agony. The searing pain turning him to ash—death and ash if she did not do something.

Blood dripped from her nose in a steady trickle, running thickly into her mouth. Uncaring for herself, she hurtled past the dovenatu. Dropping to the ground, she flung herself over Sebastian, beating him with strange new hands that were not her own, that belonged to some other creature of night and darkness.

“What are you doing?”

She registered the voice, the clipped accents, knew it was the dovenatu… the one who lit Sebastian afire. She should run, fight him… something. Something. Anything but ignore him.

Flames surrounded her fingers, rose up, licking her wrists and arms. The smell of smoldering flesh filled her nose… and pain filled her body.

She rolled Sebastian side-to-side, whimpering, rubbing out the flames despite the hurt she felt in touching him. So much hurt.

“What are you doing?” the voice growled beside her again, mingling with the cock of a gun beside her head. The scent of silver reached her from inside the chamber. Still, she worked over Sebastian, uncaring.

How could she fear for herself when Sebastian was in this much pain?

Words tripped from her in a dizzying spill. “Sebastian… don’t die, don’t die on me. I can’t lose you. I can’t. I don’t want to be alone again!”

“Good God,” the dovenatu spat out. The soft click of the hammer lifted from beside her head.

Steam rose beneath her charred palms, heavy and black, choking in her throat, stinging her tear-filled eyes. Sebastian’s dark gaze burned into her through the smoke, as scalding as his roasting body, the whites blood-red. She read the message there clearly. Go. Run. Get away.

Suddenly, Adele was there, tossing her a blanket. She wraand steam wafted above his body. Gasping, she sat back on her heels and hovered over him, her throbbing hands suspended for a moment, taking a moment.

Swallowing, she touched him again. Because she had to. No matter how much more she would feel his agony doing so. She had to. She jerked when she made contact with his flesh, slippery beneath her taloned fingers. Raw. Black-charred. Melted sheets of flesh. Every severed nerve-ending screamed. Shrieked. Raw and blistered.

“Sebastian,” she choked.

She felt. Felt everything. Killing agony. His heart beat slowed, skipped and sank into a skittery thread. “We’ll get you to a hospital.”

Crouching protectively beside Sebastian, she tossed the other dovenatu a glare. He stared down at her, his light eyes cool and glittery, as if he were trying to figure something out. As if he was trying to make sense of her. Indecision warred on his features.

Maybe because she realized it might matter, she whispered in her thick, garbled voice, “Please.”

It was as if the single word struck him some place deep and buried. Forgotten. He gave a small jerk and blinked. His eyes altered, looked different then. Less glittery. Calm. His chest lifted on a deep sigh. “Forget this,” he muttered so softly she could barely hear him.

Shaking his blond head, he shrugged one shoulder as though they were nothing to him and reholstered his weapon. “A hospital can do nothing for him.”

A growl erupted from deep in her chest, the sound emerging with a will of its own. “Thanks to you.”

He cocked his head, studying her intently. “He was right about you.” His gleaming gaze slid down her blistered arms and hands before flicking to Sebastian’s smoking body. “You’re different. You both…” His voice faded and he shook his head harder.

His face transformed, shifted back into pretty-boy good looks. He turned then, his voice floating on the night as he walked away. “Keep him in bed. Give him nourishment. It’s all you can do.” At the edge of the trees, he stopped.

“And then what?” she called, straining anxiously over Sebastian’s body, staring at the dovenatu’s broad back.

His dark blond head cocked to the side, turning slightly as though he would turn around. “Wait.” His voice moved on the night, indecipherable if not for her keen hearing. “Take care of him. And wait.” He moved then, so swiftly. One moment he was there, the next gone, vanished into the woods.

“Ruby!” Adele’s voice jumped beside her. “Are we taking him to the hospital?”

“No.” Gingerly, she slid her arms beneath Sebastian and lifted him, pain stabbing her everywhere. Her s0em">

27

Sebastian swam through a lightless fog. Cloying, thick. Dark weight bearing him down, taking him… killing him. And fire, still. Blood simmered in his veins. He tried to scream. Give voice to a single word, a name. Ruby.

Did she get away? Was she safe?

“I’m here. I’m here, Sebastian.”

He tried to speak, to demand—are you all right?

His lips parted, cracking flesh. Garbled speech. Something cool and wet ran over his lips, slipping inside his mouth. His swollen tongue moved, lapping, desperate for a taste, for the relief of it.

“Don’t speak. Drink. Rest. You’re going to be all right, Sebastian. You hear me? You’re alive.”

Ruby. She was here. She was all right. Nothing else mattered.

He let the fog take him.

Ruby pushed the door open with the foot of her shoe and strode inside the room, the edges of the tray clutched tightly in her hands. Sebastian turned from staring out the window, his look of restlessness vanishing at the sight of her. He pushed himself up on the bed.

“More soup today?”

She tsked. “A bisque. Not soup.”

Accepting the tray, he set it on his lap. “I’m fine now, you know.”

She nodded jerkily, her throat tightening as an image of him consumed in fire flashed across her mind. “You will be. I—”

“No. I am fine, Ruby.”

She stilled at the firmness of his voice. Sighing, she sank to the edge of the bed, toying with the comforter’s edge. It had been a week since she carried him into this room, a smoking corpse in her arms. He’d regenerated. His skin, as well as the deep wound in his throat, healed in a matter of days. Still, she insisted he stay in bed, unable to face the fact that once he healed, this was over. They were over. As long as he stayed in bed, she kept some control.

“I appreciate all you’ve done this last week, Ruby,” he began, lips twisting. “Guess you’ve proven you can take care of yourself. Look at me. You took care of me.” His expression grew grave. “But I’m done playing sick.”

She offered a weak smile, teasing, trying to pretend she didn’t understand where this was going. “So you mean you want to take your soup downstairs.”

His gaze held hers, and she felt something wither inside her at the look in his eyes. “I’m healed.”

Sebastian sucked in a breath, bracing himself after uttering those words. Words that needed to be said. He’d played the invalid long enough to appease her. Appease himself. He days ago. He couldn’t keep the game up any longer. He was healed. And Ruby was fine. Safe. No threat to the world or herself. Her gift would protect her. Her gift. Not him.

Staring into her wide eyes, into those pools of pewter that did not spell death, he added, “It’s time for me to go.”

“Go?” she echoed.

“Yeah. No reason for me to stay.” He tried to say this matter-of-factly. With no question. He wasn’t asking, begging, for her to give him a reason. He could get on alone. Even if staring at her, his heart rising to his throat, he wondered if he could. If he could ever go back to the way he was before, adrift in life… and be okay with it.

“You were right, Ruby.” He never thought the words would be so hard to get past his lips. “You don’t need me. You can pretty much live your life as you always have.” He shrugged one shoulder. “You’ll shift every moonrise, but you won’t hurt anyone.”

She nodded. “That’s right. I won’t.” Looking down at him, she asked, “When are you going?”

“Today.” He glanced to the window, sunlight streaming inside, urging him to move, act. “It’s early yet. I can catch a flight out of Lafayette.”

“You want me to drive—”

“I’ll call a car.”

She nodded. “That’s easy, then.”

Easy. It was. She didn’t need him and he didn’t need her.

She glanced down at his tray. “No soup, then?”

“Bisque,” he corrected, a smile playing on his lips.

“It’s just soup. No big deal,” she replied, gathering the tray, her movements stiff, her heart aching. “I shouldn’t have made it out to be something more.”

He thought he heard something in those words. Something other than talk of soup. He stared hard at her profile, but she didn’t look at him. “I’m glad you’re well, Sebastian. I—I didn’t think you ever would be, after…”

“We’re resilient creatures. I’m just lucky that that dovenatu didn’t finish me.” He had tried to understand what changed the hybrid’s mind, but could recall little more than the agony of those moments. And Ruby. His sweet savior.

He watched as she left the room, focusing on her slender back, the darkly shining hair that swayed as she walked.

He resisted calling her back. That was weakness. She didn’t need him. Didn’t want him. Otherwise, she would have said so. Ever since he had shown ill be alive without you.”

“Yeah.” His mouth twisted. “I think you would. As you’ve said from the start, you don’t need me.”

But I want you.

His deep voice continued, “You can take care of yourself.” Something lurked in his dark gaze… the faintest question. Hope?

She nodded, face hot. Did she want him? Yeah. Sure, she did. He was her first lover. A shudder racked her. And there would be no one else. “I can. I’ll be safe.”

“Good.” His lips formed a single hard line. “That’s all I ever wanted for you.”

She shifted one foot, as though to step forward and hug him. Catching herself, she stopped. Better not touch him. And a chaste farewell hug? As if they were mere acquaintances? No way. She couldn’t bear it.

“Goodbye, Ruby.”

“Bye, Sebastian.” He moved away then.

She watched, chest unbearably tight.

His back to her, he paused beneath the threshold.

She held her breath, not letting it go. Never dropping her barriers. Never letting herself feel. Herself or him.

Just go, Sebastian. Go before I make a fool of myself and beg you to stay.

With a curse, he whirled around and hauled her against him. A cry escaped her. Molded chest to chest, his mouth burned against her lips, devouring her in a kiss that was meant to last. Forever.

Then it was over. He was gone.

On shaking knees, she watched him stride to the waiting car in a long-legged stride. Without glancing back, he climbed into the back seat. She clutched the edge of the door so hard her nail splintered. Behind the tinted windows, he was a shadow. Impossible to see, to know if he even looked at her, staring after her like she stared after him.

Raspy breath fell from her lips as she closed the door, closed herself. Locked herself away where she couldn’t feel anything at all.

Adele emerged from the kitchen, her expression questioning. She glanced to the door, then gave a small shake of her head. “You actually let him go? I didn’t think you would, actually. Didn’t think you could.”

“He wasn’t mine to keep, Adele,” she snapped. “Besides, he wanted to go—”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he left!” Her voice vibrated with hot emotion. He left. Like they all did. Her father. Even her mother. It was just too hard to love her.

Adele was silent a momight="0em">

Ruby paused, the flat of her hand resting on the kitchen’s swinging door, exerting only the slightest pressure as the panic set in, rising high in her throat, suffocatingly thick as it dawned in her that Sebastian had left. Was gone. Forever.

She didn’t need him.

But she wanted him. Oh, God.

She may not need him, but she wanted him. Loved him. Loved him. Loved him.

She had been too scared to find out whether he could love her. Whether he would walk away like everyone else, preferring another life—any other life—to one with her.

Her eyes jammed tight in a fierce blink, the tears burning, spilling through, hot liquid on her cheeks. She opened them to a blurred world. A world that she had never seen so clearly before.

She wanted him.

Before she could stop to think, before she let stubbornness and fear stop her, she moved. Spinning around, she rushed to the door. Yanking it open, she staggered onto the porch with a hoarse cry. Leaves scuttled across the lonely yard. Legs suddenly weak, she clutched a porch post, staring ahead, seeing nothing. Seeing everything.

My God, what did I do?

Her fingers flexed weakly over the post as she looked out at the empty space. He was gone.

She let him go.

More hot tears slid down her cheeks. A sob scalded the back of her throat. Idiot. She didn’t have any way of knowing where he went. She couldn’t find him. Couldn’t tell him what she just figured out.

She loved him.

Wind whispered through the trees, rustling the tall tops, and she felt it move through her, a cold, lonely wind that chilled her from the inside out.

Unless she somehow found Sebastian.

She started to turn back inside, desperate thoughts churning through her on how to find him. To track him down. The back of her neck prickled. Rubbing a hand against her nape, she turned and faced the empty yard again, her gaze fixed on the drive… at whatever she sensed coming down the long stretch of dirt road.

She tensed, thinking of her last unexpected guest. No longer afraid to use her abilities, old or new, she cleared her head, and opened herself to it.

It struck her in a warm rush, sweeping up her chest, coiling tighter and tighter; an emotion she had felt only one other time—at a wedding she catered years ago.

Standing in the back, she had watched as the groom lifted the bride’s veil. Nerve or curiosity got the better of her and she spiuffel bag hung over one shoulder.

He stopped, his gaze finding her on the porch. They stared at each other, devouring with their eyes.

Her lungs seized, a single breathless word—a name—escaping her lips. “Sebastian!”

She was off the porch running. He met her halfway. Dropping his bag, he caught her up in his arms.

Between kisses, they spoke.

“You came back,” she gasped.

“I never should have left.” He seized her head with both hands, gazing into her eyes and forcing her still. “You were mine the moment you joined me in that dungeon. I don’t care if you need me or not. I need you. I’m staying. Forever.”

She tried to nod, but he held her too tight. “You’re right. I don’t need you,” she agreed. “But I want you. I love you. I do. I do…”

A smile split his face. “Thank God you said that. I love you, too.”

“I know,” she choked, feeling every bit of the love in his heart, sensing their future through him right then. Side by side. Long and happy and together. “I know.”

He shook his head, still smiling as he brought his lips back down to hers. “Of course you do.”