Dante came immediately awake, but out of habit, he kept his breathing exactly the same and gave no indication that he was aware that something unusual was going on. And a second later, he was glad his natural self-preservation had kicked in when a slight weight carefully straddled his hips and settled over him. Instinctively, he knew it was Laney. He kept up the illusion of sleep, curious as to what she was up to.

A multitude of emotions washed over him from the woman sitting on his stomach. Then suddenly, she shifted her weight in a manner he was all too familiar with. His eyes popped open just in time as he caught a flash of cold steel arcing through the air toward his chest. Moving fast as a striking snake, his hand shot out and wrapped around her small wrist, the bones delicate in his grip. In her hand was a long straight knife she must have found in his feeding room. And the tip of that blade had just nicked the skin of his chest. Right above his heart. He’d stopped it just before she was able to bury it all the way through his ribcage.

With a bellow of rage, he threw the female off him and shot off the bed. A drop of blood trickled down his bare chest, but he ignored it, all of his attention on the woman scrambling to her feet in front of him. She had gotten somewhat dressed before attempting to snuff out his life, and now stood in front of him in her button-down shirt and underwear, the large knife still gripped in her small hand. She was magnificent in her rage. And even in his own anger, Dante found his eyes travelling down her bare limbs to her small toes and all the way back up to her messy, just-fucked hair. His manhood hardened, demanding to give her a reason to look so disheveled. The fact that she still had the knife only excited him more.

So she wanted to kill him, did she? His heart suddenly felt as though she had succeeded in slicing it open.

He stepped off the mattress and stalked over to her. As he advanced, she backed up until she ran into the brick wall behind her. Covering her hand with his, he brought the blade of the knife to his throat, pressing it into his skin until he felt blood welling up and flowing over. She watched it trickle down his skin, her tongue flicking out to wet her lips. “If you want to kill me, little mouse”—he pressed the knife harder into his neck, even as she tried to pull it away—“you’ll need to cut off my head.” He could feel the blade hitting his windpipe. “Shall I help you?”

She struggled to pull the blade away. “No! Stop! Dante, stop!”

“Why?” he hissed at her. “You obviously want me dead. You just tried to sink this knife into my fucking heart while I was sleeping!”

“I just want to get away from you; I don’t want to kill you,” she cried.

Dante could feel the truth in her words and her mind, but it was too late for regrets. He laughed without humor. “Little mouse, you can’t get away from me. I would find you. It doesn’t matter where you run, or where you hide. You are MINE now.” Something clicked inside of him as he said those words, but caught up in the emotions of her attempt on his life, he paid it no mind.

He needed to teach a lesson to this one. It was time to take her to the feeding room. Whether or not she ever left it would be up to her.

Pushing the knife away from his throat, he twisted her wrist until she dropped it with a cry of pain. It landed on the dirt floor with a dull thud. He lifted her off her feet with an arm around her waist, holding her on his hip, her arms and legs dangling as she tried to twist out of his grip. Her betrayal seared through him, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he became. But he wasn’t sure who he was more angry with: Laney, for trying to stab him, or himself, for allowing her to crack the shield of ice around what little was left of his humanity.

When he got to the tunnel, he put her in, head first. “Go,” he ordered. She tried to crawl backwards, to get out, but he was right behind her, blocking her way. “Crawl!” he barked.

She sat up, trying to turn around to face him in the small space. “Dante, please! Please don’t make me go in there. I’m sorry!” Realizing his mistake, Dante backed out and she quickly followed him.

He should have gone in first, so he could pull her behind him by the ankles, if need be.

But as soon as she was out of the tunnel, Laney turned and threw herself into his arms. He caught her automatically, landing on his ass and burying his face in her hair. Her entire body was shaking in fear, and he felt another crack in his shield.

“I wasn’t trying to kill you,” she sobbed. “I wasn’t! I just wanted to get away!”

He held her a moment longer, squeezing his eyes shut tight against the way she fit so perfectly in his arms, then firmly removed her from his lap and set her aside. He stared at her for long moments, wondering what the hell was wrong with him.

“I have to go.” Rising to his feet he found his shirt and boots and put them on. The tender feelings roiling through him were unfamiliar and unwanted. He’d stop at his apartment upstairs to shower and check on the animals before going to Luukas’s. He steadfastly ignored the woman behind him. He had to. Something was wrong with him. Something that had to do with her. He had scared her, and for the first time in a very long time, it wasn’t sitting right with him. Without a backward glance, he left, striding down the passageway to the cave-in. She didn’t follow or call out after him.

A relentless pain that had nothing to do with the nick on his chest lashed at his insides that she didn’t.

Finding himself upstairs in his bathroom with the shower running, Dante didn’t even remember how he’d gotten there. He stripped off his clothes and stepped under the scalding spray, wishing it could burn away the fucking memories knocking on the door of the vault inside his head. Memories that he’d managed to shut out for a long, long time.

Papa! Papa! Watch me!

With a growl, Dante shook his head and turned to let the water burn the skin off his back.

Papa, why is Momma not coming back? Where is she?

He turned around again, sticking his face right into the spray.

Papa! Papa, help me! A child’s scream of pain and terror tore through his mind.

Rearing back with a roar of pain, he smashed his forehead into the tiles. Blood ran down the wall, turning pink as it mixed with the water at his feet. Blinking it out of his eyes, Dante reached down and picked up the soap. The sting of his injury was a welcome distraction, and with the unrelenting strength of will he was known for, he managed to shove those memories back to the deepest hell of his mind and soul where they belonged. With a breath of relief, he picked up the razor and got rid of the stubble on his head. He had hair, but for some reason, having a huge bald guy with tattoos and fangs coming after them scared the shit out of people more than a guy with hair. Maybe it reminded humans more of the old Dracula movies. In any case, it also gave them one less thing to grab onto as they tried to fight him off.

His new friend whined outside the door, and Dante shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. As he’d expected, Shea must have brought him and the cat over from Luukas’s place after he’d left the night before. He should take them outside. Opening the bathroom door, he ruffled the dog’s fur and glanced at the clock next to the bed he never slept in, noting he had a good hour before he was expected to show up. He dressed quickly in heavy black cargo pants and a black T-shirt that fit him like a second skin. His combat boots completed the look.

“All right, let’s go,” he told the animals. The cat meowed in agreement. Tail straight up in the air, he rushed over to the door with the dog on his heels. Dante took them to the elevator and outside. There was a little park with some actual grass not far from his building, and he headed that way.

Forty-five minutes later, he made sure they had all that they needed and headed to Luukas’s penthouse apartment, leaving a light lit and the built-in TV on for them. The fresh air had done him good. He had a clear head by the time he walked into Luukas’s place.

Immediately, he was assaulted with various scents of human blood, all slightly different and yet very familiar to him. Before he could investigate further, he was met at the end of the foyer by Luukas and the other Hunters.

“Dante,” Luukas greeted him. “We were just wondering about you. What happened to your head?”

Dante rubbed the large scab on his forehead. He’d nearly forgotten about it. By the tenderness there, he could tell the wound wasn’t quite healed yet. “Nothing. I ran into the door.”

One side of Luukas’s mouth quirked up in amusement, but he didn’t comment further. “We’d like to introduce you to everyone properly.”

Dante gave him a nod. “I apologize for last night. I was…thirsty.”

“I assume you’ve taken care of that?”

“Yeah.”

Luukas nodded. “Good. Remember, the females that are here are very important to us, and if you think you can control yourself, I’ll introduce you and we’ll talk about everything that has happened in the short time you’ve been gone. If you can’t control yourself, you will need to find different accommodations immediately.”

Dante looked over the group of males. Four pairs of deadly serious eyes stared back at him. They weren’t fucking around. “Where is Shea?”

“She’ll be along,” Christian said. “Told me she needed to do something real quick.”

Dante turned his attention to him. There was something different about the male. There was something different about all of them. “Do what?”

Christian shrugged. “I don’t know, man.”

“Are you ready?” Luukas asked.

Dante gave a nod. Although the humans smelled pretty damn good, enough to tickle his throat, he’d fed from Laney. He no longer had the crazy thirst from earlier.

The group of males turned as one and walked in front of him like a human shield. More than once, he was checked out over a muscular shoulder to make sure he was keeping it under control.

Dante cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“Keira, come here,” Luukas said. The wall of brawn split to reveal the dark-haired woman from before. The resemblance to his Laney was still there, but he could see quite a few differences now that he wasn’t blinded by blood lust. “This is Keira,” Luukas introduced her. “Keira is a Moss witch, as are the rest of the females here. A glitch in a curse that I will explain later.”

A Moss witch? No shit? “I apologize for trying to feed from you earlier,” Dante told her, dead serious. “I was very thirsty, and you smell very fucking good.”

Luukas bared his fangs at him with a hiss of warning. But she put her hand on his arm. “Calm down,” she told her mate. “He’s messing with you.”

Dante gave a little tilt of his head. Yes and no.

The female, Keira, smiled at him. “It’s good to meet you, Dante. And no apology is necessary. You are what you are. Besides, what Luukas tends to forget is that I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself, especially against powerful vampires. And I can tell that you are very old, and very powerful.”

He gave her a small nod of acknowledgement. Inhaling a deep breath, he could scent Luukas’s blood in her, and her blood in him, now that he was feeling halfway sane.

The others that were there came forward. He met Emma, Keira’s bright-haired sister and Nik’s mate, capable of immobilizing a vampire or other creatures where they stood, and the one that had kept him from attacking her sister the night before. Grace, Aiden’s mate, had healing powers that may come in handy. Last, he met Ryan, the seductive redheaded female that had finally tamed Christian. When he asked what her magic was, she just smiled. “Keeping everybody in the loop,” was her answer. Dante wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but he honestly didn’t really care.

“So, where is she?” Aiden asked once the females had gone up to Nik and Aiden’s, and the Hunters had gathered behind the glass walls of Luukas’s office and found chairs.

Dante cocked an eyebrow. “Who?”

“The female you’ve mated with.”

Dante stared at the male like he’d lost his fucking mind. Which he was pretty sure had happened a long time ago. “Come again?”

“Come on, commander. Don’t be obtuse. We can all smell her, no matter how hard you just scrubbed yourself.”

Narrowing his eyes, Dante looked at each of them in turn. “What the fuck is he talking about?”

“Aiden.” Nik shook his head at his friend with a frown.

But Aiden was not one to take a hint, as Dante well knew. “You show up here in a car that you can’t drive. You smell like one particular female who’s scent is all over that car. You have her blood inside of you even now, so I know you haven’t killed her yet. Shagged her? Probably. Killed her? No. You get your knickers all in a twist the moment you scented Keira last night, who smells amazingly similar to the female you’ve obviously been getting on with. Almost like she was your”—his eyes widened dramatically—“Mate!”

Denial rose up inside of Dante, fast and furious. “No. That’s not how it happened. Or why. I went after Keira”—he glanced at Luukas—“again, no offense,”—then went back to Aiden—“because I was fucking starving.”

Aiden sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Bollocks.”

“Aiden,” Luukas interrupted. “We can discuss this later.”

“Actually, Aiden might be right to bring this up now,” Christian cut in. “He needs to know. Because if he kills her, he’s completely screwed.” He turned to Dante with dawning horror. “You haven’t killed her yet, have you?”

Dante stood up so fast his chair went flying back into the wall. “What the FUCK are you all talking about.” It was a demand. Not a question.

Nikulas stood up and came around to stand eye to eye with him. “All right, look. You’ve got a female with you that you’ve been feeding from. Am I right? A human one?”

He narrowed his eyes at the face in front of him that was just entirely too fucking pretty to be on a male. “So what if I do?”

“Have you fed from anyone else since you found her?” Nik asked. “Or tried to? Other than Keira?”

Dante crossed his arms in a defensive pose. The asshole that he’d taken the dog from immediately came to mind. But that had been meth in his veins that made him taste so nasty. Right? “What exactly are you fucking getting at?”

Luukas came around his desk to join his brother. “Have you hurt her?” He didn’t seem particularly put out about it if he had, just mildly concerned.

Dante looked between the two of them, and then over to where Aiden and Christian sat leaning forward in their chairs. They all stared at him, waiting for an answer. “No,” he finally said. Then he shrugged one shoulder. “Not really.”

A collective sigh of relief followed his short answer. Nik nodded. “Good. That’s good.”

“Where is she?” Luukas asked with a forceful tone.

Oh hell, no. He wasn’t answering that one. So they could go down there and take her out? Fuck, no. Laney was no one’s concern but his. He stared back at Luukas with a steady gaze and clamped his mouth shut. Luukas had not created him, so he could not make him talk. A problem that arose once in a while. A problem for Luukas, that is. Not for Dante.

Nik gave his brother a look before turning back to Dante. “Look, man. We’ve all gone through the same thing recently. We can all relate. None of us wanted this—”

“Speak for yourself, Nik,” Aiden said. “I knew the moment I saw Grace’s derriere sticking out of that doorway that I had to have it all for myself.”

“But it’s happened,” Nik continued, ignoring him. “Luuk still has a problem with being mated to the witch that caused him so much misery.”

Confusion crept over Dante. “What?”

Luukas shook his head. “I’ll explain that later. Right now, I just want to debrief you and find out what happened.”

“And let’s not forget about my demon,” Aiden said casually. “We need to warn him about Waano.”

“Your what?” Dante was beginning to wonder if he was still in the desert. Hallucinating, maybe.

“My demon,” Aiden repeated with a cheerful smile. “Waano.”

“We’ll get to that, too,” Luukas said. On his way back to his desk, he paused. “And don’t kill the girl. If she is yours, you will die without her now.”

Dante was familiar with the tales. Once a vampire found his fated mate, and drank from her, he could no longer feed from anyone else. And without her, he would die the true death. His mate, on the other hand, after drinking his blood in return, would freeze in time and not age until their vampire mate was no longer around to keep them immortal. Then they would begin to age naturally again, though it may be a thousand years from when they were born.

It had always sounded extremely cruel to him. That after losing their mate, the human then had to continue to live without them.

Picking his chair up off the floor and setting it upright again, Dante fell into it.

“Did you happen to catch her name before you dragged her to your cave?” Aiden asked.

“Laney,” Dante answered automatically. “Laney Moss.”

Christian snorted. “Yeah, man. You’re screwed.”

“She’s a Moss witch,” Dante said in that same faraway voice. Laney Moss…as in the Moss family of witches. It was all making sense now. That was why he was so attracted to the blood of the women upstairs. They were her family. They shared the same blood. He didn’t know how he had missed it before. Of course, at the time he’d asked Laney what her name was, he’d been more worried about his own survival. “Just like your females.”

The weight of what he was finally admitting out loud was starting to hit him. He remembered the overpowering feeling of possession he’d experienced earlier when he was with the female. How much he’d wanted to hurt her, to make her beg and bleed, and yet when she’d thrown herself in his arms, he’d felt an overwhelming sense of relief that he wouldn’t have to. “Fuck. Me.”

Nikulas squatted down on his haunches in front of him. “Yeah. But it’s actually kind of cool. Being mated, I mean. The hardest thing about it is worrying about them all the time, and not just because you need their blood to survive. Because you get so damned protective over them.”

“Why are they all witches?” he asked Nikulas. “Your mates?” If anyone noticed that he hadn’t included himself in the group, they didn’t say anything.

“A little caveat that Keira snuck into that curse that Luukas mentioned earlier, although I like to think they would’ve somehow ended up with us anyway.”

“Curse or no curse,” Christian said. “I, for one, am completely fucking grateful that Ryan found me. Fucking so many different females every night was seriously getting old.”

Luukas cleared his throat. “Can we get on with things now? We need to find out what Dante knows.”

“Oh, one more thing. Leeha is dead, by the way,” Aiden informed him. “But I have her head if you’d like to pay your respects.”

Dante seriously wondered, not for the first time, what the fuck was wrong with the Brit. Of course, some would say the same about him. But at least he had a good reason for being as messed up as he was.