What if he lost control and bit her? Every male in his order feared becoming one of the Fallen. Murdoch was no different, but breaking that law had never even been a consideration for him. He'd never understood the temptation.

Until now. Am I going to make it to dawn without taking her neck? He had to.

The damage I would do to her... Earlier, her wrist had all but sizzled beneath his palm. What would happen to her tender neck under his fangs and lips as he pinned her down?

Would he burn her as he licked her flesh in ecstasy?

Tearing his eyes away, he shot to his feet, tracing to the bedroom. He scooped up the arrows and stained bedding and pitched them outside. While he was there, he shed his torn jacket.

Then he traced to the refrigerator, pouring a cup of blood. Though he was depleted from his injuries, when he tried to drink, it tasted like dirt. He forced himself to swallow.

Damn it, get the cup down. Ignore this lust, blood and otherwise.

After managing barely half of the contents, he returned, gazing down at her face. She lay so still, her blond-tipped lashes a sweep against her pale cheeks.

The mere idea of hurting her sent him reeling. He needed to protect her.

Without opening her eyes, she whispered on a frosty breath, "Murdoch?"

"Do you need more ice?" he quickly asked. Most of it had melted, but the wounds that had marred her chest were practically healed.

She shook her head.

"Do you want to get out of the water?"

In answer, she lifted her arms to him. He frowned. So trusting, so vulnerable.

He gathered her against his chest, then traced her back to his bed. Still holding her, he grabbed a towel for her to lie on.

Her br**sts moved against his arm as he laid her down, and his c*ck shot even harder. For three hundred years, Murdoch had had no interest in women's br**sts.

Now he nearly growled with pleasure.

Drawing back, he saw that her eyes were open, half-lidded. Gone was the silver. They were an aquamarine almost too vivid to be real.

"When I slept, I didn't dream of them. I dreamed of you." She sounded delirious. "Vampire, are you going to stay with me?"

He'd wanted to capture a Valkyrie and get her to talk. Why not now? "Yes, I'll stay with you."

This seemed to comfort her, and her eyes slid closed again, but he knew she was still awake.

"Daniela? Who were the men who attacked you?" He recalled the blade and the male's intoned words that had sounded like a sentencing. Tonight's attack had been an assassination attempt.

"The Icere, the fey of the north."

"Why did they want to hurt you?"

She shrugged. "Wasn't the first time. I stay on the move. Just two centuries ago, he sent a troop, but I was able to get away."

"Who sent them?" She was more than two hundred years old?

"Their king, Sigmund. This time they surprised me. 'Cause I was distracted."

"What distracted you?"

She grinned but said nothing.

"Why do they want you dead? Daniela?" When she pressed her lips together, he knew she wouldn't tell him more about this subject, so he decided to move on to a new one.

Nikolai had described the other Valkyrie he'd encountered. One had had skin that glowed, and one had been a supernatural archer. This female was some kind of ice creature. Perhaps all the Valkyrie had overarching similarities, but they could be born of different species.

"Daniela, your sister Myst is not cold like you. Why?"

Without opening her eyes, she murmured, "We share a set of parents. But one of our mothers is different."

"One of your mothers? An adoptive mother?"

"No. Have three parents."

She's delirious. Or was she? One thing he'd learned about the Lore was that nothing made sense to him. The laws of the Lore defied the laws of nature.

"How is that possible?" When she seemed to be going back under, he gave her shoulder a gentle shake.

Her blond brows drew together. "Woden and Freya struck my mother with lightning to bring her back to life. I was in the lightning. The three are my parents."

No, she's definitely delirious.

"Myst was born of Woden, Freya, and a human Pict."

Picts? They'd lived centuries ago. "How old are you?"

"Two thousand or so."

"Two thousand."

"'m a Pisces."

"I see. Why did you want to know whether Myst was with Kristoff or Nikolai?"

She softly answered, "Myst likes Nikolai. If he's nice tonight, he's going to be plus-one with a Valkyrie."

"Nice tonight?" he repeated. Murdoch suspected his brother would be many things with Myst. Nice was not among the possibilities. Feeling an unaccountable flare of guilt, he traced to the kitchen, returning with a glass of water for Daniela. He lifted it to her lips, but she turned her head away.

"Don't drink."

"It's just water."

"Don't drink anything."

"I suppose you don't eat either."

"Un-unh."

If any of this was true... He needed to talk to Nikolai -

"Murdoch?" Her eyes were open once more, and they were focused on his mouth. "You have the most kissable lips I've ever seen."

He swallowed. "And would you like to kiss me? If you could?"

"If I started... I don't think I'd ever stop." Her words were throaty, so damned enticing. She wasn't a warrior, she was a temptress.

And a lesser man could get snared if he wasn't careful.

Her lids slid closed again. She seemed to be in that delirious state where the mind didn't want to cede to oblivion.

She eased her arm over her head, those sexy bracelets clanking, and the damp locks covering her chest fell away, revealing her perfect br**sts.

They were little, but high and so plump that he ached to sink his fangs into one. Instead, he dug a fang into his bottom lip. He imagined the blood seeping on his tongue was hers.

He pictured how her br**sts would bounce as he f**ked her.

These lustful thoughts were so unfamiliar, so futile. She would never be beneath him. He angrily palmed his erection behind his jeans, which he knew was a risk, because the worse his arousal grew, the worse it would stay - if he couldn't get her to relieve him of it.

Just this once, he would need her to break the seal. Then he could go on his way, satisfying himself with others.

In his human life, he'd had women falling all over themselves to attract his notice. Whenever he hadn't been on the battlefield, he'd been cradled between a woman's thighs, and had grown notorious for his skills in bed. But if none of the tricks he'd learned would work on Daniela, then how could he seduce her to ease him of this burden -

"Murdoch," she sleepily sighed, "my panties are wet."

A shaky exhalation of breath. "Are they, then?" Had his voice broken?

She wriggled her h*ps as if she wanted them off her. With a hard swallow, he reached forward and dragged the scrap of lace down, revealing silky blond curls. Another groan, another coarse swipe over his shaft.

Too much temptation. He was about to fall on her, to mount the soft body na**d before him.

Three centuries he'd been denied this. His fangs were throbbing along with his cock. He wanted to bury anything he could inside her.

With a sharp shake of his head, he snatched up a sheet to toss over her. When it glided across her ni**les, they budded against it. He studied the ceiling, desperate not to see the way her ni**les strained into the material. Then he sank into the room's one chair, but just as abruptly shot to his feet to pace again. He itched to stroke her, to explore the dream woman in his bed.

Fight the arousal. Resist it -

She kicked off the sheet. He rushed to draw it back up to her neck. "Keep this here, Valkyrie."

More restless pacing. With a huff, she kicked the sheet away once more. God, could she be any lovelier?

He ran his hand over his mouth. "Damn it, Daniela. It might be a fraction warmer, but it's a world safer for you." Had he drawn up the sheet more slowly, skimming it across her ni**les on purpose?

Yet again, she rid herself of the sheet, but this time she drew one knee up. He saw her sex parted and nearly went to his knees.

Never to taste her there? Fury suffused him. Never to see those blond curls damp from his mouth or wet with his seed?

Never to claim his Bride. Why the f**k had she blooded him then?

He traced to the bathroom, stripped, then stepped under a cold shower. He scrubbed his body with no care for his many wounds.

This blooding business was the most ridiculous rot Murdoch had ever heard of. A woman had to bring him to life, and then he was expected to be bound to that one female - not for a year or a decade. Not even for a mortal's married lifetime.

For eternity.

He'd had no choice in the matter, none whatsoever in the choosing of the female. What if he didn't like delicate-looking blondes? As a mortal, he'd been attracted to buxom barmaids, and milkmaids, and kitchen maids, and the occasional shepherdess - robust women with hearty carnal appetites.

For his Bride, he'd gotten Daniela, the exquisitely fine but untouchable Valkyrie.

As he ran the soap down his torso, his hand brushed his rampant cock. Unremembered pleasure shot through him like an electric current. He was as hard as he'd ever been, aching to come.

When he gripped his shaft in his fist, a strangled sound of need burst from his chest. He gave a stroke up to the crown and back. Felt so good, he had to do it again, and again.

Masturbating for the first time in centuries.

His eyes slid shut when he perceived his se**n welling. In a rational part of his mind, he knew it couldn't go further without her; she had to unleash this within him.

Resentment warred with his ecstasy - if she left him like this, he would be crippled by this lust. But everything else within was greedy for the pleasure.

Uncaring, lost, he thrust hard into his fist.

CHAPTER 7

When Danii woke to the drum of an air conditioner chugging full blast, she found herself alone - and na**d.

As she blinked in the shade-darkened room, foggy memories from the night before began to surface. She remembered the vampire's savagery in the fight. She recalled him later gazing down at her in the bathtub with his brows drawn, his face pale from blood loss. How doggedly he'd kept watch over her.

But after that, nothing. Once the poison had begun working its way from her system, she'd blanked.

So... na**d? She was certain he'd put her in the tub with her panties on. Now he'd seen her completely unclothed.

Had he liked what he'd seen? No, as an unblooded vampire, he'd have no interest.

A cursory survey of her body revealed a mass of twinges, but her wounds had mended for the most part, leaving only a closing tear just below her collarbone. Her temperature was still high, but would gradually drop each day.

She inspected her wrist where he'd grabbed her. The burn had healed as well.

Even after all these centuries, she was surprised by the degree of pain involved with skin to skin contact. For some reason, it was always the worst. She could skirt a car exhaust and only suffer a lingering sting.

But another's skin against hers was like fire...

She gazed around the spartan room. Considering the still unpacked duffel bag and sparse furnishings - a lounge chair, a desk, and the mattress - this definitely wasn't a permanent home. Danii knew the Forbearers lived in the sinister Mount Oblak castle. So what was he doing here?

Over the drone of the air conditioner, she heard the shower going. The vampire hadn't left her? She recalled the injuries he'd sustained taking out eight of those Icere bastards, remembering that he'd been hurt much worse than she'd initially thought. She didn't know how he'd still been standing, much less how he'd cared for her.

If not for him, she would have died. The poison would have taken hold until even her immortality couldn't have saved her. He had saved her.

She grinned. No longer did she think him skeevy.

When blood had been everywhere and Danii helpless before him, Murdoch hadn't even tried to drink from her. And Valkyrie blood was supposed to be irresistible to vampires. Myst had confided to Danii that she'd given a drop to Nikolai the Overlord five years ago, and he'd been wild for it.

Oh, Myst... What should Danii do about her sister's abduction? Myst, who'd once done her a favor so great that she could never repay it.

The answer seemed obvious. Call Nix and tell her to launch a search and a war if need be. Murdoch had a satellite phone on his desk.

But earlier, he'd said he could take Danii to her sister - because Myst would be with Nikolai. So the two of them were together.

Likely only the two of them. Making up for lost time.

If Danii called the coven about this, she'd unleash a shrieking battle contingent to bust down the door of the vampire's love nest.

What would her sister want her to do? The facts: Myst was a master manipulator and enchantress. No Valkyrie was better at getting men to do her bidding. She could handle Nikolai.

Another fact: At the news that Forbearer vamps had been spotted in the city, Myst had been excited, her green eyes alight. Before setting out to hunt them, she'd checked and rechecked her hair.

Myst, it seemed, was already half in love with Nikolai. And if Nikolai was a fraction as thoughtful and gentle as his brother...

I'll get more information from Murdoch before I make a move.

With that decided, Danii rose from the mattress on the floor -  typical vampire, craving to sleep as low to the ground as possible -  and crossed to his closet.

Contrary to popular belief, she wasn't shy, but she still rooted through his duffel bag for something to wear. She and Murdoch had serious things to discuss, their siblings' situation, for one, and she didn't want to do it na**d.