lightheaded with sudden need.

“I mean it, Nicole.” His sexed-up voice was gravelly, rusty from disuse. “Stop thrashing.”

She sank her nails into his chest and tried to push again, but the little pinches of pain only added to the soaring pleasure as lust surged through him, hot and potent.

“Or what?” Almost before the words were out of her mouth, she became very clear about what was going on. He saw it in the way her expression went slack and her skin flushed pink, felt it in the sudden taut set of her muscles. “Oh,” she breathed.

God, she was a study of female perfection right now, with her hair fanned out in a messy pool on the ground, her panting breaths, her full lips open and glistening. She looked like a woman who needed a mattress, a lot less clothing, and a male willing to use every dirty trick in the book to make her mindless with ecstasy.

Braced on one elbow, he eased his hand around to the back of her slender neck to where her spine met her skull. With one swift thrust of his fingers into that spot, he could kill her before she knew what happened.

Or he could stroke the soft skin and thread his fingers through her silky hair.

This was stupid. It was completely crazy and inappropriate that his body was responding to her at all, let alone with a powerful rush of desire that had him dipping his head toward that perfect mouth. He wondered how she’d taste, wondered if her kisses were as sweet as the decadent nectar in her veins. The very thought made his body burn.

Without thinking, he brushed his lips across hers.

Beneath him, Nicole stiffened, and when he did it again, this time with an even lighter touch, she let out a gasp. Under his thumb, her pulse ticked madly, and the scent of her anger and fear blended with a subtle note of arousal.

Instantly, his body burned hotter. He needed more.

Much more.

He sealed his mouth over hers, groaning as he tasted his first female since Terese’s death. Her lips parted slightly, and the warm, wet recess of her mouth drew him deep. She was soft all over but firm enough in the right places for him to know instinctively that she could take him at his roughest. His wildest.

He shuddered at the direction his thoughts had taken. They couldn’t do this. He’d never been the type to have sex with a female he didn’t like, no matter how hot she was or how much she revved him up.

Growling with frustration, he kissed her harder, which made no sense, and he knew it. Or maybe it did. The kiss was punishing, brutal, because, dammit, it was her fault he was between her legs in the first place.

Nicole’s br**sts pressed into his bare chest as he shifted, moving against her in a primitive surge that made them both moan.

More. He gripped her hip and tucked her more firmly under him.

More. He dragged his mouth along her jaw. She smelled so good, so feminine. He moved his mouth to her neck, and instantly, she went taut and recoiled.

Right. He was a vampire. Worth about as much as a stray dog. And this stray dog was humping her leg. She must be mortified.

Fucking humiliating. He shoved himself off her, averting his gaze so she wouldn’t see the color change in his eyes that signified arousal. She was too aware of his desire as it was, and he was an idiot for letting it go as far as it had.

With a curse, he grabbed up his ruined shirt. It was bloody, dirty, and torn to shit. It wasn’t wearable, but he put it to good use while he waited for his heart rate and breathing to return to pre-hump-the-enemy levels.

After splashing the shirt with the bottle of water, he wiped the dried blood from his chest. His wound had nearly healed. Another couple of days, and there wouldn’t even be a scar.

The scrape of Nicole’s chunky-heeled boots echoed through the cavern as she came to her feet. “Um . . .”

She cleared her throat, because, yeah, this was all kinds of awkward. “Do you need blood? You know, to replen-ish what you lost?”

Yup, he did. He was operating at about half strength right now, but hell if he was going to tell her that.

“Don’t worry, Sunshine. I won’t sink my big, bad fangs into your pretty little throat.” He shrugged into his weapons harness. “Not until you get Neriya back, anyway.”

That particular threat was getting old, but right now, he needed to get his brain functional again, and that would require thinking about something other than sinking anything of his into anything of Nicole’s.

Her huff told him she was just as tired of the threat hanging over her head. “Why is she so important to you, anyway? Who is she?”

Riker didn’t owe her an explanation, but what the hell. They didn’t have anything else to do while they hung out in the cave except talk. Besides, maybe if she understood the importance of getting Neriya away from the humans, Nicole would be more willing to cooperate.

“I’m sure you’re aware that the vampire race suffers from a low birthrate, and when a female does get pregnant, the birth can be extremely complicated and dangerous.”

Nicole moved around in front of him. He wished she hadn’t. Even though she was dragging her fingers through her messy locks in an attempt to tame them, she still looked like she’d just gotten out of bed after a tumble with a man, and he definitely didn’t need to be picturing her on a mattress. Or with a man.

Or with him.

“One in four deliveries results in the death of either the mother or the child or both,” she said, sounding like she was reading straight from some Vampires for Dummies book. “I know.”

“Well, Sunshine Smartypants, all vampires develop special abilities at some point in their lives, depending on if they’re born or turned. One of the rarest abilities is also the most precious. We call it usdida.” Crouching, he gathered the first-aid supplies and tried to stuff them back into the box. They appeared to have multiplied.

“Basically, people with this gift can ease labor and deliver babies safely. No one knows how it works, just that very rarely does a child or a mother die when a midwife with usdida is present.” What the hell—seriously, did bandages breed? Frustrated, he forced the kit lid closed.

“Neriya is a midwife from another clan. We arranged to have her present for a birth, but on our way to return her, our team was attacked by hunters, and she was taken.”

“What makes you think my company has her?”

Nicole asked.

He glanced up at her, a little surprised at the lack of defensiveness in the question. “Because a warrior who survived the attack reported hearing the hunters mention having a buyer at Daedalus lined up.”

There was a long pause, as if Nicole was gathering her thoughts. Finally, she shook her head. “That’s impossible. We don’t have people out gathering vampires for us. It’s illegal for anyone but federally sanctioned hunters to capture wild vampires.”

Wild vampires. As opposed to domesticated slave vampires, he supposed.

“So you’re saying my warrior is a liar.”

“I just think he’s mistaken,” she said, like a perfect little diplomat.

He ground his molars so hard his jaw ached. “Baddon doesn’t make mistakes.”

“I see.” Arctic air practically swirled around her.

No doubt, she didn’t believe him and was sure her fabulous company was completely misunderstood. “In any case, I can understand why you’re desperate to get Neriya back.”

“You have no idea.” He shoved himself to his feet with a little more force than was necessary. “Her clan, ShadowSpawn, has given us until the new moon to return her. If we don’t, they’ll destroy us down to the last child.”

Nicole’s mouth fell open. Closed. Open again. Finally, she simply turned away. “There’s so much more to your people than anyone knows.”

“Shocking, isn’t it, how we have feelings and families and we even celebrate holidays.” He wished she’d turn around so he could gauge her reaction, but he’d have to settle for listening to the beat of her heart as it sped up or slowed down . . . or skipped a beat the way it had a moment ago. “But you know what ruins our families? Our holidays?” He let the answer fly like aright cross. “People like your family. ”

Nicole wheeled around so suddenly he actually stepped back. “I’m not defending what humans have done to you,” she said fiercely. “But my family was good to our servants.”

“Servants? My mate wasn’t a servant. She was a slave. You can’t even say it, can you?” Loathing billowed up inside him, raw and hot, as two decades of festering wound tore open, spilling fresh pain. “Your family ripped her from our home and turned her into a damned nanny to a snot-nosed kid who grew up to hate vampires.”

“I loved Terese!” Nicole took an aggressive step toward him, her hands fisted at her sides. “She was like a sister to me. She cared about me.”

“I cared about her,” he shot back. “You took her away from me. From the people she loved.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice as caustic as the acid she’d nearly killed him with. “Your mate loved you so much that she tried to abort your baby. Twice.”

It had been a long time—decades, really—since Riker had been sucker-punched. Now it all came back to him . . . the moment of stunned confusion, the pain that left you reeling, the sudden absence of breath that made the lungs tighten into shriveled husks.

With a few words that came out of left field, Nicole had laid him out like no blow ever had. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak.

All he could do was walk, zombielike, out into the night.

Chapter 10

Nicole felt like a heinous bitch. She was starting to understand Riker’s bitterness toward her and her family and toward humans in general, but she was so protective of Terese, and he’d completely dismissed how Nicole had felt about the vampire.

And she still wasn’t sure what happened the night

Terese died. All Nicole knew was that she’d heard his angry voice and had seen him holding a knife to Terese’s neck while she pleaded with him. The memory still cut deep, still had the power to reduce her to tears sometimes.

“Please, Riker. Don’t do this. Please.”

The male vampire had Terese pressed against the shed, his hand covering hers, and both of their hands were wrapped around the hilt of a dagger that was digging into Terese’s throat. Tears dripped down Terese’s cheeks as she pleaded with him. A single drop of blood welled on her skin where the knife blade rested.

Nicole searched her brain for a way to stop that vam- pire from hurting Terese, but Nicole was so little, and he was so . . . huge. She tried to scream, but only a squeak came out, and for a heart-stopping moment, Riker shifted his gaze in her direction. Terror froze her to the ground. Could he see her?

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t until he turned back to Terese that Nicole was able to scramble from her hiding place in the bushes and make a break for the stables. Legs pumping as fast as they would go, she burst into the horse barn, where Uncle Paul was saddling a polo pony for her cousin Ted.

“Help! Uncle Paul!” She paused to catch her breath.

“A wild vampire. At the shed. He’s going to kill Terese. Help her!”

Uncle Paul hit an alarm on the wall. A siren screeched, and the horses went crazy. “Stay here,” he told her and Ted.

He grabbed a pitchfork and raced out the door.

She never saw him alive again.

Hours later, her father found her and Ted crouched in the hayloft. Someone came to get Ted, but her father stayed with her, holding her against his chest as he broke the news that Uncle Paul had been killed, and so had Terese. The vampire who murdered them both had gotten away.

Nicole’s heart banged painfully against her ribs at the memory, and a dizzying wave of nausea made her sway. She’d wanted revenge on Riker for so long, and now that she had him in her grasp, she’d saved his life.

And then she’d honed all her stored-up anger into a razor-sharp verbal blade and had sunk it into his heart as deep as she could get it.

The pain in his eyes when she told him about the attempted abortions had been raw and real, and with a clarity she couldn’t explain, she was sure that even if he had been responsible for Terese’s death, he was as haunted by it as Nicole was.

Now she had to clean up this mess she’d just made. She was still a little dizzy as she exited the cave, and she welcomed the brisk, cool air when it hit her face.

A fine mist fell from a low, featureless cloud layer that swallowed the tops of the trees, but Riker didn’t seem to notice the droplets of water clinging to his hair and skin. He was crouched on his heels, forearms draped across his knees, head bowed.

“Riker—”

“Was what you said true? Did Terese try to abort the baby?”

She closed her eyes, but doing so didn’t shut out the shame. “I don’t think—”

“Tell me.” His voice cracked like thunder, and she knew there would be no arguing with his command.

“Yes,” she said softly.

“How?”

“Does it matter?” she whispered, hating herself for bringing it up in the first place. “Why are you torturing yourself like this?”

“Maybe I like pain.” He spoke from between clenched teeth, his jaw muscles twitching furiously as he ground his molars hard. “How?”

The wind whipped her hair against her cold cheeks, but the sting was nothing compared with what

Riker must be feeling.

“The first time, she drank a tea of tansy and pennyroyal oil. My father was furious.” Nicole had pleaded with him not to hurt Terese, but that hadn’t been hisintention. He’d chained Terese to a b ed until she swore to behave. And she had . . . for three weeks. “The second time, she threw herself down a flight of stairs.” Nicole had seen it happen, but she’d lied to her father, telling him it was an accident.