“No,” he said, locking with her gaze. “It's something far different from that. Otherwise, I'd be leaving town tonight.”

He stepped back then, but he held on to her hand a second longer before he let go. Anwyn didn't say anything further, but then, neither did he. His eyes and expression spoke eloquently for him, though the myriad emotions were hard to untangle. Giving her a nod, he turned on his heel and walked away.

After he disappeared and she heard Jack bid him a good night, Anwyn folded her fingers over the heat of his touch. Closing her eyes, she imagined him stepping out into the darkness, swallowed by the shadows. While he was so close to being consumed by them, he'd been possessed of a deadly confidence and lethal calm with Barnabus. Sometimes, in the struggle to strip a man bare, she forgot how formidable and competent he could be with his armor in place.

Because, as she well knew, those shields weren't an illusion. People needed them for the daily battle.

The problem was, if Gideon had lost the person beneath them, he'd lost the war.

Good grief, enough of the Obi-Wan internal narrative.

She shook her head at herself, shook herself out of this moment. It was time to deal with James and any other pressing matters, take a long, soaking bath and catch up on paperwork. Feed her troop of feral cats. No matter her difficulties taming feral men, she was determined to gentle a feline enough that it would come live in her quarters, curl up in her bed at night. A dependably regular warm body, for Goddess's sake.

Daegan had teased her about it. He'd pointed out that, while she could easily adopt a kitten from a shelter, she'd apparently be satisfied only with a fierce tom she'd tamed herself.

The thought gave her a bit of a smile. Time to turn it all off for a little while. Like Daegan, her day was her night, and she'd sleep most of tomorrow away, in preparation for Saturday night. It was even busier than Friday. Still, she might make time for a late afternoon coffee break. Particularly if it meant the chance to tame another fierce tom.

Nursing that smile, holding on to it, she strode back into her world.

7

HEtakes one of mine, I'll make one of his.

Gideon woke, his heart thumping hard against his chest. Glancing at the clock, he saw it was three thirty a.m. Of course. The mystics all said that evil had a special hold on the three a.m. hour, and that was why so many woke near it, as if something had crawled over their graves. Only his intuition was sharp enough to narrow it down further than that.

Sitting up on the abysmal piece of plywood that passed for a mattress at his cheap motel, he rubbed his face, listening. His body was tense and loose at once, as it often was right before he entered a fight. But there was something else here. A bitter taste in his mouth, a tightness in his gut. Anxiety. He didn't feel anxiety, not when he was fighting a vamp. Not for some time now. Only if the vampire had a victim . . . someone's life at stake.

I'll figure out another way to get a message to him.

“Son of a bitch.” He was out of the bed, pulling on his shirt and jeans fast. What had he been thinking?

He should have freaking stood watch outside her place. Hell, followed them out of the club, started to track them. Unlike his conflicted feelings about killing Trey, there was no question in his mind aboutthose three making a positive contribution to their human community. Stupid, fucking idiot.

The battered gray Nova had a dragon's heart. It roared to life as he squealed onto the road from the hotel parking lot, headed back toward the city's west side, where the lights of Atlantis were still on. He hoped it was a good sign, that the Mistress of Atlantis was shining just as bright.

He practically barreled through the door, mowing down a couple patrons. James was handling the closing shift at the desk. His gaze snapped up, then cooled at the sight of Gideon. “I believe Mistress Naime—”

“Is she here?”

“That's none—”

Gideon snarled, brought his fist slamming down on the desk. “I don't need to see her. Is she here? Have you seen her tonight? Verified she's okay? He said he was going to leave another kind of message. You did hear that, right?” While most of her staff wouldn't know a vampire from a pasty actor with fake fangs and a trendy hairstyle, it had been clear James was in the loop. Gideon wasn't in the mood to play games.

The man's eyes narrowed, but he reached for the radio on the desk. “Tom, I need a location check on Mistress Naime. When was the last time you saw her?”

“About two hours ago. She said she was heading to bed after she checked with the kitchen staff. Aka, after she fed those cats we're not supposed to know she feeds.”

James's lips twitched, but Gideon leaned into his personal space, earning another warning look. His hand was already below Gideon's line of sight, and while he was sure the man had a baton or Taser under there to calmly use if needed, he didn't give a shit. “Has anyone checked on her?”

“Her private rooms are on an underground level,” James said flatly. “There are no windows or other access points that wouldn't go past me.”

“I mean, did anyone see her coming back from feeding the cats?”

“That's the alley outside the kitchen. The staff would have noticed if she didn't come back in.”

“This was your Friday night crowd. You've had what, a billion people come through here? Would the staff really be paying attention to whether or not she came back in?” Gideon clenched his jaw hard enough to break. “Check on her. Get a visual. Where's that alleyway?” James proved he was worth the money Anwyn paid him by not getting his dick in a twist at Gideon's attempt to order him around. In fact, Gideon could see him considering his words seriously, though his gaze remained steel. “If it gets you out of my face, it's on the east side, in the back, behind the Dumpsters. We'll go check her rooms. But I can tell you, you aren't going to get anywhere with the stalker routine. She'll eat you for lunch. She doesn't intimidate.”

“That's what's worrying me,” Gideon said curtly. “I'll be back here, waiting for you.” He strode back out the front doors, checked the gun in the small of his back and wrist gauntlets loaded with wooden arrows as he cut past the corner and into the darkness on the east side. No matter what demons had rattled him earlier, this he knew. He fell into hunter mode, moving with the shadows. He knew where his weapons were, was ready to use them in a blink. Faster than a blink even, his intuition on full alert and sharp as a blade.

Despite that, he hoped he was wrong, that he was crazy paranoid and she was fine. She was going to be in her bed, as James said. Maybe she'd don some satiny, flowing robe that showed off all those curves, march up to the lobby and tell him he was a fucking menace who needed to be committed. And that would be just fine.

As he slid deeper into the alley, his heart rate increased. Laura had been killed in an alley. Her pale yellow dress had been soaked with blood, the gold chain with his senior high school ring wrapped tight on her throat to keep it out of the way of the vampire who'd torn into her carotid. The ring idea had been old-fashioned, yeah, but she'd been like that. So had he. She'd even liked wearing his varsity jacket.

Guess the two of them would have made more sense in the fifties. When what scared people were Communists, not vampires. Not facing a lonely, empty existence because you threw away what you loved, didn't protect her when she needed protecting.

Fuck it. Focus.

He saw the line of Dumpsters, the service door to the kitchen. He remained motionless in the darkness, his gaze coursing over every object, identifying it, searching for movement or any still spot that felt wrong.

There was no wind in the alley to carry his scent, but if they'd heard him coming, they could have melted back. He knew he wasn't alone. He felt it, crawling up his neck. But it wasn't someone ahead. It was behind. It was—

He twisted, the gauntlet already in position to fire. The arrow sliced through the air high, his arm knocked upward. His body was spun around and slammed face forward into the brick. A relentless hand clamped on the back of his neck, another pinning the arm.

“I am not here as your enemy, vampire hunter.”

The voice was how a ghost's might sound. A whisper in the night that sent chills up the spine and made the gut tighten. Then the grip was gone. When he shoved away from the wall, whirled around, nothing was there. Except the voice, now coming from above.

“She is here.” With those words, the whisper became a hiss and the shadow sprang from the fire escape above him. It landed on the Dumpster and then made the jump into the debris behind it, practically faster than he could follow, and in total, eerie silence.

Gideon's feet were in motion, his heart in his throat. When he skidded around the Dumpster, past and present meshed, and he reeled, disoriented.No.

So much blood. She was wearing . . . God, whatwas she wearing?

After seeing her earlier in the latex and sexy silk, the simple cotton nightgown embroidered with blue flowers at the modest vee neckline was a bit startling. A blood-soaked ribbon caught in her hair suggested she'd had it tied back, maybe her face washed, ready for bed. She'd been wearing ridiculous, cliché bunny slippers. One was still half on her foot. The other was upside down, a few feet away, the pale pink now marbleized brown with dried blood.

He focused on the clothes, because he couldn't yet handle seeing the remains of the woman beneath them. He shifted his gaze to the male crouched over her.

The ghost who'd spoken in his ear tilted his head up in a quick jerk, an animal's movement. Gideon had an impression of a pale face, glittering dark eyes and close-cropped dark hair. Fangs glistening as the vampire bared them in a snarl. In a coil of unleashed power, he leaped.

Gideon cursed and activated his other gauntlet, but the vampire had already cleared him, the rush of air startling for its force. It whipped him around, let him see the vampire land on what he'd flushed from the shadows. Another vamp, young, maybe just a fledgling. He had a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. Not high enough in the pecking order to be in on the entertainment, but left behind as a scavenger to enjoy the dregs, because what Gideon saw on the ground had been a group effort.

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