Fury Calls
Caridad Piñeiro

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Epilogue

Copyright

Caridad Piñeiro is a bestselling author of twenty novels. In 2007, she was selected as the 2007 Golden Apple Author of the Year by the New York City Romance Writers. Caridad’s novels have won many awards, including Best Short Contemporary Romance of 2001 in the New Jersey Romance Writers Golden Leaf Contest and Top Fantasy Book of 2005 and 2006 from Catalina magazine. Caridad’s books have also received award nominations for RIO Reviewers and SingleTitles. com for Top Contemporary Romance. A tech- and promo-savvy author, Caridad has appeared on various television shows, such as the FOX News early edition in New York. In addition, articles featuring her novels have been published in several leading newspapers and magazines, such as the New York Daily News, Latina and the Star-Ledger. For more information on Caridad, please visit www.caridad.com or www. thecallingvampirenovels.com.

To my wonderful editor, Stacy Boyd, who has always believed in and supported this series of my heart. I am eternally grateful for all that you do for me.

Prologue

Her deadly kiss was near, but he welcomed it.

He buried his fangs deep in her breast and she held him, the way a mother might cradle a child, while he fed on milk-spiced blood. But then she gently eased his head back, enough to expose the rising pulse beating at his neck. Bending her head, she sank her fangs through the fragile barrier of his skin.

Blood rushed, hot and sweet, awakening the kind of passion that only vampires could share. The little love drug he had added to their drinks earlier that night ramped up the passion surging through their bodies. As his partner murmured a growly complaint that she was still hungry, he said, “It’s the juice. It’ll pass once you sip a little more.”

And once he had a little more, he thought, as he tried to sate his need from her sweet breast. When they finally ripped away from each other their bodies were supercharged—sexually and violently. Their fangs, stained crimson from their feast, retracted as they surged together for a kiss, bodies naked and heated from the torrent of immortal blood rushing through their veins and the potent chemical mix of the drug.

Over and over they kissed, licking the last remnants of blood from their lips, but soon that wasn’t enough.

He pulled away from her, unseeing of anything other than the perfection of her body as he trailed his hands across her warm skin, flush with the life bestowed by his blood. He kissed the tip of her breast where he had been feeding just moments earlier.

There wasn’t even a hint of his bite there, since she had already healed.

He suckled the tip and she moaned, reached down and unerringly found the head of his erection and stroked it, pulling a needy groan from him.

Their passion was too great for prolonged foreplay, he knew. Besides, his blood seemed to be sizzling in his veins from the demand to devour every part of her in every possible way.

He dragged her beneath him and onto the plush cushions of the settee in their private dining room, and without further delay he drove into her, seeking satisfaction.

His thrusts grew stronger, more violent, yanking a strangled gasp from her as the craving to feed rose again, potent and more demanding than anything he had ever experienced. For a fleeting moment, he wondered how long it would take for the kick of the love drug they had ingested earlier to subside.

He shook his head, nearly light-headed from the strength of his lust. He felt that if he didn’t taste her life’s blood again, he would die from the want of it.

As his gaze met hers, he realized she was feeling the same overwhelming pull of hunger.

Surging toward each other, they bared their fangs once again and attacked, fury replacing any other wants, driving them to the darkest corners known to their immortal kind.

Chapter 1

Meghan Thomas was just adding some cream to her porcini mushroom sauce when she sensed it.

Meghan didn’t really know what “it” was, but her vampire powers told her that something was very wrong. The other vamps in the kitchen sensed it as well. From the bus boys to the other chef a few stations down, they were all aware of something odd. It had to be something powerfully wrong for vampires of all ages, even someone as new to the undead world as she was, to feel “it.”

She took the pan off the flame and put it to the side just as Diego Rivera, part owner of the restaurant and her mentor of sorts, pushed through the door into the kitchen. Diego looked around and then he faced her.

“Is everything okay in here, Meghan?”

Wiping her hands on the towel tucked into her apron, she walked up to him and said, “Yes, but you feel something as well, don’t you?”

At his abrupt nod, she laid a hand on the sleeve of his expensive silk suit jacket and asked, “What was it?”

She had hoped that with his greater vampire age and therefore stronger powers, he would have identified the sensation they had experienced, but the look on his face told her otherwise.

“I’ll find out,” Diego said, worry stamped on his fine features. A deep furrow was etched between his brows as he pivoted on one heel and walked out of the kitchen, Meghan right behind him.

When he realized she was following, he stopped. “There’s no need for you to come with me.”

She searched his features and realized he was just trying to protect her as he had for almost four years now. Although she had appreciated that assistance before she had resigned herself to her new immortal life, it was time for her to be a help rather than a hindrance. “I can watch your back if need be. I’m not a newbie anymore.”

For a moment Diego appeared ready to protest, but then he turned and strode through the restaurant’s main floor. As she followed, she took a quick look around.

Most of the diners were intent on their meals, but several heads turned her way. She recognized some familiar vampire faces. They too had sensed the disturbance. But they’d remained in their seats, not wanting to reveal their undead status to the human partners at their tables. At least, not yet, Meghan thought.

They entered the hallway that led to the private dining rooms, but she detected nothing unusual as they walked past the pair of doors. At the end of the hall, Diego vaulted up the stairs to the next floor.

The feeling grew stronger here, but Diego didn’t pause, as if he already knew the answer to their question rested on the uppermost floor of the building, where the last two private dining rooms were located. As young as she was in vampire years, even Meghan felt the pull of that weird something dragging them ever upward.

When they stepped from the stairs into the hallway on the top floor, the smell of blood assaulted them.

Meghan felt a burst of heat in the center of her body. Before she could control the reaction, the heat traveled through her like fast-moving lava, summoning the vampire she hated and had struggled for so long to learn to control. Her fangs burst from her gums, her vamp senses went into overdrive. They registered every little nuance that a human couldn’t, things she couldn’t have detected before being turned years earlier. Fury rose inside of her, much as it did every time she was reminded of what she no longer was. Her anger was fueled by the violence of the vampire that now controlled her, thanks to the strong smell of blood.

Diego shot a concerned look at her, his brows still furrowed over crystal blue eyes that were bleeding out to the strange neon-green of the undead. But nothing else gave away what he was. He was mastering his transformation, and as he noted that she hadn’t—and maybe even picked up on her anger—he said, “Niña, you need to collect yourself. There are others around.”

Others meaning humans, she realized. Others not like her anymore.

The doors to the private dining rooms were closed, and she was certain that if there had been any vampires there—any live vampires—they would be out in the hallway investigating the source of the disturbance and the overwhelming aroma of blood.

With a deep breath, she gathered herself and forced back her fury and bloodlust, summoning the human to return. But even after resuming control, the scent of death and the frisson of fear still lingered.

Diego strode to the door of one private dining room, seemingly sure that this was where they would find an answer.

Meghan knew he was right since the sanguine smell was redolent here as was the unusual feeling, almost like an out-of-rhythm vibration buffeting her vampire senses. Once again the heat pooled in her center, but this time she quickly battled the demon back and took a spot beside Diego, waiting for whatever would happen next, prepared to help her mentor if it became necessary.

He rapped his knuckles against the thick wood of the ornately carved door, but no response came from within.

He knocked again, stronger this time. Silence greeted them yet again.

Diego grasped the doorknob, turned it and slowly opened the door.

As he did so, she peered within and then wished she hadn’t.

It was hard to tell where one vampire began and the other ended. Their bloody, naked bodies were wrapped around each other in a tangle of pale limbs. Vamp bites were visible at dozens of places along their torsos, a testament to how often they had fed from each other and how weak they were.

The bites weren’t healing, but they were still alive.

She sensed the power of the vampires’ life energy, but it was fading quickly. The entwined couple writhing on the floor were still feeding from each other, their fangs buried deep in each other’s necks. A sickly, slurpy sound escaped one of them and she wanted to cover her ears to avoid the noise.

Instead, she slipped beneath Diego’s arm, intent on doing something to help the two struggling vampires, but he snared her arm and held her back.

“We cannot do anything now. They are too far gone.”

She didn’t doubt it. Blood oozed from the many bites and as she looked around, she noted the large smears of blood along the floor and couch. Against one wall and part of a window, a spray marked the spot where one of the vamps had likely torn open an artery.

Before them, the movements of the vampire couple quickly stilled and as they did, the preternatural sensation that had called Meghan and Diego to that room slowly fled. When the bodies gave one final twitch, calm returned.

But when Meghan peered up at Diego’s face, she sensed the present calm would be short-lived.

As she glanced once again at the blood and death before her, it reminded her of the world into which she had been thrust so many years earlier.

A world of destruction and loneliness.

A world she hated almost as much as she hated the demon she had become.

Blake Richards shuffled the empty glass from one hand to the other across the pitted surface of the bar.

The remnants of cheap beef’s blood clung to the sides of the glass, painting it with thick fingers of red-violet. A vintage libation fresh from one of the Blood Bank’s regular human contributors would have left far less proof of the nature of the grisly beverage.

But then again, no self-respecting vampire would leave behind a drop of something so fine as fresh human blood.

Something so fine which was relatively lacking tonight, Blake thought, as he glanced around the bar. In recent weeks there had been a decided decline in the number of vampires frequenting the bar, and that had resulted in a slowly decreasing stream of humans seeking the more dangerous fun and games for which the Blood Bank was known in Manhattan’s undead underworld.

Rumor had it that a goodly number of his fellow vamps had taken their business to Otro Mundo, the new hangout that Ryder Latimer and Diego Rivera had opened adjacent to Diego’s art gallery in SoHo.

Otro Mundo provided fine dining and the possibility for other adventures in the kinds of decadent surroundings that the two older vampires had experienced over the course of their long lives.

Apparently the two human wannabes had struck a chord with a growing contingent of the undead, providing them and their human consorts with such opulence that the Blood Bank no longer held any interest. Not that he would know much about such opulence, he thought, recalling the hungry days of his youth in Wales.

After his father had been killed in a coal-mining accident, his family had been forced to live off whatever they could grow on their small plot of land. Not nearly enough for the brood of six. At times food had been so scarce that he would make a thin soup from whatever greens he could gather in the woods so that he could leave what little food they had for his mother and younger siblings.

Until he had found a way to earn some money. He considered now that starving might have been better.

Shoving those painful recollections away, Blake scoped out the occupants of the bar, needing to satisfy the hunger that the inexpensive beef’s blood had failed to quench.

As his gaze swept over the dance floor, he noticed the attractive blonde moving to the hard beats of the music spewing from the Blood Bank’s stereo system. Foley, the owner of the Blood Bank, was too cheap to hire live musicians.

When she turned in his direction as she danced, her gaze briefly skimmed across his.

He thought he detected a glimmer of interest there and so he rose, added a bit of swagger to his walk as he approached the dance floor. He weaved through the crowd of dancers until he was just an arm’s length from the blonde.

No doubt remained about her interest, since she shot a knowing grin his way. He joined her in the dance, her luscious young body plastered to his, her sweet, firm buttocks caressing his front. Even as he did so, he knew the attractive chit could only fulfill one need—his thirst for blood.

Satisfaction of an emotional kind had eluded him for too long, and as for the physical…

His recent interlude with a vampire elder had taught him a thing or two about physical satisfaction. Despite how good it had been with the beautiful and powerful Stacia, it had occurred to him too quickly in the relationship that there was something lacking.

Something he hadn’t experienced since…

He drove thoughts of her away as the young woman eased up onto her toes, slipped an arm around his neck and drew his head near. She whispered into his ear, “Would you like to go somewhere more private?”

She inclined her head in the direction of the Blood Bank’s back rooms and he knew just what she wanted—a quick tryst and maybe even some painful play with the toys Foley kept in the rooms for his more daring clientele.

He smiled, slipped his hand into hers and quickly strode toward the private rooms, intending to fulfill the young woman’s needs and his own.

But even as he did so, memories sprang up of the last young blonde he had taken into that area. Of the joy and pain that tryst had brought.

He cursed beneath his breath as all desire fled.

Chapter 2

He had been reduced to a stalker guy, Blake thought as he hid in the shadows of the alley behind Otro Mundo, waiting for her to emerge.

He had been visiting that spot for nearly two months now, ever since the human wannabes had opened their posh restaurant.

He refused to admit that inside of him lurked a little of the wannabe, especially as he rubbed his full belly. The blonde earlier that evening had been a splendid dining experience, but he still needed more.

Far more than what he would find in the fancy-ass restaurant Diego and Ryder had opened. A part of him resented them—his two kind-of-friends. “Kind-of-friends” because he was only included in their circle when they needed something.

Nothing new. He had been an outsider most of his life. He should have been used to being on the fringe, and yet it gnawed at his gut, as did their philosophy of striving to maintain their humanity rather than giving in to their demons.

As he stood behind the restaurant, he reminded himself that he was a vampire and damned proud of it. He had no need of humanity with all the attendant emotions, especially love.

Love only complicated the whole undead-demon gig.

He told himself that over and over again, until she emerged from the back door of the restaurant and sat on the first step of the landing leading down into the alley.

Meghan’s blond hair glistened beneath the light of a bright new moon. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if to ward off the chill of the early spring night. Not that vamps like them really felt the cold. The gesture was probably a lingering human habit.

Meghan had been a vamp for only about four years now. Actually three years, eleven months and ten days, but who was counting? Blake realized that besides Meghan, he would be the one to know.

He had turned her, after all.

Because of that, the connection between them told him that she was deeply troubled. Her hands had been shaking as she had wrapped them around the flesh of her upper arms, and from within her, disquiet radiated out to him, beating against his vampire senses, strumming the bond between a sire and the one he had turned.

Meghan picked up her head and stared his way, finally registering his presence. The unease that had bathed her soul moments earlier vanished and was replaced by her typical anger toward him. He had wondered more than once if she could ever forgive him for siring her, but her continued rage made him doubt that anything other than discord was possible between them.

Straightening from where he was leaning against the brick wall, he jerked on his black leather jacket and told himself to stop pining after the young chit.

The forever-young chit, thanks to him.

Guilt tore into him before he firmly shoved it aside.

For one and half centuries he had survived alone, and there was no reason he couldn’t do the same for the next one and half centuries.

As he stepped away from the shadows, the chains on his jacket scraped across the rough brick, the noise loud in the otherwise quiet night.

Meghan rose from the stoop as he made himself visible, her body tense and seemingly poised for flight. But he wasn’t about to let her run away.

Blake stood at the mouth of the service alley for the restaurant, resplendent in all his punk glory. His black leather jacket strained against the broad width of his shoulders. Beneath the jacket, a black shirt encased the lean muscles of his upper body while wickedly tight jeans hugged the perfection of his long muscled legs.

He wasn’t tall, but he had amazing legs. Come to think of it, most of him was fairly magnificent, which was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place.

She had fallen for the sexy, dimpled grin and the crystalline blue gaze. Not to mention all that perfectly defined muscle.

Plus, he had made her laugh with his insolent charm and self-confidence. That had been her ultimate downfall—that he could make her laugh. If she had learned one thing from her parents, it was that laughter lasted long after the passion of youth had fled.

But not even Blake could make her laugh tonight, Meghan thought, as she looked up to the window of the private dining room that held the grisly remains of the two dead vampires.

Smeared blood marred what had once been the pristine glass of the window. In her mind flashed the sight of their bodies writhing together and the sound of the sick sucking noises they had made before death forever stilled them.

Blake tracked her gaze and as he noted the sight, worry slipped into his normally cocky features. He took a step toward her but then stopped, clearly unsure of his reception, as well he should be.

She’d had more than a taste of Blake and was sure she didn’t want yet another.

For all his charm, he wasn’t trustworthy.

She had learned that the hard way and had no intention of dealing with him yet again. She rose from the step and walked toward him, her pace brisk.

Blake watched as Meghan approached, anger evident in every short and determined stride.

He could tell that much. She was not only upset by whatever had happened up in that room with the blood-smeared window, she was mad. He didn’t need to ask if she was pissed off at him.

She was always pissed off at him.

“What are you doing here?” She stopped sharply before him and jammed her hands onto her hips. The motion strained the fabric of the white chef’s jacket covering her ample breasts.

“Out for a stroll. And you, love?” He jerked his head in the direction of the bloodied window. “Having a bit of fun?”

She slapped him hard, rocking his head back with the strength of the blow, surprising him with the force of her vehemence.

“Don’t you respect anything?”

He rubbed his jaw and snorted. “’Course I do, love. Motherhood, apple pie and Chevrolet.”

Meghan whipped her hand forward to strike him again, but he snagged it midslap.

“Don’t,” he said, then immediately added in a softer tone, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to start off on the wrong foot.”

“Wrong is all we ever do, Blake. Don’t you get that by now?” She jerked her wrist out of his grasp and rubbed it, as if to wipe away something dirty.

Irritation flared up in him, but he tamped it down. There had already been too much violence and hostility between them, although there had been other things as well. Good things.

“We managed to do some things right.”

She sighed roughly and smoothed back a strand of hair that had escaped her French braid. “Why are you here, Blake? Why tonight?”

He didn’t want to admit that the cute blond chit earlier that night had satisfied one hunger but whetted another. With a negligent shrug, he said, “Heard a rumor that Diego and Ryder were still hiring.”

“As if you know what it is to earn an honest day’s wage.”

He arched a brow and disdainfully raked his gaze over the chef’s attire she wore. “Want to make a little wager, love?”

She snorted and crossed her arms again. Leaning forward slightly in challenge, she said, “A wager? With you?”

“’Fraid you’re wrong about me? ’Fraid I might prove I’m not the kind of man you think I am?” He stepped close to her, raised his hand and was about to cup her cheek when she took a step back out of his reach.

It might have hurt less if she had hit him again.

“Chicken,” he taunted, and sauntered away.

Chapter 3

The Blood Bank, New York CityThree years, eleven months and ten days earlier

Meghan and her friends had heard about the Goth bar rumored to have the kinds of men and pleasures in which good little Midwestern farm girls didn’t get involved.

All the more reason for her to check out the place, she’d thought, when one of her more world-weary college classmates had dared her to go to the hangout. After having spent the last four years in New York City as a good girl, she knew this was her last opportunity for a walk on the wild side before she headed home.

Her Midwestern parents expected her to do as they had done—a nine-to-five job, marriage by twenty-five, followed by kids and a nice home in the suburbs. The only problem with that American dream was that it wasn’t her own.

Meghan loved the whole Manhattan vibe and could easily imagine herself staying here, continuing to explore the kinds of things only Manhattan could offer.

Like this supposedly dangerous Goth bar.

It had taken the better part of the day to prepare for the senior dare.

She and her NYU friends had spent the morning searching a variety of vintage stores near Washington Square, rounding up accessories for their Goth getups. Two of her friends had even bought temporary black hair dye to make the look complete.

Meghan, however, had opted to keep her blond locks, thinking that her black clothes would be more than enough.

As she walked through the door of the Blood Bank, she reassessed that thought.

Black was definitely the one and only theme.

Everything and everyone in the bar was swathed in darkness.

The floors and walls were black, as were the surfaces of all the tables and booths scattered throughout the club. The dark color swallowed up the overhead spotlights that panned the sea of bodies on the dance floor and at the tables.

As the light swept the far end of the bar, however, she caught sight of one glaring platinum-blond head. The daring of that one brave individual brought a grin to her face before she forced it away and tried to adopt a serious glare in response to the threatening looks being sent her way by the patrons.

She slipped into a gap at the bar area, close to the spot where she had noticed the man with nearly white hair. After she and her friends had squeezed their way to the edge of the bar, they all ordered shots of Cuervo.

The punky, peroxide-headed Goth down at the end of the long wooden bar wasn’t drinking. Instead he shuffled an empty glass from one hand to the other. He had big hands with long, nicely shaped fingers. His hands were sure as he repeated the shuffle of the glass back and forth, obviously bored by all the goings-on around him.

When he finally picked up his head, their gazes connected.

He had amazing ice-blue eyes, and when he smiled, a sexy grin dragged a dimple out on the right side of his handsome face.

She smiled back, picked up her glass of tequila and downed it in one gulp, wincing at the strength of the straight liquor.

Mr. Platinum Punk clearly seemed amused by her as he chuckled and shook his head. The longer strands of hair at the top of his head shifted with the motion. He picked up his empty glass and motioned to it with an index finger. She noticed as he did so that he wore a steel ring with some kind of ornate design on his thumb and some thin black bracelets on his wrist.

He definitely had the whole Bad Boy thing down pat.

She didn’t need any further prompting, determined to live out the dare that had been made earlier in the day. The dare that said she not only had to visit the hangout but hook up with at least one bar denizen before leaving for the night. While she wasn’t into one-night stands, a makeout session with someone as sexy as the man at the end of the bar wouldn’t be so bad.

She shoved two fingers into the air and waved them to get the barkeep’s attention. When he brought the shots over, she reached into her jeans, pulled out a twenty and tossed it on the counter. Ignoring her friends’ excited squeals as they realized her intent, she sashayed the few feet to the handsome punk, smiling as his gaze drifted down her body to where her hips were encased in snug black jeans, then shifted back upward across her breasts and finally settled on her face.

Slipping onto the cracked plastic pad of the empty bar stool beside his, she slammed the shot onto the bar.

“This is what you wanted, right?” she said.

Blake’s gaze slipped from her attractive face to linger on her body, admiring all the lush curves. Her full breasts strained over the edge of the cotton tank top she wore beneath a leather jacket that was a bit too big, almost as if she had borrowed it for the night.

She shifted the glass closer to him and a hint of black lace peeked out from the neckline of the tank top as she said, “Well? Cat got your tongue?”

“No would be the answer to both of those questions, love.” He pitched the tone of his voice low, striving for that sexy rasp women seemed to find so enticing.

“Brit?” she asked before downing the contents of her shot glass. As she had done before, she winced after the drink went down.

“New to this, love?” he teased.

He picked up his own glass and tossed back the drink, the strong liquor dragging a grimace from him, too. His preferred beverage—blood—generally went down smoother and had a far different kick.

She chuckled at his reaction and shook her head. “Seems you’re new to this as well.”

The liquor warmed his belly, but not as much as the thought of taking a nip out of her luscious flesh. Scooting to the edge of his bar stool, he leaned toward her, brushed aside her shoulder-length hair and whispered in her ear, “Cat definitely doesn’t have my tongue.”

To prove it, he licked the shell of her ear, and she couldn’t control the shiver that traveled over her body before she moved away from him.

“Fast, aren’t you?” she said, but her words lacked sting. An amused expression slipped across her cute Girl-Next-Door features before she resumed the scowl she had worn when he had first noticed her.

“That makes two of us, doesn’t it?”

She arched a perfectly waxed brow. “So you think you and I are alike somehow?”

He eyeballed her from head to toe again before signaling the bartender for another round. The man sneered and ignored his request until Blake reached into his jacket pocket and tossed a hard-earned twenty onto the bar. After that, the bartender deposited the shots with little finesse and snagged the payment quickly.

Blake raised his glass and slugged down the drink, as did his companion. After mutual grimaces, he motioned to her with the empty tumbler. “I think that getup you’re wearing is borrowed and the shots are for courage, love. I think you might even be a cheerleader in another life. Am I wrong?”

Meghan crinkled her nose in response.

“A cheerleader?” she said, but damn, did she resent that he had nailed it on the head. Deciding a little payback was in order, she pointed at his getup with a perfectly manicured finger sporting blush pink polish. “That look is so carbon-dated. Besides, a cheerleader beats a bad Billy Idol clone any day.”

To her surprise, he threw back his head and laughed. When he faced her again, that damned sexy grin and dimple were back, flushing her body with a warmth that had nothing to do with the liquor.

“Care to test that theory, love?”

“Test?”

He leaned close once again. The sharp scent of tequila wafted around him as he nuzzled her cheek with his nose and said, “You asked what I wanted before.”

“The tequila, right?”

“Wrong.”

He closed his mouth over hers, his lips surprisingly tender as he moved them against hers, inviting her to understand just what he wanted.

Possibly what she wanted as well, she thought, as she opened her mouth and accepted the sweet slide of his tongue. She shivered as he slipped his hand to the nape of her neck and cradled her close.

“Get a room, Blake.”

She jumped away from him at the abrupt command coming from beside them. A lean rail of a man, with skin so translucent and pale that he almost seemed like a ghost, slipped his hand between them and slapped it on the bar.

The specter jerked his head in the direction of the barkeep, and the shoulder-length strands of his nearly white hair barely shifted, hanging lankly around a thin, long face. “If he hasn’t got the cash, get him out of here so a paying customer can sit.”

“He’s flush tonight, boss. So’s his girl,” the bartender responded.

“Is there a problem?” Meghan snared the sleeve of the boss man’s suit and daintily pulled his arm out of the way.

The man’s cold gray eyes searched her face before he turned that condemning gaze on her companion.

“Take your little adventures to one of the back rooms, Blake.”

Blake. The name suited him somehow. Short and to the point, but a little pretentious, much like his punk getup.

Annoyed by the man’s attitude, and recalling that earlier sweet kiss that he had interrupted, she laid her hand on Blake’s thigh and said, “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

Her touch on his thigh, a combination of natural innocence and practiced seduction, burned through the denim.

“Are you sure, love?” he asked, not quite believing his luck.

“Chicken?” She eased from the bar stool and held out her hand.

He slipped his hand into hers. Her warm, silky skin awakened imaginings of how the rest of her would feel pressed against him. He suspected that tonight he would finally satisfy both the demon and the human.

Eagerly he followed her to where Foley’s vampire guard blocked the hall leading to the back rooms.

The vamp barely glanced at him while he rubbed together his thumb and index finger. Blake didn’t hesitate to reach into his pocket for his last twenty. He handed it to the man, who shot him an annoyed look and grunted, “Last one on the left.”

The smallest of the rooms, Blake knew, but it would hopefully do for whatever was going to happen with Little Miss Cheerleader.

She led the way, the sharp staccato of her high-heeled boots setting a rhythm as they walked to the farthest room on the left and paused before the door. He detected her hesitation then, in the slight hitch her breath gave and the waver of her hand in his.

“Nervous?” He cradled her cheek, his touch meant to soothe, but as his gaze met hers, he sensed her sudden reluctance.

Her eyes were an amazing emerald green and as her gaze swept over his face, she said, “I have a confession to make.”

“Kind of cliché at this moment, don’t you think?”

A hint of bravado flared to life in her eyes, bringing a plucky twinkle there. “Actually, the confession is that I’m kind of glad I accepted my friend’s dare.”

“A dare? Is that what I am, love?”

She shocked him by rising a bit on her tiptoes and kissing him. Her lips were warm and alive as she swept them across his mouth, then she cradled his cheek with her hand. When she finally broke away, she trailed her thumb across the slick wetness her lips had left behind on his, bringing to life an intense desire with that seductive touch.

It had been way too long since a woman had been able to reach that part of him.

“What do you think?” she said and with a wink, she opened the door, but stopped short at the sight of an assortment of whips, chains and cuffs tacked to the far wall.

He slipped in behind her and laid his hands at her waist. Bending, he whispered in her ear, “I don’t think we’ll have need of those.”

“At least not tonight,” she said, striving for a bravado that she wasn’t feeling. This definitely was not the kind of thing she had expected to encounter.

Nervously Meghan placed her hands over his as they rested at her waist. His hands were chilled. With the same reticence she was suddenly experiencing? she wondered.

“Having second thoughts?” she asked, as she faced him.

Wordlessly he moved his hands to cradle her back. His movements were sure and yet surprisingly tender as he swept them up to her shoulders. With a deft touch, he slipped her jacket off and let it fall to the ground.

“That’s better,” he said.

He ran his hands across the skin of her bare arms and the exposed expanse of her shoulders. Stroking her softly, the palms of his hands felt slightly rough against her skin. They felt like hands of someone who did physical work for a living.

“You’re so warm. Smooth,” he said.

His gentle touch roused her and drove away her earlier hesitation. From the rough look of him, she had expected that he wouldn’t be much for preliminaries, but she had been wrong. He caressed her skin before bending to kiss her.

The kiss started with a soft whisper of his lips against hers as he explored the shape of her mouth before he finally covered her mouth with his. Tentative at first, the kiss deepened by degrees until she was finally straining against him, her hands fisted in the soft leather of his jacket, pulling herself closer to him.

He took the next step then, easing his jacket off. It fell to the floor with a jangle of chains.

Beneath the jacket he wore a black T-shirt that hugged every hard line of his lean body. Meghan found that she was suddenly impatient to see more.

She grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it up and over his head, exposing a body that looked to be sculpted from the palest alabaster.

He wasn’t a tall man, barely inches over her own five-foot-seven height, but what there was of him was magnificently formed male. Broad shoulders, big enough to bear any burden, were thick with hard muscles that felt smooth beneath the palms of her hands. She measured the strength in them before trailing her fingers down his well-defined chest to his abdomen and then back up. She ran her fingers through the pale whorls of hair on his chest, which matched the arrogant color on his head.

“You really are a blond,” she teased, and stroked her index finger over the hard nub of his nipple.

“Are you?” he asked, and picked up his hand, trailed the rough pads of his fingers along the swell of her breasts exposed by the low neckline of the tank top and the push-up bra she wore. His actions got an immediate response as her nipples tightened in anticipation of his touch.

She looked up at him and curved her lips in what she hoped was a seductive smile. “You may have to wait a bit to find out.”

Blake laughed, her bravado stirring something deep within him. Something that couldn’t wait a second longer to take their little interlude to the next step.

He reached for the neckline of her tank top and slipped his fingers beneath, pulling away both shirt and bra with a quick tug. He heard the snap of the bra strap and felt the give as her breasts slipped free of all the fabric.

Her creamy skin was a sharp contrast to her black clothing. A flush worked over her flesh at his perusal, tempting him to feel the warmth of it against his palm.

He cupped her, and the heat of her nipple seemed to burn a hole into his palm. Still, he didn’t pull back. Instead he stroked her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

The action dragged a soft moan from her and she copied his actions, tweaking his hard male nipple with her fingers, jerking his erection to painful life.

Her gaze slipped there for but a moment before she leaned forward and closed her mouth over his nipple.

He shut his eyes against the sensation that rocketed through his body and focused on the feel of her breast in his hand, all warm and creamy. Her pulsebeat was loud in his ears and vibrated against his hand as it rested inches away from her heart, reminding him of what he was not.

Alive. Alive. Alive, drummed loudly in his head in the same beat as her pulse.

“You’re cold,” she said, In response, he called forth a bit of his demon, driving away the chill in his body to allay her concern.

“Blake?” she asked, and he realized that he didn’t even know her name.

“That’s my name, and you’re…”

“Meghan,” she said in a husky whisper, as he bent his head and took her hard nipple in his mouth.

She cradled him close, her hand snaking through his hair to keep him near as she arched her back.

Not that he was going anywhere, he thought. He sucked on her nipple and relished the soft mewl of pleasure that came from her.

He shifted his other hand upward, tugged down the rest of her shirt and bra so that he could pleasure her other breast with his mouth until it wasn’t enough.

“Touch me, Meghan,” he almost begged. When she ran her hands across the width of his shoulders, he surged upward, wrapping his arms around her waist and crushing her tight to his body.

“Blake, what—”

He silenced her with a kiss and walked with her to the edge of the bed, but then he slowly eased her down his body, the smooth hard tips of her breasts brushing along him, awakening fire wherever she touched. The sensation elicited a shiver from him.

“Has it been that long?” Meghan asked, surprising him with her sensitivity.

He shocked himself by admitting, “Since I felt something like this? Too long, love.”

“Why?” she wondered aloud, even as she tenderly ran her hands across his shoulders and then let them dip down to cover the muscles of his chest with one hand while she placed the other flat over his heart.

Her touch reached deep within him, to emotions he thought he had suppressed long ago. Covering her hand with his, he said, “Let’s not go there tonight.”

He didn’t think it was possible that the green of her eyes could get any darker, but with his words, her pupils deepened to almost black with emotion. Reaching up, she cradled his cheek, tracing the sharp line of it.

“Where would you like to go tonight?”

“To heaven,” he said, as he bent his head and took her lips with his once again.

“Heaven it is, then,” Meghan murmured as she accepted the gentle pass of his lips over hers. His touch was tentative, almost pleading. The emotions it roused sank its hooks deep into her heart, scaring her with their intensity.

She laid her hands on his shoulders as he effortlessly picked her up and placed her on the bed. When he joined her there, he lay beside her fully. Their bodies barely brushed, but it was enough to make her want more.

She cupped the swell of his pectoral muscle and ran her thumb across the hard nub. A small shudder racked his body, emboldening her.

“Ah, love. That feels good.” He looked down at her hand where she continued to strum his tight nipple.

She smiled, filled with a bravado she hadn’t known she possessed. In a playful tone she said, “Well, if it feels good for you, I imagine that it might feel good for me, too.”

He chuckled and met her gaze, amusement glittering in his crystal-blue eyes. With a cocky grin on his face, he passed the back of his hand across her breast, dragging a rough sigh from her at the pleasure that simple touch created in her core.

“Is that the sound of good, luv?”

“Yes,” she said with a sigh, then took his nipple between her fingers, rotated it gently. At their hips, where their bodies were closest, she felt the jump of his erection, a reaction that was echoed in the sympathetic pull between her legs. She twined her legs with his and he pushed his thigh upward, tight against the growing pulse at her center.

As she rode him, trying to assuage her need, he took her hard nipple between his thumb and forefinger. He pulled on it gently then gave it a playful twist, which yanked a moan from her.

He immediately seized on that sound of desire.

“So was that the sound of…even better?” he teased, even as he was bending his head and she was arching her back, offering herself up to him.

His lips closed over her nipple. He sucked the tip before circling the hard nub with his tongue and then teething it into an even tighter point. She cradled his head close and as he suckled her she thrust her hips against his.

He responded by increasing the pull of his mouth and insinuating his thigh ever tighter against her.

She rode him with growing need, but recalling his earlier playfulness and wanting to join in it, she said, “And this is the sound of un-freakin’-believable,” and finally released the low, long moan that had built within her at his actions.

Her words pulled a rough laugh from him and made his already full erection swell to painful proportions. He wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her. Nothing except possibly a taste of her humanity.

A bite of the life held tight against him.

Her heart beat furiously against his ear as he once again brought his mouth to her breast and suckled. The warmth of her—her mortal warmth—bathed his upper body with heat. The smell of her—all musky femininity—covered by the tight jeans that she wore brought sweet temptation.

The bit of vampire he had released earlier to warm her became a pool of heat at the center of him, growing ever stronger with each touch and taste of her. As she slipped her hand downward and covered his erection, a shudder ripped through him and the fire of the vampire flared across his body, breaking free and wanting dominion.

He fought the demon’s control, fearing the strength of the emotion she had called forth. He feared it even as he acknowledged that he had never experienced anything like it in either of his lives.

She must have sensed the difference in him, since she urged him up from her breast and rubbed her lips against his. “I’m afraid too, Blake. I’m afraid of how much I like the way I feel with you.”

Her confession undid the last dregs of his humanity and released the demon.

“Forgive me, love,” he said as he gently eased her head to the side and bit down.

Pain seared through her neck, but immediately after came intense desire that made her entire body throb for fulfillment.

Meghan held him close, moaning and riding his thigh as desire gripped her hard, refusing to let go much like he seemed unable to release her. The pulse of her need beat through her body and seemed to echo from his, but little by little that beat grew weaker and erratic. Somehow she realized that the fading rhythm was that of her heart, failing slowly as Blake continued to suck at her neck until only a negligible thrum remained.

Cold enveloped her body. Weakness. Her extremities became numb and useless.

As Blake finally pulled away, she caught a glimpse of his face. Long, blood-stained fangs extended well beyond his upper lip. The ice blue of his eyes burned with almost phosphorescent brightness and called to her as her eyesight dimmed.

“Sweet Jesus, Meghan. I’m sorry, love. So sorry,” he said, but his words were growing distant, as if she was fading away. Maybe she was.

A part of her brain understood that she was dying and struggled to hold on. To not let go of what little life remained. That consciousness latched onto the feel of him cradling her. Of the wetness of tears on her face and then the saltiness of something warm against her lips.

“Drink, Meghan,” she heard, and knew that he was offering her life. She didn’t know how she knew it, she just did, as if something deep in her subconscious had elemental knowledge of what he offered.

All she knew at that moment was that she didn’t want to die.

She was only twenty-one and she wasn’t ready to die.

She opened her mouth and placed it against the flesh he offered. She drank of the warmth of his life’s blood. With each pull of her mouth and each sip, strength grew in her body. She felt strength infusing each cell until she was able to force herself away from him.

With a brutal shove she drove him from her. As he rose from the floor beside the bed where he had fallen, he gazed down at her with eyes filled with tears, but they created no emotion in her other than hatred. Within her, fury rose with the realization that he had irrevocably changed her life.

She sat up and grabbed at her clothes, and when he would have reached for her, she slapped away his hands.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me again.”

“Ever is a long time now, luv,” he said sadly.

“It is forever now, isn’t it? You made me something other than human.”

At his nod, she said, “I’ll hate you forever.”

He morphed back to his human form then and despite her statement, emotion rose up in her at the sadness in his eyes and at the words he uttered next.

“No need to waste your emotion, Meghan. I’ll hate myself on your behalf.”

Chapter 4

The Blood Bank, present day

Even before the knock on the door, Foley knew trouble had landed on his doorstep.

Not that he was unused to trouble. Running the Blood Bank included dealing with an underworld of both humans and vampires who thought trouble was just another word for fun. A night didn’t go by when there wasn’t violence of some kind in the club, not that he minded. A good fight with spilt blood always satisfied the darker aspects of his persona.

Amazingly, it was usually the vampires who were the easier ones to control during any kind of disagreement. They knew the rules and that the penalties for breaking them would be swiftly enforced. Justice delayed was justice denied, he thought, as with a last suck he reluctantly pulled himself away from that night’s plaything.

She fell away limply, her eyes unfocused from the blood loss. The bite mark on her neck was vivid against the flush on her skin.

Rising from the bed in the back room, Foley swept his gaze over the young woman’s prone body. It was made for pleasure, he thought. He itched to join her once again and finish both feeding and loving, but another knock came at the door, more insistent than the one before.

That wasn’t what got him moving away from his beautiful dinner companion.

He is here, Foley thought, suddenly sensing the other vampire’s presence and the growing anger. The last thing Foley wanted to do was to piss him off.

In a blur of vampire speed, he dressed and raced out the door to the small office he kept beyond the Blood Bank’s well-known back rooms and beside a larger meeting space, where the vampires sometimes joined into a council to dispense their sure brand of justice.

Foley paused at the door and drew in a breath to steady his nerves. It had been nearly three years since the last time the Blood Bank’s real owner had made his presence known. His visit today could only mean one thing.

Trouble.

Immediately upon entering the room, Foley felt the strength of the other vampire’s power take hold of him. It roughly forced him down to his knees as the vampire said, “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

“I’m sorry, Sun Tze. I was—”

“Feeding. I can smell her blood. Come here,” he said, raising his hand and, with that movement, pulling Foley back up from his knees as if he were no more than a puppet on a string.

Fear so strong he almost wet himself slammed into Foley’s gut as he obeyed and approached the other vampire. As he did so, he examined Sun Tze Lee, thinking that little had changed about him in the century since they had first crossed paths.

Lee’s dark, almond-shaped eyes glittered with amusement at his dread, and a smile split his full lips, displaying perfect white teeth with a hint of fang that refused to go away. Lee had spent too much time in his vampire state for them to ever be normal again. The broad plains of Lee’s ruthlessly handsome face had a telltale flush of color.

He had fed recently, Foley realized, but he also knew Lee intended to feast on him. Lee’s dining would have nothing to do with satisfying his hunger. It would be all about reasserting the control he had claimed over Foley when they had run into each other during the Boxer Rebellion.

On a lark, Foley had headed to Beijing, then known as Peking, tired of the pickings in Dublin and intrigued by the talk of all the exotic delights he might find in China. He had arrived at the outbreak of the rebellion and realized that the time would be good for feeding and satisfying the demands of his body.

Sun Tze Lee had been there with a horde of fellow Chinese vampires—kiang-shi, as they were called—to drive away the foreigners exerting too much influence on their homeland and to sate their bloodlust in the course of the battle.

The fighting in Beijing hadn’t lasted too long—fifty-five days, to be exact. But in that time, Lee and the other kiang-shi had decimated not only the foreign civilians and soldiers in the area, but also thousands of Chinese Christians in the city and in provinces like Shandong.

Lee had come upon him as he was draining a beautiful Chinese girl just beyond the steps of the Catholic church to which she had been trying to flee. He supposed now, as he took the final step that brought him close to Lee, that he had been lucky in a way. Instead of ripping his throat out for being a foreigner, Lee had decided to feed from him and make him his slave.

For over a hundred years, Foley had done whatever Lee ordered, and so when he’d entered the office and Lee had said, “On your knees,” Foley had immediately complied.

The Chinese vampire now smiled and cupped Foley’s face in his hands. With an almost tender touch he stroked his jaw with long, graceful fingers, urging Foley to bare his neck.

Foley did as he was bid, closing his eyes as a wave of desire skittered across his body, awakening unwanted passion. With a chuckle, Lee softly said, “Do not fear. We will get to that later.”

Which was just what Foley was afraid of. He whimpered and finally did wet himself as he recalled the last time Lee had taken him. The Asian vampire had been brutal and uncaring of how much damage he had done.

Dreading a repeat of that performance, Foley said, “Master—”

“Sssh, Daniel,” Lee began, using his given name the way one might a lover’s, only Lee knew nothing of love. Only conquest and pain, Foley thought.

“You will enjoy it, Daniel. You always do,” Lee said, beginning to transform. The black of his eyes literally bled out and became glowing embers of red. The black of his hair receded, replaced by the palest strands of glistening white, making him look almost albino.

But it was his fangs that snared and held Foley’s attention.

From the small buds he had noticed earlier burst shiny white and lethally long fangs that extended well beyond the lower jaw. Needle-sharp, they could easily pierce the toughest of hides, but what Lee clearly wanted tonight was him.

Before he could protest, Lee forced aside Foley’s head and perforated the skin at his neck to sink his teeth deep into an artery.

The pain of the kiang-shi’s bite seared along Foley’s nerves and exploded in the center of his brain like a supernova. The explosion continued outward, tearing into every sensitive synapse in its path, creating fiery agony in each cell of his body.

Foley screamed, his harsh guttural cry resounding in the confines of his small office.

Against his neck, Lee’s throaty laughter erupted. In his brain came Lee’s insistent command.

Scream some more. I love it when you scream.

Blake noticed the way Diego’s nose wrinkled in apparent disgust and how Ryder Latimer, the other co-owner of Otro Mundo, eyeballed him the way a father might a virgin daughter’s first date.

“What is that smell?” Diego said.

The debonair vampire, chic in a charcoal gray suit that probably cost more than Blake had ever made in both his lifetimes combined, walked from around his large desk and stood beside him. Diego bent from his greater height, took another sniff and said, “Mothballs?”

“Is that getup for real?” Ryder asked. He motioned with his finger to the rather dated, dark blue polyester suit Blake had lifted from the Goodwill store earlier in the day.

Blake tugged at the lapels of the jacket and inched his head up defiantly. “Didn’t think the chains and leather would make a good impression during an interview.”

“An interview?” Diego said with a sneer. He sat on the edge of his desk and across the way from Ryder, who lounged lazily in the chair beside where Blake stood.

Blake fought the urge to fidget beneath the probing glances of both vampires. With his head tilted upward at a defiant angle, he said, “Heard you were still hiring. Thought it was about time I had some gainful employment. ”

“What you really mean is that you want to stalk Meghan up close and personal.” Diego crossed his arms, straining the fabric of the suit across his powerful shoulders.

“It’s not a good idea, Blake,” Ryder added, his tone a trifle more friendly, but tinged with concern.

“Look, I know the little chit probably wants nothing to do with me—”

“‘Probably’ being a major understatement,” Ryder said with a chuckle. Then he grew more serious and continued. “If I recall correctly, she spent the first year of her undead life trying to rip your throat out.”

“Or put a stake through your heart,” Diego added.

It was hard to argue with them when they were right, Blake thought. “Things have changed since then.”

“That’s right, amigo. Things changed when you betrayed me to the man who killed Esperanza.” Diego rose from the desk and came to stand nose to nose with him, his posture more challenging than it had been before. “You do remember that you nearly cost us all our lives during that little escapade.”

Meeting Diego’s gaze, he noted the telltale blossoming of neon green in his eyes that said the other vampire was battling to rein in his anger. Blake had no desire for Diego to lose that control. He was no match physically for Diego—or even Ryder, for that matter. But that didn’t mean he would give up so easily or tuck his tail in like a whipped dog.

Rising on tiptoe until he nearly bumped noses with Diego, he said, “I saved your life and the little chit’s.”

Turning to Ryder, he pointed to him and said, “And I’ve helped you and yours out of more than one scrape.”

Ryder surged from his seat, all earlier traces of friendliness gone, and came to stand beside Diego. “Which makes you an Eagle Scout all of a sudden?”

“All I want is a job.”

“And a chance to see Meghan every day,” Diego pressed.

True, not that he would admit it. “I won’t bother her.”

“Why do I find that so hard to believe?” Ryder said, before plopping back down in his chair.

“Maybe because in the same circumstances, you wouldn’t leave her alone, either,” Blake said, earning a chuckle from Ryder, who also acknowledged the statement with a nod. He pressed on, “Look, mates. I’ve had your backs and it seems to me you could use a few more friends to watch out for you, considering what happened the other night.”

With a surge of speed and power, Diego had him by the throat, his feet dangling off the ground. “What do you know about that?”

“Just what I saw from the alley afterward, but there’s all kinds of rumors floating around about what happened to those two vamps,” he replied in a choked voice, all he could muster thanks to the force of Diego’s grip on his throat.

Diego tossed him away and leaned on the edge of the desk.

Ryder faced him and in a calm voice asked, “What kinds of rumors?”

“Suicide pact. Murder. Humans wanting revenge. You name it.” With a nonchalant shrug, Blake continued. “So what really happened?”

Diego and Ryder exchanged a look, as if considering whether or not to answer, but then Ryder admitted, “We don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Isn’t your little FBI friend—”

“Diana’s out of this, Blake,” Ryder said, the tone of his voice growing harsh.

“Lover’s spat?” he tossed out without a thought, but was sorry he did so at Ryder’s reaction.

Ryder bowed his head and took a deep breath. His body grew frighteningly still the way the air turned dead before a storm. Diego reached out, laid a hand on Ryder’s shoulder and asked, “Amigo, are you okay?”

Ryder nodded and then faced Blake once again, his eyes glittering with the harsh bright color of the vampire. A low rumble filled Ryder’s voice and a hint of fang became visible as he spoke. “You want us to think you’re honorable? That you understand friendship and respect—”

“I’m sorry, Ryder. I didn’t mean anything about Diana.”

“We’ll give you a job, Blake.” Ryder rose slowly from the chair, his hands clenched at his sides. He stood before Blake, his troubled gaze boring into him and his face fully transformed to that of the vampire. Considering that Ryder kept the vampire in check more often than any of them, Blake knew it was not a good sign. Ryder made his demands. When he was finished he added, “And we’ll expect you to respect us and do as you’re told. Understood?”

Blake hated the feeling of unworthiness that both men brought out in him, but he was determined to get this job and prove them wrong. He wanted to show all of them he was reliable and trustworthy. He wanted to prove to Meghan that he wasn’t the no-account she thought him to be.

“Understood, mate.”

Chapter 5

The knife slipped, nipping the pad of her index finger.

Meghan cursed as a small droplet of blood welled before immortal healing took over and the wound quickly closed.

“You’ve been decidedly clumsy the past two weeks,” Diego said from behind her, causing Meghan to jump. “And antsy.”

“It’s just the pace of things. There’s been a lot of work lately.” She didn’t meet his gaze as she walked over to one of the sinks and carefully washed the knife and her hands. Not that such a little bit of blood would cause problems to any humans. She just didn’t want the health department on her case if they paid a surprise visit.

Diego stepped in her path, blocking the way back to her workstation. “Has he been bothering you?” he asked in tones low enough that only she could hear.

To emphasize the question, he cocked his head in the direction of the back of the kitchen, where Blake was hard at work removing trash-filled bags from the garbage cans. As he hefted the bag, his muscles flexed. The hairs on his arm were golden in the light cast by the backdoor bulb.

She remembered the feel of all that muscle and the soft hair quite well, but drove those distracting thoughts from her mind. She had been having too many of those kinds of thoughts lately.

“No, he hasn’t. Just hello and goodbye,” she replied, almost slightly irked by Blake’s decided lack of attention.

A chuckle escaped Diego as she brushed past him and back to her workstation, her mentor following close behind her.

“I have to confess. I didn’t expect him to last a day, much less two weeks.”

As she resumed chopping the vegetables for a mirepoix, she nodded. “I didn’t, either. Especially since you’ve given him every crap job in the book.”

“Man’s on a mission,” Diego proclaimed, before he sauntered away, hands tucked into the pockets of a designer suit that screamed old money. Way old money, Meghan thought; there was still much of the wealthy Spanish lord in Diego’s attitude and attire.

Much like there was still much of the punk in Blake.

She glanced in Blake’s direction, but he had already headed out to the alley. She resumed her work, but her mind was half on Blake, and when he returned, she watched him work out of the corner of her eye.

He did every menial task he had been assigned. Even when the other vampire chef intentionally spilled a pan of sauce across Blake’s apron and the floor, he minded himself and did just what he should, although inside of her, she perceived the heat of his anger thanks to the special sire bond that they shared.

She hated that bond, a constant reminder of what he had done. Of the life to which she had been condemned by a man who still managed to intrigue her on some level. A man who had, as Diego noted, gone on a mission to prove that he could be good.

So far, all he had managed to prove was that he was determined, she thought.

After cleaning up the spill, Blake returned to the back of the kitchen where he ripped off the apron, stuffed it into the laundry bin and escaped into the alley.

She wondered if he would return or if that had been the final straw, but after a quarter of an hour, he stormed back in and snagged a clean apron from a stack of fresh laundry in the pantry. Then he resumed work.

Meghan did the same, turning her attention to the osso bucco she was preparing and then the next. The pace was grueling; the restaurant had developed a regular human clientele as well as a vampire following that kept on coming back, even with the deadly incident two weeks earlier.

The disturbing event in the private dining room had created a buzz in their community for days, but beyond that nothing else had happened. No one had a clue as to why the two vampires had decided to feed to their deaths. No one even seemed bothered by it. Why should they when their worlds were regularly filled with blood and violence?

But it bothered her.

She could still recall the sight of their naked, bloody bodies. The awful slurping sound as they had fed to the death rang in her ears time and time again.

Forcing those troubling recollections away, she finished up the last of the orders and then started on a few dishes for the kitchen staff that would take care of cleaning and closing up for the night. It had become a ritual for them to share a meal and some conversation before completing their chores.

She was laying out the food on the table with the help of one of the busboys when she noticed Blake at the door to the alley. Another of the helpers—one of the dishwashers that Blake regularly assisted—had stopped Blake by the door.

“Vamos, mano. Stay. She makes a great spread and we could use your help to clean up,” the man said in cajoling tones and placed a few friendly claps on Blake’s back.

Blake hesitated, looking from her to the man and then back to her again, well aware that Diego had put her in charge of the kitchen and that if she wanted him to go, he would be dismissed.

“We could use the help tonight. There’s a lot to clean,” she heard herself saying. She wondered what had possessed her to issue the invite. By now she knew that anything involving Blake didn’t end well, but in the past two weeks, she had sensed a difference in him. A determined difference that she now felt compelled to acknowledge.

He smiled at her invite, but it wasn’t his cocky self-satisfied grin. Warmth filled his features and reached up to his ice-blue eyes, which glittered with relief. Inside of her, the connection between them flared to life once again and she experienced his emotion. She almost physically felt the loneliness slip from him as he walked to her workstation, grabbed some of the food she had waiting there and walked the plates over to the table.

She wiped her hands on her apron and returned to her station, and then Blake was immediately behind her, helping her pick up the rest of the food she had made and serve it to the crew waiting to finish up for the night. With the long day behind them and the late night still ahead, the food disappeared quickly amid snatches of conversation, sating the human’s hunger.

As for herself, Blake and one other vampire, an older immortal who was their sommelier, they would have to quench their thirst for blood somewhere else. But the experience of sitting with the others, like she might have with her family back home, made her forget about the needs that the food wouldn’t satisfy.

She wondered whether Blake felt the same and watched as he ate some of the roast chicken she had rubbed with thyme. He must have noticed her interest since he picked up his head from the plate and said, “Tasty, love. Better than me mum used to make.”

His mum. She wondered what his mother had been like. What she might have thought about a son…

Who drained an innocent young woman until she was dead.

Who had only just gotten his first paying job in a couple hundred years.

“It’s not what you think,” he said, earning the curious glances of those seated around the table who had picked up on the vibes between the two of them.

“Is something up, Meghan?” the vampire sommelier asked, more attuned to their connection than the humans at the table.

“No, Bruce. Everything’s just fine,” she lied, but the meal had been ruined for her.

She remained quiet, as did Blake, while the others finished up their dinners, but she sensed he still had more to say to her. To his credit, he chose to keep silent as they cleared off the table and proceeded to finish up for the night.

Since Diego had entrusted her with the kitchen and because of all that he had done and continued to do for her, she always made a point of making sure everything was perfectly in order.

Satisfied, she told everyone to call it a night, and the few remaining people straggled out the door, Blake included, leaving her alone in the kitchen.

She took a few minutes to glance lovingly at the space—her space—pleased by the current state of her life, vampness notwithstanding. If there was one blemish on what might be her idea of Happy Ending it was her immortal status. She hadn’t quite had that on her list of what to do before she died.

Of course, thanks to Blake she hadn’t even hit item number one on her list of what to do before she died. Normally anger would rise at him and at her situation, but tonight a mix of sadness and satisfaction came instead.

She had to acknowledge that if not for the whole undead thing, she would be back in the Midwest doing something other than what she wanted to be doing. If it hadn’t been for Blake she wouldn’t have trained to be a chef and she wouldn’t have started to receive some notice of her skills from the local papers.

The door to the alley opened and Blake walked back in.

He stopped short as he saw her standing there. “Sorry, love. I didn’t mean to intrude. I just needed to clean up before I left.”

“Go right ahead.”

As Blake walked to the sinks by the pantry, she did as well, pulling off her dirty apron and chef’s jacket and tossing them into the laundry bin.

From the corner of his eye, Blake admired all her curves beneath the loose checkerboard chef’s pants and the small black tank top she wore, reminiscent of what she had worn on the day they had first met. Desire rose and he soaped up and scrubbed his arms and then splashed bracing cold water over his face, hoping to quell the need she would not appreciate.

He was about to reach for a towel, but she was there, handing him one, challenging his control.

“Thanks.”

As he toweled down, he noticed that she had slipped on a tight-fitting denim jacket and loosened her blond hair from the French braid she usually wore while she cooked. She looked so young. A pang of guilt rose up—thanks to him, she would always be that young.

Some women might have liked that, but not Meghan. In the last four years he had come to know that much about her—she feared little. He suspected that was why after her initial reaction to being a vampire, she had settled into immortal life.

With the damp towel, he motioned to the kitchen. “This seems to suit you.”

She crossed her arms and the action plumped up her already generous breasts, dragging his gaze there. Aware of his interest, she immediately changed her pose and said, “It wasn’t quite what I had planned for my life, but I like it.”

He tossed his dirty towel into the laundry bin. “What had you planned on, love?”

“You mean what had my parents planned for me,” she said. Before he could respond, she continued, “Going back home after college. A nine-to-five job somewhere with the requisite husband, house and a few kids.”

“Can you say ‘boring much’?”

Blake hadn’t expected that she would reply, but he sensed her pique as he walked to the pantry, snagged his black leather jacket from a hook on the wall and slipped it on. When he turned, she was so close, he nearly knocked her down.

He took a step back to give her some space, but she advanced on him and poked him in the chest. “So I suppose you had so much more planned for your life. Tell me, Blake. What did you want from life?”

She probably wouldn’t understand, but he gave it a shot. With a long heartfelt sigh, he said, “Just to survive, love. Just to survive.”

Chapter 6

Wales, 1858

Blake’s pockets hung heavy with the new potatoes he had pilfered from the abandoned farm up the road from the meager cottage he shared with his mother and five brothers and sisters. The smallish potatoes were all he had managed to round up that day to feed his family.

With the latest accident closing the coal mine, there had been too many young men like him in town, looking for either jobs or handouts. It was possibly harder now than it had been when his da had passed in an accident nearly a dozen years earlier. At least back then he had found a way to put food on the table.

A chill sweat erupted through his body at the memory of what he had done for the coins for that food. Of the old man’s cold touch and the press of the papery dry lips against his. The slide of a gnarled hand into Blake’s pants. Pants made loose from weeks of hunger.

He had survived those weeks by finding greens in the forest and boiling them with water to make a thin soup that somehow managed to sustain him. Whatever food he had been able to scrounge back then, or buy with the coins the old man gave him in exchange for the liberties he took, he had left for his family.

Luckily the mine had reopened several weeks after the accident that killed his da. With the mine shorthanded due to the men that had been lost, Blake had secured a job going down into the pit in place of his da and labored there for over a dozen years. His young boy’s body had become a man’s, filled out with thick, hard muscle from the arduous labor and the food he had been finally able to put on the table.

But then another, much larger accident a month ago had forced the closure of the mine. The main shaft had been too badly damaged to repair, and the mine had nearly been tapped out anyway. With only one other mine left in town, many men had lost their livelihood, Blake included.

As he approached their small homestead, guilt assaulted him that all he had to show his family was a few handfuls of stolen potatoes. At least it would be enough to take the edge off their hunger, he thought.

To Blake’s surprise, the smell of something rich and earthy filled the room when he entered the cottage, making his stomach rumble and clench. He approached his mother as she stirred the pot at the stove, laid a hand on the small of her back as he had watched his da do for so many years. He leaned over her petite body and glanced at the thick, meat-filled stew simmering on the stove.

“Ma, that looks wonderful. Where did you—”

“Bryan caught a pair of rabbits in his snares this morning. Managed to find a patch of wild carrots as well,” his mother replied. But her anxious glance told him she didn’t quite believe Bryan’s explanation for the sudden bounty.

Neither did he, judging from the thick diameter of the carrot pieces floating in the stew. No wild carrot he’d ever seen was that plump, not to mention that the wild rabbits had been scarce that spring, a by-product of the many snares that had been set to catch them.

“I’ll talk to him, Ma,” he said, and emptied his pockets onto the work-rough surface of the kitchen table.

His mother picked up one of the potatoes. “These will make a nice addition to the stew. You’re a good son, Blake.”

He took hold of her hand and squeezed it tenderly. “Don’t worry about Bryan, Ma. I’ll see to it that he stays out of trouble.”

His mother shot him a grateful glance and a nod of approval. “I know you will, son.”

With that, he walked out of the cottage and toward the ramshackle shed where they kept a few scraggly chickens that occasionally provided them some eggs, and sometimes a meal when a hen became barren. As he did so, he waved at two of his sisters as they tended the tiny plot of vegetables that somehow managed to grow in the rocky soil.

By the shed he ran into Bryan, who was tossing a handful of seed to the scrawny chickens within.

Crossing his arms, he asked, “Where’s William and Edward?”

“Snuck off to try and catch some fish,” Bryan answered, as he put down the nearly empty seed pail.

“Figured they were going to get as lucky as you and hook a few fat bass for us to eat?”

Bryan tensed, and when he looked, Blake’s worst suspicions were confirmed.

“You went to ol’ man Winchcombe, didn’t you?”

His brother’s head dropped down as he took a step to walk past him, but Blake snared his arm and roughly pulled him close.

“You’re not to go back there, Bryan.” For good measure, he jerked on his brother’s arm to bring the point home.

Bryan ripped from his grasp. “What if I did go to him? What does it matter—”

“It matters, Bryan. You don’t need to do this. I’ll find a way—”

“Like you did last time, Blake? Winchcombe told me. He told me—”

Blake struck out, punching his brother in the mouth and sending him sprawling onto the ground, but that wasn’t enough to stop Bryan. His brother sat up, bracing himself on arms too thin for a thirteen-year-old. Tears mingled with the blood from the cut on his lip as Bryan said, “He said he liked that I looked like you. That you had known how to please him.”

Fear and rage filled his gut. Jabbing a finger at his brother, he warned, “Don’t go back there again, Bryan.”

He whirled on his heel, away from his brother and back in the direction of town, his long legs eating up ground quickly as he hurried along. Bryan was too much like him, both physically and mentally. His younger brother would go back to Winchcombe if he thought that would put food on their table, much like he himself had done a dozen years earlier.

Blake wasn’t about to let that happen to Bryan again.

The Winchcombe mansion hadn’t changed in over a dozen years.

Why should it have? Blake thought. The blood and sweat of hundreds of men down in the mines provided ol’ man Winchcombe with the money he needed.

The hunger of the miners’ young sons provided Winchcombe with the prurient pleasures he needed to satisfy his physical needs.

But no longer, Blake thought, as he pounded on the door of the mansion, rattling the thick wood against the door hinges with the force of his blows.

Winchcombe’s retainer slowly opened the door, seemingly unfazed by Blake’s angry summons.

Michael Dillon was a large forty-something man who had once worked belowground as a miner. Much like the house, Dillon didn’t seem to have aged at all in the dozen years since Blake had last come to earn some coins. He was still a strapping man, thick across the chest, and at least a foot taller than Blake, making him an imposing figure as he stood in the doorway.

“Is he here, Dillon?”

“Didn’t fancy seeing you here again,” Dillon said, and crossed his arms, obstructing the entry with his immense size. But Blake wasn’t about to be dissuaded. He viciously shoved past the larger man and stormed into the house, calling out Winchcombe’s name as he did so.

“Come out, you old pervert!” he called out, as he walked into the front parlor. Dillon grabbed him from behind.

“You don’t want to do this.” Dillon jerked him back toward the front door, but Blake planted his feet. With the muscles developed in the mine, and some knowledge of fighting from an occasional Friday night brawl at the pub, he tossed the big man up and over himself.

Dillon landed with a thick thud and appeared stunned for a moment before slowly rising to his feet, his hamhock-sized hands fisted at his side. “You’re strong for a puny man.”

“Tell Winchcombe—”

“Why don’t you tell me yourself?” a cultured voice asked from above.

Winchcombe appeared on the second-floor landing. He took a step forward and seemed to float down the stairs, freezing Blake in his place.

Blake took a step forward, the need to please the older man almost ingrained in him from the many years he had answered Winchcombe’s call. But he was no longer that scared and hungry young boy, and he didn’t intend for his brother to take his place. He battled back the fear within him and fury rose in its place.

“Do not go near Bryan again,” he warned, his voice low and filled not with threat, but promise. He clenched his hands at his sides, ready to fight both Dillon and Winchcombe if need be.

Dillon chuckled and was about to advance on him when Winchcombe laid a pale thin hand on the other man’s broad chest. “I’ll see to this myself.”

Blake braced himself since the old man still seemed quite capable of causing injury. In fact, Winchcombe seemed not a day older than when Blake had first come to his door.

“Stay away from Bryan,” he threatened yet again.

With a burst of speed, Winchcombe was suddenly standing in front of him, a broad smile across his face.

“Do you plan on taking his place, Blake?” Winchcombe caressed his jaw, and as much as Blake wanted to retreat from the embrace, his feet seemed rooted in place.

Winchcombe moved his hand downward to Blake’s chest, where he ran it across the lean, corded muscle there. The smile on the old man’s face tightened with seeming displeasure.

“You’re no longer a fine young lad, but you’ll do,” Winchcombe said. He grabbed Blake’s shoulder, imprisoning him in a surprisingly strong grip. His long, bony fingers dug painfully into Blake’s shoulder.

Then Winchcombe slowly transformed before Blake’s eyes, stunning Blake into nonaction. Winchcombe’s rheumy brown eyes brightened, becoming a startling shade of glowing green-blue unlike anything he had ever seen before. When the smile on his face broadened, Blake saw his teeth turn to fangs, which extended beyond the old man’s lower lip.

His knees weakened at the sight, but Blake forced himself upright. “You can’t scare me, ol’ man,” he said, grabbing the man’s wrist and trying to break the nearly intractable grip Winchcombe had on his shoulder. He noticed then how thin the other man’s wrist was. How cold and dry the skin felt beneath his fingers.

Winchcombe laughed, and an odd growl tinged his mirth.

“I like spirit in a man, Blake. So much so that I think I’ll keep you around for a while.”

Before Blake could protest, Winchcombe had him in a powerful embrace, but Blake rocked from side to side, trying to free himself. As he glanced up at the demon the old man had become, he said, “You’ll never get my spirit, ol’ man.”

Winchcombe roared with laughter and then bit down on Blake’s neck even as he continued his defiant struggles.

Pain erupted through Blake’s skull, followed by need so great that he soon found himself clutching the old man close, welcoming his virulent embrace. The pain slowly fled, but the desire remained, only it wasn’t human desire.

This need was bathed in violence, filled with a fury unlike any he had ever experienced in his life. It called to him for fulfillment. It called to him for vengeance. The need that grew was so strong that Blake soon found himself able to deflect whatever power the old man had on him.

Yanking Winchcombe away from his neck, he held the old man at arm’s length, emboldened by whatever was growing within him, taking hold of him body and soul. Strong and uncontrollable, it demanded satisfaction.

Winchcombe hung from his grasp, an astonished look on his face as blood dripped from his fangs.

His blood.

At the sight heat coalesced in Blake’s center and suddenly erupted throughout his body, staggering him with its force. He battled back the sensation, but it struck him again until the heat fully enveloped him and everything around him grew brighter and more vibrant.

Beneath his fingers was the papery feel of Winchcombe’s cold skin and the fragility of his throat as he held him and raised him high above the floor. He reveled in the sight of the old man dangling weakly from his hand and Dillon backing away from them, as if sensing that control had turned. Fear filled the big man’s face as he beheld what was happening before his eyes.

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