Aiden ducked low and swung his fist out, driving it through the chest of the first Savage to come at him. His heart beat once in Aiden’s grip before he yanked it out and threw it aside. Reaching into his coat, he pulled a stake free and thrust upward at the next vamp to lunge at him.

Unable to get in a killing blow against the Savage, Aiden propelled the stake straight up through the bottom of the vamp’s chin. The Savage stumbled back; his hands clawed at the stake in an attempt to pull it out, but Aiden had pushed it deep enough the vamp wouldn’t be able to remove it on his own.

The vampire who had attacked Maggie moved further back to stand protectively in front of Carha. Carha crossed her arms over her chest as the other two Savages charged him from the sides, coming at him low and hard. Snarls of excitement radiated from them as the one with the stake embedded in its jaw recovered enough to run at him from behind. The one blocking Carha moved a little closer.

Carha edged away, creeping toward the door on the other side of the warehouse. Aiden tracked her every move; she would not get away. When the two vampires charging him from the side were nearly on top of him, he jumped back. The buffoons crashed headfirst into each other. Blood burst from the head of one, while the other fell back, his broken neck causing him to twitch on the ground.

Carha’s smile vanished when he lifted his head to meet her eyes. Aiden started toward her when the Savage with the stake embedded in his jaw leapt onto his back. Aiden threw his hands up to pull the vamp away, but before Aiden could grab him, the Savage’s weight was yanked away from him.

Aiden spun to find Declan tearing the heart from the Savage’s chest. Behind him, Saxon ripped the head from the idiot who had split open his skull. The one with the broken neck made a gurgled sound when Declan knelt over him with a stake in hand.

The Savage who attacked Maggie turned and fled to follow Carha toward the door. When she didn’t move fast enough for him, he shoved Carha out of his way. Saliva filled Aiden’s mouth as the thrill of the hunt took over. Bursting into motion, he chased after the Savage. The vamp was almost to the door when Aiden pounced on his back, seized his head and yanked it to the side.

The cracking of bone reverberated off the cavernous walls and high ceiling of the warehouse. The Savage wailed, his hands beat against Aiden’s head. When Aiden gave another twist of his neck, severing his spinal cord, the Savage fell out from under him.

He’d envisioned torturing this bastard for a long time after what he’d done to Maggie, but Carha was still fleeing toward the door. This piece of shit had hurt Maggie, but Carha had been the cause of it.

Aiden bellowed in fury as he wrenched the Savage’s head off and tossed it aside before jumping to his feet. The need to kill thrummed through him as he raced after Carha. When she reached the door, he drew on the strength of Maggie’s blood flowing through his veins and poured on the speed.

Carha was pulling the door open when he caught up to her. Slamming his hand against the metal door, he tore it from her hands and shoved it closed. He wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her off the ground. She kicked her heels against his shins as she spat like a cat. Her fingernails, filed into lethal points, peeled back the flesh on his hands, spilling his blood.

Aiden ignored her thrashing as he turned and stalked back toward the others. He dropped her into the center of the Savage bodies littering the floor. Unprepared for her abrupt release, Carha landed on her ass with a loud oomph. The end of her black braid slapped her in the face; blood splashed onto her black leather pants and red corset.

Shoving her braid aside, she lifted her chin to glare at him. Kneeling in front of her, Aiden rested his fingers in the blood coating the floor as he met her fiery gaze. Smirking, Carha seemed to decide to try something new as she propped her hands behind her, leaned back in the blood, and spread her legs. Aiden recoiled when she revealed her crotch-less pants.

Keeping her legs open, she focused on Saxon. Sweat beaded Saxon’s brow as he stared between Carha’s legs. After a few seconds, he looked to the wall.

“Saxon wouldn’t have turned me down,” Carha purred.

Unable to tolerate standing so close to her anymore, Aiden rose and stepped away. “This really is all because I wouldn’t fuck you?”

She shrugged again. “I get what I want, and when I don’t, my friends take care of the problem.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means Carha’s been working with the Savages for a while. She hires them to do her dirty work, such as eliminating her competition, taking care of those she has a problem with, and those who owe her,” Ronan said.

Aiden turned to find Ronan standing in the open doorway of the tunnel. Ronan’s reddish-brown eyes were more red than brown as he gazed at Carha. Aiden saw no sign of Killean and Lucien and assumed they’d stayed in the club to make sure everything stayed safe there. Paler than normal, Zeke stood at Ronan’s side. Carha’s legs closed; her eyes narrowed on Ronan and Zeke.

“Tell them what you revealed to me,” Ronan said to Zeke.

“He’s a bartender. He doesn’t know anything beyond how to make a drink!” Carha snapped.

“He knows more than enough to condemn you,” Ronan replied. “Go on, Zeke.”

“Over the past year, I’ve noticed if a new vampire bar crops up somewhere, the owners often meet with an untimely and often violent demise,” Zeke said. “There has also been a growing number of vampires with less-than-legal occupations disappearing recently. We may not have the vampire equivalent of Facebook, but word spreads fast through our community. Those deaths sparked a lot of gossip.”

“Pushing drugs too, Carha?” Ronan inquired.

“I wouldn’t dare, Ronan,” she replied with a false innocence. She opened her legs before leisurely crossing them once more.

Aiden’s skin crawled; he couldn’t stop himself from stepping further away from her. He’d allowed this woman to do things to him that would make some of the most toughened vampires cringe. All he’d wanted was to return to Maggie, but he wouldn’t go anywhere near her while feeling as tainted as he did by his urges. As soon as he left here, he planned to scrub his skin bloody.

“You know drugs are not allowed to be sold to vampires,” Ronan growled. “I will keep the vampires who follow me and who are innocents in all this safe; you are a threat to them.”

“Prove it,” Carha taunted.

“You proved it by running to these pricks when you fled the club,” Aiden stated.

“I simply hired them to keep me safe. They’re my bodyguards,” Carha replied with a flutter of her lashes.

“You hired them to keep you safe from me?” Aiden inquired. “I never hurt you, but these were the remaining vampires who jumped me outside your club.”

She assumed a demure air. “I’ve seen how unstable you’ve become. I was afraid that the next time you came to me, you would snap and kill me. I’ve seen how much pain you can withstand, so I knew I had to hire a lot of help to protect me from you.”

“You’re lying,” Declan said flatly.

“Yes, she is,” Ronan agreed. “Continue, Zeke.”

“A couple of weeks ago, I was taking out the trash and overheard Carha in the alley with that one,” he pointed to one of the dead Savages. “They were talking about some clients who owed her money.”

Carha’s demure air faded, and she sat upright. “You didn’t hear anything!”

“She gave him the names and addresses of those clients. I assumed those customers would receive a beating, but figured it was best I stayed out of it.”

“But?” Ronan prodded.

“Last night I overheard a few patrons talking and caught one of the names they were discussing. It was one of the names Carha had given to that guy. He’s been missing since Carha handed him over.”

Carha looked about ready to leap up and attack Zeke.

“Is the missing vamp a purebred?” Declan asked.

A chill ran across Aiden’s skin at the possibility there was another vampire out there, kidnapping and imprisoning purebreds to sell their blood to the highest bidder. Vicky had already been exposed to that vile degradation; he couldn’t stand the idea it might happen to another member of his family.

“No,” Ronan said. “I think she handed those clients over to be turned into Savages.”

“Fuck,” Aiden spat when he understood what Carha might have truly planned for him.

Before Aiden joined Ronan’s men, Joseph, the vampire who had run the training facility previous to Lucien, turned Savage. Recently, Ronan had discovered Joseph was forcing vampires to become Savages by keeping them imprisoned. Joseph starved those vamps until they were so ravenous they killed whatever food he offered them. With each kill it became easier to continue killing until those vamps no longer cared about trying to control themselves.

Ronan had been hunting Joseph for a while, but after discovering what Joseph was doing, Ronan closed the training compound. He’d moved everyone to a mansion he’d purchased so they would be at a location Joseph didn’t know about.

“Did you plan to have them turn me into one of them?” Aiden snarled at Carha.

“No. They were supposed to kill you. It’s why they attacked you as soon as you left me.”

“Because I was weakened.”

“If you’d stayed with me longer and done what I wanted you to do, you wouldn’t have been so weak. I might have even called them off if you pleased me well enough,” she replied.

“You’re a sick bitch.”

“What can I say? I don’t like the word no.”

“How did you know where and how to locate a vampire willing to kill our kind?” Declan inquired.

“I know far more than you, and you,” she said with a pointed glance at Ronan. “You don’t work in my business and not learn things. I know how to get what I want and where to go to get what I need.”

With the grace of a cat, Carha launched to her feet and spun away from him. Expecting her to go for the door, Aiden was unprepared when she bent to rip a stake from one of the corpses. She lunged at Declan when he tried to grab her. Declan jumped back as the stake sliced open his shirt.

Running toward her, Aiden smacked her arm aside when she lifted the stake to drive it through his heart. Spinning her around, Aiden tackled her face-first onto the ground. Carha’s back bowed against his chest as she made an odd gurgling noise.

Grabbing her shoulders, he turned Carha over to find her mouth open in a gaping oh of horror while her fingers clawed at the stake protruding from her chest. When he’d taken her down, she’d fallen on top of the stake and driven it straight through her heart. She tried to yank it out, but it was already too late.

“Shit!” He slammed his hands onto the ground. Blood splattered around him as Carha convulsed beneath him. “Shit!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ronan said as Carha released a final breath and went still beneath Aiden. “She told us all she knew.”

He’d stayed away from Maggie for too long, and he could feel himself teetering toward the treacherous edge of savagery. Aiden inhaled a shuddering breath as he struggled to get himself under control. For the first time, he wanted nothing to do with this life he’d chosen.