Vampire Hunter
Shadow Hunter
Kait Ballenger
Shadow’s Caress
Patti O’Shea
Hunter’s Surrender
Anna Hackett

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Shadow Hunter

About the Author

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Shadow’s Caress

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Hunter’s Surrender

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Copyright

Shadow Hunter

KAIT BALLENGER is a full-time paranormal romance author, wife, professional belly dancer and graduate student living in Central Florida. Twilight Hunter is the first full-length novel in her Execution Underground paranormal romance series, following Shadow Hunter, a prequel novella. When Kait’s not preoccupied with paranormal creepy-crawlies, she can be found slaving over endless amounts of schoolwork or with her nose buried in a book. She lives happily with her husband, their doggie-daughter, Sookie, and two mischievous cats, Elliot and Olivia—all three of whom are named after fictional characters. Kait believes anything is possible with hard work and dedication. One day, she intends to be a bestselling author and have people name their pets after her characters, too.

For my husband, Jon. No hero will ever compare.

I’ll love you always.

Acknowledgements

A huge thanks to all of the following people:

To my super agent, Nicole Resciniti, for dealing with all my neurotic tendencies and having the most awesome agent editorial chops I’ve ever encountered. Nic, thanks for taking a chance on this young, inexperienced writer and being my greatest cheerleader every step of the way. Having you for an agent has been a true blessing, and has changed my life for the better. You are both a great business partner and a great friend. I know we’re both in this for the long haul. I couldn’t have done any of this without you. I’ll be forever grateful.

To my lovely editor, Leslie Wainger, and to the head of the HQN imprint, Tara Parsons, thank you for championing my work and for believing in the heroes of the Execution Underground. Leslie, thank you for giving me the final polishing touches on my manuscripts and for being my guide through the crazy publishing process. I couldn’t ask for a kinder editor to help me through my journey.

To my first writing mentor, Mark Powell, for telling me I was good enough to build a writing career and for making me believe it. Mark, I may not be writing literary fiction, but I hope you’re proud of me and enjoy this book all the same.

To my writing friends and mentors at Spalding University you all rock! Special thanks to Rebekah Harris for reading this before it was polished. Rebekah, you’re a fantastic friend and hopefully I will find myself in the acknowledgments of your debut YA novel in the near future.

To Dr. Thebaud and Dr. Romain, thank you for restoring my health when I needed it most and for always keeping my well-being in mind. You’ve seen me at my worst but lifted me to my best. My family and I are beyond thankful.

To the best author girlfriends I could ever ask for, Cecy Robson and Kate SeRine. Thank you for holding me up every time I need it. I hope to always call you both my friends. And to my good friend and dance guru, Hollie Ruiz, for being such an enthusiastic fan and cheering for me: shimmying equals happiness. You’re a great friend and a beautiful person. You inspire me.

To one of my best friends on the planet and the most awesome critique partner ever, Britt Marczak. Thank you for being there for me every step of the way. You read about Jace and the E.U. heroes when they weren’t decent to see the light of day, but you loved them nonetheless. I don’t know if I would have pushed through Jace’s book without you.

To my pets: Sookie, Olivia and Elliot, for keeping me company in my office and being my favorite lazy editors—writing isn’t the same without you interrupting me every five seconds and walking across my keyboard.

To my family (both immediate and extended) for supporting me in every single endeavor, I know that at the end of every day, no matter what has happened, you will all always love me and continue to support me. Mama, you believed in me. You believed in my writing way before it was any good, from that first butterfly book we made when I was little, to my sixth grade stories, through the first drafts of my first novels, all the way to where I am now and beyond. You’re my best friend. You brought me into this world, and you’ve been the one to hold me up ever since. I love you.

To my husband, Jon, for sticking with me through all the ups and downs of the deadline for this book, for cooking dinner and cleaning the house when I’m too stressed out to do so, even in the face of a forty-hour work week. More importantly, honey, thank you for teaching me what it’s really like to fall in love. I’m looking forward to spending our lives together, for better and for worse, until we are old and gray. I love you more with each passing day.

And greatest thanks be to God with Whom anything is possible. You rain down blessings on me every day, Lord.

Chapter One

Damon Brock clutched the neck of the guard and twisted. The crack of broken bone pierced the silence in the alleyway as the spine snapped beneath his fingers. The wind whistled in a large gush of freezing air, so cold that Damon’s breath swirled in front of his face. The guard’s pulse beat several feeble times against his hands before fading.

Not a single scream. Damon released the guard, and the body crumpled to the cold winter ground. He nudged the corpse with the steel toe of his boot.

No movement. Only deadweight. A quick kill.

Not even 9:00 p.m. and already he’d taken out one bloodsucker. Rochester seemed promising.

He stepped over the corpse and slipped through the back entrance of Club Fantasy. A silver dagger under the sleeve of his leather trench coat, a Desert Eagle .44 caliber semi-automatic tucked into the back of his jeans, one silver throwing knife in each boot and a smooth, lacquered wooden stake inside his coat—you could never be too prepared when it came to vampires. The leeches were nearly impossible to kill. While bullets and silver would give them pause, only a severed spine, decapitation or a stake through the heart destroyed the undead.

Like a neon sign in a red-light district, the establishment’s name flashed over the door: Club Fantasy.

He shook his head. Club Fantasy? More like club hell. If only the patrons knew the monster vampire who owned it. The man sitting at the top of Damon’s hit list.

He pushed through a second door and into the main level of the club. If the night went well, he would gladly up the body count to at least four.

The thick smell of liquor, cigarettes and sweat from one too many dancing bodies assaulted his nose as he scanned the crowd. Bright red lighting flashed over the floor, and the bass of the heavy dance music pounded in his ears. The most difficult thing about hunting vamps: they were damn near indistinguishable from humans. After nightfall, the pulses of the undead beat with the same intensity as any human civilian, but their craving for blood, their inhuman strength and their drive to drain life from unsuspecting victims lingered. If only humanity knew what they were up against.

Damon strode across the dance floor, navigating between writhing bodies before he slid onto the black leather bench of one of the club’s booths. His hands ran across the smooth, newly lacquered black tabletop. Despite the underlying seediness, the atmosphere of Club Fantasy came out on top compared to most of Rochester’s low-scale raves. With western New York prices and Manhattan quality, Club Fantasy had young twenty-somethings flocking to it like drunken sheep led to a bloodlust-fueled slaughter. High quality aside, Club Fantasy was twice as dangerous as any New York City club. At least, the City offered ample backup.

He’d admitted one disadvantage to himself: navigating the supernatural scene of a city with no hunting division would be damn hard. But he was up to the challenge. He’d tracked his target to Mark’s hometown, Rochester, and he wouldn’t stop until he avenged his friend. He’d requested assignment to Rochester for that purpose—even if it meant a chance of running into her. He let out a long sigh. He couldn’t think about that now.

His gaze jumped from face to face, searching for his target blond hair, blue eyes, medium build, a strong, slightly crooked nose and a small but noticeable scar beneath his left eye. He dreamed of that face every night.

An ancient piece of Roman shit, Caius Argyros Dermokaites ruled over the Rochester vamp nests with an iron fist, more because he was old as dirt, rather than because of some great attribute of his own. The older the vampire, the more deadly he—or she—became, and Caius was the highest on Damon’s hit list.

Damon was going to kill him. He would make sure of it this time.

His eyes locked on to the vampire. Though the swaying limbs of the dancing patrons skewed his view, he could see Caius sitting on the other side of the club. Anger bubbled up inside his chest, and pure rage filled every inch of his body. It took all he had not to pull his Desert Eagle and shoot Caius point-blank before driving a stake straight through his heart.

His hands clenched into fists. It was his fault. His fault that Caius sat there laughing while Mark’s ashes had gone unburied. His fault the only woman he’d ever opened his heart to wished him dead. He’d failed Mark—his closest friend—and he had failed her, too.

A grin crossed Caius’s face as he wrapped his arm around the skimpy-leather-and-fake-silver-chain-clad woman next to him. He was surrounded by women. Not surprising. Few things were larger than a male vampire’s ego, and Caius overcompensated like a pair of tricked-out rims on an already overpriced car. Damon observed the vampire’s interactions. If there was one thing he’d learned during his field training, it was how to be a quick judge of character. Vanity was no doubt Caius’s number one weakness, and striking that vein would make him bleed.

A sexed-up raspy voice purred right next to Damon’s ear. “You gonna order a drink, hot stuff, or just stare into the crowd all night?” A cheap pair of too-tight latex pants blocked his view.

The bottle-blonde waitress smacked her lips together as she chewed on a piece of gum. She leaned down and rested her elbows on the table in front of him, treating him to a prime-time view of her fake chest. Her breasts squeezed into a top smaller than some women’s panties. Her breath reeked of over-chewed bubble gum and the sharp smell of cheap gin.

She licked her lips. “You look like a vodka-on-the-rocks kind of man to me—strong, bold, served on ice but easily warmed.”

Damon barely glanced at the woman. He leaned back in his seat, aligning his vision with Caius again. “I don’t drink.”

The waitress sighed and peeled herself off the table. “Well, if you’re not gonna order anything, you can’t take up an entire booth.”

A slender redhead ran her fingers through Caius’s hair and pushed closer to his body. The women surrounding Caius literally threw themselves at him, practically begging to be drained, but Caius’s stare was fixed on something out of Damon’s line of sight. If he could just see where…

The waitress huffed. “Uh, hello? Did you hear me?”

Moving about the club for different views was a better option than staying put, Damon decided, and stood, then brushed past the now pissed-off waitress. Nothing was going to distract him. A drive to fulfill his quest pulsed through him. With six human women missing from Caius’s inner circle and a growing number of gruesome, fatal street attacks, neglect was not an option.

When he’d joined the Execution Underground, he’d sworn an oath to protect innocent humans from the dangerous creatures lurking out of their unsuspecting sight. An international elite group of men, the Execution Underground trained hunters to annihilate everything from vampires to werewolves, demons, shifters and more.

Though trained extensively in combat and packing loads of hard-earned muscle, no plain man could fight the supernatural alone. Upon swearing in, each hunter received a serum injection, and while the resulting longer lifespan, increased strength to battle the supernatural and extra healing capabilities were perks, putting their lives on the line every day was one hell of a sacrifice. Even with the serum, they still couldn’t match the supernaturals’ strength completely. That was where the training came in, to ensure they weren’t easily annihilated. They swore to protect their fellow humans no matter the personal cost, swore to keep the supernatural world hidden from view and away from the vulnerable. They promised to give everything, even their lives, if needed.

Mark had given his life for the safety of others, and Damon wouldn’t dishonor his memory. He’d meant every word of that promise he’d made.

Damon followed the line of Caius’s gaze and strode to the bar. He found a seat in the far corner, right where he could see Caius. He followed the ancient vampire’s eyes and found their target.

A woman. No surprise.

Her back was turned toward Damon, revealing nothing but a thick mane of dark brown waves cascading over her shoulders. The bartender handed her two glasses of red wine. Slowly, she sashayed to Caius’s side, his gaze never leaving her body. Her gender didn’t matter. He intended to hurt Caius and his minions in any way he could, but even to avenge his fellow hunter, Damon refused to endanger the innocent human patrons around him. Mark wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. He would need to lure Caius away from the crowd.

Damon’s outrage simmered at the thought of all the innocent lives lost.

The instinctive fight-or-flight response forced most people away from supernatural predators. But used, beaten, downtrodden and abused humans swarmed the undead like flies on a half-eaten corpse, and they were the most susceptible to supernatural manipulation. Somebody needed to protect them. Somebody needed to give a damn about their lives when no one else ever had.

Damon’s cell phone vibrated inside his jacket pocket. Headquarters.

But he couldn’t return the call out in the open. He slipped away from the bar and headed toward one of the private club rooms. He ducked through the curtained door and into the empty space. Scanning the room, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, revealing nothing more than the outlines of assorted couches, throw pillows and other ordinary furniture. He was alone.

He pulled the phone from his pocket and flipped it open, quickly glancing at the message.

The all-capitalized text glared across the screen. New information from his contact at headquarters. UPDATE. CALL BACK.

Damon’s jaw clenched. Damn. An update meant another dead body. Another death piled on to his conscience. If he hadn’t failed Mark that night three months ago…

He cursed under his breath and quickly hit Redial.

Chris answered on the second ring. “You’re not going to like what I have to tell you.”

Damon rested his free hand on his head and ran his fingers through what little hair remained after his buzz cut. “Get on with it.”

Chris let out a long sigh. “You’re not going to like any of this. You want the shitty news or the straight-up awful news first?”

Damon shook his head and paced the room. “Out with it.”

Chris sighed again. “Well, first matter of business—there’s another dead body.”

Damon dug the fingernails of his left hand into his palm. His fist itched to punch through the plaster wall. Someone might as well have stabbed him in the back and twisted the knife. Knowing the news before he called didn’t make it any easier.

“Damon, you still there, man?”

Damon unclenched his fist and tried to focus. He would not let his emotions distract him. Not again. “Yeah, I’m here.” He shook his head. The Rochester P.D. would jump all over this. Already they deemed the murders the work of a serial killer with vampiric delusions. Another victim with fang marks would fuel the fire.

What kind of bloodsucker didn’t seal up the damn fang holes after he sank his teeth in? Even the dumbest vamps knew to keep themselves hidden from the public eye. Was one small lick to close the wound too much to ask?

“Victim is a Caucasian female. Only sixteen. Found four blocks away from Manhattan Square Park. A connection with the police force called it in to us. Body’s in the morgue of the Golisano Children’s Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center. As of now, she’s listed as Jane Doe. No ID on her and, well…from the crime scene photos we’ve been sent, it won’t be easy to identify her. You better get over there soon.”

Damon leaned against the nearest wall and rested his head on his forearm. “What’s the other news?”

A moment of silence passed on the other end of the line before Chris cleared his throat. “There’s, uh…there’s been a new development in Mark’s case.”

Damon snapped upright, his whole body rigid. All his senses peaked, and adrenaline raced through his bloodstream. “What do you mean ‘a new development’? He’s dead, Chris. His body burned in the fire. I saw him lying on the ground, bled out and dead, before the building exploded, and we know exactly who killed him. What kind of ‘new development’ can there be?” Desperation and anxiety hit him hard, and he knew his voice wavered. His hands were shaking.

“I’m so sorry, Damon.”

All the wind rushed from Damon’s lungs and bile rose in the back of his throat as he realized what Chris was saying. “No. No. He can’t…no… .” He lost the ability to speak. His stomach churned.

“Another hunter spotted him in New York City a few days ago. The information just made it into the system. He’s not dead, Damon. He turned.”

The phone fell from Damon’s hand. His heart pounded in his ears, and red clouded his vision. A sharp pain flamed in his chest as if someone had driven a blade straight through his heart. Mark had turned. He wasn’t dead. No…

A loud angry battle cry ripped from Damon’s throat, and tears ran down his face. He gave in and punched his fist into the wall. A large chunk of plaster crumbled to the floor, but no one heard over the loud thumping of the music.

Mark was worse than dead. He was a bloodsucking leech, and the fault fell on Damon’s shoulders. Images of him and his best friend, his comrade, flashed through his mind.

“There’s nothing worse than becoming a vamp.” Mark sharpened the end of his silver blade as he sat next to Damon.

The training room smelled of male sweat, blood and heavy artillery. After a full day of training, all the muscles in Damon’s body ached. He nodded. “Nothing worse.”

“At the very least, I’m glad my family didn’t turn. In that respect, I’m glad they’re dead.” Mark glanced down at the blade in his hand. “Promise me that if I ever get turned, you’ll stake me straight in the chest.”

Damon shook his head. “That’ll never happen.”

Mark thumped him hard on the back. “I mean it, D. Promise me.”

Damon let out a long huff. He clapped Mark on the back in return. “I promise.”

Damon threw another punch at the wall, then started pounding the plaster with his fists and praying the images in his head would disappear. Mark’s body lying on the pavement with puncture wounds in his neck. The blood. Oh, God, the blood and the stillness of his body as he lay across the concrete. Dust clouded the air, and Damon’s knuckles bled as he released every ounce of rage coursing through his bones.

If he’d been a weaker man, he would have eaten his gun right then.

Chapter Two

Rage surged inside Tiffany Solow as she handed the ancient vampire his Bordeaux. She wished she could smash the delicate glass on the table and plunge the leftover shards into his neck. Waiting hand and foot on Caius Argyros Dermokaites sent waves of anger and hate through every inch of her body. As if rubbing shoulders with the creatures she hated most wasn’t enough, Caius was the worthless bloodsucking piece of crap who’d murdered her brother and the definition of arrogance. She would kill him. It was only a matter of time, and when she did, she would enjoy every single second of it.

“Thank you, my precious,” he purred.

My precious? Gross. I hope you choke on it, you undead piece of crap.

Tiffany forced a smile on her face and slid into the booth beside him. Caius snaked his arm around her. The rank smell of his skin mixed with the aged Bordeaux and a faint hint of blood. The stench hit her nose full force, and she fought to keep from gagging. Thank God she was an amazing actress. If she didn’t have such a rock-solid poker face, infiltrating Caius’s inner circle would have been damn near impossible.

But every time he made her skin crawl was well worth it if it gave her the chance of murdering the son of a bitch. There was no such thing as a decent bloodsucker. They’d proved that the day she’d first become a hunter—the day her family had been stolen from her.

Caius would be tough to kill. Everything in her craved to stab him right then, get it over with. But if she even made a quick move at him, he would crush her before she blinked. She had to catch him with his back turned. His trust was key to his death. And she’d baited him perfectly into wanting her as a Host.

Serving their purpose for a short time, Hosts fed the vampires and sated their blood thirst, but once the anemia set in, the vamps had no more use for their weakened prey. Humans with knowledge of vampires were too high a risk to keep around. Hosts always ended up dead or undead. And despite the Hosts’ presence, vampires weren’t only leeches, they were greedy; feeding regularly on Hosts didn’t stop them from massacring innocent civilians for sport; it only delayed the actions on occasion.

Tiffany had found ways to warn multiple women and men during the time she’d spent with Caius, but it was no use. They were too entranced, nearly hypnotized, by the charm of the bloodsuckers to listen to reason. Tiffany had to admit, that charm was hard to ignore. But every time she thought of the deaths of her parents and brother, not to mention the loss of a deep friendship, her disgust snapped into place and she remembered exactly why she lived to drive stakes through vampires’ hearts. She thanked her lucky stars that Caius was still trying his persuasive skills on her, practically begging her to be his.

He could tell she was healthy and strong. To keep her iron high and appealing, she ate enough red meat and spinach to last her a whole lifetime—the thought of one more piece of spanakopita or rare steak made her stomach churn. Hell, every spare cent she possessed went toward that. Steak wasn’t exactly in the usual budget for a flat-broke college senior with four years of med school and then several more years of residency ahead of her. But it worked in her favor. Caius knew from her scent that she would provide a long Host relationship with all the expected sexual benefits, ensuring that she was too tempting for him to kill her in one quick meal. Caius wanted her for the long term.

Little did he know his efforts would have been more effective on a piece of broccoli. She almost snorted. Was she hungry or what?

He interrupted her thought. “Darling, do you see that private room over there?” Caius gestured toward the far side of the bar.

Tiffany nodded. “Yes.”

Caius sipped his Bordeaux, his eyes fixated on the closed curtain of the private room. “I believe we have a new visitor. Vampire, it appears. He has the movements of a predator.” He set down his wineglass a little more forcefully than necessary. “I won’t have an unannounced alpha traipsing around my club. Please go fetch Calvin and see that he’s taken care of.”

“My pleasure.” She smiled and stood to find the bodyguard. As soon as she turned her back on Caius, her smile faded into a frown.

Eat my stake, you nasty leech.

She was really feeling the pure bitchiness tonight. But then again, spending more than five minutes with Caius would turn any sane person into a complete basket case. He would pay for everything he’d done. She would gladly drive a stake into his heart and watch him explode to pieces like the blood bag he was. Vampires were so damn messy to kill, but she didn’t care. She wanted nothing more than to make him bleed.

As quickly as possible, she navigated through the crowd toward the back of the club. She exited the first door and stepped into the small area leading back to the offices. She glanced up and down the hall. No Calvin.

An immediate chill ran down her spine. The hairs of her neck and arms stood on end, and goose bumps prickled over her skin. Something was not right. She needed to get out of there, and fast. Pushing through the final exit, a rush of cold winter air hit her hard in the face. She stepped out into the alleyway and fell straight on her ass.

What the hell?

Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of what she’d tripped over: Calvin’s dead body. His neck was twisted at a strange angle as he lay lifeless on the pavement. Not a single drop of blood or any evidence of a fight.

Damn. It took a lot of cojones to snap the neck of a vampire. Whoever had done this was vicious.

She hopped to her feet and brushed herself off. No skin off her back if Calvin was dead. One less bloodsucker made for a better world. Though Caius would go ballistic at the news, and she didn’t want to deal with one hell of a pissed-off vampire, unless…

Her eyes widened again. She knew how to lessen Caius’s anger: deliver the new alpha vampire.

She rushed through the back door and reentered the club. If she could move fast enough and deliver the head of the anonymous vamp to Caius, she would be that much closer to gaining his trust. One step closer to destroying the scumbag who’d murdered her family.

Pushing her way through the club patrons, she headed toward the private room. She weaved in and out of the crowd to avoid Caius’s gaze. Once she reached the curtained entrance, she pulled her Smith & Wesson from her jacket. Always loaded with silver bullets, her rounds sure wouldn’t kill a vampire, but they would inflict a serious wound, enough to make the leech pause.

She quickly slipped inside. With her eyes already adjusted to the darkness from being outside, she searched through the dimness, gun aimed.

No one.

She stepped farther into the empty room.

The end of a gun barrel pushed against her skull. The small click of the hammer sent adrenaline pumping through her body. Her heart thumped hard against her chest.

Positioned at the end of a vampire’s gun.

Royally screwed didn’t even begin to cover it.

Damon held the Desert Eagle without a single ounce of fear in his body. If there was one thing he was excellent at, it was staying detached in intense situations. He wasn’t used to dealing with vampiresses, but there was a first time for everything.

He held the gun steady, resting right against her skull. “Drop your weapon.”

With slow tentative movements, she spread her arm to her sides, so he could see the firearm. She released the magazine clip, and it fell onto the floor before she dropped the gun.

He increased the pressure on the base of her skull. “Names. All the high-ups in the Rochester nests.”

In a risky decision, she spun away from his gun, grabbing hold of his hand and digging her long fingernails into his metacarpals. A very smooth martial arts move. He let her go and released the gun, not from the pain, but from the reassurance of his silver dagger. Giving her a false sense of accomplishment could work in his favor. With quick agility, she threw a roundhouse kick. He blocked the blow from his face, but the force of her attack gave him pause.

She was strong and an impressive fighter, but she was no match for him. He grabbed hold of her leg and twisted. She lost her balance, toppling toward the ground, but he caught her midfall, holding her.

With precision, he pulled his dagger from his sleeve and forced it against her throat. Not enough to make her bleed, just so she could feel its presence. He had to know for certain if she was a vampire. He couldn’t bring himself to harm a woman without being sure.

She stopped struggling. Smart.

He backed her into the corner nearest the light switch. If he got lucky and she was angry or afraid enough, her irises would reveal the answer to him. “Turn around.”

She did as she was told. He pushed her body against the wall with his own, the dagger still at her throat. With his free hand, he flipped the switch.

Then wished he hadn’t.

Damon’s breath rushed from his lungs, and his heart skipped several beats. Adrenaline kicked into his system like a tidal wave. Every inch of his skin electrified. He was a live wire, all senses enhanced and awake from their deadened state. His arousal was instantaneous as the sweet smell of her perfume hit his nose. She smelled like baked cinnamon apples, autumn spices, vanilla and sweet, sweet sex.

He’d never been one to stop and take in the beauty of the world, but he was certain that her face was more gorgeous than anything he’d ever laid eyes on. Her thick dark brown hair fell just past her shoulders, and from that he recognized her as the woman from the bar. His eyes trailed over that gorgeous hair, which stopped just above a pair of ample breasts that pushed against him. Her slender frame felt amazing against his body.

But what completely entranced him was her stare. A pair of large honey-colored eyes rimmed with dark layers of full lashes gazed up at him. A slight hint of fear showed behind her irises, mixed with the drive to fight, and he immediately hated himself for being the one to put that fear there. He cursed silently. What was wrong with him? He never regretted terrifying bloodsuckers, and she wasn’t even afraid enough to give him the answer he sought. He cursed himself again. God, she was gorgeous. Vampiresses were impressive beauties, but no woman he’d ever seen, human or vampire, compared to her.

No. He snapped his attention into focus.

He wouldn’t be distracted. He clenched his jaw and crushed his own desire. How could he be thinking of sex? Mark was a vampire, and it was his fault. His own neglect had killed his closest friend—more than once. It was his fault Caius had stolen Mark’s life. If he’d only staked Mark as an extra precaution before the building exploded, Mark wouldn’t…

He pushed all his feelings deep inside himself, where there was no escape. His focus wouldn’t be broken, not again. He had three tasks he needed to accomplish: kill Caius to avenge Mark’s death, end the gruesome killings plaguing Rochester’s streets…and murder his best friend.

He would not let her faze him. His brain fought to concentrate, but his body was saying otherwise. Not once had he ever had this problem. Well, not since she refused to answer his letters.

He wished he could end it right then, draw the blade across her throat and free himself from the agony of wanting her. He scowled, disgusted with himself. Wanting a vampire? The thought made his stomach churn. But bloodsucker or not, he’d never laid a hand on a woman, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to change that now. Unless an innocent life was in danger, he doubted he could bring himself to do it, and his life was far from innocent.

Still, something in his gut protested that he needed to know for sure what she was, and there was one sure way.

He shook his head. The sight of her Mark of Caine would shock him back to normal. To the version of himself that had little interest in women when there was a job at stake—and there always was, especially now.

“Turn,” he said. When she didn’t move, he increased the pressure on her neck. “Turn around.”

With a glare of pure hate in her eyes, she turned away from him.

Before she could escape, he locked his arms around her, pressing her back against his body. He held the knife to the front of her throat and forced her to bend over. If the mark was there, he wouldn’t hesitate to use the necessary force to get answers from her. Then, female or not, he would do what he had to do.

As his gaze trailed the length of her spine, he caught himself admiring the curve of her ass. Her round behind rubbed against him. Holy smokes…Had he ever wanted a woman so badly? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been interested in sex.

No distractions. He was weak, selfish. Stupid.

Need raced through his veins while he lifted the hem of her black tank top. He hooked two fingers beneath the edge of her leather pants, then slid them down an inch. The two cute dimples just above her ass were enough to leave him wanting for days, but her skin was smooth and unmarred.

No mark. A female vampire’s Mark of Caine always appeared on her lower back. He blinked several times. He found himself at a loss for words. “Where’s your…?”

“My what? My vamp stamp? News flash, buddy, I don’t have one.”

That she even knew what a “vamp stamp” was gave him pause. He released her shirt and allowed her to stand up straight, but he maintained the knife at her neck. An odd sense of relief washed over him, and he immediately chastised himself. Whether she was human or not, he had a job to do. “Who are you, and why are you wielding a gun in a dark room in a known vampire club?”

She shook her head. “Tell me who you are, and then maybe I’ll consider sharing.”

He pressed the sharp blade against her skin, reminding her of its presence. He didn’t have the patience for this. “I’m the one with the knife,” he said.

She stood completely still, nothing but the rise and fall of her chest giving away her agitation. “Touché.”

He forced her toward the wall again. She turned around before he even told her to do so. She was trying to show her lack of fear by taking the lead, not waiting for directions. Not surprising, with her overly trigger-happy attitude, but her confidence was her weakness. Her gaze met his in a show of defiance, but he wouldn’t let himself be fooled into picking a fight. He was easily twice, if not three, times her size. Though she well trained in fighting, she would never be a match for him.

He held her stare until finally she looked away.

“Tell me your name,” he demanded.

She closed her eyes, glanced at the floor and let out a deep breath. Her eyes flickered up to meet his gaze again. “Sandra—”

He pushed her harder against the wall. “Real name.”

She gaped at him as if he’d slapped her. “How do you know that’s not my real name?”

“Everyone has a poker tell.” One of the things he’d learned in his time at the E.U. headquarters was to interpret body language. It came in particularly handy when trying to distinguish vamps from humans, though detecting lies was always advantageous. She glanced down and to the left when she lied—a classic sign for many people and overly predictable. But he wasn’t about to tell her that.

“What’s your real name?” he asked again.

Her jaw clenched. Her anger at her current position was apparent in her eyes, but her voice was a sexy feminine alto when she finally said, “Tiffany Solow.”

The air rushed from Damon’s lungs as if a high-speed bullet had hit him straight in the abdomen. His head spun, and it took every ounce of self-control he had not to shake with anger. He couldn’t believe the night had actually gotten worse, although he knew he deserved the massive beating the universe had just dished out to him.

Tiffany Solow…Mark’s baby sister. His own Achilles’ heel.

Rochester was a huge city. Though it was her hometown, when he transferred there in order to hunt Caius, he’d hoped like hell he would never run into her. What the hell were the chances? And what was she doing hunting vampires?

The memories flashed through his head in a nonstop pulse. His training officer’s voice rang in his ears. Brock, see a therapist or find someone to tie yourself to. Pronto!

With no family to support him, Damon had been deemed at risk of “low morale” by the Execution Underground. They’d thought the pressure of hunting might turn him into some crazed psycho if he didn’t have someone to talk to. They covered their asses by insisting on “therapeutic ties.”

Rather than see the resident shrink, he’d opted for Choice B: to forge a bond, anonymously, with someone outside the E.U. He’d preferred to write a few BS letters to a stranger than have the E.U. psychiatrist record his every thought. The Execution Underground already rode his ass about everything. He didn’t need them inside his head, too. And being his usual giving self, Mark had volunteered to help his best comrade and had contacted his baby sister.

Headquarters was all about “family contacts.” In other words, they ensured that their hunters had something to live for besides the hunt alone. It was a numbers game to them. An overwhelmed hunter who committed suicide forced the E.U. to shell out money to train a replacement, not to mention compensation for the family. They were saving their pocket change.

Tiffany was in the same age group as many of the female victims the hunters set out to avenge, so the E.U. found her an appropriate contact. Because she’d known already that vampires existed, because she’d lost her parents to a vampire attack and had a hunter for a brother, there had been no security breaches involved in writing to her. According to the E.U., it also benefited her to know there were other men out there, aside from her brother, keeping her safe at night. Damage control, really.

Headquarters called it personalization and bond forging. He called it a load of crap. Like he’d needed any more incentive to do what he’d been trained to do. He would never forget the first letter he wrote to her.

Tiffany,

They say I need to write someone, so here it is.

Yours truly,

B

She’d replied with an eight-page letter telling him all about her. Little did he know when he’d signed that first damn letter “yours truly,” he really would be hers. In a matter of weeks she’d clutched his heart in her hands.

The last picture Mark had shown him of Tiffany, she’d been only seventeen, long before Mark’s death…before everything fell to shit…before she grew to hate Damon. Now she was twenty-two. He met her gaze and took in the breathtaking woman standing before him.

Mark had loved her more than anything in the world. She had been the only family he had left, and he would have wanted her cared for, protected. Not in the line of fire of the same vampire who had killed him. Damon lowered his eyes. How could he look her in the face when he held the blame for her brother’s death? And if she knew Mark had turned…

No. She would never know. Damon had sworn to Mark that if he were ever turned, he would drive the stake through Mark’s heart himself. A small part of him would die as he did it, but his promise stood firm. But she couldn’t know any of that, which meant he needed to get her out of Club Fantasy, away from Caius. An overwhelming need to protect her surged through him, accompanied by the desire to claim her as his own.

No.

Without a doubt, he could not seduce her. Not only for the sake of his job, but because he owed that much to the memory of his fellow hunter and best friend. Taking Mark’s sister into his bed? He might as well spit on his grave. Her eyes showed she didn’t know who he was. She’d never met him in person, never seen his face. There was no way she would recognize him, and it needed to stay that way. Not even his name would give him away. He was thankful revealing his full identity had been against the rules during their correspondence. He would protect her anonymously and nothing more.

He inhaled a deep breath to cool his head. He tried not to think of how sweet her voice would sound saying his name as he drove himself into her. No. He wouldn’t get attached to anyone again, then he couldn’t fail anyone, then protocol couldn’t get in the way of relationships. Hunting, protection. Nothing more. “What are you doing here?”

She scoffed. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? I’m here every night. You’re the new vamp on the block.”

He growled, low in his throat like an animal. Anger boiled inside him at the accusation. “I am not one of those worthless leeches.”

She froze. Her eyes widened. “You’re too strong to be human.” She scanned his body, her eyes stopping on the muscles of his arms, chest and abs. “Prove it, then.”

Tiffany stared at the stranger before her, her eyes locked on to his icy gaze. A shiver ran down her spine, but heat pooled between her legs. That alone made him dangerous.

“Go on. Prove you’re human.” Her pulse began to race from excitement instead of fear as she challenged him. Her gut screamed not to fight him, that he was no threat to her, but the knife at her throat and the ferocity in his eyes said otherwise.

“Just trust me on this,” he said.

Not a chance. “Well, unfortunately for you, I don’t trust people easily.” With as much force as she could muster, she stomped on his instep.

He didn’t cry out, but the move surprised him enough that the knife shifted slightly away from her throat. She seized the advantage and grabbed hold of his arm, pushed his sleeve up and dug her fingernails into his skin. She wasn’t against fighting dirty. Not if it saved her sorry ass.

Her assailant didn’t even curse at the pain, only grunted in response as her sharp acrylics dug into the flesh of his arm. Blood pooled around the edges of her nails before she released him. She lunged forward, knocking into his midsection like a linebacker. Damn, that had been a stupid idea. The man was built, and running into his abdomen was like hitting her head on a solid concrete wall. That would really hurt in the morning.

He tucked his knife up his sleeve instead of using the weapon against her. What was that about? He grabbed at her as she stumbled back, but she was short enough that she managed to duck out of his reach. He towered over her and was probably twice her weight with all the sexy muscle he was packing.

Regaining her footing, she threw a spinning roundhouse kick. He blocked it with ease as if he often fought third-degree black belts without blinking an eye. He was fierce, no denying it. She continued going at him, throwing nonstop kicks and punches, but he blocked every one, and she was running out of options. Wait! Her gun. Her gun was lying on the floor.

She rushed to reach the weapon. Seconds later, he loomed over her, trying to grab her. Why wasn’t he fighting back? She was sure that if he really wanted to, he could kick the living shit out of her.

She snatched the gun from the floor, but she had no time to aim. She threw a sidekick, but he caught it, then swept her other foot out from under her. She toppled to the floor, landing with an audible oof as the wind rushed from her lungs.

Before he could make his next move, she spun around and kicked his ankles. Pain shot through the edge of her big toe, despite her high-heeled boots; even his legs were pure muscle.

Without thinking, she lunged into his legs, wrapping her body around his knees. He started to fall, but he caught himself and landed prepared to kick out, except that…oh, snap…she was attached to his leg!

She scrambled backward, but he was too fast. Within seconds he was on top of her, straddling her hips and holding her hands against the ground.

He let out a long deep growl and leaned in near her face. “Next time, I won’t hold back from hurting you.”

The ice-cold look in his eyes showed he meant it, and she vowed to herself that there would be no next time. The man was pure unadulterated muscle and no matter how good a fighter she was, she knew when to call it quits.

As she stared up into his eyes, she wished she hadn’t charged him, because damn it, her head hurt and her brain was sending all sorts of crazy mixed signals into parts of her body that had never been lit up before. Though he was on top of her and she was clearly in a vulnerable position, he wasn’t threatening her, just pinning her down and, oh, man, what on earth was wrong with her, because she didn’t mind one bit.

Her gaze traveled over his rock-hard body. His chest heaved in and out from the adrenaline. Through his shirt she could see a nicely defined pair of pecs, and she knew from the pain in her head that washboard abs hid beneath.

Even his forearms, which she’d dug her fingernails into, were well defined. She could tell from the fluid way he moved that he wasn’t some steroidal bodybuilder. No, his muscles were honed from serious training. The thought of his nearly naked body covered in a sheen of sweat as he worked out flooded her mind.

Whooaaaa, Nelly. Back up for two seconds. She never fantasized about men. Ever.

A small pang hit her heart, equal parts pain and anger. Her thoughts traveled to B, the nameless hunter who’d stolen her heart, only to break it to pieces with his betrayal. She could admit a teenage girl had her needs, and she’d fantasized about meeting B in the flesh so many times that real men need not apply. She’d been solo since she was fifteen, when her brother had left home to hunt monsters, and without B in the picture, she intended to keep it that way. She didn’t need any distractions. Her one goal in life was to avenge her family, not snuggle up all lovey-dovey with some sweet guy, get married and have loads of chubby-faced cherubic babies. Not that Mr. Tall, Dark and Scary would ever fit that scenario, anyway. From the looks of things, he was a grade-A badass.

What was wrong with her? She needed to get back to Caius. If she disappeared for long enough, someone would come searching for her. Wasting time ogling a hot man wasn’t in the cards for tonight—for any night. Not while Caius lived and breathed. Besides which, she chastised herself, she didn’t know anything about this man. He’d held a knife to her throat, for God’s sake.

But when she met his cold ice-blue eyes she thought she could drown in their intensity. She wanted to run her hands over his black buzz-cut hair as he pushed inside her. The thought alone sent a wave of heat rushing between her legs and a jolt of electricity shooting down her spine.

A long silence passed between them as he watched her, those haunting blue eyes boring into her.

“I guess I’m not really in a position to bargain now, am I?” She tried to make it sound lighthearted in hopes that maybe he would release her.

He glared at her. His stare alone was enough to make her want to talk.

Clearly he wasn’t a vampire or he would have sunk his fangs into her throat by now. All her instincts said he didn’t intend to harm her, and no vampire would ever take a no-harm approach against someone who’d attacked him.

She cleared her throat. “One of us has to go first, and from your stiff upper lip, I can tell it’s not going to be you.” She sighed. “If I start talking, will you at least let me go?”

He didn’t reply. But the intensity of his gaze compelled her to confess.

She sighed again. “My name is Tiffany Solow, and I’m a vampire hunter.”

His brow furrowed, as if the words vampire hunter confused him. “A female hunter?”

She frowned. Nothing annoyed her more than men who thought women were incapable. She was certainly capable of taking care of herself and of killing supernaturally strong vampires to boot.

“Yeah, buddy. You have a problem with a little girl power?” She wasn’t weak. But this guy had the strength of a vampire and the training of an extremely professional hunter, not someone self-taught.

Could he be from…?

No. What were the chances of that?

His eyes widened before they narrowed again. “You’re alone? No one trained you?”

She nodded. “No one but my brother taught me, so, yeah, I’m solo. You know, Solow—like my last name.”

Usually that got at least a little bit of a chuckle out of people, but Mr. Tall, Dark and Scary didn’t so much as crack a grin.

He released her hands, still pinning her to the ground with the weight of his body. She tried not to think of the way his hips pushed against hers and the obvious thickness she felt beneath his belt buckle.

He shook his head. “You’re no hunter.”

She frowned. “Oh, yeah? And what qualifies you to make that judgment? I could say the same thing of you, after all.”

He shot her a look that said Don’t make me laugh. “Why are you here? Are you a Host?” A look of disgust crossed his face.

“Hell, no! I would never let those leeches feed off me. Don’t insult me.”

The side of his mouth twitched slightly at that. The closest he’d come thus far to a smile. Apparently he appreciated a hate for the undead.

“Caius wants me as a Host, but he’s not going to get me. Other than that, the reason I’m here is none of your damn business.”

He didn’t respond, only scanned the length of her body. Watching his irises as he drank her in was like watching fire flicker and blaze beneath crystals of ice. Breathtaking.

He wrenched his eyes away from her figure and met her gaze. “You’re right. It isn’t.”

She sucked in a deep breath and balled up the courage in her chest. She needed to push him, to challenge him, even though he had the advantage. “Why are you hunting on my turf?”

He ignored her question. His spine straightened, and she could practically see him training his senses on something like a lethal animal.

“What is this room usually used for?” he asked.

“What?”

He lowered his voice. “What is this room used for?”

She gaped. What the hell was he getting at? “Uh…I don’t know. I think people come in here to have sex and drink from their Hosts in private. But why—”

“Shhh.”

“Why are you hushing me? What the—”

He shoved his hand over her mouth to silence her, but with her hands now free she quickly wrenched it off. “No way are you shutting me up, buddy. I’m—”

Before she could comprehend what was going on, they were nose to nose. With gentle but strong movements, he cupped his hand behind her head and his soft lips met hers. All her thoughts came to a screeching halt as the force of his kiss overwhelmed her. His tongue moved against hers in a slow sensual rhythm as his warm body pressed against hers.

The sweet scent of his skin filled her nose like expensive aftershave and amazing, mind-blowing sex. Another wave of heat rushed to her core, and she felt herself buck against him. She didn’t even know his name, but her body was screaming in need for him. She’d never wanted anything, anyone, so badly in her life. Every inch of her skin was electrified as wave after wave of arousal rushed through her.

With soft smooth movements he lifted her so her torso was cradled in his arms while her hips were still pinned beneath his. The hard length of him pressed between her hips, and she felt herself slicken. No man had ever had such a powerful effect on her.

Somewhere in the distance, she was vaguely aware of the sound of an opening curtain.

“Oh, shit. Sorry,” an unknown voice said. “Didn’t know the room was taken.”

Within an instant, his lips were gone.

She gasped for air. The world spun, though he still held her in his arms. Cold air hit her lips, and her heart thumped hard as she longed for the warmth of his kiss to return. He lingered over her, his face barely inches away.

Slowly he released her and stood, walking to the other side of the room. Her head cleared. A distraction. He’d kissed her as a distraction. She’d said people had sex in the room, and someone had come in, so he’d deliberately given the impression that they were having sex. She exhaled a long breath to collect herself. Without his weight on her body, she felt strange and uneasy. Though she knew she shouldn’t, she wished the moment hadn’t ended.

Once she caught her breath she didn’t quite know what to say. Finally she managed to whisper the only words she could manage. “What’s your name?”

“Damon Brock.” His voice was cold and distant, no different from before.

Tiffany sat on the floor, completely stunned. Just like that, she’d had her first kiss ever, and from a tall handsome stranger.

Chapter Three

Damon didn’t know what the hell had happened or why the fuck he’d chosen to kiss her… .

He glanced down at Tiffany as she sat on the crimson carpeting, and his heart jumped. Her gorgeous hair was slightly ruffled from where his hand had cradled her head, and her bottom lip was flushed a brighter shade of pink where he’d gently suckled it. Shit, he had never intended the night to go this way.

When he’d heard the approaching footsteps and covering her mouth wouldn’t shut her up, well…he’d done the first thing that had come to mind. And damn if that hadn’t been a huge freaking mistake. If he’d wanted her before, now he wanted her tenfold. His body was begging for him to take her, to press her up against the wall and make love to her until she screamed. His thoughts raced. What the hell was wrong with him? He’d never lost his head like this before. This was Mark’s baby sister!

He fought the temptation to curse under his breath. He needed to knock some sense into himself. But he wouldn’t lose his cool. Before he’d sworn himself to the Execution Underground, if there was one thing his father had taught him about being a hunter it was not to lose his cool. And he’d never had a hard time with that until tonight.

He hadn’t even been with Tiffany more than half an hour and she was already unraveling him, but he sure as hell wouldn’t let that get in the way of his job. He couldn’t.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers in slow circles over his temples. There were six missing women out there, all probably dead, and who knew how many murdered and drained of their blood on the streets. It was his job to protect the future victims. The weight fell on his shoulders alone. He wouldn’t neglect his job, his sworn oath, for any woman, even Tiffany.

Not sure of what he was doing, he picked up his Desert Eagle and holstered the piece behind his back again.

Tiffany grabbed her Smith & Wesson from the floor, reloaded the magazine clip and stood.

He glanced at her, and his heart jumped into his throat. He had to get out of here, but he sure as hell couldn’t leave her behind.

She opened her mouth to speak. “I—”

He shook his head and cut her off. “You shouldn’t be dealing with these vampires. I won’t allow you to place yourself in danger like this.”

Her jaw dropped. She crossed her arms and fixed him with a hard stare. “Who do you think you are? Last time I checked, I didn’t wake up in the morning with the goal of pleasing random strangers. I’ll do whatever I damn well please.”

He should have expected her reaction. He just wasn’t used to dealing with women.

Damon fought the urge to throw her over his shoulder; he didn’t care if she kicked and screamed the whole way, nothing would stop him from protecting her. He exhaled a long breath. “This city isn’t safe for you. Six women are missing, and more have been murdered. I won’t have another death on my conscience because I let you waltz back into that club and play with murderers.”

Tiffany strode across the room to stand straight in front of him. The top of her head barely reached his pecs, but she glared at him as if she were seven foot two. She jabbed a finger into his chest. “Look, buddy, I’ve handled myself perfectly well for twenty-two years without any help from you, so I don’t care who you are, I’m not taking orders from you unless I damn well choose.” She jabbed at him with her finger again. “I’m a vampire hunter, not some tutu-wearing princess who needs to be rescued.”

Pushing past him, she stomped off toward the dance floor.

Just as stubborn as her older brother. Mark had always refused help when he’d needed it most.

Damon followed her. His eyes locked on to her figure as she nudged her way through the sweat-covered bodies on the dance floor. The pulsing red lights cast shadows on her hair, tinting it gorgeous shades of red and purple. Even from behind she was gorgeous. He pushed through the crowd until he reached her.

Before she knew he was there, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her against his body. Using his leather jacket as a cover, he placed the Desert Eagle against her spine, leaned down and growled into her ear, “Walk toward the back door quietly and we won’t have a problem.”

“This is how you try to protect me?” she seethed.

Damon nudged her with his gun, and she walked forward. He battled the urge to suck on the delicate skin of her earlobe, to kiss his way down the length of her neck and collarbone. The smell of her skin was intoxicating. “I’d rather take you to the E.R. for a bullet wound than scrape your insides off the pavement because some demented vampire attacked you. At least with the gun you’d have a chance of survival.”

He forced her to march ahead of them until they reached the back of the club. He pushed open the door and corralled her into the dimly lit street alley. A burst of cold air hit his face, giving him the wake-up call he needed.

“Are you going to take the gun off me now?”

Without a word, Damon patted down the sides of her jacket and confiscated her Smith & Wesson. His hand slid over the stake inside her coat pocket.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? I thought you wanted to protect me.” The pitch of her voice dropped as her impatience rose.

He tucked the gun into his inside coat pocket. “I’ll let you keep the stake for protection, but I can’t have you wielding a gun at me.” He patted down her jacket again. “Any other weapons I should know about, or can I trust you?”

She didn’t answer. Her jaw clenched, and he could tell from her body language that she was seriously ticked off. Her expression made it very clear that she didn’t like being stripped of her weapons.

Damon lowered his gun.

She spun to face him. “You know—”

Before she could finish speaking he slung her over his shoulder as if she weighed no more than a feather from a very pissed-off eagle and jogged toward his gunmetal colored BMW Z4.

She kicked her feet and slammed her fists into his back, but he barely noticed. She yelled profanities at him the entire way to the car, but he didn’t care. He just needed to get her out of there. With the way Caius had been fixated on her, it wouldn’t be long before he questioned where she was, and he wasn’t going to be too happy about his dead bodyguard, either.

When they reached the Z4, Damon quickly hit the unlock button on his remote, wrenched open the door and dropped Tiffany, still kicking and screaming, into the passenger seat. He slammed the door. She shoved herself against it and beat against the window as he slid into the driver’s seat. Thank God for automatic locks and bulletproof glass. Standard issue from headquarters.

Within seconds he was shifting into Drive and stomping on the pedal. They zipped out of the alley at sixty miles per hour.

“What’s wrong with you?” Tiffany yelled. “Stripping me of my weapon and then throwing me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes? What are you? A caveman?”

He tried to tune her out, but it was no use. Damn him, he’d just sucked face with Mark’s little sister. But if he admitted it to himself, how many times had his thoughts wandered in that direction as he’d read Tiffany’s letters? Not while she’d been a teenager, but later, once she entered college, when the handful of years separating them hadn’t been as big a deal. Yeah, he’d wondered, all right.

“Hello!” She banged her fist on the dashboard. “This is the twenty-first century. This is called abduction, and in case you didn’t know, it’s illegal in every state!”

Damon growled, so low and throaty he surprised even himself. “Don’t.”

The tone of that one word shut her up.

He let out another grumble. “I’m trying to keep you safe, whether you like it or not. Sit back and put your seat belt on.”

Slowly she relaxed into her seat and clipped the seat belt into place. Damon sped toward the Golisano Hospital at full speed. The city lights and few people roaming the streets blurred as they sped by. There was no way of knowing the next best move without seeing the victim. Crime scene photos never did the actual carnage justice, and now that he was on the scene he needed to see the details firsthand.

After several minutes of silence, Tiffany finally broke. “Why are you doing this? Why do you care about me?” She fixed him with a hard stare. “Why do you care if I die?”

Damon bit his tongue and concentrated on keeping his expression flat, distant. He couldn’t let her know who he was. If he did, she would hate him and never trust him to keep her safe. But he couldn’t avoid her questions for long.

“It’s my job,” he said.

She shook her head, clearly not buying that for a single minute. “What about the other humans in there? Isn’t it your job to keep them safe, too?”

He gritted his teeth. She’d hit him right where it hurt, but he would never let her know that. “I can’t save everyone.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “So you save the one person in the entire building who needs the least amount of saving?” He didn’t respond. She huffed. “That makes total sense.”

He shot her an icy stare. “That sort of attitude is exactly why you need saving. You’re not invincible.”

She scoffed. “Neither are you.” She yanked up the sleeve of his leather coat. “See, I jabbed you right…” Her voice trailed off as she ran her fingers over his skin.

Electricity shot through his limbs. One small caress and she could bring him to his knees. He clenched his teeth. Everything in him fought against that knowledge. He couldn’t grant her power over him.

She stared at his forearm. The wounds had already begun to heal. The only remaining signs were several pink crescent-shaped scars, which at this rate would soon disappear.

Her eyes widened. “What are you?”

Tiffany stared at Damon’s arm. Her fingernails had dug deep into his skin not even half an hour earlier, and already the healed wounds were nothing but faint pink lines and some residual dried blood. She ran her fingers over the skin once more. Desire pulsed through her every time her skin connected with his. Her nipples hardened into taut peaks as she brushed the muscles of his forearms. She wanted to touch him all over. Run her hands up his thick biceps and onto his chest, down to places where she’d never touched a man before. The thought of their kiss lingered in her mind. She didn’t care that he’d only done it out of necessity. Her lips burned with the need to touch his again.

She drew in a sharp breath. She needed to calm herself. She barely knew this man. How could she want him, need him, so desperately? “What are you?” she repeated.

He didn’t look at her, just continued to stare at the road. “A vampire slayer, a hunter.”

“My brother, Mark, was a vampire slayer before he died.” She held back a small smile. “He’s the one who taught me how to kill vampires.”

Damon’s whole body stiffened like a rigid board. His hands squeezed the steering wheel tighter. The ice behind his eyes blazed a captivating blue.

Tiffany wished those eyes were hovering over her as his muscled body slammed into hers. She cleared her throat and blinked several times. She needed to get the image of him naked out of her head, no matter how delicious she was sure he would be. She knew nothing about him. She snapped her wits back into place.

“Look, I get that most hunters have this overwhelming sense of duty to protect the innocent. My brother was the same way, always spouting at me about what to do if a vampire ever attacked me and feeding me horror stories so I wouldn’t stay out too late at night. But I don’t need protecting. I may be a woman, but you seem to forget that I hunt vampires, too.”

Damon stared straight ahead at the road, his face unmoving and cold. “Not in my sanctioned territory, you don’t.”

Hot as he might be, the man had some serious control issues, and she would only take so much bossing around. “And who gave you the authority to claim this territory?”

He didn’t respond.

Realization washed over Tiffany like a tidal wave. She stopped her jaw from falling open. She deserved a good whap upside the head. How could she be such a moron? The thought crossed her mind briefly before, but it had seemed so unlikely.

“You’re a member of the Execution Underground,” she said. “Just like my brother.”

And B…

His hands tightened on the wheel. She didn’t need his confirmation to know she was right.

“You probably knew him.”

While she didn’t know many specifics about the clandestine organization, she did know that they trained men to be elite hunters of the supernatural and dispatched them across the globe to protect humanity. The Execution Underground had recruited her brother once they’d gotten wind of their parents’ brutal deaths. During the attack, he’d managed to save her from the monster, though he was totally untrained. The Execution Underground had been interested in him from that point on. They’d whisked him away to a private facility to train, while she’d stayed with their aunt Cecelia.

Whenever Mark had visited, he’d never shared much about the Execution Underground with her. She’d always gotten the impression that she wasn’t meant to know, and at the time she didn’t have the courage to ask.

To this day, she still didn’t know which vampire led the attack that killed her family, but she was determined to find out. Mark worked every day after their deaths to find their killer and to destroy the monsters that had stolen their parents’ lives, but Caius had taken his life before he could avenge their family. Now she wouldn’t rest until both Caius and the murderous vampire who destroyed their parents exploded like the overstuffed blood bags they were. She would never forget the moment when she discovered who Caius was. All the Execution Underground disclosed to her was the location of the nest Mark had raided. Their letter said he died “valiantly fighting the leaders of the nest.” It didn’t take much snooping around the vamp world to find out who that leader had been. Once she’d put two and two together, hunting Caius had consumed almost all her waking thoughts.

Without a word, Damon pulled the car to a stop outside Golisano Hospital.

She raised a brow. “What are we doing here?”

He turned to face her. “Would you cooperate more if I said I’m working a case and you could help me as long as you listen to my instructions?”

“I’d be more inclined than when you’re ordering me around for no reason.”

He fixed her with a hard stare before he exited the car. Once he pressed the unlock button, she scrambled after him, eager for more information. She’d never been part of an official case before. She’d only worked to avenge her family’s deaths, and always alone. Sure, she’d killed other vamps in the process, helping one innocent soul or another, but she had never worked a case.

Apparently there was a first time for everything.

Chapter Four

Dead was an awful smell to get used to. The scent of formaldehyde hit Damon’s nose as he and Tiffany walked into the morgue. After a few calls to the E.U. in order to clear things with security, they were able to enter the room with ease. The reflective silver surfaces and sharp sterilized instruments laid out on tray tables made the room as cold as the chilled air around them. She coughed and covered her face with her sleeve. Though Damon was new to working on his own, he’d shadowed some of the world’s most elite vampire slayers for the past several years. The smell of dead bodies no longer churned his stomach.

But the thought of all the children in the silver drawers lining the walls did.

There was nothing worse than working on a case involving children. The fact that Jane Doe was on the older side of childhood didn’t make it any easier. So much for sweet sixteen.

He walked to the small coroner’s desk in the corner and riffled through the files. There was bound to be more than one Jane Doe in the morgue, but only one with the type of extensive damage they were looking for.

Tiffany cleared her throat, still wiping desperately at her nose as if she were trying to erase the smell. “Do you know who we’re looking for?”

He continued searching through the stacks of papers without answering. She had to be somewhere near the top. He noticed a freshly printed page sticking out of a manila folder. He pulled at the edge. The header of the report identified Jane Doe by her extensive mutilation. This was not going to be pleasant.

“Damon,” she said again.

He turned toward her with the paper in hand. “Yeah, I know.”

Reading over the IDs, he matched the number on the report to the corresponding label on a drawer. He placed his hand on the cold metal handle as Tiffany walked to his side.

He nodded toward the drawer. “Don’t watch this.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine. I don’t have a weak stomach.”

“There are some things nobody should have to see.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and planted her feet firmly.

He let out a long sigh. “Suit yourself.” He pulled open the drawer and fought not to gag.

Immediately Tiffany ran to the small wastebasket near the coroner’s desk and hurled. Damon didn’t blame her one bit. He stared down at the unidentifiable body as anger built inside him. Even if they’d found an ID, it would have been next to impossible to identify this girl, and no parent deserved to see their child like this. A large, gaping hole took the place of her face. The lips, eyes and mouth were gone, like some gruesome figure in a haunted house or a B horror film.

As if the facial mutilation wasn’t enough, several sets of fang-size holes marred her neck and collarbone. From the heavy purpled bruising, they were evidence of the M.O.D.—method of death: exsanguinations. Damon had stopped hoping for the existence of a higher power long ago, but, damn, he prayed the mutilation had occurred after she’d already been drained. The thought of her suffering from the injuries to her face as a vampire slowly bled her out was more than even he could handle. Every inch of his being longed to kill the sick bastard who’d done this. The worthless piece of shit deserved to die a slow, painful and torturous death. And he intended to make sure that happened.

He carefully examined the holes on her neck. There was no mistaking it. Her wounds were definitely fang marks, the exact shape and width of the average vampire’s canine teeth. Walking to the coroner’s cabinet, he searched until he found three cotton swabs and the containers used for sending away samples for DNA analysis. He traced one around the edge of her fang bites, another near the edges of her facial wounds and the third over a small speck of dried blood on her cheek. He capped all three samples and glanced down at the body.

A feeling of disgust hit him. Desecrating the poor girl’s corpse was the last thing he wanted to do at that moment, but he couldn’t risk her turning into a vampire within one month’s time. He needed to take preemptive measures to ensure she wouldn’t turn, the measures he should have taken with Mark. Pulling his stake from inside his coat, he placed it over her heart. He closed his eyes, inhaled a deep breath and thrust the stake downward.

He opened his eyes again. Dry bloodless flesh, but otherwise there was no reaction. He let out a long sigh of relief. It was bad enough she’d been murdered by a vampire, but thank God she hadn’t turned in the process. Bile rose in his throat as he thought of Mark being one of those bloodsuckers. Of Mark killing humans to fuel his own immortality. Because once turned, there was no fighting the change, and for the first year a vampire’s blood thirst raged so hard that all the self-control in the world wouldn’t aid him.

Removing the stake from her heart, he pulled his cleaning rag from his pocket, wiped off the lacquered wood and placed the stake inside his jacket again, then closed the drawer, sealing the corpse inside, and walked to Tiffany’s side.

Tiffany lifted her head from the trash bin. Shoving her hair away from her face, she inclined her head toward the drawer. “Is it closed now?”

Damon nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

She shot out of the morgue and toward the car as if someone had lit a fire under her ass. Judging by her pale white face, she was more than a little spooked. She didn’t speak again until she slid into the passenger seat.

“I thought you had a strong stomach,” he said as he slid behind the wheel.

She shook her head. “I thought so, too.”

Damon wasn’t surprised. Regular people thought being immune to motion sickness constituted a strong stomach. Dealing with the dead was different. She would need to toughen up for med school, if that was still her goal. She’d been prepping for her studies when they’d last communicated, several months ago. He opened his mouth to comment, but caught himself.

Do not go there, Damon.

He shifted the car into Drive and paused to plan out his next move. Getting the samples into the headquarters database via his personal analysis equipment before the evidence could be comprised needed to be his first priority.

Within a few seconds they were back on the street, and he sped away from the hospital.

She slumped against the headrest and closed her eyes. “Where are we going now?”

He held back a string of profanities. Sending off the samples meant taking her to his place. What the hell would Mark say if he knew he was taking Tiffany home with him? His hands tightened on the steering wheel. The image of her lying across the black Egyptian cotton sheets of his bed sent his sexual imagination into overdrive.

No. Nothing would result from her being in his home, near his bed. He owed Mark that respect. “To my apartment.”

She let out a long sigh. “What for?”

Damon shifted into gear. “To analyze the samples.”

When they reached the Temple Building on Franklin Street, Tiffany’s eyes widened.

“Holy guacamole! You live in the Temple Lofts?” Her eyes scanned the tall brick building. “Very nice.”

He didn’t respond.

She gave a slight laugh. “That’s definitely not where I expected you to live. I mean, obviously, driving this Beamer, I’d be stupid to think you didn’t have some dough, but dang. My little hellhole of a college apartment is nothing compared to this.”

Damon slid out of the car and slammed the door. Tiffany followed suit.

He led the way to the entrance as she trailed behind him. Several minutes later they were on the third floor. He unlocked his door and flipped on the lights.

Tiffany followed him into the two-story loft apartment. Her face lit up. She glanced at the twenty-five-foot-high ceiling, clearly admiring the open staircase and the high quality furniture. Mostly black, white and tan. He’d gone for muted but classy, not to mention that he prided himself on keeping his apartment virtually spotless.

“Wow. Very impressive.” She walked to the skyline window and studied the lights of the city.

Damon closed the door behind him and locked the dead-bolt. “What were you expecting?”

She spun to face him. “Huh?”

“You said this wasn’t what you expected from me. What did you expect?” He stripped his jacket off and laid it on the kitchen island.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess something a little bit…rougher around the edges.”

He removed the Desert Eagle from the back of his pants and placed it on the counter.

The large silver gun thunked as it hit the countertop. Rough around the edges? Try jagged on every corner.

He watched as Tiffany ran her hand over the banister of the wooden staircase.

“If you’re a member of the Execution Underground, what are you doing in Rochester?”

Damon froze for a moment, but then forced himself to relax. He kept his back to her and managed to speak evenly. If she knew he was responsible for her brother’s death, she’d never trust him. Sure, there were other reasons for hunting Caius, but he knew how sharp Tiffany was. He would need a damn good excuse to make her think he had absolutely no connection to her brother, much less any knowledge of his death. Keeping his mouth shut was the best option.

He walked to the refrigerator and pretended to search for something to drink. “Who said I was a member of anything?” He grabbed a bottle of water and closed the fridge. After chugging down the water in a few quick swigs, he turned to her again.

She rolled her eyes. “Look, my brother was one of you, okay? I understand how you guys are with keeping your secrets, never admitting your true occupation to anyone, blah, blah, blah, but there’s nothing to hide here.” She shrugged as if secret international networks of lethal hunters chasing the supernatural were no big deal. “I already know the Execution Underground exists, so why the tight lip?”

He recapped the now-empty plastic bottle and placed it on his countertop. “Organization or not, I don’t make a habit of sharing my personal life—with anyone.”

She gestured to the large open space around them. “Uh…I’m in your apartment. How’s that for personal?”

He smashed the empty water bottle with his palm. Man, she drove him up a wall with the nonstop questions. But what wouldn’t he give to throw her over his shoulder and carry her up to his bedroom. Maybe in another life.

Another life where he wasn’t a worthless excuse for a hunting partner, where his mistakes didn’t cause innocent people to get killed and where the deaths of more than one person didn’t rest on his shoulders. Mark could have gone after Caius without the need for a transfer, closing in much sooner than Damon could. And any extra time meant bodies piling higher.

“There’s no division of the Execution Underground in Rochester. I know that because otherwise my brother would have worked here. So why are you here?”

He took the samples from his coat pocket and walked toward the tech room. It had been meant as nothing more than a bedroom, but it hadn’t even taken him two days to hardwire everything in place. His own personal contact with headquarters.

“Stay here.”

She shot him a scathing look before she marched to the other side of the room and flopped on to the white leather couch.

Certain she was firmly planted in place, he slipped down the short hall to the tech room. He punched in several series of codes to unlock the door and stepped inside. The wall was lined with monitors of all shapes and sizes. The highest-end technology headquarters could supply him with was all contained within this one room. It was a tech nerd’s wet dream.

Damon dropped into the desk chair and typed several numbers on the keyboard. The monitor rang like a telephone until a small beep confirmed that Chris had answered the other line. Seconds later his face appeared on one of the monitors.

Chris’s expression was one of concern. “Hey, Damon. How you holding up?”

Damon held up the three samples. “I need these processed as fast as possible. If I load them into the DNA analysis machine, can you connect with my database and look them over?”

“Yeah, sure. Though…want to trade jobs? I’d rather be an assassin.”

Damon fought back a small smirk as he rolled his chair to the opposite wall and carefully loaded the specimens into the scanner, which processed the data instantly, locking the genetic code into Damon’s control system. Only the technological abilities of the Pentagon and the CIA rivaled those of the Execution Underground, and even they sometimes fell short.

“The samples are from the latest victim. One blood culture, one saliva analysis and one unknown.” He fixed Chris with a hard look. “Looked like the killer ate the body. Ate it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the bloodsucker ate it.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Like a zombie?”

“Sure, whatever you want to call it. But vampire, zombie or who knows what, I don’t care what it is. I just want to know who and where it is so I can stake it straight through the heart.”

Chris focused on one of his monitors and typed at full speed. “The blood looks normal, nothing unusual about it. But the saliva and the unknown, I’m going to have to get back to you on those. There’s something off about them.”

“Off like how?”

“Like there’s a different genetic marker that’s screwing up the whole code. They don’t look anything like normal.” Chris pounded away at his keys. “Are all these from the victim on the far side of Franklin Street?”

Damon gripped the arms of his chair like a vice. “What do you mean, the far side of Franklin Street?”

Chris stopped typing and looked at Damon through the screen. “The most recent killing ten minutes ago on the far side of Franklin Street. A P.D. informant tipped us off. He said he’d call you. He saw it on patrol, and he’s been holding off on calling the cops. I thought you said this was the most recent one? I—”

“I have to go.” Damon stood and jabbed at the keys, beginning to shut down his system. “Chris, I didn’t know about the newest killing and F.Y.I., I live on Franklin Street.”

Tiffany pressed her ear against the door. She strained to hear even the smallest sound, but the door was apparently soundproofed. She sighed. She missed her brother every second of every day, and, as pathetic as she knew it was, she needed to know if Damon was in the Execution Underground, regardless of whether he’d fought alongside her brother or not. Anything that would help her hold on to Mark’s memory was worth fighting for. And she had lost B, too… .

Part of her hated him for the role he’d played in Mark’s death. The other part missed him like hell. She could have used a friend these past three months.

The steel-reinforced door was yanked out from under her ear, and she toppled into Damon’s chest. “What the hell?”

Holy guacamole!

Looking past him, she spotted what he was hiding: a control room that wouldn’t have been out of place at NASA.

Damon slammed the door shut behind him, helped her regain her balance and then hurried past her in a full-on jog. She heard his steel-toed boots clomp up the staircase. What in the world was going on?

She raced after him.

When she reached the top of the stairs, she watched as he threw open the doors of a walk-in closet lined with weapons.

Whoa. Mr. Tall, Dark and Scary sure packed a whole lot of heat.

He shoved various weapons into the military loops on his belt before he slammed the closet doors shut and thundered down the stairs again as if she weren’t even there.

She followed. “What’s going on?”

He grabbed his jacket and gun from the counter, slipping the jacket on and tucking the gun into place before she could blink.

He wrenched open his front door. “If you’re coming, then haul ass. If not, stay here and keep this door locked no matter what.”

He nearly closed the door on her as she rushed after him.

She stayed at his heels as he ran out to the street. She grabbed his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“Dead body nearby. The vamp probably ghosted it by now, but to be safe, hold your stake at the ready and follow my lead.”

A shot of adrenaline raced through her, and her brain switched to hunting mode.

They jogged to the nearest alleyway, but stopped before moving forward. Tiffany’s eyes widened as she caught sight of the uniformed police officer on the ground. He slumped against the wall behind him. A trickle of blood ran from the crest of his hair. The man groaned.

Damon knelt beside him. “You the informant?”

The cop nodded. Man, the poor guy had taken a beating.

“Were you bitten?”

The officer coughed, blood spewing from his mouth. He spit out a tooth, and then shook his head.

Damon placed a hand on his shoulder. “Good. Are you alright?”

The cop gulped as if trying not to spit more blood, before he managed to say, “Yeah. Hurry. Called patrol, thought I’d lose consciousness. Fifteen minutes till they’re here.” His last several words came out in a slurred mess. Slowly, he lifted his hand and pointed toward the alleyway. “Go.”

Damon gave his shoulder a light, reassuring squeeze. “Thank you.”

Standing, Damon slipped into the alleyway and blended into the shadows at its mouth. Tiffany remained close at his heels. Moving at a slow steady pace, she snaked around the corner right behind Damon. She followed each careful step he took with equal care.

Halfway through she bumped into his shoulders as he came to a sudden halt.

In the middle of the alley, half-hidden by shadows, lay a limp and bloodied body. A pool of dark blood, black against the barely lit pavement, formed in the shape of a halo around…his head?

Tiffany covered her mouth. Her head spun, and she steadied herself on the brick wall of the building that formed one side of the alley. Most vampires preyed on the weak, on those they thought were the easiest targets—not because they couldn’t handle it, but because they liked an easy snack. The only exception was the most ancient bloodsuckers, whose strength was legendary. They barely had to lift a finger. Nausea hit her stomach. The last time she’d seen a young, strong, capable man killed by a vampire was when she and Mark found their father lifeless on their living room floor as their mother clawed uselessly at the monster’s arms. He’d sucked the life from her throat, deaf to Mark’s and Tiffany’s screams. Though she hadn’t yet found him, she would never forget his face.

“He’s not drained completely,” Damon said, his words barely above a whisper.

Tiffany shuddered. There was something not right about this.

Vamps didn’t leave leftovers, yet a puddle of blood surrounded the man’s head. A newborn vamp wasn’t capable of that kind of self-control, but an ancient vamp would lick his dinner plate clean and leave. Near invincible or not, vampires chowed down, drank every last drop of their victim, then they beat feet. They weren’t about to make themselves known to the human population. They were greedy arrogant bastards, but they weren’t stupid. Modern man packed an arsenal of weapons, and an all-out attack from the human race would lead to their demise. Tiffany often wondered if the world would be better off knowing what monsters crawled out after dark. But humanity couldn’t cope with the existence of anything “other,” anything different. They couldn’t handle the truth. They would panic.

Numb, Tiffany stepped out of the shadows and slowly walked over to stand near the corpse, a young guy of around thirty-five who looked as if he’d been healthy and fit before the vamp got him. Now the man’s arm was detached from his body, gnawed to shreds. Exactly the way the young girl’s face had been. His eyes were wide-open, staring toward the night sky, the stars drowned by the lights of the city. Bending down, she carefully brushed her hand over his eyelids, closing them for the final time. She stood.

“Tiffany!” Damon roared.

Before she could comprehend what was going on, he tackled her full force and knocked her to the ground. A loud hiss pierced the darkness, and her mind snapped to attention. A fierce, red-eyed vampire stepped forward from the shadows, its fangs already extended and blood ringing its mouth.

Damon crouched in front of her, blocking her from the vampire’s attack. As the creature lunged, Damon ripped the Desert Eagle from his waistband and fired a round into the bloodsucker’s gut. With such a high-caliber bullet, the vamp’s midsection blew to pieces. Blood and guts splattered over the alleyway, but that wasn’t enough to kill it. Only a severed spine, decapitation or a stake straight through the heart would destroy a bloodsucker for good. The vampire screeched and staggered. It held its internal organs in as the damaged flesh knitted over, healing the bullet wound. It lifted its head. Glowing red eyes pierced through the darkness.

“You will die, hunter.” It crouched in front of the body, guarding the corpse as a lion guards its prey.

Suddenly it ran at Damon, barely visible thanks to its intense speed. It clawed at Damon’s throat, but he kicked his steel-toed boot straight into its still-healing wound. A feral growl escaped the monster’s throat. Damon fought the vampire blow for blow, matching its supernatural strength with a power she’d never seen in a human being before.

For several seconds she stared, completely frozen. She watched their killing dance as the vampire’s blood spilled in all directions, yet each time it lunged, Damon emerged unscathed.

Holy hell. She couldn’t sit there. She had to help. She ripped her own stake from her belt and rushed into the fight.

She lunged at the vampire from behind and stabbed the meaty flesh of his shoulder. Not enough to kill, but enough to injure. In an angry fury, the vampire spun and grabbed at her. She dropped to her knees and sucker punched the bloodsucker straight in the groin.

Take that, sucker.

Human or vampire, getting hit in the crotch hurt like hell.

The creature doubled over in pain, falling on top of her. They rolled across the pavement, each trying to gain the upper hand. Though she was stronger than the average man, the vampire’s supernatural strength overpowered hers. With all its weight it pinned her to the ground. If it sank its fangs into her neck she would be done for. Like a snake, it hissed and threw back its head to attack. A growl, deep and full of anger, sounded in her ears.

It wasn’t the vampire.

Chapter Five

Suddenly the weight of the vampire’s body disappeared. Tiffany’s chest heaved from adrenaline and fear. She stared upward and saw the vampire’s feet dangling above her as the creature struggled helplessly. Damon clenched the monster by the throat. His whole body shook with uncontrollable rage as he crushed the bloodsucker’s esophagus.

“Stake it before I tear its head from its neck,” he growled.

She scrambled to her feet and with both hands drove the lacquered wood of her stake into the vampire’s heart. One last batlike screech ripped through the night before the monster exploded like a bursting sack. Blood splattered over her face and torso, and she thanked God she’d remembered to close her mouth.

Damon lowered his hands and unclenched his fists, and the last remnants of the creature’s flesh fell to the ground.

With her one semi-clean hand Tiffany wiped the vile liquid from her face. “I hate when they do that.”

Damon fixed his stare on her. The raw power that surged from him hit her full force. He was fierce, terrifying and beautiful all at once.

“You are not leaving my sight,” he said. “Understood?”

She nodded, at a total loss for words.

Drenched in vampire blood, he walked over to the dead man and hoisted him into his arms.

He resettled the weight of the dead man’s body over his shoulder before nodding for her to follow him. They needed to get out of there before the cops showed up, and fast. As they snaked down the back of the alley, the distant sound of sirens, followed by the red-and-blue lights casting into the alleyway, lit a fire under their feet. They moved faster. Tiffany sighed. Thank goodness help for the wounded officer had arrived.

They kept to the shadows all the way to the Temple Building before slipping up the fire escape. Two people soaking wet with blood, holding a mutilated corpse, was not a sight for civilian eyes. Damon hit a keypad beside the fire escape window and they climbed into the loft. Wow. Keypad on the fire escape? How paranoid was he?

Once they were safely inside the apartment, they positioned the body on the kitchen island. She stripped off her leather jacket, and Damon followed suit. He held out his arm, and she laid her coat across it. He placed both coats in his laundry room before returning to the kitchen. They both used the sink and washed the caked-on blood from their faces and hands.

Tiffany stared at the body as she used a dishrag to dry her face. “What the hell was wrong with that vampire?” They were the first words either of them had spoken since the alley.

Damon shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a vampire guard a dead body, or leave so much leftover blood in its victim like that. And I’ve definitely never seen a baby vamp capable of stopping in the middle of a feeding to take a breather, and strong as it was, from the sloppy movements of that thing that was a baby vamp as sure as I live and breath.”

She attempted to wipe some of the blood off her shirt and failed miserably. “It was like it was an animal with a piece of food. Vampires are chickenshits. Every peon vamp feeding off the street runs like hell if their victim is already dead and someone approaches. And you’re right, what kind of bloodsucker leaves blood like that? I’ve learned at least that much from hunting.”

Damon shot her a look. “You shouldn’t be hunting vampires alone.”

She glared at him. “Oh, yeah, why’s that? I’ve been hunting vampires for years.”

“You’re not trained. If I hadn’t been there, that bloodsucker would have drained you.”

She turned away from him. Her jaw clenched, and frustration built up inside her.

“How many times have you come that close to death?” he asked.

She stared at the floor.

“How many times, Tiffany?”

“Lots, okay?” She spun to face him. “You’re just like my brother, acting as if I can’t handle myself. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m incapable of fighting. Why do you act like I can’t hold my own?”

Something sparked behind Damon’s eyes, something she couldn’t interpret. “Because you can’t.”

“I am not weak. I’m not a victim.” Her hands balled into fists.

Damon walked toward her, his boots clomping against the hardwood floor. He towered over her, staring down into her eyes. If she’d been a weaker woman, she might have been intimidated, but she refused to back down.

His tone remained calm and even despite the clear frustration behind his words. “Vampires are stronger and faster than even the most powerful human. Being a woman has nothing to do with it. Being untrained on top of being a normal human is what makes you incapable of fighting, not your gender. The vampire in that alleyway was nothing compared to a vampire who has lived even twenty years, let alone thousands. The bloodsucker we fought tonight couldn’t have been a vampire for more than a few days, and still he would have bested you…”

She looked away from him.

He let out a long sigh and held her chin gently in his hands, forcing her to face him. Even when he was covered in blood and dirt, his touch sent electrifying waves through her, and as mad as she was, she wished she could kiss him again. She cursed herself. She didn’t know this man. She still wasn’t even sure why he was so intent on protecting her.

“Tiffany, look at me.”

She did as he asked, studying the contours of his face. He seemed so familiar, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen him before. Though she knew he wasn’t, it was as if he was an old friend she hadn’t seen in years. His presence was both tantalizing and comforting.

“Stop flirting with death. I can tell by looking at you that that’s why you’re doing this. Only someone with a suicide wish would try to fight something they know they can’t win.”

A lump blocked her throat, and she fought hard to keep her eyes from watering. She blinked to hold back the tears and prayed he wouldn’t notice. Damon cupped her cheek, his touch gentle for a man so gruff and strong. She swallowed the lump in her throat and turned away from him.

No one had ever said something so blunt to her. No one had ever seen straight through her before, been so right about her motivations—not even her brother. No one…

…except B.

Even though she’d never met him. She’d been asked to correspond with B to give him something to hold on to in tough times, but in those letters, he’d been her savior. Now, with no more letters cluttering her mailbox, B seemed like a distant dream.

Damon watched Tiffany step away from him. His fingers buzzed with electricity where their skin had connected. He bit his lower lip. He hadn’t meant to put her on the slab and expose her like that. The last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable. The look in her eyes said he’d seen right through her.

She cleared her throat, acting as if he hadn’t nearly made her cry, which seemed very her. From what he’d gathered, she wasn’t the type of person to show weakness.

“Tell me why you brought him back here.” She gestured toward the dead man.

“To examine him.” Time to focus. He ducked into the downstairs bathroom and returned with his scalpel. It had saved him a time or two, letting him avoid unnecessary trips to the emergency room. Nothing like explaining why you had a bullet wound in your shoulder to open up the kind of investigation he didn’t need.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Do I even want to ask why you keep a scalpel in your bathroom?”

“Useful if you get something lodged in you. Glass, bullets, whatever.”

“That happens to you a lot?”

“Comes with the job.” He ran the scalpel from the dead man’s sternum to his navel before he glanced at Tiffany.

All the color drained from her face, leaving her skin with a slight greenish tinge. She gulped.

He nodded over his shoulder, trying to hide a smile. “Bathroom, if you need it.”

She frowned. “Don’t get haughty. It’s different seeing it for real, that’s all.”

He tugged back the skin.

“Ugh.” She gagged. “Do you have to do it so…forcefully?”

“Yes.”

She turned away and walked to the other side of the apartment. His eyes locked on to the sway of her hips, but he forced himself to look away. She would need to get used to dealing with gore if she was going to stick around for long. Damon paused.

Shit. She would not be sticking around for long. Only long enough for him to ensure that she wasn’t chasing vamps anymore, that she was safe.

He’d already done enough to Tiffany. If she stuck around, things would only end with him ruining her life even more.

He glanced in her direction. She was staring out the window at the city lights. Her lips had tasted like warm brown sugar when they’d kissed. His gaze lowered to her sweet behind, and the thought of cupping her ass in his hands before he trailed kisses over the porcelain skin of her neck sent a shiver down his spine.

Damn. He ripped his eyes away from her. He would not think about her no matter how deliciously round her ass was or how perfectly ample her breasts were.

Dead body. Dead body. Dead body.

He looked at the corpse lying on his counter. That was enough to act as a cold bucket of water for anyone. Pushing Tiffany from his mind, he stared down at the dead man’s insides. What was it about the latest victims that caused vampires to act like zombies, going for flesh and not just blood? Why were they eating these people? And the way the new vampire in the alley had guarded this man’s body screamed of a predator protecting its prey.

No. Leeches were leeches.

Once a human was drained, they moved on. Wham, bam, thank you, human. Aside from Hosts, leeches didn’t stick around and play with their food. As much as he hated the relationship, at least Hosts served a purpose. Better a couple pints low than dead, though most Hosts drove themselves to that, anyway. But in all his years of hunting them, he’d never seen a single vampire interested in anything but blood—until now.

From the look of the man’s insides, there was nothing unusual about his blood or his organs. Damon pulled latex gloves from one of the kitchen drawers and slipped them over his hands. He reached inside the open cavity of the man’s midsection and moved around several organs, searching for anything even remotely unusual that would cause a vampire to behave uncharacteristically.

Nothing. No tumors or anything out of the ordinary.

Damon removed his hands from the chest cavity. He pulled at the edge of his glove, ready to be done with his examination, then paused. Something in his gut told him it was worth checking inside the man’s organs, as well.

He reached deep into the man’s body and began to palpate the organs. He bit his lip as his hands squished against the soft tissue. How the hell did morticians and coroners manage to do this for a living? Then again, how did he manage to kill for his?

When he finally reached the man’s kidneys he used the scalpel to extract one. The organ was already cold. Carefully, he slid the scalpel through the spongy tissue.

A loud hiss filled the room. Something vile poured from the kidney, and heat like liquid fire washed over his hand. He ripped the glove off just in time for the greenish liquid to eat through the latex like acid. A putrid smell hit his nose, and bile burned at the back of his throat. Drawn by the noise and the stink, Tiffany came running over from the window.

The damn mess was like a sixth grade science fair project gone wrong, one of those spewing volcanoes every kid built at least once. He hardly noticed Tiffany running off and rummaging in the fridge. A second later, white powder clouded the air as she dumped an entire box of baking soda on top of the acid.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded.

Coughing from the soda cloud, he tossed his gloves in the kitchen garbage can, chuckling. “Overkill on the baking soda much?”

She frowned. “For all you know that could have exploded and I saved your sorry ass. Now, what the hell happened?”

He dusted baking soda from his clothing, not that it did much good with all the blood already there. “There’s something wrong with the kidney fluids.”

“Ya think?” She stared at the rest of the green acid oozing from the dead man’s kidney.

A smile crossed his face. He had to give her credit. Even though he knew she was probably fighting not to toss her cookies, she was standing there like a champ.

He appreciated a strong woman.

She wrinkled her nose. “That’s just disgusting. What is that? Maybe you should check the other organs, too.”

Putting on a new pair of gloves, he held the man’s heart carefully, preparing to jab it with the scalpel. Just as he got ready to slice, the corpse lurched.

Shit!

Damon jumped back as the now newly turned vampire sat upright, hissing and reaching for Damon’s neck. How the hell had the thing changed so quickly? Before he could respond, Tiffany plunged her stake deep into the monster’s exposed heart. One high-pitched screech pierced his ears before the vampire exploded like the blood sack it was.

Blood splashed onto his face and throughout his kitchen.

He looked at Tiffany, who smiled despite all the blood she was covered in. “I told you I could hold my own.”

Damon narrowed his stare. “Sometimes.” He pointed to the stairs. “You can use the shower upstairs. Toss your clothes over the balcony and I’ll throw them in the washer.”

“You don’t need to ask me twice.”

Stake still in hand, she trudged up the stairs. A minute later a large pile of bloody clothes flew over the balcony rail and landed on his hardwood floor with a splat. He quickly threw them in the washer, trying not to think about how deliciously naked she was, about the hot shower water running over the curves of her body. He pushed the thoughts aside.

Down, boy. Focus.

With any luck, he would at least be able to get most of the blood out of their clothes. He glanced down at his own threads. He was covered in blood and dirt, but there was no point in changing before he finished cleaning up.

He reached under his kitchen sink and removed a mop and bucket, a sponge and a gallon of bleach. It was times like these when he wished he wasn’t too paranoid to employ a maid.

Not that your average housecleaner could handle a kitchen resembling a horror movie.

Chapter Six

An hour later he’d thoroughly scrubbed down the kitchen, returning it to a near sparkling clean. He would give it another going over later. Right now he needed a shower. Using the downstairs bathroom, he scrubbed all the blood, guts and debris from his body. When he finished, he wrapped his hips in a towel, threw his own clothes in the washer and padded up the stairs to his bedroom.

Water from the shower pummeled the tiled floor, sounding like heavy rain. He didn’t blame Tiffany for the extra-long shower. When you washed the blood off, no matter how clean you got, sometimes you still felt dirty.

He finished drying off and threw the white towel into the laundry bin. He slipped on a pair of old loose-fitting jeans, zipped and buttoned the fly, then reached into the top of his closet for a black shirt. Tiffany cleared her throat from behind him.

Still shirtless, he turned around. The breath caught in his throat, and every inch of him stiffened. His erection was immediate. She was standing in the middle of his bedroom, still slightly damp from the shower, one of his towels wrapped around her. It took all the strength in him not to rip the towel from her body and take her on top of his bed. Thinking about what was underneath that towel would be the death of him.

He watched as Tiffany scanned the length of his body and a look of hunger filled her eyes. She inhaled a deep breath, and he admired the rise and fall of her chest. Her every movement exuded raw sexuality. If she looked at him that way much longer…

Her gaze dropped to the floor. “I knew you were with the Execution Underground.”

He nearly swore. Damn. She’d seen the E.U. brand on his shoulders, a variation of the symbol Mark and every other hunter had. It marked them as humans with something more—their incredible strength, their speed, their fighting abilities. Each member was branded with his own unique symbol upon graduating the Execution Underground training.

A sad smile crept across her lips. “I like your design more than the one my brother, Mark, had.” She continued to stare at the floor. “The first time he came home after he got his, he flaunted it as if it were a badge of honor. The purple heart of tattoolike brandings.”

Damon froze at the sound of his best friend’s name. He let out a long breath through his nose. She couldn’t know he was responsible for her brother’s death—and worse. His jaw clenched. She couldn’t know that he was going to have to kill Mark all over again.

She shifted from one foot to the other nervously. He admired the sway of her hips and immediately cursed himself. She was Mark’s baby sister. It didn’t matter if she was twenty-two, or that she was her own independent woman, that he’d known her for years—he owed it to her brother’s memory to stay away, to keep his hands off. Not to mention that he needed to stay objective, detached from his mission if he was going to complete it successfully. And how could he be detached while sexing up the sister of the man he was avenging?

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