The sickening crunch of metal filled the air as the back of the ambulance skidded out. Maggie screamed, but she didn’t know if it was because of the dizzying sensation of the ambulance veering off its course, or from the hand gripping hers tight enough to the stretcher that it kept her from being thrown into the wall.

Oh, God. Oh, God.

The ambulance came to a halt with its engine running and its headlights pointing toward a large warehouse. Completely thrown off by what happened, Maggie couldn’t figure out where they were, but it looked abnormally subdued outside the windshield. Most of the warehouse workers had gone home for the night, but she saw people running from the shadows toward them.

“Roger, you okay?” she demanded.

“What was that?” he replied.

Maggie gazed at the dented wall across from her. It was too high up for it to be caused by another vehicle, but what else could have hit them with that kind of force?

“There were no cross streets,” Roger said. “No stop lights. It couldn’t have been another car. It came out of nowhere.”

“Drive,” her patient spoke with far more strength than he had before.

“What?” she asked, not because she hadn’t heard him, but because she couldn’t believe she had.

“Drive!” the man shouted at her.

“Roger…”

He was already hitting the gas. The ambulance creaked in protest, but they still had all their tires as it burst into movement. The man released her hand and jerked against the cuffs. She caught Roger’s wild-eyed glance back at them before he pressed harder on the accelerator.

“Fahk this fahken night!” Roger declared, his Boston accent becoming far more pronounced. Maggie had only ever heard his accent slip through so strongly once before, the night she’d graduated paramedic school. They’d each been about twelve beers deep when Roger reverted to his Southie roots.

“Maggie, get up ’ere!” Roger barked at her.

Maggie glanced down at the man. A vein in his forehead throbbed to life as he pulled his wrists forward to strain against the cuffs. He bared his teeth at her. Lions were less intimidating than this guy.

“Go!” he snarled at her.

The woman, Maggie, Aiden recalled, leaned away from him and started to rise when something hit the side of the ambulance again. Maggie staggered backward and hit the wall. When she cried out in pain and her hand flew to the back of her head, his vision became clouded by a red haze of fury.

The ambulance screamed a protest when Roger pushed on the gas harder.

“Maggie!” Aiden shouted, and her eyes flew to his.

She gawked at him until another wrenching sound filled the air and the back door of the ambulance flew away. One of the Savages who had attacked him leapt into the ambulance. The vamp’s eyes were bright red when they focused on Maggie. She screamed and lurched forward. Aiden assumed she’d been diving for the front and Roger, but then he heard a strange noise.

Aiden jerked more forcefully against his restraints as the Savage lunged for her. He had to protect her. Maggie spun and, holding out two paddles, hit the Savage in the middle of the chest with them. Another sound filled the air, and the vampire squealed as he staggered back.

“Bastard!” Maggie shouted, and lifting her leg, she drove her foot into his stomach to shove him out the door. The man bounced across the pavement before spinning away. Maggie leaned against the wall, panting for air as she watched the guy miraculously jump back to his feet and race toward them again. “What is wrong with him?”

“Drugs!” Roger declared.

“No, his face….” Her words trailed off. Aiden met her confused stare when she turned to look at him again. He couldn’t help but be impressed by her ability to fight off a Savage, but she wouldn’t be able to fend off more than one of them.

“What is going on?” she demanded, holding the paddles as if she were going to use them on him next.

“Uncuff me. I can protect you,” he replied, aggravated he couldn’t break the flimsy restraints yet.

Her eyes narrowed on him. “I can’t uncuff you.”

“I can keep you safe,” he said slowly as she didn’t seem to understand what he was saying to her. Perhaps she was in shock; he wouldn’t blame her if she were.

She glared at him. “I don’t have the key,” she replied in the same tone and pace of voice he’d used with her.

He turned his attention to the back of the ambulance and the Savage running down the sidewalk after them, but the vamp was losing ground. It didn’t matter, Aiden decided, they’d moved past the threat, for now. He was already getting stronger as his sudden need to keep her safe fueled his adrenaline. He would get out of these cuffs before they arrived at the hospital.

A loud crack filled the air, and when the back of the ambulance tilted to the right, Maggie realized the axle, weakened by whatever hit the ambulance, had snapped. A tire bounced down the street toward the Savage veering off the sidewalk toward them. With an ear-splitting, awful grating sound, the rotor dug into the asphalt, chewing up chunks that banged against the undercarriage of the ambulance. The sparks flying into the air showered the back of the vehicle with bursts of golden light.

Maggie stumbled and tried to catch her balance, but she couldn’t fight the downward slant of the ambulance. She was going to plunge straight out those back doors as that twisted freak had. Releasing the paddles, she scrambled to grab something solid.

Strong fingers encircled her wrist, dragging her back. The EKG machine rolled forward, still beeping the impossibly steady rhythm of her patient’s heart. She expected to go flying out the door with the stretcher and the machine, but the man jerked himself to the side so forcefully he flipped the stretcher over. Metal bent with a screech as the stretcher twisted to follow her patient’s movement. The leads of the EKG machine snapped, and the cart rolled out the back door while her patient remained inside.

Maggie shrank back when he landed before her, the mangled stretcher spreading over the top of them. With his position, he blocked most of the aisle of the ambulance. Less than ten minutes ago, she’d been staring at this man’s exposed spine, and now he was kneeling on the ground, staring at her.

Have I gone as nutty as my mother? Is this some sort of psychotic break, and I’m imagining it all? Am I going to wake to find myself in a straight jacket? Her mind raced with those questions as his eyes burned into hers and the ambulance came to a grinding halt in the middle of the road.

Despite his earlier, near-dead status, healthy color flushed her patient’s chiseled cheekbones. The black stubble lining his jaw made him appear more menacing, something he didn’t need as the man had practically pulled a Lazarus.

“Maggie May, you okay?” Roger asked.

She had to think about the answer to his question. “Fine,” she finally croaked, having decided that if she’d fallen down the rabbit hole, she might as well ride out the insanity and have some tea with the Hatter. “You?”

“Few more gray hairs, but still kicking. How’s the patient?”

“He’s ahh…” She gulped. “He’s kneeling before me right now.”

She heard the creak of Roger’s seat as he leaned over to look in the back and then his sharp inhalation. “Well, of course, he is,” Roger murmured, and the seat creaked as he sat back again. “I think it’s time for you to come up front, Mags.”

“On my way,” she replied.

The squelch of airwaves filled the ambulance, and then Roger requested help with a calm that didn’t fit this situation. The man’s eyes burned into hers as, with the care she would take to back away from a rabid animal, she edged away from him.

The others would never believe her and Roger when they told their coworkers about this at the end of their shift. Scratch that, she would never tell anyone about this. She’d be locked up right beside her mother if she did.

The man’s chest heaved, and his arms were spread out to the sides by the cuffs hooking him to the stretcher. The posture reminded her of an avenging angel. Except, she suspected this man was anything but angelic.

“Go,” he commanded, and then something collided with the back of the stretcher.

Knocked forward by the weight of whatever hit him, Aiden almost fell flat onto the ground. If he went down, the Savages would be all over him, and her. He would not allow the monstrous, twisted malignancies that were the worst of his kind anywhere near her.

When he was shoved forward again, grasping hands reached over his back toward Maggie as excited chatter filled the ambulance. He’d been the one to draw them here, but they’d scented her, they wanted her, and they would destroy her.

Fury pulsed through his veins as he launched himself up off the ground. The Savage on the back of the stretcher screamed, his bones shattered when Aiden smashed him between the stretcher and the roof of the ambulance. While standing, another one tried to sneak between his legs. Plunging downward, he drove his knee into the vamp’s back, shattering his spine at the same time he finally succeeded in breaking the links of the cuffs.

Maggie scrambled back when her patient surged up and bashed one of the things trying to get in the ambulance off the ceiling. A putrid aroma drifted to her, reminding her of garbage as another creature tried to crawl between her patient’s legs. She froze when he came down, and his knee broke the other monster almost in half. Years of training to save others and compassion warred with her flight instinct as the man’s hands beat against the ground and cries of anguish issued from him.

The man’s whimpers pierced through her indecision. She helped others; she didn’t run from them, even if they were some kind of twisted freak on super speed. She went to grab the man’s wrist when metal snapped and a hand seized hers. Her patient’s leaf-colored eyes flickered with red when she met his gaze. Terror crept through her as she realized he’d broken the handcuffs.

“What are you?” she breathed as something else hit the stretcher, shoving him toward her and knocking him off the man beneath him. Her nose wrinkled when the faint stench of garbage grew stronger on the air.

Aiden didn’t answer her as the stench of rotting vampire filled his nose. There were more Savages out there, probably the rest of the ones who attacked him, Aiden realized. The one whose back he’d snapped was yanked away as his brethren pulled him to safety. Aiden glanced between his legs to see the Savage he’d battered against the ceiling crawling out the back of the vehicle.

Roger shouted something, and jagged lines fissured across the windshield. Leaning over, Roger grasped the small fire extinguisher and yanked it free. His eyes met Aiden’s and widened before he spun around. He smashed the butt of the extinguisher against the hand shoving its way through the glass.

A current of air brushed against his spine, but Aiden felt his veins and muscles knitting together to repair the damage. He was healing fast, but he was nowhere near strong enough to take these things on right now. Not without blood.

His gaze fell on Maggie’s neck and the pulse beating through the vein there. His fangs tingled; his mouth watered. Even if he hadn’t been weakened, he’d still crave her blood as the scent of it was more alluring than anything he’d encountered before, but now he needed it if they were to have any chance of surviving this.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“For what?” she demanded.

Maggie didn’t have time to move before his hand wrapped around the back of her head and he drew her toward him. She placed her palms against his chest to shove him away, but she’d have better luck moving a mountain as he didn’t budge.

“It’s the only way I can save you.” His warm breath tickled her ear. “Forgive me.”

Then, he was sinking his teeth—no, his fangs into her throat.