“OKAY,” COWBOY SAID, nodding emphatically. “I get that, brother. Loud and clear. But someone’s got to talk to him. We got a whole heap of people on the ground, and drones covering the whole outside of the building, and we still got nothing––”

“No sightings at all?” Luce muttered, her voice unnerved.

Cowboy gave her a flat stare. “Nothing. I mean nothing.”

Exhaling, he placed his hands on his hips. He glanced around them at the rooftop, looking away from where Angel was walking towards them from the metal door.

She heard him mutter, “I still can’t figure how he got Miri up here in the first place. Past all them guards. Past Black’s surveillance. It jus’ don’ add up.”

“The windows?” Luce offered. “The balcony?”

Cowboy’s frown deepened as he glanced at her. “Meybe.”

Angel found herself thinking the Louisianan didn’t buy that, though.

Cowboy aimed his stare back at the male seer with the streaked black and brown hair. “We can’t just leave ‘em up here, Jem. We need to separate them. We need someone to look at her, for fuck’s sake. She probably needs blood––”

Jem was already shaking his head.

“––someone seer,” Cowboy added pointedly. “I didn’t mean a hospital.”

Angel continued her cautious approach.

Reaching the small group, she looked from her boyfriend’s face to the green-eyed seer standing directly across from him, and who Cowboy seemed to be primarily talking to.

Dexter hovered over and behind the other three, a frown punctuating his broad face where he stood on a raised step by the cement wall. Dex unholstered his sidearm while Angel watched, checking the chamber of his gun even as he glanced over his own shoulder at someone on the ground behind them.

“I just don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jem muttered, following Dex’s gaze before he returned his stare to Cowboy. “Not right now. It’s better if we leave them alone. We can handle this.”

“Handle what?” Angel said, speaking in more of her normal tone.

Cowboy and Jem looked at her.

Cowboy looked relieved, whereas Jem frowned, as if the last thing he wanted was yet another opinion.

“Tell ‘em, darling,” Cowboy said, motioning a thumb at Jem. “Tell ‘em we can’t jus’ leave the two of them up here. It’s December for fuck’s sake.”

Jem was frowning now, though, looking Angel over with a sharper scrutiny. After a pause, he glanced at Cowboy, then back at her.

“You could talk to him,” he said, blunt, meaning Angel. “He listens to you.”

Angel blinked.

It hit her then, what they were talking about.

Once it had, she paled, stepping between the four of them, holding up a hand to part the group so she could walk past and beyond them.

She’d just assumed they were downstairs.

She’d assumed someone would have taken them out of there by now.

She assumed paramedics would have come, that the usual things would have happened in a case like this. It didn’t fully hit her until after she thought it that there was no “usual” in a case like this. Even so, she was shocked at hell at what she saw by the cement wall, about twenty yards from where her boyfriend and the others stood, talking in low voices.

Black sat on the gravel.

He was shirtless, sitting directly on the ground, his clothes in a heap around his thighs and legs. Angel blinked again, and realized it wasn’t a pile clothes in his lap. Long strands of dark hair fell down his chest, which looked pale against the backdrop of a night sky. His skin and eyes shone faintly in the lights from the helipad.

Angel could only just make out Miri’s profile in those same lights.

Her eyes were closed.

“Jesus,” she breathed.

She glared at Cowboy, then at Jem.

“You just fucking left them there?” she said.

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Cowboy said, sounding vindicated.

Angel barely heard him.

She couldn’t remember when she’d been so angry. She was actually shaking. Adrenaline ran through her limbs, making them shake, making her hands shake, her jaw clench. It wasn’t only anger, but anger came up the strongest. That, or maybe anger was just the easiest emotion to deal with, out of all of those wanting to rise.

“You fucking left them there?” she said again.

Jem frowned, about to speak, but Cowboy gave him a warning look.

“In our defense, he’s hard to approach right now,” Cowboy said, his voice subdued.

She turned, staring at him. “Yeah. So just leave them up here… to catch pneumonia in the middle of the fucking winter. In San Francisco. When both of them are probably in shock. That’s fucking genius.”

Without waiting for an answer, she began walking towards them, her boots crunching in the light coating of gravel.

She crossed the distance in what felt like seconds. She didn’t pause, didn’t wait for Black to look up, for either of them to acknowledge her presence.

She walked right up to them, her knees bending once she stood directly over them.

She looked at Black’s face, then down at Miri.

Her eyes were still closed. Her cheek lay against Black’s chest. She wore his T-shirt. His leather jacket wrapped around her body and part of her legs, which she’d drawn up to her chest where she sat in his lap. His fingers were wrapped in her hair, and he clutched her against him, a strange combination of strength and gentleness, like he was simultaneously afraid he might break her and afraid someone might try and drag her out of his arms.

“Black.”

Angel spoke soft, her voice a murmur.

“Black… hey.”

He stared towards the metal door.

She glanced down at his other hand, the one that wasn’t holding Miri against his chest. She saw it on the gravel, gripping a gun so tightly his knuckles were white. He was staring at the metal door, the one that led back down into Black Securities and Investigations.

Angel reached up cautiously.

She touched his face, trying to get him to look at her. Her fingers caressed his cheek, and drew back, realizing it was wet.

“Hey.”

She sidled closer, until she was right up against both of them. Her hands went to Miri’s back, and she rubbed her friend gently, to add her warmth to both of theirs. Black flinched when Angel first touched her, but he didn’t try to stop her, and he didn’t look over.

“Black.” Angel stroked his hair back from his face, trying to warm him too, trying to bring him back. “Black, come on. Quentin, honey. We need to get Miri off the roof. We need to get her inside. Where it’s warm.” She forced herself to smile. “You can bring the gun. We’ve got lots more guns in there. Bigger ones, too.”

Black flinched when she laid a hand on his shoulder, turning his face away.

He didn’t avoid her fingers though, and after waiting a pause, she massaged the muscle of his shoulder, her jaw hardening at how cold his skin was in the night air. It was probably thirty degrees up here. Fifteen, with wind chill.

Luckily, Miri felt warmer.

Curled up in Black’s lap, wearing most of his clothes, she might have been asleep.

Black shook his head. “She’s not asleep.”

For the first time, he looked at Angel, meeting her gaze.

Her chest clenched at the grief in his eyes.

“She’s not asleep. She’s drunk on venom.” Black’s jaw hardened so much it looked like it hurt. “Fucker pumped her so full of venom, he could have killed her with that alone.”

Angel swallowed, nodding.

Swallowing again as his gold irises grew unnaturally bright, she looked down at Miri.

“You need to bring her inside, Black,” she said, soft. “We need to get some of the medical guys to look at her. Okay?”

“He bit her all over.” Black’s voice came out low, hoarse.

Angel wondered if he was even fully aware she was there.

“…You should see her goddamned breasts.” Black gripped her tighter against him, tears running down his face. “Gaos. Angel. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him for this.” Black’s jaw hardened back into that painful-looking clench. “He doesn’t get to fucking live after this. I don’t care who he is.”

Biting her lip, Angel only nodded.

“I understand,” she murmured, stroking his hair out of his face.

His eyes closed.

She saw pain reach his features, just before he shook his head.

She was still watching him when tears filled his eyes a second time. He started crying for real, and she slid closer to him, wrapping her arms around him. Since Miri was still in his lap, she ended up hugging both of them, holding them to her chest. Black leaned his face against her shoulder. He let go of the gun long enough to wrap his other arm around her without letting Miriam go.

For a long-feeling moment, Angel just crouched there, her arms around both of them.

Black’s muscular arm held her tightly, his forehead pressed against her shoulder. Pain seemed to seep off his very skin. Pain, grief, a broken feeling that was somehow worse than both, that felt like Black blaming himself for all of it.

Eventually, he began pulling that part of himself back.

He took a breath, and seemed to pull his whole being back.

He pulled it back to her, to the roof, maybe even to his own body. She felt a kind of armor fall over him as it happened, along with a heat that shocked her. That heat felt nearly physical, like a furnace ignited under her feet.

Miri stirred in his arms, as if she felt it, too.

Black released Angel an instant later, wiping his face with the heel of his hand.

His jaw was hard again, but it looked different now. His features changed as Angel watched. Instead of that pain, or that broken feeling she’d struggled to breathe through, she felt rage on him now. Rage, and a harder cunning, like his mind had clicked into a different mode of operating entirely, turning him from a grieving husband into…

Well, something else.

He stared off the edge of the roof, his gold eyes like those of a predatory cat. His eyes always looked like a tiger’s eyes to her, or maybe a lion’s, but there was something different in them this time, something a lot less soft.

“I hit him,” he said, his voice reflecting that edge. “Twice.”

Angel leaned back, resting on her heels. She rested her arms on her knees, glancing down at Miri before looking back at his face.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s what Cowboy said. Jem, too.”

“I didn’t have my fucking swords. Or he’d be dead.”

Angel only nodded. There wasn’t much to say to that.

“Do they have him in custody?” Black said.

Angel shook her head. “No. He disappeared.”

Black turned, staring at her. “What?”

Angel hesitated, then glanced at Jem and Cowboy.

Both of them looked away the second she glanced their way, like they’d been staring at the three of them, and tried to hide that fact the instant they got caught.

“Yeah,” Angel said, exhaling before she looked back at Black. “Bring Miri inside, Quentin. They need your help. Nick’s gone. He might even be in the building. They have people watching on every part of the street. They’ve tapped all the CCTV cameras down there, too. There’s been no sign of him.”

Black’s expression turned to stone.

He looked down at Miri, stroking her hair absently with his hand.

His other hand found the gun on the gravel, gripping it in his fingers.

“Will you stay with her?” He looked up from Miri’s face, searching Angel’s gaze. “Please,” he said. “Will you stay with her? I could use you down there, too, but––”

Angel was already shaking her head.

“I’ll stay with her,” she said. “Of course I’ll stay with her, Black. You should go. I’ll get one of the others to help me bring her down.”

“Who?” Black said, frowning.

“I’ll call Yarli. Get her to send someone. Or have her come herself.”

After a bare pause, Black nodded. She felt his reluctance, but he was already thinking, his mind turning over what she’d said about Nick, about him disappearing.

It hit her again––this was Nick.

Nick had done this to Miri.

Nick had done this.

Thinking, she pressed her lips together, just before she wiped her own eyes.

“And anyway, you’re wrong,” she said, her voice coming out husky. She wiped her eyes again. “I wouldn’t be any good to you down there, Black. Not for this.”

Black didn’t answer.

Then again, there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could have said.

NAOKO SLID DOWN the walls, making his way through the corridor of an office suite for what looked like some kind of tech company.

He was pretty sure they didn’t have surveillance cameras in here, not unless something had changed since he’d worked for Black as a human.

Even so, he kept to the shadows anyway.

He couldn’t help being conscious of the smears of blood he left on the walls, or those that dripped off his shoes onto the light-colored carpet.

He fought back and forth between trying the stairwell again, or going for broke and using the elevators. Enough of Black’s people were going up and down via the public elevator cars now, he could probably commandeer one without anyone noticing, as long as he was fast.

He’d already switched floors since he entered the building.

He’d done it the first time to avoid a scouting team Black must have sent to check the terrace. He descended four floors via the staircase before the sounds of another team rose up the metal and cement tunnel. He ducked back inside at the next floor he found that housed a private suite of office buildings, one unlikely to be on Black’s security grid.

So far, he’d stayed away from the elevators.

Now he ran over different possibilities on how he might use them.

He didn’t like the idea of being trapped in a car, wounded, with no weapons apart from his teeth. He mulled the idea of using the shafts but not the elevator itself. He might be able to simply disable one, descend using the cables and the shaft while the car hung there, inert.

Frowning, he dismissed the idea seconds later.

They would notice a disabled elevator car a lot faster than they would notice him riding in a functioning service car, surveillance or no.

Moreover, if they managed to get the car working again before he found a way out, it could potentially be a lot more dangerous.

It made more sense to open up the doors and drop down on one of the cars being used by Black’s team.

He might even be able to disable surveillance from up there.

Making up his mind, he shifted directions on the carpeted hall, sticking to the walls as he made his way to the main bank of elevators. He knew there was a smaller cluster on the other side of the building but he decided to go for the public-facing ones, figuring again, he’d be less conspicuous in an area where multiple cars were in use.

He wanted to ride it down to the garage.

Hopefully by the time they realized he wasn’t one of theirs, he’d be able to hijack a vehicle and get the fuck out of there.

That, or he might be able to gain access to the sewers.

Pushing through the glass doors in reception that led into the office suite, he entered the public bank of elevators, strolling down the Indian-patterned carpet runner that ran in front of the row of doors.

His eyes scanned the lit numbers over each door.

After a moment’s thought, he decided he wanted one that was on its way up, heading for one of the higher floors. Preferably one that was at least twenty floors below him.

Riding one down made more sense in some ways, of course, but it also struck him as riskier in his wounded state. Bigger teams would be traveling down from Black Securities headquarters than they likely would coming up from the street.

Also, it would be a hell of a lot harder to time his jump right to hit an elevator car on its way down. Naoko’s reflexes still felt slow, his timing off. He didn’t want to take unnecessary risks. One heading up would be relatively easier.

Not for a human, but for him it would.

Then again, trying either thing for a human would be suicide.

Naoko just had to be sure to get inside the car before he reached any of the staging floors. The last thing he needed was to have the doors open on twenty of Black’s seers, all of them pissed off and armed to the teeth, getting ready to ride the elevators down to the ground floor to hunt him.

He stopped in front of one set of doors, staring up at the lit “G” that shone in the dark.

When it began to ascend, he didn’t hesitate, but leapt for the doors.

Jamming his fingers into the crack between the two panels, he began forcing them apart, wincing and writhing against the pain in his chest and side as he felt the effort ripping open the wounds all over again.

He’d left too much blood all over the carpet in here already.

If they stopped on this floor, they’d know he’d been here.

He was glad he’d taken the time to study the blueprints of the building, and that he’d remembered much of the layout from back when he worked for Black. He knew which office suites were leased by private companies unaffiliated with Black’s holdings. He knew which had surveillance systems Black’s people could tap into easily and which didn’t.

He knew all of that would likely change after this.

It would change as soon as Black realized how Naoko used those blind spots to sidestep his people. Legal or not, Black would likely fit the whole damned building with surveillance after this, including every angle on the terrace Naoko used to re-enter the building.

He got the doors open about a foot and a half and stepped back to stare up at the lit numbers.

It was already up to the tenth floor.

Naoko was on twenty-eight now.

He started to shove himself sideways through the opening between the doors, and grunted in pain, pausing long enough to touch the wound on his side, mostly to see how much it was bleeding. He hadn’t really given his vampire healing abilities the opportunity to kick in long enough to fully close either wound.

Pulling his hand away, he frowned, rubbing it on his pants when it came away covered in blood. He needed to feed.

He needed to feed damned soon.

The high from Miri’s blood had pretty much faded.

Truthfully, it mostly died when Black made sure most of that blood ended up on his wife’s naked body and all over his upscale office building.

Thinking about Miri briefly, Naoko shivered.

It hadn’t been long enough. It hadn’t been anywhere near long enough.

The doors of the elevator started to vibrate.

Naoko felt it, subtly at first, like a tremor passing over his skin. It made the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck rise, even as he leaned over to stare down the shaft, feeling the air rushing towards him as the elevator rose.

Wedging his body further between the two panels, he used his feet, along with his less smashed up shoulder to shove them further apart. He could hear the car for real now.

It was close, maybe ten floors below him.

So far, it hadn’t made a single stop since leaving the ground floor.

He stared down, and saw the cables moving in the dark, the glint of metal as the car slid smoothly towards him. He waited until the moving air ruffled his shirt, his hair, blinding him briefly with the rush of air.

Then he leapt––

––and landed as lightly as he could on the top of the elevator car.

It wasn’t as light as he would have liked.

The car rose to meet him, so quickly it felt like if he’d waited a half-second longer, the elevator would have thrown him into the wall.

Naoko’s knees bent, catching some of the fall, but his chest slammed into the cable on the top of the elevator car, forcing him to grab hold of it and the top of the car to keep from falling. For a split second, he knelt there, his good shoulder leaned against the cable, fighting past the pain of the gunshot wound in his chest, which he’d just smacked into the cable on his way down.

Then he felt over the top of the elevator car.

Finding the emergency hatch, he ripped it open, one-handed.

He didn’t have much time.

In this, speed was everything.

Anyway, whoever was inside might have already heard him.

Sliding his body around the cable even as he jerked open the square panel, he threw his legs through and dropped his whole body inside, landing on the bottom and shaking the elevator car a second time before he’d even looked at the occupant.

He did know it was only one.

He also knew it was seer, from the smell alone.

With Miri’s blood still covering his clothes, filling his nose, pumping through his veins, he suspected he’d never not know that smell again.

Straightening to his full height, he met the gaze of a seer with black hair and high cheekbones. Naoko found himself staring in shock when he made sense of the features, instantly recognizing the face that came into focus in front of him.

It wasn’t a face he’d expected to see.

The seer stared back at him, equally stunned to find him in the elevator car with him.

Then, putting the pieces together, staring at Naoko’s vampire eyes, the male seer raised the modified rifle he held in both arms.

Luckily, Naoko had already seen him start to swing the barrel around.

Hissing, he leapt, snatching the rifle out of the seer’s hand, managing to rip it free of his long fingers as much from the element of surprise as anything. Flipping the gun in his hands, he slammed it into the seer’s face, feeling a faint ripple of satisfaction go through him when he heard the crunch of the other male’s nose.

Without waiting, he turned to the elevator’s panel as the seer dropped to his knees. He scanned through the numbers, trying to discern where the seer had been going.

The forty-sixth floor.

Naoko stared. That was one of the business suites.

Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who’d been studying the building’s blueprints.

Still holding the rifle in his hands, Naoko took it off the seer on the floor only long enough to smash out the camera in the upper corner of the car.

Seconds later, the elevator car was slowing.

Naoko waited for it to come to a full stop on forty-six, waited for the doors to open, then hit the “B2” button to take them down to the garage.

The metal doors closed on the darkened business suite.

Naoko glanced up at the numbers, making sure they were going down.

Then he looked back at the floor.

The seer was staring at him.

His violet eyes shimmered in the elevator car lights, brighter than they had before Naoko knocked him in the head with his own gun. The seer reached down, slowly, his fingers going for his ankle, but Naoko lifted the gun higher, a knowing smile curving his lips.

“Uh-uh. No. Stay still. Or I’ll just kill you.”

The seer’s mouth twisted in a rage-filled frown. “Like you won’t do that anyway.”

Still smiling, Naoko jerked his head sideways––a mannerism, it struck him suddenly, that he may have picked up from Black.

“I can think of a few other things to do with you first,” he said, smirking.

As he studied those flat, violet-tinted eyes however, Naoko found his humor fading.

Memories rose in his mind, unbidden.

He saw pictures there, things Miri shared with him through her blood, but also his own memories, things that came back to him from that earlier Christmas, from the months before and after. He remembered rope burns on her wrists, bruises she tried to hide, shifting her martial arts gee around her bare arms and neck to hide them from his view.

He remembered her crying.

He remembered going to her house, night after night.

She would drink with him, and at some point in the night, she would get drunk enough to cry. He’d never asked her, but he’d often wondered if she remembered crying with him, or if the alcohol was partly so she wouldn’t have to remember it.

If nothing else, the alcohol meant she wouldn’t have to explain it.

Staring down at the male seer, Naoko felt a surge of heat rise up through his chest, catching him off-guard, making it difficult to breathe. He remembered Miri when she got back from Thailand that first time with Black. He remembered how much he fucking hated Black for that, for what he saw in Miri’s eyes, for the changes he sensed there.

But it hadn’t been Black, not that time… not entirely.

Black hadn’t been the one who did that to her.

Black hadn’t been the one who left Miri broken and afraid.

This fucker did that.

This fucker did that to her.

Aiming the gun at the seer’s face, Naoko struggled with his heaving chest, staring into those violet eyes, fighting the hard, violent impulse to pull the trigger.

“Do it,” the seer jeered. “Do it. You fucking vampires… you think I care?”

Naoko’s jaw hardened to granite.

He didn’t pull the trigger though.

He lowered the gun instead.

“No,” he said coldly, staring down at the seer. “I have a better idea.”

He flipped the gun in his hands. Without giving the seer time to react, he smashed the butt of the rifle into the male’s temple, harder than he had the first time. He felt and heard the satisfying crunch of metal against bone, could almost see the hairline cracks form under the thin skin covering the male seer’s skull.

Then, as the heat in his chest and throat dimmed, he worried he’d done it too hard.

He worried he’d killed him.

When Naoko raised the gun from the blow, lifting its now-bloody stock, he paused, frowning as he stared down at the seer’s crumpled form.

After a few seconds, he felt himself relax.

The seer was breathing.

Naoko could hear it, even before he saw the male’s chest rise and fall.

Slinging the gun around his shoulders, he crouched down, lowering his mouth cautiously and sinking his fangs into the seer’s neck.

He spent a few floors injecting venom into the male’s bloodstream, pausing only to drink a few swallows of blood between injections. He didn’t take too much. He didn’t want to risk killing him from blood loss or putting him too deeply unconscious after hitting him so hard on the head. Over-feeding was a real risk, given that the fucker was seer and his blood tasted fucking amazing, no matter who he was.

He didn’t taste as good as Miri, though.

He didn’t taste anywhere near as good as Miri.

Just remembering that was enough to get him hard again. It was also enough to force him to consciously pull back from feeding on the male seer.

There was time enough for that later.

For now, he just wanted him compliant.

After giving him another good, solid dose of his venom, he made himself stop, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and rising to his feet.

The male seer didn’t move.

Even so, Naoko rode the elevator car down to the garage with the rifle in his hands, the bloody stock propped against his good side as he watched the seer’s face.

Miri warned him about this one.

She told him how clever it was.

She also told him it wasn’t like other seers.

Naoko had seen glimpses of her fear of him, even as recently as that night, while he fed on her. He’d felt it both times he fed on her, on the fire escape and on the roof.

Miri was still afraid of this seer.

Even now––after all this time––he made her afraid.

Staring down at that preternaturally handsome face, the closed eyes hiding their violet irises, Naoko decided she’d never be afraid of him again.

He would make Solonik into something Miri would never, ever have to fear.