Melissa’s eyes close, and silent tears slip down her temples into her hair. Her small body is locked in my arms, and I can’t let her go. I’m still trying to come down from what just happened between us, by the realization it happened before, last night.

Stuart told me what she is before I left Lafitte’s. His shifter senses detected her immediately. I didn’t want to believe him, but it answered every question I’ve had since we met.

The riddle is solved. She’s a hybrid. A vampire has bitten her, and she’s drunk its blood. All that’s left is for her to make her first kill. Only as far as I can tell, she seems to be fighting that last step.

I should be repulsed by this knowledge. I should want to stake her. At the very least, I should be angry that she bit me without my knowledge or permission. Instead I’m entwined in her arms making love to her, allowing her to taste me. It doesn’t make sense. I’m immune to her glamour. Yet… I want this. I want her. I want all of it intensely and hard and desperately.

She’s beautiful and amazing and sensual and fucking everything to me. The first night I saw her so sad and alone in the bar, I couldn’t stay away from her. Perhaps that’s what it is—I see her fighting against the curse and losing. I won’t let her lose.

I followed her out of the bar tonight, chasing her down Bourbon Street in the pouring rain, because I was angry. I wanted answers. I was going to demand she tell me she’d deceived me.

When she jumped back into my arms, and I had her trapped…

I was still angry, but her deep sadness destroyed my desire to hurt her. Her vulnerability replaced my anger with a driving need to possess her. I wanted to taste her. I wanted to fuck her the way we did last night.

Shit, the memory of last night haunted me like the wildest sexual fantasy I’d ever known. I’d never come so hard or so long in my life. I blacked out for a moment it was so intense. It radiated my scalp, and I craved another hit like the instant junkie I’d become. I wanted more of her beautiful body, her luscious sweetness…

Jesus, how has this happened to me? I don’t know. I only know it has happened, and now we’ve got to figure it out.

As soon as I release her, she turns away quickly, hiding her face in the blankets like she’s always done, hiding her fangs. Her head is down, and I slide my hand from her shoulder, down her creamy torso to the arch of her back to her rounded ass. Every inch of her is beautiful.

“Melissa?” My voice is low.

I know she’s struggling for control. Vampires are easily lost in emotion, and I’m well aware her emotions respond to me as much as mine do to her.

“Look at me.”

Her body stiffens. She’s trying to figure out a way to stall, to buy time while she fumbles back to normal. I’m not going to let her this time. No more secrets between us.

“Melissa!” Taking her shoulder, I push her back on the pillow.

“No!” Her eyes squeeze shut as her hand flies to cover her mouth.

It’s too late. I see the long, white canines piercing little dimples in her bottom lip. I feel the churn in my stomach at the sight. Even without the remnants of shifter blood in my veins, I’m trained to respond negatively to her kind.

What I’m not trained for is the flood of tears spilling down her cheeks. She tries to cover her face, to hide her sobs, but I don’t let her.

“Let me go,” she begs, twisting in my arms. It breaks my heart how much she wants to hide. She’s so ashamed.

“Melissa,” I soothe. “My beautiful Melissa.”

“No,” she whimpers. “I’m a monster. A horrible nightmare.”

Relaxing my hold on her shoulders, I allow her to turn on her side, burying her face in the pillow, her long dark hair covering her.

With a deep exhale, I fall on my back against the mattress beside her. Nothing has prepared me for this. My enemy has formed the woman of my dreams, and she’s bound to my enemy as its slave.

“You were bitten,” I say softly. I don’t know her story, but the pattern is always the same. “Did you know what it was that bit you?”

She doesn’t lift her face from the pillow. I watch as her dark head moves side to side in a gesture indicating No.

“How did you become a hybrid?” I don’t have any other way to get this part of the story. She has to tell me what happened.

Her shoulders shudder, and I know she’s crying. I steel myself against her tears until I know the truth.

“What happened?” I repeat in a sterner tone.

A little moment of silence, another shudder, and she answers, her voice muffled by the pillow. “He forced me.”

Red seeps into my vision. It’s one thing to bite a gorgeous woman such as her in the throes of passion. It’s quite another to force her to drink your blood.

“Did you know what would happen?” I ask.

Her head pops up at once. Her sapphire blue eyes are rimmed with red, and it almost crushes me.

“No!” Her voice is a little cry. “I fought. I gagged and vomited.” Her chin drops again, and the shame is back. “It wasn’t enough. Apparently his blood still made it inside me. It changed me.”

She’s so beautiful. I pull back and study her slim, ivory frame in my bed. Her face is tucked in the pillow, and her long hair forms a glossy curtain around her shoulders. Her sweetness is undeniable, and the fact that she was forced, raped by a vampire, makes me want to forget I only hunt for justice. I want to kill them all.

Instead, I put my hand on her shoulder, hoping to ease her pain. “It’s not your fault.”

Her shoulders droop, but I know she’s hearing my words. I can’t take any more of this. I want her in my arms. This beautiful, broken woman has somehow worked her way into my heart, and I only want to help her.

Standing, I lift her and carry her to the tile-lined shower in my suite. We’re both still damp from the downpour tonight, and it’s cold. I turn on the blast until the water warms, and step inside with her, holding her against my chest under the spray.

The only encouragement I have is her small hands holding my back so tightly. She’s holding my shoulder blades as if they’re the only things keeping her together. Her forehead is at my collarbone, and I stroke the back of her long dark hair as the warm water beats down on us.

“It doesn’t matter,” I murmur, soothing her. “I will save you.”

Her whole body relaxes in my arms, and I feel my own muscles start to relax. This night was terrifying and stressful and shocking and ultimately healing. Melissa and I are here together. We have no secrets anymore.

I reach forward to shut off the water. She doesn’t speak. She only watches as I step out of the glass-encased shower and grab a towel. Holding out my hand, she pauses a half-second before putting hers in mine. It’s all I need to know.

Buffing her body with the plush towel, I drop it on the floor and carry her to my large bed. We’ve made love, but now we need to rest. In the morning we’ll sort out what all of this means.

For now, I’ll hold her beautiful body next to mine to sleep.

---

Melissa

My eyes open in the darkness, and I realize I’ve been asleep. I’m not sure how it happened, but it fills me with the most amazing flicker of hope. I slept during the night!

Derek is beside me breathing heavily. I watch him sleep, studying his features. The beautiful bow of his lips, the dark scruff on his cheeks, his powerful jaw and imposing brow. I remember his tenderness in the shower, his pledge to save me. He said the most amazing things to me.

All of it combines into the perfect image of the man I would love. My hero. His gorgeous chest rises and falls, and I wonder how we’ll make it out of this alive. He knows what I am. I know what he is. By all accounts, we should be enemies. Only, I don’t want to be his enemy. I want to be his everything.

He stirs and those steel blue eyes blink open at me. I’m not sure he’s awake, still I can’t resist speaking the truth to him in this twilight hour.

“If everything were different, I’d tell you I love you right now,” I whisper.

For a moment, he doesn’t respond. I’m ready to accept he’s still asleep until he moves, pulling me against him. His face is at my breast, and I feel him kiss my skin gently once, twice. Then his arms relax, and I know for sure he’s asleep again. I know I should slip out. I should leave and go back to my room before the sun rises, but I can’t. I’ll stay with him tonight, and tomorrow I’ll try to figure out how I’ll ever leave him again.

When I open my eyes, I’m surprised to find I’m alone in his suite. The curtains are pulled shut, so I have no idea of the time. I sit up and reach for the lamp when I see a scrap of paper on the pillow next to me.

Early meeting with my partner. Sleep as long as you want. I’ll be back by noon. Wait for me or tell me where I can find you. –D.

Tracing my finger over the controlled block letters of his handwriting, I’m amazed again that I’ve been asleep. I slept through him waking, getting ready, and leaving this morning. It’s incredible. It’s like the clock has been reset somehow on my evolution, and I’m back at the early stages when I was just learning the extent of what had happened to me.

How? Again I’m overcome by how little I know about this curse. I’ve been thrust into this half-life and left to figure out what comes next. In the beginning, I tried following the rules of the old horror movies and books, but only some of them are true. Most are just plot devices.

For example, I don’t burn up in the sunlight. At the same time, the sun does hurt my eyes, and I’d rather stay indoors during the midday hours. Every day, my biorhythms shift more and more to nocturnal. I have no control over this part of my progression. I’m awake well past midnight, until the first hints of sunrise, when my eyes grow heavy, and as much as I struggle, it’s impossible to keep them open.

None of the religious symbols bother me. In fact, they comfort me, and I find myself longing to go to St. Louis Cathedral and hide in the ancient edifice until this nightmare has ended. I imagine myself waking up and realizing it’s all been a terrible dream. I pretend I shake the horror away, and return to my life as an independent marketing consultant.

Oh, god. My former life feels so far away from me. It’s a distant memory I’ll never get back. Pushing the blankets aside, I walk to the window and open the curtains.

Just like my ability to sleep at night, my eyes aren’t as affected by the sunlight this morning. Clouds obstruct most of it, but the few rays that peek through on this overcast day don’t send me scrambling for my sunglasses like an alcoholic coming off a bender.

In that moment a new, even more thrilling realization washes over me. I haven’t heard my maker’s voice in two days! Somehow I’ve managed to escape him. He’s not controlling me. His presence isn’t in my head ordering me, fighting with me.

I’m not free of him, clearly I’m not. My teeth still grow, and I still crave Derek’s blood—even with the healthy dose I took from him last night, I want more. Yet somehow his grip has slipped. I’ve somehow managed to evade his reach. For how long, I have no idea, but I intend to make the most of it and do everything I can to prolong it.

Dashing around the room, I search for my dress. It’s lying in a damp puddle in the tub. It’s cold and clammy as I slip it over my body, and looking down, I realize I need more than this before I can go out into the street.

Pulling open a small dresser drawer, I take out Derek’s black T-shirt. It’s too large on me, but it has the lovely advantage of smelling like him. I bury my nose in the neck and take a deep inhale, my insides shimmering with joy. He has something to do with these changes, I’m sure of it. Only, I don’t know how.

Before I leave, I scribble out a quick reply to his note. Lunch with Elaine and a friend, but I can’t wait to see you again. –M.

Stopping before I leave, I hastily add my cell number, even though I left my small clutch at Lafitte’s last night when I bolted. I hope Elaine rescued it for me. I can’t wait to meet with her and Mariska today. For the first time in almost a month, I have hope.

---

Derek

Patrick doesn’t join us this morning, but it’s for the best. Stuart used our fading shifter bond to wake me and demand I meet him. We’re not having breakfast. We’re walking on the levee, and as the sun rises over the brown swirling water, he hits me with everything I already know.

“You fucking kept me awake all night.” His voice is a low growl. “She’s dangerous. Hybrids are unpredictable and extremely volatile. She could kill you while you sleep.”

“She’s not going to kill me.” I don’t mention the bite.

“Is she running?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does her maker know where she is?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you are fucking her.” His sarcasm pisses me off.

“Watch it,” I say through clenched teeth. “You’re my partner, not my boss.”

He snaps back with equal force. “All our asses are on the line if one of us starts fucking around with a vampire.”

Rubbing my hand across my forehead, I control my rising anger. “It’s not like that. She doesn’t want to turn.”

“Sounds like she’s running,” he says with a nod. “Only the old ones have the ability to procreate. If she was forced, he’s even more treacherous than the one we killed last night.”

“She was forced.” My voice is deadly serious. “I promised I’d save her. I won’t let her down.”

“You’re planning to save her on your own?” He glares at me.

I shake my head. “No. I had hoped you’d be willing to help me.”

He makes a noise and we walk in the growing heat several paces without speaking. My mind returns to last night, making love to her, letting her taste me, her deep sense of shame.

I watch a small ferry crossing the water from Algiers. “We say we’re committed to justice, but if we let her go without a fight, how is that justice?”

“You’ve fallen for her,” he grumbles. “If it were any other hybrid, you’d walk away.”

For a moment, I can’t answer him. He’s right. I’ve fallen for her hard. Our temporary shifter bond allows him to sense it. At the same time…

“If I found another hybrid wanting to be free, I’d help it.” My fears for her play across my mind. “The problem is forced hybrids either don’t know they have a choice, or their makers kill them before they can escape.”

Stuart stops walking and faces me, crossing his arms. “Exactly. Her maker won’t let her go. He’ll be coming for her, if he’s not already here. He probably is already here. Did it occur to you he could be the one Patrick sensed?”

A touch of fear moves through me. I left her alone in my hotel room. I don’t even know how to find her if she leaves. “I’ll keep her close. We need to be ready when he makes his move.”

“We’re only just getting started,” he says. “You’re well-known in the underground. Word gets out you helped a hybrid escape its master, they’ll put a mark on you. We’ll be watching your back for a long time.”

“Can’t be helped.” My determination is stronger than ever. “I will free her.”

He nods gravely. “I’ll touch base with the New Orleans underground. It’s possible they’ve picked up on his arrival. The old ones can cloak their movements, but they might have something.”

“Thanks,” I say, grasping his forearm. “I’d better wake Patrick.”