“If I’m not with you every minute of the night, you might fall into danger again,” Luc said.

The pulse in her throat, her scent, her lips, her eyes … everything about Dani woke his most atavistic primal needs and desires. Much as she despised vampires, she had no idea of the pleasures he could show her, the absolute heaven that lay between life and death.

But he knew, and it made him both restless and dangerous. The need for action filled him, the only antidote to desire.

The room was too small to truly escape. Worse, he could smell moments of desire passing through her, too. They came and went like waves on a shore, as she battled them down. What was it about her?

Dear Reader,

Forever Claimed provided me with an opportunity to take a different look at werewolves. I like taking different looks at things.

Our heroine, Dani, is a werewolf who can’t shapeshift and has left her clan because she can’t stand being different. She was also raised with a deep loathing of vampires, so imagine her shock when she discovers her life was saved by a vampire named Luc.

Against a backdrop of a war between vampires, Dani must choose a side. It is a sometimes painful journey, especially when she finds herself increasingly attracted to a vampire, one of her family’s eternal enemies.

Dani’s journey of self-discovery leads her to some strange and dangerous places and finally to the one place she belongs, in the arms of a vampire.

Enjoy!

Rachel

About the Author

RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve, and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

Forever Claimed

Rachel Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter 1

He smelled blood on the night air. Little did he guess the danger it was about to lead him into.

Luc St. Just sped through the dark city streets, moving shadow to shadow, too fast for human eyes to see. He didn’t want to be here. Indeed, he was returning to this place only because he felt he owed at least a small favor to Jude Messenger, a fellow vampire. Jude was one of very few vampires he counted as a friend.

Which wasn’t saying much. For most of his two centuries as a vampire, Luc had grown truly close to only one other of his kind: Natasha. His lost lover, his claimed mate. When she had died, madness had overtaken him, and although with Jude’s help he’d achieved a measure of vengeance, the excruciating sense of loss and sorrow still remained.

A claiming was supposed to be broken by vengeance, but apparently it hadn’t been. That left only his own death to release him. But for some reason he clung to his existence, however unwillingly. He hadn’t yet asked a vampire for mercy, although he had come close. So he was still here, and because some dregs of conscience prompted him, he was entering a city he had no desire to ever see again.

He should be in Paris, the city of his heart. Or anywhere in Europe where life felt more comfortable than this new world with all its brashness and noise.

But all those thoughts, thoughts that dogged his heels almost obsessively—a sign of a claiming—dropped into the background as he smelled blood on the air.

He was a vampire, and there was no sweeter siren call than that of fresh blood. He lifted his head, sniffing the air, locating the direction from which the enticing scent came. The park. Someone had been injured badly.

He could have just continued on his way, but the call was hard to resist, and his resistance was low these days. If nothing else, he could at least put some human out of misery. Or so he thought, trying to put a noble veneer on what was an irresistible instinct.

Even he could see some bleak humor in his own rationalization.

He slipped through the shadowy woods swiftly, the night as clear to him as day would have been to a human. A high, full moon deepened the shadows, allowing him to pass swiftly, invisible to human eyes, just another shadow among shadows. But for him, colors shone with jewellike brilliance.

The night came alive to him in ways it never would for a mortal. The movement of every leaf, the insects crawling in the grass or nibbling on leaves, he could hear all that. Even the sound of water running up inside the trunks of trees reached him with a delightful syncopated rhythm. He heard a bird’s wings flutter then settle quickly.

The night sang to him.

He could hear the distant sound of a baby’s cry, a couple of people who argued blocks away and even the sound of someone’s private lovemaking.

Once, he had soaked up these sounds with pleasure. No more, for he had lost his capacity for pleasure. Tonight he shoved them into the background as the call of blood dominated.

He paused a few times, testing the air, smelling for humans. What he smelled gave him pause. As the delicious scent of fresh blood grew, so did another scent: the scent of his own kind.

“Putain,” he said under his breath. He should clear out now. He had a message to deliver, and a face-down with some hungry vampires enjoying their meal would not serve him at all. But there was too much blood on the air, too much to be a simple feeding. What if those he had come to warn Jude about had already arrived?

Even when not concerned, a vampire tended to be very quiet, but now he heightened his senses and moved with true stealth to avoid his own kind. Trees zipped past him. He stayed off the paved paths and tasted the air frequently. Both the scent of blood and vampires grew, but the blood strengthened more quickly. Whoever had done this thing, he judged they had moved on.

He picked up his pace a bit, then saw the heat signature of a body lying on the ground amidst the trees. The sound of a too-rapid heartbeat reached him. The victim. He circled quickly, looking for others of his kind and soon detected they had moved on to the south.

He and the food were alone.

He crept toward her and what he saw appalled even him. He was no saint, despite his name, and indulged in willing mortal blood without compunction. But this was not a willing donation, and the savagery of the attack on the woman lying before him shrieked unnecessary violence. She must have put up one hell of a fight and paid for it with a torn and possibly broken body.

Her heartbeat raced as her body fought to pump its diminishing blood supply to essential organs. She hovered on the brink of death, and he wondered why her attackers hadn’t finished her. It would have been so easy for them to just snap her neck.

And what that said about the attackers offended him. There was no need to have been this violent or to have left the woman to die slowly. Like many hunters, he believed in clean kills. Vampires were not cats, to maul their prey. They had other ways of satisfying those urges, sexual and seductive ways that needn’t lead to this kind of mess.

This group had left a message, writ clear on the woman’s body.

He could have put an end to her suffering right then, but stayed himself. She might be just the proof he needed to convince Jude of the gravity and reality of the warning he carried.

Just as he was bending toward her, he caught an unmistakable smell on the breeze. He straightened and whirled just in time to see another vampire seeping out of the shadows toward him.

He considered, then said, “Is she yours?”

“I came back to finish her.” The other vampire, short and wiry, paused. “You can finish her if you want.”

Luc wanted but refused to, however easy it would have been. “You were a trifle rough on her. She isn’t very appealing just now.”

The other shrugged and moved closer. “Four of us, and she fought. She was quite a handful. In any event, I thought by now she’d be weak enough to finish. Apparently so.”

“She’ll be dead soon enough.”

“So finish her.”

He heard the challenge, realized this was one of the rogues and he was being asked to choose a side. If he didn’t finish the woman, he would be considered an enemy.

How odd, thought a detached part of his mind. A very odd conversation for two vampires to have, especially when they had never met before.

There were four of them altogether, useful information. He lifted his head, tasting the air, but could detect no others anywhere near.

“All right,” he said.

It was enough to make the other relax just a bit. Enough to give him the opportunity to spring. While he had little advantage in strength, he had another advantage: years of training with the épée had made him fast, springy and, oh, so deadly when it came to one on one.

The knife was out of his pocket in an instant and buried in the other swiftly. He pulled it upward, until it reached the heart. He stared into eyes gone black as night, heard the gurgle of the other’s breath. Then, with no compunction whatever, he pulled the knife free, dropped it and reached for the other’s head. A second later he heard the satisfying crack and the other fell dead. Dawn would take care of his remains.

Too easy, he thought. Entirely too easy. Either the other was a total fool, or he had honestly believed that any unknown vampire would not hesitate to take his leftovers. That said more about the rogues than anything he’d heard so far.

He picked up his knife, wiping it on the other’s clothes, tucking it away. He froze, taking in the night air and listening. No others were about. Not yet. But he had to move fast.

Picking up the blood-soaked woman was hard. Not because she was heavy—his preternatural strength made her feel little heavier than air—nor because she was covered in blood. The difficulty came from the way the blood called to him, begging him to drink. It would have been easy, so easy, to drain this woman and walk away. In fact, nothing would have satisfied him more.

But he might need her.

Still, he hesitated. If he took her with him, she’d leave a trail as clear as neon on the night air, clear to noses that could smell it. If it crossed the path of the rogue vampires, he might have more trouble than he could handle.

With a sigh he lifted the woman higher into his arms. It wasn’t as if he was attached to his existence. If this turned out to be the end, he wouldn’t exactly be disappointed.

Nor would he be able to blame himself for failing to warn Jude.

Shrugging slightly, he took off through the woods effortlessly, the woman seeming light as eiderdown.

He changed one thing, though. He chose a more circuitous route to Jude’s place, so that if others caught the scent on the breeze they should assume he was merely carrying away prey to a safer location.

With his arms full, he couldn’t scale any buildings, so he was forced to stick with ground streets. The limitation made him edgy. He hated to feel edgy. Normally he felt so secure in his power and strength that he seldom spared his own safety a thought.

All of that was changing. The world was changing, right now, tonight. The only question was how far he wanted to involve himself in that change.

Oddly enough, he didn’t know. He had been sure when he set out for Jude, but something about the savaged body in his arms filled him with doubts. As if her silent testimony to the very thing Jude was fighting made him part of the fight.

Not now, he told himself. Just get the woman to Jude as proof of what is coming. Think about the rest later.

He paused several times, checking the air, but there was no sign he was being followed. Then he noticed that the woman’s heart had slowed dangerously and that she no longer leaked blood. Minutes from death probably, but still evidence.

He quickened his pace, now making a straight beeline for Jude. He didn’t want to sort through his tangled feelings just then, told himself he wanted to get the woman to Jude so Jude could decide what to do with her. Save her, let her die, kill her. He didn’t care.

But somewhere inside his aching, sorrowful, almost deadened heart, a voice whispered otherwise. He tried to quash it, knowing it could only cause trouble. It rose again, however, a little louder.

And the pressure of it made him run even faster.

Jude lived in his office, a place slightly below street level with the kind of security a spy agency might have envied. Because of it, he had to press the button and look into a camera.

Then he heard a familiar voice: Chloe, Jude’s assistant. A human who had cause to loathe him.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” her voice drawled over the speaker. Then a note of horror canceled her sarcasm. “My God, St. Just, what did you do?”

Evidently she could see his burden. “Nothing but try to save this mortal. I need to see Jude now. Let me in.”

He heard the sound of a buzzer. Adjusting his hold on the woman, he reached for the door and opened it.

The hallway was dark as always, out of deference to Jude’s vampire eyes. Spilling from a doorway, however, was warm lamplight: the entry to the inner offices where Chloe ruled the roost when Jude wasn’t there to keep her in line.

He crossed the threshold, narrowing his eyes against the sudden light, and laid the woman on the couch. He ignored Chloe’s gasp.

He turned to look at her. “Jude,” he repeated.

Chloe was a piece of work, and she had plenty of reason to despise him. Just last year he had kidnapped her briefly and she’d taken it in her usual manner: with sarcastic anger.

She stood now glaring at him, her hands on her hips. Her hair was still dyed the deepest of blacks, heavy black makeup outlined her eyes, and her costume managed to bridge the territory between stripper and punk: lots of black leather and lace with black leggings that barely protected her modesty.

Sometimes Luc missed the beautiful gowns women had worn in the old days. The modern version of fashion didn’t appeal to him at all. It left too little to the imagination.

“You’re not going to tell me you didn’t do that,” she said, accusing him with a pointed finger.

“If I had done this,” he said stonily, “I would not have brought her here, and certainly not still alive. Jude,” he demanded again.

Chloe bit her scarlet-painted lower lip, the only color on her except for a blood-colored ruby ring. “He and Terri are out on a date. What do you expect him to do about her, anyway?” she demanded, waving a hand at the woman.

“I expect him to listen to a warning I have to give him. That’s proof of the danger he’s in.”

Chloe’s eyes widened a shade. “You better not be lying, St. Just.”

The man he had been before would have considered those fighting words. The man he had discovered after Natasha’s death couldn’t deny she had a right to speak them.

“Jude, now,” he repeated. “Then we can decide what to do with this mortal.”

“It looks too late to me,” Chloe muttered, but she pulled out a cell phone from a skirt so layered with black lace and net that it stuck out from her body almost like a tutu, and then pressed a button before placing it to her ear.

“Sorry, boss,” she said into the receiver. “St. Just is here with a woman who looks like she’s been half butchered and he says you’re in danger. He wants to see you now.”

She ended the call and scowled at him. “You so better not be lying.”

He didn’t bother to argue with her or say another word. With Chloe, he’d swiftly learned, you could waste a lot of breath. Instead, he just glided over to an armchair and sat, folding his arms.

The outer office hadn’t changed in any important way; Jude’s inner sanctum still lay behind a locked door, a deceptively ordinary-looking door. He scanned his environs because it was native instinct to be aware of his surroundings, not because they interested him. He looked everywhere except at the woman on the couch.

Five minutes later, he heard the sounds of Jude and Terri coming down the hall. From the speed of their arrival, he guessed Jude must have carried Terri on his back and traveled at top speed. Terri, clad in evening dress covered by a heavy parka, looked windblown.

As they crossed the threshold, their gazes fixed on the woman on the couch. Terri’s bright blue eyes widened, and she sped across the room with a rustle of sapphire silk to kneel beside the victim. As a forensic pathologist, she was also a trained doctor.

“My God,” she whispered. “She’s almost dead.”

“She’s been almost dead since I found her.”

Jude, dressed as always in elegantly tailored black beneath a long black leather coat, looked at Luc. “What happened?”

“Vampires.” Luc shrugged. “I could smell them in the area. But the woman is just evidence, Jude. I came to warn you. There are those who don’t like the way you drove them out of this city, who don’t like your rules about not harming humans. They’re coming back to take vengeance, they’re bringing others who feel as they do. And from what was done to that—” he waved toward the woman on the couch “—I suspect they may already be here.”

“That,” Chloe interjected sarcastically, “is a human being.”

Luc shrugged. None of this was his problem, beyond delivering his warning so Jude could prepare. He had done what he set out to do, and could leave.

Except for some reason he didn’t. He just kept sitting there, almost as if waiting for something.

“I should get her to the hospital,” Terri said, her fingertips pressed to the woman’s throat. She hadn’t even yet removed her jacket. “I don’t know if there’s time, but she needs a transfusion, a lot of stitches, maybe even surgery, depending.”

“There isn’t time,” Jude said with unusual gentleness. “Trust me. I sense it. She’ll be gone in a couple of minutes.”

Terri swore softly and settled back on her heels. “Do you know how much it goes against my grain to sit by while someone dies?”

“Do you want me to try to turn her?” Jude asked. “There might be just enough time.”

Terri’s blue eyes fixed on him. “You’d turn a stranger, but not me?”

“She’s a stranger. I love you. I don’t want to make you something you might regret for eternity.”

Terri simply shook her head, apparently having no retort.

Luc watched as Jude went to place a hand on his human mate’s shoulder. “Trust me, Terri, this woman is better off dying. I know what it’s like to be turned without a choice. Without knowing and understanding.”

Luc was the last person to argue that being a vampire was good. He was suffering the torments of the damned because of a vampire trait he’d been unable to escape: claiming. The beauty of a claiming was undeniable. But so was the obsession, and the madness that followed if you lost what you had claimed. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even his worst enemy.

Jude turned to him, his golden eyes intent. “So they’re coming after me? And you think they’re already here?”

“I think this woman—” he emphasized the word for Chloe’s benefit “—is the opening salvo, if you will.”

“Do you know what their plan is?”

“A reign of terror designed to draw you out in such a way that they can terminate you.”

“They could just come knock on my door.”

“But what fun would that be?”

Chloe shuddered. “I knew there was a reason I don’t like most vampires.”

Luc ignored her, knowing full well he was the reason she didn’t like other vampires. Her liking for Jude and for his friend Creed was obvious enough. He didn’t care. Chloe was just another human, low on his radar of importance.

“They are going to take over the city,” he said. “They are either going to kill you or make it impossible for you to remain here. One way or another, they’ll sabotage the authority you’ve been exercising in this city. They’ll make sure another vampire never heeds your rules.”

“I’m not the only one with those rules.”

“True, mon ami, but this group is completely rogue and they’ve been whipped up by some of those you forced out of this city in the past. You’re just the first target among what I suspect will be many.”

Jude leaned back against Chloe’s desk and folded his arms. “I don’t have to tell you, Luc. Most of us have always tried to avoid creating situations that draw attention to our existence.”

Luc nodded. “I have helped remove rogues before. A certain amount of careful coexistence is necessary. All-out war between vampires and humans would benefit neither of our kinds. But that is what this group wishes.”

Chloe spoke. “Why the hell should you care?”

Jude spoke, silencing her. “Have you never thought, Chloe, what would happen to my kind if there were no food left?”

Luc knew a moment of dark amusement as Chloe’s expression changed. Evidently she didn’t think of herself as a food group. But why would she when Jude restricted himself almost entirely to blood from blood banks? She probably hadn’t thought about where all that blood came from.

Suddenly Terri gasped. Luc looked at her and saw her face filled with astonishment. “She’s healing,” she said. “My God, her wounds are closing.”

Jude bent swiftly over the woman and looked. “You’re right. No ordinary human.” He straightened and looked at Luc. “What did you bring into my home?”

Apprehension chilled Luc, the first he had felt in a long time. Rising, he moved swiftly to look at the woman. Her clothes were still blood soaked and ripped, but he could see that her wounds had closed just since he brought her here.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Mon dieu, I don’t know.”

“Hell,” said Chloe, who always had two cents to add. “If it’s not vampire and it’s not human, then what the devil is it?”

Dani Makar woke suddenly, knowing she wasn’t alone. Worse, the first thing to assault her nose was the smell of vampires. She kept her eyes closed and tried to maintain a slow, steady rhythm in her heartbeat, even though she knew it was probably useless. Those bloodsuckers would have smelled it, heard it, the instant she awoke.

But she tried to keep up the pretense anyway, hoping against hope. She knew what had attacked her. What she couldn’t figure out was why she was lying on something soft instead of the hard ground, and why she smelled humans, as well.

She hurt from head to toe, but knew that would pass quickly. Despite all the things she had failed to inherit from her family, she had inherited two things: an acute sense of smell and quick healing from wounds.

She’d also inherited a loathing for bloodsuckers, one which had been amply proved in the park. Now, as near as she could tell, they held her captive. She expected no mercy from their kind.

Waiting for the instant she could no longer pretend to be unconscious, she tried to figure out how many were in the room. Listening, she was sure she heard two females and two males, though she couldn’t tell which of them were vampire and which were human. Her nose was clouded with their scents.

The presence of humans and vampires together didn’t shock her. She had been taught about the hypnotic effect vampires had on humans. What she didn’t know was whether she was susceptible. She had, after all, been forced to resign herself to life as a normal without being fully normal.

But after the attack that had nearly killed her, why would they want to keep her captive now? It didn’t make sense.

“She’s awake,” said a deep voice.

Then she heard a rustle and smelled the odor of human come closer.

“Can you open your eyes?” a woman’s gentle voice asked.

“Stand back,” said the same deep voice. “We don’t know what she is or how she’ll react.”

That gave Dani her opening. If they were wary of her, she might be able to take advantage of it.

Instantly she sprang up into a crouch and snarled, her gaze moving from one to the other. Even as she did it, she knew how pathetic she must look, like a puppy pretending to be a full-grown wolf. But maybe it would be enough.

“It’s all right,” the familiar woman’s voice said.

Dani glanced at her, taking in a tiny, dark-haired beauty wearing a sapphire cocktail dress. Her expression was kind. The other woman regarded her with consternation from eyes surrounded in entirely too much makeup.

Then there were the men. In an instant she knew they were the vampires. One wore neatly tailored black and stood leaning against a desk. The other was seated and also wore black, though he looked a bit more disheveled. And like too many vampires, they were handsome, almost as if their change transformed them into objects of dark beauty.

“We rescued you,” said the blond vampire, his voice slightly accented. “I found you in the park and brought you here.”

Dani gave him another snarl. Like she was going to believe a bloodsucker?

For long seconds, no one moved. Then the elegant man with the dark hair said, “You can leave if you’d like. I’ll show you the door.”

She doubted that and didn’t move. Besides, she hurt all over and wasn’t yet sure how far she could walk. Her clothes were torn and covered in blood. She wouldn’t make it far before the police stopped her, and then she’d have to make up some lie about what had happened because normals absolutely didn’t believe in vampires, and she didn’t want to get committed.

“It’s all right,” the woman in blue said again, her voice remaining gentle. She moved closer and Dani smelled vampire all over her, but also the scent of human. She might be in league with the bloodsuckers, but she was still a normal.

The woman edged onto the couch beside her, moving slowly.

“Terri,” said the dark vampire warningly.

“It’s all right, Jude. She’s frightened. After the way she was attacked, how could she be anything else?”

The woman called Terri smiled at her. “I’m Terri, and I’m a doctor. I’m both amazed and thankful at the way you healed. We thought we couldn’t save you.”

Dani didn’t answer, choosing to reveal nothing.

“I’ll give you something to wear so you can leave. I’m afraid my clothes might be a bit small on you, but at least they’ll cover you so you don’t have to answer questions.”

Fear immediately spiked Dani. How could this woman know she didn’t want to answer questions? Then the answer came to her: she had healed too fast from nearly fatal injuries. Of course they knew she might have something to hide.

Uneasier than ever, she edged away and adjusted her crouch, ready to spring if necessary. One hand felt for and found her necklace, the crystal wolf’s head that hung by a leather thong around her neck. It was all she had left of her old life, and her heart squeezed with relief when she realized she still had it. It had been her last gift from her mother, and she would probably never receive another. She drew a steadying breath and refocused on her enemies.

Then the blond vampire with the faint accent spoke. “My advice would be to remain here until just before dawn. There are rogues on the streets, the ones who attacked you. You don’t want to encounter them again.”

Dani finally spoke. “How do I know it wasn’t you, vampire? You and your friend?”

Instantly she wished she could recall the words. She had just revealed too much, that she could tell they were bloodsuckers, and in so doing had made herself a threat to them.

“Très intéressant,” said the blond one, revealing the source of his accent. “She knows what we are. So she must be able to smell us.”

“I can smell you, all right,” Dani said forcefully, hoping to hold them at bay with a show of strength, however false. “Your stench fills the room.”

“So you know what we are. Perhaps you can tell us what you are.”

“I’m a human,” Dani said, catching herself just before she revealed more by saying she was a normal. “Can’t you smell it, bloodsucker?”

He shrugged and turned his head away from her, as if losing interest. That offended her, that he considered her such a small threat he could ignore her. Even if it was true.

The woman, Terri, reached out and touched her gently on the arm. Dani pulled back.

“Let me explain some things,” Terri said. “That man over there? That’s Jude, and he’s my husband. Whatever you may think about vampires, he doesn’t condone what happened to you, and now I’ll have to endure the anxiety while he sets out to hunt those who hurt you.”

Almost in spite of herself, Dani looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Jude,” said the other woman, “is a bit of an avenger. He usually deals with demons, but now I’m quite sure he’s going to look for the rogues who attacked you.”

“Chloe,” the dark one called Jude said in a warning tone.

“Well, it’s true, boss. Besides, you’re not going to be able to avoid looking for them, not with the news that St. Just brought us.”

Jude frowned at her, but said nothing.

The blond one suddenly rose and in an instant was bent over, his face inches from hers. His black-as-ebony gaze was mesmerizing, and the only way she could fight it was to pull back as far as possible.

“She’s human,” he said, “but not quite. I don’t care what you are, ma cocotte, but I know what you were used for. You were attacked on purpose. You are a declaration of war against Jude and any other vampire who forswears harm to humans. It was simply your misfortune to be there when they decided to make the declaration. But I will tell you this, they are still out there, still hunting to create more mayhem. Since you healed, you can now attract them once again. Especially since you reek of blood.”

Her heart skittered, and she found herself wondering what to believe.

“Stay here until dawn. Then go home and stay there, because the attack on you is a mere taste of what these rogues intend to inflict on this entire city.”

“Why should I believe you?”

He shrugged and drew away. “I don’t care what you believe. I don’t even care what you do. I did what I needed to, I brought you to Jude to prove these rogues have arrived. Beyond that…” He shrugged.

He seemed about ready to walk out the door, then he settled in the chair once again, looking angry and despairing all at once.

Dani had to drag her gaze away, appalled that she found him so magnetic. A bloodsucker magnetic? Every fiber of her being rebelled. It came as a relief when she looked at the one called Jude and realized she didn’t feel the same pull toward him. So she wasn’t utterly lost.

“How about some introductions,” Jude said. “I’m Jude Messenger, and you’re in my office. Terri already told you she’s my wife. This other lady is Chloe, my assistant. And that’s Luc St. Just, the one who brought you here and came to tell me the rogues are on the march. And you are?”

She hesitated, then decided to see where this led. They had already told her she could leave. Did they really mean it?

“Dani Makar,” she said.

“Nice to meet you, Dani Makar,” Jude said. The two women echoed him. Luc, on the other hand, seemed to have sunk into a dark mood. He made no acknowledgment at all.

“Luc was right,” Chloe said. “Much as I hate to admit it.” She shot daggers his way, but Luc appeared oblivious. “You’re safer going home at dawn. If vampires are going to fight, mere mortals don’t want to be in the way.”

“But why should they fight?” Dani asked. Something was askew here and she wanted to understand it. Having been attacked once, she needed to know enough to protect herself. “You’re all the same.”

At that, Jude laughed. A genuine laugh. “That’s about as true of us as it is of mortals. Some of us don’t believe in harming humans. Others of us would rather not control our impulses.”

Chloe spoke again. “About seven years ago, Jude drove a group of vampires out of town because they, um …” She hesitated.

“Overindulged?” Jude suggested with heavy sarcasm.

“I guess you could call it that. And from what Luc tells us, they’ve come back for vengeance. They may even want to start a war between Jude’s kind of vampire and the ones who just take whatever they want.”

“But why should you care what you do to humans?”

At that moment Luc rejoined the conversation. “It’s simple. Life is ever so much easier for us if no one believes we exist. And the only way to ensure that is never to take what we want unless it is offered freely.”

This was an entirely new view of vampires, and Dani was reluctant to swallow it whole. “So you wouldn’t have attacked me the way they did?”

“Not I,” said Jude, firmly.

“Nor I,” said Luc, his black eyes burning. “Not unless you wanted it.”

“Why would anyone want that?”

“You’d be surprised what some people want,” Luc said flatly. Then he stood so quickly Dani hardly saw him move.

“Jude, I must dine.”

At once Jude straightened and led him toward the door on the wall near the couch. He punched in a code quickly on a keypad, then swiped a card. Only then did he push the door open. The two vampires disappeared inside, leaving the three women alone.

“Dine?” Dani repeated.

No one answered her. Not a soul.

Fear shuddered through her again. Her voice smaller than she would have liked, she finally said, “I’ll take those clothes.”

She needed to get away. Now.

Chapter 2

Jude pulled a bag of blood out of the refrigerator in his office and passed it to Luc. He also put out a glass in case Luc didn’t want to drink from the bag.

Luc looked at the glass, remembering the times he had drunk blood from fine crystal goblets. Times spent with Natasha.

“What’s the story?” Jude asked.

“I told you.”

“No, I meant with you. Vengeance didn’t help you?”

“It rid me of the anger.”

“But not the rest of it.” Jude settled on a chair behind his desk, facing Luc across it. Luc finally seated himself and bit the bag open. He hesitated, then decided not to use a glass, not to remind himself of Natasha through such a simple thing. He drained the bag flat in seconds, then passed it back to Jude, who tossed it into a biohazard container.

They faced each other across the desk, Jude clearly waiting, Luc reluctant to speak. Yet he couldn’t blame Jude for his curiosity. Few enough vampires emerged on the other side of claiming, and he must certainly have been curious about it.

“The world is still bleak,” he said finally. “I may ask you for mercy.”

Jude lifted one brow. “I hope you don’t.” “It would be your obligation.” It was one obligation all vampires respected: if one of their kind could take this life no longer, a request for mercy—death—was always honored.

“Don’t ask it of me,” Jude said. “I need you.”

“For this fight?” Luc sounded almost scornful. “I don’t care anymore, Jude. I gave you the warning because I felt I owed it to you. If vampires want to destroy each other, why should I care?”

“You used to care. And maybe your problem right now is that you’re not allowing yourself to care about anything. You’re wallowing, Luc.”

The rage that flashed through Luc just then almost made him leap across the desk and attack Jude. He gripped the arms of his chair until his fingers buried themselves in the leather and then the padding beneath. “How would you know what I am going through?” The words emerged from between his clenched teeth.

“You’re right, I don’t know,” Jude replied calmly. “But I know what you used to be. What I see before me now is a man who won’t let go.”

“I can’t let go.”

“Perhaps not.” Jude sighed. “If you want to die, at least die doing something important. Don’t make it pointless by asking me to break your neck.”

The tension between them nearly made the air sizzle. But then Luc released his anger, acknowledging that it was misdirected. Jude wasn’t his problem. An interrupted claiming was his problem. Weariness was his problem.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you.” Jude leaned forward and drummed his fingers on the desktop. “I should probably just take Terri and run. If there’s going to be a bloodbath, she’s my first concern.”

“It would be the wise thing, but I’ve noted you often avoid the easiest course.”

Jude flashed a brief smile. “It looks that way.”

Luc shook his head. “Oh, you always have a reason for what you do, mon ami. Battling demons, fighting your own kind. Most would call that insane.”

“I call it necessary.”

“Which is exactly why you won’t flee.” Luc released his grip on the chair arms and crossed his legs. “And you have a problem now in your office.”

“When do I not?”

One corner of Luc’s mouth twitched upward. “True. But this one is intriguing. She can’t be human.”

“Not fully, in any event. That much is clear.”

“We—or you, actually—must now concern ourselves with whether she might be an additional threat. She smells human, however, or I would not have brought her here.”

“I agree about her aroma. She certainly doesn’t smell like anything else I’ve ever met.” He drummed his fingers again briefly. “Well, she’s certainly not in league with the rogues. I doubt even someone who heals as swiftly as she does would have volunteered to be treated like that.”

“I agree. So now let us go learn what we can.”

The blood he had drunk had energized him, cold and nearly lifeless as it was. Things didn’t look quite as bleak as they had when he’d arrived here hungry. But they were still bleak.

Natasha’s death had left a gaping hole in his heart, his mind, his life, and he was sure he would never be able to fill it.

But for now, he decided, perhaps Jude was right. If he was going to choose death, he might as well die fighting. The idea better suited his nature. Maybe that was why he had hesitated to take the final step for so long: the notion of leaving quietly just didn’t fit him. A death in battle … well, there was something to be said for that.

Dani had showered and changed into a pair of too-tight, too-short jeans and a baggy sweatshirt that Chloe and Terri had managed to find for her. She still huddled in a corner of the couch but no longer looked ready to spring.

And she smelled better. Luc appreciated the fact that he didn’t have to keep fighting the allure of her blood. As a human morsel she enticed him amply. He had needed to feed not only because he had been hungry, but because when he was hungry, resisting temptation became harder.

Now that she was cleaned up, he could see she was pretty. Her eyes had an unusual blue-gray color that reminded him of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Her hair, wet and straight to her shoulders, showed premature streaks of white and gray amidst the dark curtain. Around her neck on a leather thong was an unusual crystal wolf’s head that caught and splintered light.

A curious, unusual human to be sure. If human she was.

Luc looked at Jude, who nodded. So he began.

“I saved you,” Luc said. “I took you from the park. I found you near death, and while I was preparing to take you from there, one of the rogues who attacked you arrived to finish you off. I gutted him, Dani Makar. I gutted him and broke his neck, then carried you away.”

Horror and satisfaction warred on her face. Horror, no doubt, at his description of the kill, but satisfaction from knowing one of her attackers had met such a fate. She scowled. “You didn’t save me for my sake.”

“No,” Luc agreed. “I brought you here for the sake of my friend, Jude. You were proof of what I had to say.”

“So why should I care?”

“Because you’re still alive.”

Her frown deepened, but she moved uneasily. He leaned toward her, lowering his voice to that hypnotic tone that usually got vampires what they wanted. He fixed her with his gaze, holding her in thrall.

“What are you, Dani Makar?”

She didn’t respond. Some mortals were immune to being vamped, although not very many, but he was disappointed anyway. They needed to know, and she was refusing to tell. He did note, however, that she didn’t quite seem able to break from his gaze. At least he had that advantage.

Then he noticed something else, something that unsettled him to his very core: her gaze was holding him as much as his was holding hers. It was calling to him almost as strongly as her blood. He wanted her in every way possible.

“Merde!” he swore and tore himself away.

Chloe’s sarcastic voice filled the room. “Another fail for the great St. Just.”

“Chloe,” Jude said sharply. “We have enough on our plates. Don’t give Luc a hard time.”

“At least not until you tell me I can,” she said too sweetly. “Or until the next time he interferes with my life.”

Luc barely spared her a glance. He was more focused on Jude, who had to make the next attempt. He noticed that Terri began to look uneasy herself, as if finally realizing that Dani might mean more trouble.

Jude spoke. He didn’t even attempt to vamp Dani. “Okay. You don’t want to tell us anything. But right now we’re wondering if you’re in league with the folks who want to start this war, because if there’s one thing we all know for certain, it’s that you’re not purely human.”

Luc switched his gaze back to Dani. She was looking at Jude now, so their gazes didn’t lock. She bit her lip, clearly hesitating.

“I don’t want to start, or even help in, a war among you bloodsuckers,” she said finally, an edge in her voice. “I wouldn’t mind if you were all dead. I want nothing to do with your kind. But I won’t do a single thing that would harm a human. Not one.”

“I feel enlightened,” Luc said sarcastically. “While I understand your animus toward us, given what those rogues did, you still haven’t answered the question. Are you a threat?”

“Not that I can do anything about it,” Dani said fiercely, “but I am your mortal enemy.”

She might as well have dropped a bomb in the room, she thought with satisfaction. Everyone stood perfectly still and regarded her with concern.

“Well,” said Chloe, breaking the silence finally, “I feel ever so much better. Since I’m human, I guess I can just take a hike now.”

“But you won’t,” Terri said. A frown creased her brow. “You would harm my husband?”

“If I could,” Dani said. “Husband? He holds you in thrall. You’re a slave to him.”

“No, I am not. He can’t vamp me at all. And you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jude touched her arm. “Easy, my love. She can’t and won’t hurt me. As long as she’s not going to join the rogues, I don’t care what she does.”

Terri looked at him. “But we don’t even know what she is.”

“Dani Makar,” Luc said with quiet significance.

Ice water trickled down Dani’s spine, depriving her of any satisfaction she might have felt at making her opinion of vampires known.

Reluctantly, she looked at him.

“I know who you are.”

He couldn’t possibly know. Her heart began to gallop and her mouth turned dry. Even her family couldn’t identify her as anything except a normal.

“Who?” Jude asked.

“I heard of them when I was up north. Makar. You’re a member of the Makari pack, aren’t you?”

His eyes bored into her. They were golden now, no longer black, but they still seemed to pin her and cleave her tongue. Deprived of speech, she could only stare.

“So, ma belle,” he said with soft satisfaction, “why haven’t you shifted shape? Are two of us too much?”

Her heart plummeted and her throat closed. Terror and hatred warred in her. Surely they would kill her now.

“But she doesn’t smell like a lycanthrope,” Jude said.

“Oh. My. God.” Chloe groaned. “A werewolf? Here?”

Luc never took his gaze from her. “She’s not a lycanthrope,” he said. “If she were, she’d have shifted to protect herself from us. They never meet our kind in any other form.”

He started smiling, and Dani wished she could spring at him like her family would and separate his head from his body. She did not like that smile at all.

“Poor, broken little wolf,” he said. “You can’t change. Did they exile you?”

Oh, how she loathed him then. But however she felt, she retained enough sense to know that springing at a vampire would only cost her, probably her life. She glared at him. “They’re not like that.”

He shrugged. “I really don’t care. What I care about is that the mystery is solved. Now I have another question. Are you going to send for your pack? Because if you do, given the gathering of vampires that is happening right now, your pack may meet more death than success. I really wouldn’t mind it, you know. The four of us can leave town.”

Dani swallowed hard, torn. If this war they had talked about really was about to happen, she certainly didn’t want her pack involved. Indeed, her mother would probably shrug and say to let the vampires kill each other. On the other hand, if she didn’t threaten these bloodsuckers with her pack, what might they do to her?

“If you let me go,” she said finally, “I don’t want to involve them.”

Jude spoke. “I already told you that you could go. I don’t keep prisoners.” He waved to the door.

“But,” said Luc softly, “it still might be wiser to wait for dawn, little wolf. Those with fewer scruples than Jude are amassing.”

“Why should you care?” she demanded, struggling toward anger to banish her fear and something approaching despair. “Your kind loathes mine. You hunt us like animals.”

“I thought it was the other way around,” Luc said, a faint amusement in his voice. “Your kind would like to see ours exterminated. From my perspective, I have no interest in lycanthropes. They make terrible food, and if they don’t attack me, then I care nothing at all one way or the other.”

She didn’t believe him. She’d grown up with warnings about bloodsuckers. “We don’t hurt humans,” she said. “You do.”

“Some of us do,” Jude said. “Which is the precise reason we’re evidently about to go to war.”

“Jude protects humans,” Terri said, unable to conceal her anger. “Do you?”

Dani couldn’t answer. By and large, the packs preferred to live alone and be left alone, much like ordinary wolves. They avoided mingling with humans, and they loathed vampires because they attacked humans, which no pack would do because they were human—at least part of the time. A pack killed wild game only to eat, and otherwise only in self-defense. Vampires killed for pleasure. But no, they didn’t protect anything or anyone except themselves. Something like shame niggled at her, making her so uncomfortable that her anger revived.

“Why,” she repeated, “do you care what happens to me?”

“Because,” said Luc, “I have no quarrel with you. Unless you want to start one.”

Outside in the night, sirens began to whoop. Almost at the same time, a phone tweeted.

“That’s me,” Terri said. “I guess I need to go to work.” She rose and went to get a cell phone from the desk.

“It’s your night off,” Jude protested.

“If they need me, it’s because it’s more than the on-duty medical examiner can handle,” she replied, then touched her phone and answered.

“It’s begun,” Luc said. “It’s begun.”

Jude straightened. “I’m going with her to watch over her. Chloe, you stay here no matter what. I don’t want you exposed. Luc, keep an eye on both of them.”

Terri disappeared into the inner sanctum and returned in a few minutes clad in jeans and a jacket. “It’s going to be a long night,” she remarked as she headed for the door. Jude disappeared with her.

Luc, staring at the two women, sighed. “C’est la guerre.”

Chloe sat working at her desk. Luc appeared lost in somber thought. Dani was left to dart looks at them between staring down at her hands, which clenched and unclenched as emotions roiled through her like racing white water.

The vampires were going to war. For her kind that ought to be cause for jubilation, except she knew who would get caught in the middle: humans. While she was not fully human herself, she was human enough. She had lived among humans long enough to be horrified at that and ashamed that her own pack would probably stand aside and let it happen.

Lycanthropes didn’t involve themselves in the affairs of humans or nonhumans if they could avoid it. They preferred a solitary existence among their own kind, to live free and to be safe. Their lives were, for the most part, contented if not always happy. Their own little world.

But tonight had altered her view. Just a little. It didn’t feel like an earthquake yet, but some inner voice warned her that it could become one.

She looked up again and found Chloe studying her.

Chloe spoke. “So you’re a werewolf?”

“Not really.” Her shame, her sorrow, but true.

“You can’t shape-shift?”

“No.”

Chloe shook her head. “Well, I’m glad you can’t. But you probably aren’t.”

“I hate it.”

“I guess I would, too, if I were you. But you weren’t exiled?”

“No.” Dani didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to touch on the grief and longing that had made her leave of her own accord to try to live life as a normal. She ached to run with her pack, yet she couldn’t. She couldn’t live with the daily reminder that she was different, or with the feeling that she was a burden and not an equal. No one had encouraged her to leave, not a single one. She simply couldn’t take being the only normal in the pack.

Much as she disliked Luc, she couldn’t deny she was exactly what he had called her: a broken wolf.

She sighed and looked at the clock, counting the hours until dawn. Since it was winter, dawn remained far away.

“So you live here now?” Chloe asked. “What do you do?”

“I work in university administration and take classes when I can.”

“What kind of classes?”

Considering the horror Chloe had initially expressed over Dani’s lycanthropy, her questions now seemed surprisingly friendly. “Whatever I need. I’m just starting, but I think I’d like to be a nurse.”

Luc made a sound and she reluctantly looked at him.

“Another altruist.”

“What’s wrong with that?” she demanded.

“I don’t recall saying anything was wrong with it,” he retorted. “Your tone.”

“A thousand pardons, ma chère dame.”

“Don’t mind him,” Chloe said. “He’s always a pain. Between being a former French aristocrat and losing his mate last year, he’s a little insane. We make excuses for him.”

Luc barely blinked, but to Dani he seemed to tense. Dani didn’t think poking a vampire was exactly smart, but Chloe apparently thought she was perfectly safe.

More food for thought, thoughts that crashed hard against her belief that all vampires were bloodsucking monsters.

“What were you, Luc?” Chloe asked. “A duke or something?”

Luc waved a hand and for a few seconds it appeared he wouldn’t answer. “You are full of questions, Chloe.”

“I’m curious, since I’m stuck with you.”

“I was the Marquis de St. Just.”

“A real honest-to-gosh marquis.” Chloe’s voice dripped sarcasm. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be, ma petite. All it brought me was a dank prison cell and the promise of a ride on the tumbrel to the guillotine.”

Astonishment filled Dani. He was that old? But Chloe had a different reaction, and dropped her sarcasm entirely.

“Is that why you became a vampire?”

“It was the only way to survive. Enough. I don’t care to discuss my past, s’il vous plaît.”

Chloe put her chin in her hand. “It’s going to be a long night if both of you keep imitating clams.”

Surprisingly, Dani felt a little bubble of laughter rising. She tried to quell it but failed, and a giggle escaped her. A reaction to all the stress of the night, she thought, but Chloe was certainly a piece of work.

Chloe grinned at her. “Neither of you exactly looks like a clam.” She paused. “Here’s the thing. I know something about vampires, having worked for Jude for years. But I really don’t know anything about werewolves, and I’m curious. As for you, Luc, a little illumination would go a long way. You owe me for having kidnapped me.”

“As I recall, that was one of my stupider moments and you made me regret my idiocy almost from the first second.”

“He kidnapped you,” Dani said, aghast.

“For all of ten minutes,” Chloe admitted. “He needed an entrée with a friend of Jude’s and he’d already ticked the guy off. So I was his key.” She shrugged. “I was mad at the time because once he carried me off to Creed’s, I didn’t have my car. I had to wait hours to catch the bus.”

Dani listened in astonishment. What upset Chloe was waiting to take the bus? Not being kidnapped?

“Of course, I didn’t like being kidnapped for general reasons. Like not having a say about where I was going or when.” She frowned at Luc.

“I apologized. Would you like another one?”

Chloe waved her hand. “I doubt it would be sincere now.” She sighed, then looked at the clock herself. “Just tell me, St. Just. How bad could it get?”

“You saw the condition Dani was in. Multiply that by dozens a night. All of it to force a confrontation with Jude. They plan a reign of terror, because that is what they will enjoy. Jude is just an excuse for it.”

Chloe’s frown looked frightened. “Will others come to help him?”

“I don’t know. Creed perhaps.”

“But he can’t stand against a whole bunch of vampires. Not alone.”

“I did not say he would be alone. But how many come to help and when, I cannot say. The minute these vampires begin their spree, this city will become unsafe for both our kinds. Some may choose to wait for another time and place to rid us of these rogues. I simply don’t know.”

“Couldn’t Jude just leave? Why don’t they just come here and confront him?”

“I told you, they want their amusement. And they know Jude well enough. He won’t leave because he won’t want a single human to suffer because of him. If he turned his back on this city, they might still do as they plan, and possibly more of it. This is a start, Chloe. These rogues want to satisfy their lusts unfettered. So far they have never gotten together in a large group, and thus we have been able to control them. It was always one or two at a time, and if they would not agree to follow the rule, then we would get rid of them.”

He closed his eyes a moment. “There are places where they rule. Few and far between, but not places I would choose to dwell. Not all the monster stories you hear are folklore and legend.”

“I kind of figured that out when I met you.”

Luc didn’t respond to the insult. “You see,” he said quietly, “as technology and communications improve, they must hide farther and farther away, going to places where the people are regarded as so primitive that no one believes the stories. Places where deaths and maulings can be blamed on other animals. But now they want a modern city.”

“They won’t succeed.”

His eyes snapped open. “Tell me, Chloe, how the news will report tonight’s murders tomorrow night. They will at first assume there is a madman. As the killings mount, they will consider a gang of some sort. How long do you think it will be before any humans start speaking openly of vampires? But Jude will know. And Jude will try to stop them. That’s what they want. And once they’ve removed Jude, they can hold the city in thrall with terror and take their victims by will. Because so few of you can resist our enticements. You are drawn to us, you obey us, you want us.”

Chloe looked glum. Dani felt again that icy trickle along her spine. The image he painted revolted and terrified her.

“Merde!” He rose to his feet and started pacing, moving so quickly he was almost impossible to see.

“Quit it,” Chloe said. “You’re making me dizzy.”

“Then close your eyes.” But he slowed down.

“What about you?” Chloe asked. “Are you going to help Jude?”

“Right now I am finding it difficult to be in this room. I am the fox guarding the henhouse.”

Dani drew her legs beneath her, ready to leap from the couch. “Can you control yourself, fox?”

Swiftly he crossed to her and bent over her. He closed his golden eyes and drew a deep breath. She knew he was smelling her. Helplessly, she shrank back.

“You smell like a banquet,” he said. “You arouse my hunger, even though I’m not hungry. Take heed.”

Then, before she knew he had moved, he was back in his chair. “Yes,” he said flatly, “I can control myself. But it does not make me less dangerous.”

That was a mixed-up statement, she thought as she started breathing again. He could control himself but he was still dangerous?

She fell silent, thinking that never before had she felt so caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Chapter 3

Luc St. Just had grown used to loathing himself. He’d certainly done enough of it since Natasha’s passing. But now he almost revolted himself because the little wolf not only roused his hunger, but she awoke his sexual desires, as well.

He didn’t want to desire anyone ever again. And he certainly didn’t want to desire a mutant lycanthrope. While he said he didn’t care one way or another about them, the truth was the whole notion of shape-shifting disturbed him. He might be an abomination but at least he was the same thing all the time. Besides, whatever form they took, they were still dogs. Something atavistic in him rebelled at being attracted to one.

Trouble was, she smelled human. She did smell like a banquet to him, a banquet he too often denied himself since Natasha because he had refused to become intimate with anyone ever again.

But this woman had awakened nearly somnolent urges in him. He couldn’t quite ignore the way his pulse accelerated, the way she called to his hunger, the way she made him want to act like one of those rogues out there.

Well, not like one of them, certainly. No, he would woo and seduce her, and teach her delights unlike any she had ever imagined.

And her eyes … Those blue-gray eyes of hers were hypnotic. He wanted to keep looking into them, yet feared their call.

It would be so easy to give in. All that held him back was Chloe’s presence and Jude’s admonition. Otherwise he would reach for her, touch her, taste her, and by the time he was done, she would no longer think vampires were monsters. Oh, no.

He caught himself, reminding himself of his promises not to get involved again, however briefly. Then it struck him that the way she called to him gave her more power than it gave him.

The irony was not lost on him.

But it also gave him a jolt. Not once in over two hundred years had he ever considered that his desires could enslave him. Yet here he was, with a powerful thirst for a female, one that was in danger of overcoming his sense.

The hunger was part of him, deep, persuasive, pervasive, unlike any hunger or want he had known as a human. During the Reign of Terror, when he had been changed, he had been like most new vampires: famished and out of control. Only, in his case, surrounded by so much bloodshed, no one had tried to stop him.

But eventually calm had returned to the world, and with it a need for caution. One night he had arisen from the sleep of death to realize that if he didn’t want to be forever on the move every few days or weeks, he needed to find a better way.

As a result he had lived successfully in Paris for at least half his life, alternating every decade or so with some other city.

But now he realized something else. Jude’s determination to enforce the rule had another purpose than protecting vampires from discovery or humans from predation. It also ensured that a vampire was not a slave to his innate needs.

That modicum of self-restraint was all that separated a vampire from becoming a true monster. It provided their only claim to being truly civilized.

Luc had always held himself to be utterly civilized. It disturbed him to think he might not be even yet.

He forced himself to look at Dani while quashing his own urges. What he saw was a frightened young woman who had been through hell tonight. Considering the attack she had suffered, it was amazing she wasn’t falling to pieces.

But then the hunger rose again and he had to look away. Chloe, surprisingly, didn’t tempt him at all.

What was going on? In the past all humans had struck him as equally edible. It was, after all, only their blood he wanted, and very little of it, actually. Some were certainly more attractive than others and made better playmates, but this response was different.

He didn’t like it.

He desperately wanted to walk away now, to escape from the enticing scent that filled this room, but he couldn’t. Jude’s office provided a likely target if the rogues decided on a frontal assault.

Some remnant of honor and integrity held him rooted.

Just then, reaction hit Dani. The air was suddenly tinged with terror—another enticing scent to his kind—and he looked at her. She had begun to shake, and her eyes were almost wild.

“Chloe,” he said. “Get a blanket or something. She’s feeling the shock.”

Chloe leaped up and headed to a small room. When she opened the door he could see a bed and some other creature comforts. She returned swiftly with a thick down-filled duvet and draped it over Dani.

“You’re safe now,” Chloe murmured. “It’s all over.”

Perhaps, but she hadn’t processed it yet. Luc watched as her head swiveled, then shook back and forth as if she were denying something.

“I can’t … I can’t breathe.”

“Yes, you can,” Luc said. “Force yourself. Deep, slow breaths.”

Dani tried, and after a few minutes her breathing achieved a more normal pattern. Then tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Do you know what they did to me?” she said. “Do you have any idea what it was like to be attacked that way? There were four of them. Four. I couldn’t fight them off. Why would they do that to anyone?”

“Because they’re sick and twisted,” Chloe answered sharply. “Reason enough. At least you survived. An ordinary human would have died.”

Dani didn’t seem to hear. “They were so strong. How could anything be that strong? They didn’t need four of them. One could have done it. But they all took part and laughed.”

Luc swore and sprang to his feet. He began to pace at a furious speed, not caring if he made Chloe dizzy, or if they couldn’t see him at all. He tried to exist above it all, but the simple fact was sometimes his own kind sickened him. Some vestige of his human existence, he supposed.

Regardless, right now he wanted to rip the heads off a few vampires.

He stopped pacing and looked at her. “Did you hear any names? See anything that would help me identify them?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because I’d like to visit the wrath of hell on them.”

Her eyes widened again, and he could see she didn’t doubt him one bit.

“There are four of them,” she whispered.

“Three now, remember. I executed one of them when he came back for you, and frankly, I would like to do the same to all the rest. If you remember anything, tell me.” It was not a request.

She gave a tiny nod. He could see the shock on her face, her difficulty in believing he had killed one of his own kind to protect her. Of course she would find that hard to believe.

“I saw what they did to you,” he said. “I saw it when I found you. I know what they are and they deserve punishment. I’d have hunted them then, but I couldn’t leave you. So I will hunt them tomorrow night. Or the next night. But I will hunt them and find them.”

A little shudder passed through her.

“That’s what they intend for others in this city,” Luc went on. “It cannot be allowed.”

“My, my,” said Chloe. “Luc the Avenger. Who would have thought?”

“You don’t know me,” he said shortly.

He wasn’t sure he knew himself anymore. Since Natasha’s death he had changed, and now it was as if a veil lifted and he truly saw what he had become. Jude was right: he was wallowing.

How revolting.

He sank back into the chair, although he felt like going out to run as fast as the wind, climb walls and execute vampires. He could barely restrain himself.

But restraint was essential, he reminded himself. Restraint because he had to guard these women, restraint because if he let his self-control crack even one bit he might do exactly the wrong thing, like pounce on Dani.

God, why did she call to him so?

Chloe sat beside her, rubbing her shoulder, passing her tissues, occasionally hugging her while she cried.

There was a time he would have done that, but not since his change. Now it was too dangerous.

Just what the devil had he become in order to save himself from the guillotine?

Dani calmed down eventually. Crying had exhausted her. But the earthquake she had sensed in the offing had arrived.

She was afraid. How could she look at a vampire as a savior? But she did, and it filled her with fear.

She’d never been afraid like this in her life. Her pack had always protected her. Now she was alone—like most humans, she admitted—and she had fears such as she had never known before. Fear of the night. Fear of being attacked. Fear that her life could be ripped from her by these rogues gearing up for war.

War against a single vampire. Four of them had attacked her, and however strong vampires might be, she was quite certain that one couldn’t stand against three or possibly more. Maybe Luc would help them, but even then the odds didn’t look good.

She reminded herself that she wasn’t really involved. She’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It might have happened to anyone who had been in the park at that time. Apparently from the way Terri had hurried out, it may have happened to any number of others already.

But the earth-shattering thing was that it had happened to her. What’s more, now that she understood what was going on, she knew that it could happen again.

Maybe she should catch the first morning bus home and just get out of here. Go back to the safety of the pack.

But then another thought occurred to her. Would her pack even be safe if the rogue vampires took over? It didn’t look like an immediate threat, but somewhere in the future it could become one. Because despite Luc’s announced indifference to her kind, she knew all vampires didn’t feel the same.

Her kind? Oh, God, she wasn’t her pack’s kind. That much was obvious. She belonged nowhere at all.

Finally she looked at Chloe and admitted the most obvious thing. “I’m afraid to go home now.”

“You’re safe in the daylight.”

“I know. But what about when it becomes dark again?”

Chloe said nothing.

“Here is not a safe place,” Luc said heavily. “As well guarded as Jude keeps it, it’s not totally impermeable to vampires. Little is.”

“The protection was mainly designed to keep humans out while he sleeps,” Chloe said.

“Exactly.”

Chloe looked at Dani. “What are we going to do for you?”

“Most especially if they somehow find out that she survived the attack.”

Dani’s mouth dried. Her palms grew damp and she wiped them on the too-tight borrowed jeans. “How would they learn that?”

Luc shrugged. “Perhaps they will find the one I killed before dawn removes his carcass. Perhaps because your body is gone? Because you are not listed among the victims of tonight’s mayhem in tomorrow night’s news?”

“Why would they care?”

“The entire point of this little war they want to start is that none of them likes to be thwarted.”

Dani’s heart skipped at least two beats, then settled into an edgy rhythm. From the way Luc’s eyes narrowed, she suspected he could hear it. Hell, he could probably smell the fear clinging to her. She would have been able to had it not been her own.

“You’re getting a lot of shocks tonight, aren’t you?” Chloe said. “First the attack, then being rescued by a vampire and learning that not all of them are vicious killers. Well, it would set anyone back on their heels. And I’m afraid, too, though not as afraid as you because I haven’t been attacked.”

“We need to find a safe place for her,” Luc said. “Daylight hours take care of themselves, but then there’s the rest of the time.”

“I often leave work after dark,” Dani said. Because it was winter, she now left her office at dusk or later. Even thinking about stepping out into the night made her mouth go dry now.

“Then we have to find a way to protect you”.

“We?” Chloe said. “When did you become we?”

“I think I have joined the fight.”

“Oh, great. Can you promise not to go haywire again?”

“Most certainly.” His eyes narrowed and a faint smile came to his mouth. And all of a sudden he appeared more attractive than Dani would have believed possible. His blond hair gleamed, his face relaxed, and she wished he were not a vampire. “I think,” he said, “that I have found reason to live again.”

“Great,” Chloe said. “I’m sure the world will rejoice. And I just love those odds. Two vampires against a horde.”

Dani giggled again, maybe because she was nervous. “It does sound like the Alamo.”

“Perhaps,” Luc agreed. “But sometimes we have no choice. They will be maddened by their blood lust. So, it seems, we will be smarter, yes?” His gaze settled on Dani. “But first we must protect our little wolf.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

Luc’s brow lifted. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not … because I can’t …” She looked down and covered her face with a corner of the comforter.

“Je suis désolé,” Luc said, actually sounding sincere. “I’m sorry. I did not know I touched on a nerve.”

Chloe spoke. “So you didn’t leave entirely of your own volition?”

Dani’s head shot up and she looked at Chloe. “I did. It was my choice. I didn’t fit and I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“I know that feeling well,” Luc said quietly.

“All too well.”

Dani searched his face and for the first time in her life it occurred to her that bloodsuckers might have real feelings beyond satisfying their blood lusts. That they might actually think and feel like the humans they had once been. Some of them, anyway.

She told herself she didn’t want his sympathy, certainly not the sympathy of one of his kind. Yet her throat tightened, anyway. She had no one anymore, no one. She had left her family behind and had barely started to make friends. Certainly not friends with whom she could trust her true story. So she skimmed the surface, pretending to be just like everyone else when she was not.

Now her story had come out in the unlikeliest company possible, and she found sympathy in the gaze of one her pack would call their mortal enemy.

How was she supposed to deal with this?

From earliest childhood she had been taught to use her nose above every other sense. She had been trained to identify things as good or bad by those scents, and the scent of vampire had been drilled into her as a threat. Even a whiff of it could cause her to shudder.

Tonight she had been attacked by bloodsuckers, their stench overpowering. Because she could not change, she hadn’t been able to outrun them or fight them off.

But now she had to deal with the fact that one of that kind had saved her, and another was keeping her safe in his office … and the smell was all around her, and it was not bad.

Linked to terrors she had been taught, but not at all repugnant in and of itself. Separated from her childhood training, the smell was actually pleasant. Even enticing.

Perhaps that was why she had been trained to avoid it. Because it might draw her in. By itself, there was nothing to cause repulsion.

God, she felt like she was losing her mind. The echoes of the attack still reverberated through her, and yet she was drawn to one of their kind. But that was how they operated, she reminded herself. Not by repelling, but by attracting. Like spiders weaving sparkling webs that looked like a safe place to land.

However alluring, there was nothing safe about a vampire. Hadn’t Luc said so himself?

Chloe excused herself to go make tea. She disappeared around a corner, and soon there were sounds of cupboards opening and closing, of water running.

Luc spoke, his voice pitched low. “Your eyes reveal too much, Dani Makar. As do your scents. You want me and you do not like it.”

She drew a shocked breath, horrified that he could tell so much.

He gave her a half smile. “You have few secrets when it comes to your feelings. I can smell them. Too bad you cannot smell mine.”

Her voice came out a broken whisper. “Why?”

“Because then you would know I want you, too.”

She couldn’t breathe. Her heart hammered so loudly it filled her ears. “I don’t …”

He shrugged. “It makes no difference. I have no interest in my wants or yours. Mine can be satisfied elsewhere, and yours … well, your reluctance hardly appeals to me.”

“I thought your kind liked that.”

“Some do. They are the ones we will have to fight. It’s never been much to my taste.”

She felt he was omitting information, but she was fairly certain she didn’t want to know what it was. Bad enough he’d been so blunt and exposed something she had scarcely faced herself. She had the worst urge to slap him or storm out, but knew she couldn’t do either.

She was trapped until dawn with a vampire who perceived too much, and feelings she hoped she would eventually be able to forget ever having. Her family would be so ashamed of her.

She swallowed hard and was so glad when Chloe returned with two mugs of hot tea. It gave her something to hold and something to do. The need to stay active grew stronger with each passing minute. The problem was she couldn’t imagine what she could do. She had no way to pursue her attackers. She couldn’t bring this to the police, who wouldn’t believe any of it, and she couldn’t fight a bunch of vampires, anyway.

Unless she made what her family would consider an unholy alliance.

But her attraction to Luc terrified her. Now that she’d been forced to face it, she wanted to find a hole to bury it in. It would have been nice to blame it on the shock of the attack she had experienced earlier, but she was quite certain that wasn’t it. Based on the attack, all she should be feeling was horror and repulsion.

She felt as if her beliefs and her feelings had been tossed into a cement mixer. The pattern of her own thoughts and reactions felt alien, as if they belonged to someone else. She needed solitude to sort herself out again, to settle all these shocks. But she would have none until dawn.

Luc spoke. “We should send you back to your family first thing tomorrow. Away from here, away from all danger.”

She had been trying to build a life, to escape depending on her family. To leave behind the constant yearning that gnawed at her, the yearning to be fully one of her pack. To go back before she had achieved her full independence and grown the confidence she had come here to find seemed like failure. Utter failure.

She was always failing. Did she want to again?

But when she allowed her mind to touch on the attack, she wondered if failure wouldn’t be better. If Luc was right, that those rogues would know she hadn’t died and that this was all about hating to be thwarted, she would certainly be on their list for coming nights.

She couldn’t stand against them alone. If she ran, she’d fail. If she stayed, she might die.

But somehow that last thought crystallized something in her.

Better to die than live a life of fear and self-loathing. She wouldn’t go back to her pack with her tail between her legs—even if she didn’t have a tail.

No.

Worse, if she told them what had happened to her to send her home, they might feel obligated to come down here and hunt for vengeance. Oh, there was no might about it. They would come.

“I can’t go home,” she announced. “I can’t. If my pack finds out what happened they’ll come here to avenge me. I don’t want them in the middle of your war.”

Luc nodded then sighed. “I doubt they would discriminate between the rogues who attacked you and the rest of us.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

“Then it’s best not to let them know. Things will be difficult enough without a pack of angry wolves getting into it.”

“So what do we do with her?” Chloe demanded. “Cripes, Luc, you’re full of problems and don’t have any solutions.”

“Oh, I have a solution,” Luc said almost bitterly. “I’ll protect her. I can spirit her away if I sense a threat.” Then he looked at Dani. “If she will let me, of course.”

Dani’s heart sank. She wanted most of all to get away from this damnably attractive bloodsucker who was making her feel things she didn’t want, making her want things that ought to make her shudder. Just looking at him sent a shiver of desire through her. The vampire magnetism, she told herself. That’s all it was. Hadn’t her family warned her?

Her reply, when it came, was heavy with dislike. “What choice do I have?”

“None, ma petite,” he said. “None. These rogues have narrowed the choices for all of us. They will get their war. And they will not succeed.”

“So sure?” Chloe asked acidly.

“No. But it never pays to go into battle full of doubt.”

With that, he appeared to draw into himself, to ponder whatever unhappy thoughts darkened his face.

Jude returned in the hour before dawn. His first words were “It’s begun. Four violent murders tonight.”

“Terri?” Chloe asked with instant concern.

“She’s at the morgue surrounded by enough people to be safe. Whoever the rogues are, they weren’t interested in following the bodies. And soon they’ll be going to ground.”

“Did you learn anything else?” Luc asked.

“Other than that the bodies reeked of vampire? No. From time to time while I was watching Terri on the streets, I thought I caught a whiff of them, but they seemed to have kept moving all night.”

“So they do not yet feel truly confident,” Luc remarked.

“That would be my guess. It may be that so far there are only those that attacked Dani.”

Luc waved a hand. “Perhaps. If they can’t gather others to their cause, they can deal with that quickly enough. Perhaps tomorrow night we’ll have fewer bodies. And the next night we’ll be dealing with newborns.”

Chloe gasped. Dani asked, “Newborns?”

Luc’s golden gaze had darkened a bit. “Newborns,” he repeated. “The newly changed. The most dangerous vampires of all.”

Apprehension prickled through Dani. “Why?”

“Because they’re the strongest vampires of all. Because they’re voracious and out of control. The last time I had to deal with a new vampire, it terrorized an entire city and it took two of us to execute it.”

Dani drew a long, shaky breath.

“You see,” Luc continued, “those are the stories which persuade your kind to see my kind as such a threat. Most of the undead follow certain rules. The newborns follow no rules at all.”

Chloe slumped at her desk. “No wonder you don’t want to change Terri.”

Jude spoke. “It’s possible to prepare someone for the change and make it easier by providing plenty of food. But if you leave them on their own, yes, that’s where you get true monsters. What a devil of a thought, Luc.”

“I’m trying to think of everything. How else can we prepare?”

“Damned if I know,” Jude said almost wearily. “All right. Time is short right now. You need a place to go to ground, Luc. Soon. And then it’ll be safe for Dani and Chloe to go home. That leaves darkfall to deal with.”

“I’m not leaving this office, boss,” Chloe said firmly. “I’ll sleep right here.” Then she looked at Dani. “Can you get home by yourself once it’s light?”

“Of course.” She sounded more certain than she felt, though. Yesterday she had felt completely safe in this city, and now she didn’t feel safe at all. Not even knowing the bloodsuckers couldn’t roam in the daylight eased her apprehension.

Chloe hesitated. “I’ll drive you home at dawn. Then I’m coming back here to get ready for the siege.”

Chapter 4

Luc waited for Dani outside the university building where she worked. Chloe had managed to get the information from her, and while he didn’t exactly want to be here, he knew no one else could promise Dani any kind of safety.

He smelled the approach of snow on the air and suspected that before the night was over, a white blanket would cover the city. It mattered to him not one way or the other, for he felt neither cold nor heat, but it might slow the rogues down a bit. It would be hard for them not to leave trails that even human eyes could read once it snowed.

He had donned clothing unfamiliar to him: a parka, rather than the leather that he preferred because it could stand up to the treatment he gave it, and jeans—the human preference for which he could not begin to understand. He hoped to blend in as he stood here waiting.

Already the city was on heightened alert because of the four murders last night, all of them grotesque, savage enough to hide any evidence vampires were involved. He didn’t want to appear out of place at all. Not now, not when he was here to protect Dani. Another time it would have made no difference to him, but tonight he could not take to the rooftops or vanish swiftly and without warning, not unless he wanted to terrorize Dani more than she already had been.

He saw her emerge from the building, wrapped in a long coat with a knit scarf around her neck and a knit cap on her unusual hair.

He forced himself to walk at a human pace toward her.

“Good evening,” he called, so his appearance wouldn’t startle her.

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