It wasn’t yet dark when Gena woke. Marcus was still sound asleep, and she didn’t see any point in waking him. She rolled out of bed as quietly as possible and made her way to the living room. Lady was curled into a tight ball on the couch.

She’d been sleeping in the bedroom with Gena and Marcus at one point but must’ve gotten sick of all the noise they’d made.

Gena smiled at the memory of the extremely restless night they’d shared. Marcus had been more than she ever could have imagined in a lover. And he’d given her the best shower of her life. In between kisses, he’d gently washed her. And he had washed her everywhere, paying special attention to a few particular parts.

Gena felt a tingle between her legs just thinking of the things his hands were capable of. After that, he’d gone to work on her with his mouth. He started with her breasts, taking care to lavish each one with equal attention, alternating between stinging bites and soothing caresses with his tongue.

Then he’d made his way farther down. The electric sensation as he kissed her between her legs had been indescribable. While he was teasing her most sensitive nub with his tongue, he snuck a finger inside her and her knees almost gave out right then.

She’d managed to stay upright as he continued his assault on her senses, slipping two and then three fingers in and out of her as his talented tongue twisted her clit into knots. As she exploded in a powerful orgasm, Marcus had shot up, lifting her up and against the wall as he slid his cock into her in one quick, powerful stroke.

At least this time when they finished, they were already in the shower. Even though she’d managed to doze off for a bit, Marcus had woken her with his kisses again at some point, though Gena had no perception of the time by then.

She sat on the couch next to Lady and relaxed her sore muscles not used to being worked. She didn’t know what to do with Marcus and was still shocked he’d tried to send her away.

If she really was the same woman as this Mary, maybe there was some deeper connection between them than just sexual attraction. They at least owed it to themselves to see what they could be together.

Gena shook her head at the thought. She was getting ahead of herself. Marcus had never once made any mention of a relationship. He’d made it clear he’d wanted sex, but that was it. For all she knew, he really would send her away now.

Somehow, she doubted he would. He seemed too honorable to sleep with her and toss her out. Still, not throwing her out of his apartment and committing to a relationship were two different things.

On top of that, Gena wasn’t sure she wanted a relationship. Her life had just been dramatically altered. Was she even thinking clearly? She hugged Lady close as her conflicting emotions ran rampant through her.

She needed to get out of this penthouse. Marcus told her to have one of the doormen downstairs take Lady out during the day and that he’d make sure they were well compensated for the extra effort, but Gena wanted to take Lady out herself.

She missed the time she would spend with just her and her dog walking for miles with some great music on her MP3 player.

She hadn’t been going out during the day because of Ryan, but after she’d faced down three angry vampires last night, she was no longer afraid of Ryan.

Within minutes, she was just walking out the door when she heard Marcus’s cell phone start to vibrate. She looked behind her and saw his discarded jacket lying by the entryway. The phone must be in the pocket.

He normally kept the phone close to him, but he must’ve forgotten in the midst of their fight, and then he’d been distracted by, um, other things.

She figured that with a possible vampire war looming, any call could be important. She should let him decide whether it was worth getting out of bed early for. As she picked up the phone to take upstairs to Marcus, she was surprised when she recognized the number. Hope was calling.

It made sense. Hope was back in town and probably wanted to check on her. Gena took the phone with her as she left the penthouse with Lady.

When she got down to the street, Lady got busy making sure she knew every person and dog that had crossed by each tree for the past week. While Lady was happily investigating, Gena called Hope back.

After Hope answered, Gena said, “Welcome back.”

“It’s good to be home,” responded Hope. “Michigan is pretty and everything, but I’m not capable of being away from the city for longer than a few days. My body just craves it.”

Gena snorted, but she felt the exact opposite. The city was beautiful and had amazing sights around every corner, but she missed Michigan. She missed hiking in the woods and being able to just disappear to a place where you could walk for hours without seeing one person. “So, how was my funeral?” she asked, fully realizing it was a sentence no one should ever have the opportunity to say.

Hope gave a little chuckle. “It was a funeral. I don’t really know what to tell you,” she said. “There were lots of people and the flowers were beautiful. There were a lot of sad people. Your parents were pretty torn up. So was Joy.”

Gena felt her own tears welling up. Her friends and family were in pain because of her. Could she tell them the truth? She would ease their pain, but possibly drag them right into the middle of whatever supernatural shit she was knee-deep in. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Well, most of the spells I work are to ease pain, so it’s hard to be surrounded by so much of it. It would be easier if you were a bitch and everyone hated you,” said Hope teasingly.

Gena smiled. “If only.”

“In all seriousness, I do consider myself an empath. It’s not too overpowering, but I can channel whatever emotions are being felt around me.”

A week ago, Gena would have laughed at the idea of someone being a true empath. Now it didn’t seem so unrealistic. “Is that why you agreed to help me?”

“It was a big part of the reason. Your fear was rolling off you. I had to do something. It’s hard enough to watch people I don’t know going through pain, but Joy is my sister. I had to tell her.”

Gena took that with a mixture of happiness at being able to talk to her best friend again and fear of what she’d be dragging Joy into. “Damn it, Hope. I’ve been helping out Marcus and there’s a lot of shit going on around us right now. I’m not sure if it’s safe for you or Joy to be around me.”

“Joy was so happy to hear you were okay. I’m just giving you fair warning that she’ll move hell and earth to talk to you.”

Gena rubbed her temples. Joy could move all the hell and earth she wanted to, but the fact was that if Gena hung up the phone right now, Joy had no way of finding her. At least Joy knew she was safe. After everything with Marcus and the vampires blew over, she could get in touch with Joy.

But all she could say was, “Where do you want to meet?”

––––––––

––––––––

Marcus slowly came awake and reached for Gena. When he realized he was the only one in the bed, his eyes shot open.

He made his way down from the bedroom; he didn’t see her in the living area either, and Lady wasn’t greeting him with her usual enthusiasm. He cursed under his breath. Had he scared her off?

How could she even think of leaving after the night they had? He knew for a fact she’d enjoyed herself. He had made sure of it. Maybe she had taken his advice and gone to stay with Hope. On one hand, he was glad she was out of harm’s way, but another part of him wanted nothing more than to march over to Hope’s and drag her back here, kicking and screaming.

Marcus’s mouth twisted up in a little grin as he imagined what he could do with her after he dragged her back. He shook his head to clear away the images of a naked and bound Gena. Even if he wanted to storm after her, the sun wouldn’t be down for another hour.

He slammed his fist down on the kitchen counter in frustration. How could she leave him without a word?

Before he could hit anything else in anger, he heard the entry door open, and an excited Lady scampered toward him, followed by a smiling Gena. “Morning, er, evening,” she said, as she set down Lady’s leash and took off her jacket.

Marcus felt a rush of joy at the sight of her. She hadn’t left him. She’d taken her dog out for a walk. She walked toward him but stopped as she got closer. “What happened to the counter?” She stared at the many cracks his fist had caused.

Embarrassed by his loss of control, he just said, “It’s a long story you probably don’t want to hear anyway.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oooookay.” She leaned in for a quick kiss.

He grabbed her hips and deepened the kiss. She didn’t protest as she opened her mouth for him and held him closer. She pushed her hips against his and his already erect cock eagerly greeted the touch.

He moved his lips along her cheekbone and made a trail down her neck. As he reached the base of her shoulder, the smell of her overwhelmed him, and his fangs shot down, hungry for another taste. He pushed her away before he did anything he’d regret.

Gena looked at him questioningly, but realization came over her as she saw his black eyes and fangs. “Do you need to feed?”

Marcus took a deep breath and felt his fangs retract and his eyes return to normal. “I usually eat first thing in the morning. I have some in the fridge.”

“I’ll leave you to it then,” she murmured as she walked over to the couch and turned on the television and flipped through channels.

Marcus watched her for another moment. He wasn’t hungry for just any blood. He wanted hers. He had imagined she’d taste good, but nothing had prepared him for the power her blood held. It was almost as if every drink had ten coffees’ worth of caffeine.

He was sure she attributed his quick healing to his vampire abilities, but that was only a partial truth. Even with heavy feeding, it would take him a full night or two to fully recover from the harsh beating he received last night. With her blood, he’d been mostly healed by the time they reached the penthouse.

It was unbelievably dangerous for her. If anyone found out about the healing capabilities of her blood, every vampire would want to get their hands on her. Anael had been serious when she said Gena needed his protection.

After seeing her shoot those three vampires without even a second thought, he’d been convinced she was losing her humanity every second that she was with him. Now that he knew the secrets of her blood, he was just grateful she could use that gun if she needed to.

Maybe she was losing more and more of her old self, but it was much too dangerous for her to be unprotected. He would just have to make sure he protected her humanity and her body. He would take extra special care of her body. He would check it over one to three times a day just to make sure it was still okay.

He couldn’t prevent a naughty grin from forming. He wanted to kick himself for even thinking he should send her away. Well, after the many bouts of amazing sex in the past ten hours, it would take a fucking apocalypse for him to ever let Gena go. She was stuck with him.

Even though he wasn’t hungry, he grabbed a bottle of cold blood from the refrigerator. He needed to keep up his energy. The Tower was having its grand opening tomorrow night and he needed to be on alert.

Bottle of blood in hand, he sauntered over to Gena and sat down next to her. She looked at the bottle questioningly. “You don’t mind eating that in front of me?”

“If you don’t mind, I don’t mind.”

“Well, I suppose that once you let a vampire feed straight from you, drinking from a bottle doesn’t seem all that strange.” One side of her mouth upturned.

“Cheers.” He took a swig.

Gena looked at him for a minute before she laughed and glanced away.

Marcus put the bottle down. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, but she didn’t stop laughing. “It’s really weird to see you drinking blood like a normal person drinks bottled water.”

Marcus looked at the bottle in question. It was shaped like a water bottle, but it was a dark blue opaque plastic so no one could see the contents. “Yep, it’s weird,” he agreed, and then took another long swig as Gena dissolved into more laughter.

The light moment was interrupted by the sound of a cell phone ringing. Gena’s brow furrowed as she looked to his jacket where the sound came from. “I took your phone out of there,” she murmured.

“That’s because it’s not my normal phone ringing,” he said with a grim expression as he got up to answer it. “Why did you take my phone?”

“It’s the rebels?” she asked, pointedly not answering his question.

But he didn’t have time to question her further. “Marcus,” was all he said as he answered the phone.

“Can you meet us in an hour? Same place as last time,” came the voice on the other end. Marcus recognized it as Rok’s.

“I can make it work.”

“Good.” Rok abruptly hung up.

“You can make what work?” Gena saw him put the phone away.

“They want another meeting.”

Gena looked as though she was as unhappy about it as he was. “You probably shouldn’t be here alone while they know I won’t be here,” he said. For all he knew, they just wanted to get him out of his penthouse so they could search it. He had done the same to other vampires before.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I already have plans.” At his frown, she continued. “I meant to talk to you. Obviously you know Hope is back in the city.” She gave him a pointed look, letting him know she was still a little pissed he’d tried to send her away to stay with Hope. “She called earlier and I agreed to meet up with her. I’d probably be safe enough between that handy gun you gave me and the protection of a wannabe witch.”

Marcus suddenly felt his head pounding. Though Gena was good enough with the gun, she hadn’t actually killed any of the vampires last night, and Marcus had the feeling Hope wasn’t all that powerful.

Despite his beliefs of the limitations of Hope’s power, Gena had a point. He would rather her be with a mediocre witch than a powerless human. “I’ll drop you off on my way,” muttered Marcus as he turned to get ready for whatever the hell he was getting himself into tonight. It was hard to know what he was supposed to wear to a meeting that he knew nothing about, so he just put on his usual black t-shirt and black jeans.

A few minutes later, he came back downstairs and found Gena staring at a cell phone on the now broken counter. “Is that Ryan’s?”

She nodded. “Should we anonymously give it to the police or something? Maybe they could use it to find him.”

Marcus shook his head. “I already know where he is.”

Gena looked up in shock. “You know where he is? How long have you known? Were you planning on telling me?”

“Um, yes, about a day, and I’ve been distracted for a good portion of that day.” He gave her body a lingering once-over, letting her know exactly what he was distracted with. She seemed to get the point as a blush covered her cheeks. “I’ve had Vlad looking for him, but I haven’t figured out what to do with him. Vlad is using a source at the police station to see if he thinks they have enough evidence to convict him or if his family connections will get him out of the murder charges. If Vlad or I think he will not get convicted, we might have to consider a different method of handling the situation.”

Gena’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious! You can’t kill him! That’s crazy. You need to call the police on him immediately.”

“He did murder you in cold blood,” pointed out Marcus. “Twice, in fact.”

The angry glare Gena shot at him spoke volumes. He raised his hands in defeat. “Fine. He’s your murderer. You can decide what we do with him. We’ll call the police and give them his location, just not right now. I have traitorous plans to make tonight.”

He heard Gena breathe a sigh of relief at his concession. He’d been wrong. She still had plenty of humanity left.

About half an hour later, he dropped Gena off at an Italian restaurant where she was meeting Hope. He watched her walk inside but didn’t go with her. He would have to leave her on her own and just hope she’d be okay. It wasn’t like he could be with her twenty-four seven for the rest of her life anyway. Even so, the idea of leaving her on her own when she could be in danger had him gripping the steering wheel so fiercely that he heard the metal start to warp and bend under his fingers. He forced himself to push the anger back and focus on the task at hand: find out the rebels’ plans and stop them. Once that was done, he could be Gena’s personal bodyguard for as long as she’d let him.

Soon enough he was right back in that dive of a bar where he’d met with Rok just two nights ago. It wasn’t as loud or as smoky this time. Apparently they weren’t as concerned about Marcus overhearing or seeing something he shouldn’t. He took that as a good sign. They were letting their guard down around him.

With any luck, they would just tell him all their plans and detail out who was in their ranks and he could go back to his old life in just a few days. Well, his old life with the addition of Gena.

He walked over to the booth where he’d met with Rok and his men, and sure enough, they were waiting for him.

Rok waved him over. “Welcome back,” he said. “You remember Kilk and Goff.” He motioned at the two large, tattooed men on either side of him.

Marcus sat across from the men and cautiously looked around. He didn’t see any other vampires, but that didn’t mean there were none there. “We’re glad to see you are okay,” said Rok, breaking the tension. “We heard you got into some trouble last night.”

Marcus narrowed his eyes. How the hell did Rok know about that? The three vampires Gena shot wouldn’t have been bragging about their defeat by a human to anyone.

Another possibility occurred to him. Rok did want Marcus’s loyalty. Having men who he used to lead gang up on him would be enough to turn most against their old allies. It was a real possibility that Rok had sent those men after him. If that was the case, that meant Rok had more men inside Aleksander’s guards than Marcus had originally thought. Did Rok know Gena had been with him? Did he know she had a gun full of silver bullets and knew how to use it?

However, Rok would have to be incredibly arrogant to bring it up now and not expect Marcus to conclude he was connected to the attack. “It was a rough night,” was all he said.

Rok raised an eyebrow. “You look pretty good, all things considered.”

A flash of fear shot through him. Would they think he looked too good, considering the severe beating less than twenty-four hours ago? “My ribs don’t look nearly as good as my face,” he said, trying to convince them he wasn’t one hundred percent yet.

“Ouch. It must hurt even more that your own people did this to you,” said Rok in a sympathetic voice Marcus didn’t believe for one second.

Whoever planned the attack, Rok was definitely using it to his advantage. “Not much hurts more than a well-placed punch to the gut. Why don’t I save this conversation for my therapist?” said Marcus, trying to get Rok to start talking about himself.

“You have enough on your plate to keep your mind off these stressful events. The Sonin Tower is opening tomorrow. We know you played a large part in the construction of the Tower.”

Well, this just got better and better. “It’s going to be the new base for our kind in New York City. All of us could have somewhere to go to feel safe.”

“Safe? What do we have to be afraid of?” asked Rok with an incredulous tone.

“I don’t know how old you are, but we were not always as secure as we are now. It’s important that our safety is preserved.”

Rok smiled at that. “I’m glad you feel that way. That means we agree on our basic philosophy.”

Marcus highly doubted that.

“All I want is safety and security for our people. Aleksander,” he spat out, “thinks that means hiding from a species weaker than us. That’s not security. That is cowardice.”

Marcus bit his tongue to keep from disagreeing with Rok. At one time, he’d refused to hide as well. “Is that your plan then? To come forward to the world?”

Rok laughed out loud. Marcus noticed his two lackeys hadn’t changed expressions at all since he sat down. “I plan so much more than that. By the time I’m through, the humans will be the ones cowering in the sunlight.”

Marcus nodded. It was what he was expecting, and Rok was hardly the first to want to overthrow humanity. “That’s a commendable plan, but Aleksander has an army he can call on. What exactly do you have?”

Rok leaned forward. “I am not going to give all my secrets away, but let’s just say I have my own army, and they’re twice the size of anything Aleksander could ever throw together and much better trained.” Rok pointed to Kilk, who sat on his left. “See this beast? There are thousands more where he came from. Aleksander won’t even know where to start.”

Marcus kept his stoic expression. How could Rok have such a large vampire army with no one in the Council or monarchy knowing about it? “Where exactly are you hiding this massive army?” he asked, not sure he truly believed Rok’s claims.

Rok leaned back and took a quick drink of the dark red liquid in his glass. “As I said, I have to keep some secrets.”

Marcus tried to think of a different angle. “So what? You’re going to have your huge and well-trained army attack the Tower opening ceremony tomorrow?”

“That’s small shit,” he said. “No army required. But I’m going to make my presence known tomorrow. I wanted to talk to you about what security will be like.”

Marcus shrugged. “Well, fuck if I know. I can tell you what the plans were, but I cannot promise they haven’t changed to make sure I don’t show my face.”

“They would keep you out of your own property? Bastards. We will make them pay. I promise you that.”

I’m sure you’re so concerned about my feelings, thought Marcus. “At large events like this, Aleksander usually has at least twenty guards for him, but other members of the Council will have their own guards and I cannot guarantee how many that will be. Probably at least another twenty, so forty in total.”

“What about this Ironheart guy? What can you tell me about him?”

Marcus’s eyes met Rok’s across the table. If he knew Ironheart was going to be there, he undoubtedly already knew the number of guards who would be there. He was just testing Marcus. It was the oldest trick in the book: make sure you already know the answer to ninety percent of the questions you are asking. It put Marcus in the position where any lie he told could cause his immediate death, or more likely capture and torture until all useful information could be dragged out of him.

Marcus gave Rok the abbreviated truth. “Ironheart isn’t a guy. She is the leader of a band of mercenaries who have loyalty to no one but her, and she is better at killing than anyone, vampire or human, than any mercenary I’ve ever met.”

Rok raised his brow. “A woman? This might be easier than I thought.”

Well, at least something was going right. Ironheart and her well-trained men were not to be underestimated. If Rok was going to attack the opening tomorrow and knew half as much as it sounded like, they would need Ironheart.

Rok reached behind him and pulled out a long cardboard tube. “Goff, clear the table,” he ordered. Goff obediently and efficiently moved all the empty glasses to the table behind him.

Rok pulled a large piece of rolled-up paper from the tube and spread it on the table in front of them, facing Marcus. He immediately recognized it as the blueprints for the lobby level of Sonin Tower.

“These are the only schematics that we have for the building. We want you to go over these plans and tell us where you think the guards will be positioned and if there are entrances or exits we are not seeing. We also need to know what other security is at each door.”

Marcus spent the next hour or so going over every single little detail he knew about the Tower. He wanted to omit as much information as possible, but Rok kept on peppering in little details he already knew.

In the end, Marcus had given up everything. Not only that, but Rok gave him no useful information. Sure, he now knew that Rok wanted to make the vampires’ presence known to humanity, but he could have guessed that just as easily.

He knew Rok had an army, but that was also useless information. He didn’t know the location of the army and could not fathom how Rok could have thousands of vampires ready to turn against Aleksander that no one knew about. Something didn’t add up, but Marcus was fucking clueless about what that was.

Rok’s two men just sat quietly and menacingly the entire time. If they were any indication of this army, Aleksander might not be able to win this fight.

Marcus knew there was going to be an attack on his people tomorrow night and he was powerless to stop it. Hell, he spent half the night giving secrets to the enemy.

He knew he was supposed to be pretending to be a traitor, but at that moment, he didn’t feel as if he was pretending anymore.