Nicole’s therapist was a huge fool if she thought vampires were more afraid of humans than humans were of them. Dr. Bhatia was so fired.
Riker’s gaze shifted down. To her throat.
Then his mouth shifted down. To her throat.
Boris’s face flashed in front of her eyes, and panic squeezed her heart in a cold fist. Like she had so many years ago, she tried to fight, but Riker held her easily, pinned to the wall with his weight. As his lips closed over her skin, she stopped breathing and waited for the rip of his teeth.
Instead, there was only a warm sweep of his tongue and, with it, the most bizarre and disturbing sense of pleasure.
Vampires could release a chemical through their saliva that created a euphoric feeling in their victims, but she doubted Riker would use it on her. And even if he did, given her background, how could she possibly feel even the slightest amount of pleasure? Self-loathing gurgled up inside her like a storm sewer after a torrential rain.
But her disgust didn’t stop the odd tingle of awareness that spread from where Riker’s tongue soothed her laceration to every part of her body that touched his. Everyone said that vampires were inherently sexual creatures, dangerously seductive even when they weren’t trying. Hell, a special market existed for vampire sex slaves, which Nicole had never understood.
Until now.
Now she got it. But she wished she didn’t.
On her wrists, Riker’s fingers were callused, his skin hot. Vampires ran three to five degrees warmer than humans, and she felt the difference in body temperature with every blistering stroke of his tongue and every point of skin-to-skin contact.
Why was he being so . . . well, she wouldn’t call it gentle, exactly, but he could be causing her a lot of pain.
Vampires are crafty. They’re predators that play with their food. They feed on blood, pain, and fear.
One of her father’s many lectures rang in her ears, and she started to tremble. Riker wasn’t hurting her at the moment, but he would. The way Boris had so easily hurt her after years of being kind to her.
A slow roll of anxiety threatened to smother her. She drew a deep, calming breath, desperate to keep her head clear.
Think. Hard to do when there was a vampire licking you.
Think. Her bottom lip stung. She was biting it again.
Think, dammit! She needed a weapon, a . . . duh. The ring. How could she have taken leave of her senses so easily? Other than the fact that a vampire was licking her. And then there was the distraction of her tingling breasts and an odd ache starting low in her pelvis.
Jesus, if Riker was ever captured by hunters, he’d be tagged for the sex market, for sure. Too bad he hadn’t been caught a long time ago, because if he had, maybe Terese would still be alive.
The thought was enough to hurtle Nicole back to her senses, and as she ran her thumb over the cool metal ring, she thought about how ironic it was that Riker was going to be taken down by his own mate’s jewelry.
Smiling, Nicole wedged her fingernail under the ruby lid’s latch.
This is for you, Terese.
SIXTY SECONDS AGO, rage and pain had twisted through Riker, so intertwined that he couldn’t separate them. The stupid human had put a blade to her own throat. Why did this keep happening to him? Why were females so damned eager to kill themselves?
Fuck it all, this one wasn’t going to die. Not until he was ready.
So he’d put his mouth over the scarred skin of her throat with the noble intention of sealing the wound. But the moment he tasted her, a jolt of sheer, burning bliss streaked all the way to his groin.
Full. Stop.
He hadn’t felt much in the way of a sexual stir from feeding in decades, let alone with a female he despised. A human female, at that.
He froze, his body tense as a trip wire, but his heart was pitching a fit against his rib cage. His fangs throbbed in time to the pulse in his swelling cock as both body parts made it clear how much they wanted to sink deep into warm, wet flesh.
“Stop,” Nicole whispered in his ear. “Please, stop.”
Her voice quivered, and shame formed a knot in his belly. He’d never worried about his victims before, but then, he usually brought down his prey quickly, taking pride in a swift, silent kill few of his kind could match. It was a special-forces skill left over from his military days and amplified by vampire speed, strength, and supertuned senses.
His prey rarely had time to know the sour taste of fright. When they did, it was because he’d wanted them to.
This was different. Nicole had been in a prolonged state of fear and would be until they got Neriya back. She might be the CEO of the most reprehensible company on the planet, and she might be complicit in crimes against his people, but he’d never been the type of male who reveled in a female’s fear.
Even if it was deserved.
He shoved himself away with deliberate, measured composure, as if backing off was entirely his idea. Nicole’s wide peridot eyes kicked him right in the gut, but he steeled himself, summoning his inner hardass.
He didn’t have to reach very far for it.
“There. You’re healed. No thanks necessary.” He licked his lips, savoring the last rich, silky drop of her blood. Unlike most of the humans he fed on, she tasted of health and a hint of fine wine. He wanted more. “Don’t try that again. You die when I say you die. Help us, and you’ll avoid that fate.”
“You’re going to be hanged and staked for this.” Her fingers fluttered up to her throat, scarred by some sort of heinous injury, to trace the thin crimson line that had been bleeding a moment ago.
“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine.” He breathed deep, measuring her fear level by scent. She was afraid but not as much as he’d expected. “What happened to your throat?”
The sour note of fear spiked. “Why do you want to know?”
The ring on her right hand glinted with little crimson sparkles as she covered her neck with her palm. Her scars forgotten, he snared her hand, bringing it—and the ruby ring decorating one of her fingers—so close he caught a metallic whiff of gold.
“Let me go.” Nicole struggled against his hold, but he squeezed her wrist as tight as his lungs felt. He could barely breathe, barely speak.
“Where did you get that ring?”
“It’s mine.”
His blood, already vibrating with the heat of unwanted arousal, began to boil with anger. “Where did you get it?”
A glint of pure, unadulterated hatred sparked in her eyes. “From. Your. Mate.” She hurled the words at him like weapons, and like an expert marksman, she hit every one of his vulnerable spots with sniper precision.
With a snarl, he wrapped his fingers around the throat he’d just healed. “Did you take it from her while she was alive, or did you loot it off her corpse?” Rage made his voice warble, which only made him angrier. “Did you even wait for her body to get cold before you stripped her of everything she loved?”
“How dare you!” Nicole spat. “How can you talk about love, when you’re the one who killed her?”
He blinked in disbelief. “How dare I? Your family killed her the day they put her in chains and forced her to wait on your despicable asses hand and foot.”
“And that,” she said, “is why I don’t believe for a second that you’re ever going to set me free. You plan to take your revenge on me, don’t you?”
Her voice was as flat as his was furious. It should have been a clue. He shouldn’t have been surprised when she flipped the hinged lid on the ring and jammed her hand in front of his nose.
When she blew a powdery substance into his face, he could only utter a single curse before he was gasping for breath and stumbling backward in an uncoordinated tangle of his own feet.
“That was for Terese, you murdering bastard.”
For his mate? Why? Through blurry eyes, he saw Nicole swipe the dagger off the ground and tuck it into her waistband.
“What . . .” He inhaled, coughed, doubled ov
er in agony. Someone had replaced the air with fire. Holy fuck, he was breathing napalm. “What . . . did you . . . do?”
“Boric acid.” Her reply was muffled. Or maybe the ringing in his ears was dampening outside sounds.
“Bitch.” He dropped to the ground like a sack of rocks, his lungs burning, his vision developing spots that swirled around her as she crouched next to him.
“I’m not done. See, boric acid is lethal to vampires. My company, the one you hate so much, figured it out. I figured it out after analyzing why your kind can’t use firearms. I’m sure you’re aware that gunshot residue and propellant destroy your lungs. It made me wonder what else would do that.” Damn, but she sounded like she was enjoying this. “We’re starting to put acid-delivery devices out on the market so that soon, humans everywhere will have their own handy-dandy vampire pepper sprays.” She leaned in, so close and personal he felt her warm breath whispering across the shell of his ear. “In forty-eight hours, you’ll be dead, and it’s no less than you deserve.”
He’d laugh if his lungs weren’t burning as hot as the surface of the sun. Forty-eight hours? That was nothing. He’d been dead for twenty years already.
RIKER’S CLAN’S HOME was like a maze. Or, more accurately, like a warren. A series of dimly lit tunnels and caverns skirted what appeared to be a massive complex of dwellings, all carved out of dirt, stone, and a framework of tree roots. The closer Nicole got to what she guessed was the center, the more finished, clean, and bright the tunnels became.
How had they built this? How did they have electricity? They’d even decorated. When she’d first escaped the cell, the paths leading from it had been bare, simple dirt and rough-carved stone. But as she scurried through the passages, the stone became smoother, the walls dotted with carved wooden or leather art or paintings in a variety of styles, mostly Native American. The pounded dirt floor became inlaid with cobblestones, and once, Nicole peeked over a carved wooden railing into what appeared to be an elegant, if basic, common room with colored floor tiles that formed a giant dream catcher.
The sophistication of the place stunned her. By most accounts, vampires were supposed to be instinctive, base creatures that, if not cared for and trained by humans, lived like animals. Nicole had never been convinced that vampires were so primitive, but her arguments with her college instructors, colleagues, and peers had been met with either scoffing and derision or accusations of being a “filthy sympathizer.”
She couldn’t wait to rub this in their faces. Assuming she got out of here alive, anyway. She just hoped Riker remained in the boric-acid stupor for at least half an hour. The chances of her getting caught were already astronomically high, but if he came out of it before she escaped, she might as well schedule her funeral.
She kept to the shadows and crevices as best she could, instinctively moving along uphill paths and staying far away from the few vamps she saw and definitely avoiding eye contact. Even if a vampire didn’t sense the fact that she was human, she had a feeling everyone knew everyone else in this community, and a stranger would stick out like a neon sign.
Heart pounding so hard she was sure every vampire in the place could hear it, she followed a cool draft of fresh air around a corner and bumped so hard into someone that she oofed and careened into the earthen wall. The person she’d collided with, a small female wearing cutoff Daisy Duke denim shorts and an orange wool sweater, slammed against a log support beam. The crack of the girl’s skull on the hard wood reverberated through the tunnel.
Nicole watched in horror as the other female crumpled to the ground, blood streaming from her temple.
“Shit,” Nicole breathed. She hurried over to the girl and crouched next to her. “Are you okay?” She dug into her pants pocket for a tissue. “Just hold still, and let me put some pressure on that wound.”
For a long heartbeat, the girl, who must have been no more than sixteen, didn’t move or even open her eyes. And in that brief moment, as Nicole pressed the tissue against the wound, she realized she was trying to help a vampire. While trying to escape from these same vampires.
Stupid.
The girl’s eyes popped open. Confusion lurked in the silver-gray depths. Then, in a wild flailing of limbs, she scrambled to her feet and stared at Nicole like a cat eyeing a mouse.
Oh, God. Nicole was dead.
Very slowly, with her feet rooted to the ground as if she were part of the warren’s structure, Nicole stood. Her fingers trembled as she casually reached behind her for the dagger she’d taken from Riker.
“Human?” The female got right up in Nicole’s face, apparently oblivious to the fact that she had a tissue stuck to her temple. “You have candy?”
Nicole’s hand froze on the dagger’s hilt. “I—what?”
The vampire’s broad smile revealed a perfect, gleaming set of fangs. “I like chocolate. And hard candies. Riker brings me candy sometimes. You know Riker? He likes chocolate, too.” In an abrupt shift of mood, she reached up to wrap her orange-streaked brown ponytail around her fist, a pout turning down the corners of her mouth. “Hunter says candy is no good for my teeth. It’s always blood, blood, blood. All the time, blood.” She stomped her bare foot like a petulant child. “I hate blood.”
Well, that could only be good news.
“So,” the vampire said brightly. “You have candy for Lucy?”
It was pretty clear the vampire wasn’t playing with a full deck, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t as dangerous as a vampire who held all the cards. Best to be nice and see what Nicole could learn.
“Lucy? Is that your name?”
Lucy nodded. “Who are you? Humans aren’t allowed here. Not never.” She appeared to think about what she’d just said. “Well, only for food.” She wrinkled her nose. “Blood. Yuck. Do you have candy?”
Right. Okay, she could work this. “I’m sorry, Lucy, no candy. But I can get some if you tell me how to get out of here.”
Lucy’s eyes narrowed. “Are you tricking me? Humans aren’t allowed to leave.”
Raised voices echoed from somewhere in the maze of tunnels, and Nicole’s pulse went into overdrive. “I can’t get you candy if I don’t get out.”
“Humans aren’t allowed to leave,” she repeated with such conviction that Nicole’s heart sank. “Hunter would kill them. But you helped me. I can help you get candy.” Lucy clapped her hands, and guilt pricked Nicole’s conscience at Lucy’s pure, ecstatic joy. “I can show you a way out.”
“Lucy, I don’t want anyone to see me leave. Is that possible?”
“Uh-huh.” She cocked her head to study Nicole for a moment. “I don’t want Hunter to kill you. So you can see my secret entrance.”
Smiling, Nicole gently plucked the tissue from Lucy’s temple. “I’d like that. I don’t want Hunter to kill me, either.”
Lucy immediately ducked into a darkened, dusty hallway and led Nicole through a series of tunnels that grew progressively smaller and less used, until Nicole felt like Alice down the rabbit hole. Damned good thing she wasn’t claustrophobic, because they were eventually crawling in pitch blackness. Rocks bruised her knees, and her hair kept catching on dangling roots, but they finally broke out of the tunnel and into a thick copse of prickly bushes.
Nicole stood, grateful for the fresh—but cold—air and weak afternoon sunlight that permeated the green canopy overhead. She’d been inside the vampire compound all night and for most of the day. Damn, she was going to need food and meds soon.
Lucy stood up next to her. “You bring me candy now?”
“I’ll do my best.” A gust of wind rattled the tree branches and pierced the thin fabric of Nicole’s torn turtleneck. Shivering, she surveyed the landscape. “Lucy, do you know which way I need to go to get to the nearest city?”
Lucy pointed at a pile of rocks in the distance. “Follow the river.”
“I appreciate this.” Nicole touched the vampire’s arm lightly, part gesture of thanks, part apology for lying about the candy.
>
Lucy leaped at her so fast that by the time Nicole could open her mouth to scream, Lucy was engulfing her in a rib-crushing hug. “I like helping. I don’t get to help much ’cause I always mess up.” She pulled away, her lean frame going rigid, alertness screaming from every pore, reminding Nicole that Lucy might have the mind of a child, but she was still a vampire capable of things humans could only dream of. “You better go. I think you better go quick.”
Oh, shit. “Why?”
“Because I hear trouble.” Lucy’s expression became pinched with worry. “Shouts. Calls to capture the human. They’re hunting for you, Candy Lady. Run.” Lucy pushed Nicole in the direction she’d indicated. “Run as fast as you can. I hate blood.”
RIKER BURST OUT of the clan’s main entrance, Hunter and Myne on his heels.
“She’s mine,” he snarled. “When we get her, she’s fucking mine.”
He inhaled a breath that burned but was nothing like what he’d felt in the prey room. But how long would that last? Did he have forty-eight hours of excruciating pain to look forward to? And how the ever-living fuck had Nicole gotten Terese’s ring?
Myne sniffed the air, doing his bloodhound thing. “I’m not catching her scent.” Frustration laced his tone. Myne hated failing at anything he considered Born Vampire 101. “Which way do you want me to go?”
“South,” Riker said. “If she’s looking for an easy path, that’s where she’ll go.” Total bullshit. The thinning forest to the south would make sense for a runner, but the city was to the west, and if Nicole had any sense of direction, she’d head that way. Which meant no one but Riker was taking that route. “I’ll roll west.”
Hunter spoke up. “You’re sure you’re okay? No one gets the drop on you like that.”
“I appreciate the humiliating reminder, Chief,” Riker drawled. “But yeah, I’m fine.”
If Hunter knew Nicole had dosed Riker with a lethal agent, he’d drag Riker to Grant, their mad-scientist-slash-closest-thing-they-had-to-a-doctor and chain Riker down if he had to. All Hunter and Myne knew was that she’d knocked him out somehow, and that’s how it was going to stay.