“Vampire,” she whispered.

Aiden became alarmed by the sudden pallor of her skin. She’d been apprehensive earlier, but she looked ready to pass out now. “Are you okay?” he inquired.

Shaking her head, Maggie took a deep breath and focused on the now. She could sort out the mess with her mother later. She was walking with a vampire while being stalked by other, killer vampires. Those things took precedence over her mother’s insanity… or lack thereof.

“I'm all right,” she said.

“Can you tell me what happened before I woke in the ambulance?” he asked Maggie. “I thought they were going to kill me; how did I survive?”

She gave him a brief rundown on what she’d seen and what Harding had told her about his arrival at the alley.

“Do you have a phone?” Aiden asked when she finished.

“Why?”

“I don’t know where mine is, and I have to call a friend. This mess has to be cleaned up. The humans saw too much tonight, and they can’t know about our existence. Those were dead Savages there with me; their bodies need to be removed from wherever they were taken. Probably the morgue.”

“Hate to tell you this, but there’s countless books, movies, and legends about vampires and their existence. The word is out.”

“The legend is out, the truth is not, and it has to remain that way.”

“Oh!” Maggie’s hand flew to her mouth as she recalled that she hadn’t told him everything. “One of those Savages was still alive! Walt and Glenn were working on him! They took him in their ambulance!”

“Fuck, that’s not good. Can I use your phone?”

“It’s in the ambulance. I put it in the glovebox at the start of every shift, with my wallet.”

Aiden’s teeth grated together as the splash of headlights illuminated the end of the road. “Maybe we can find a pay phone.”

“Did you just crawl out of the coffin?” Maggie snorted.

“What?”

She rolled her eyes. “What century do you think this is? When was the last time you saw a pay phone?”

“They’re still around, occasionally, and vampires don’t use coffins.”

“We’d have a better chance of stumbling across gold on the street than a pay phone. And I’m glad coffins aren’t an option for the undead.”

“I’m not undead. I have a heartbeat—”

“I’m aware.”

“I breathe,” he continued, “and I was born.”

“You were born?” she asked incredulously and shut out her mother’s screaming words when they tried to squirm their way back into her brain.

“Yes. Both my parents are turned vampires; those are vampires who were once human but were changed by another vamp. I’m a purebred vampire as I was born to two vampire parents, and so were my nine siblings.”

“Nine siblings?”

“Yes.”

“Your poor mother.”

His mouth quirked in a small smile. “We do torment her.”

Maggie’s mind felt sluggish as she struggled to process the things he was telling her, but the harder she tried, the more lost she felt and the more her mother’s screams resonated in her head.

“We’ll buy a cell phone,” Aiden stated.

The phone situation was an easier problem to deal with, so she decided to focus on it. “With what money?”

“I don’t need money.”

“And why not?” she demanded.

“Because I can get into their minds and make people do what I command.”

She gawked at him and stuttered out some words before finally forming a sentence. “Well, isn’t that the cherry on top of this twisted sundae.”

“I won’t do it to you, and I only do it when it’s necessary.”

“Well, ah… yippee for me and the rest of humanity, I guess.”

Unable to resist touching her again, he pushed back a loose strand of auburn hair and tucked it behind her ear. She watched him with fascinated eyes but didn’t try to pull away.

Maggie had been contemplating running away as fast as she could before he touched her. After training for over a year to run the Boston Marathon with some of her coworkers next month, she’d gotten herself down to a sub six-minute mile. She could go faster for sprint distances. He may be an immortal, healing machine, but she could haul ass, and she could run for miles.

That simple touch dissolved her impulse to flee. She didn’t know what it was about this blood-sucking creature, but she couldn’t resist him. Maybe it had something to do with the need she saw in his eyes. She sensed it was for her, but she didn’t understand why. Maybe it was the tender way he caressed her when she’d seen how vicious he could be. Or maybe it was because it had been so long since anyone touched her with any kindness, she couldn’t resist it now.

You better start resisting, she told herself.

“Even if you don’t need money,” she said, and stepped back so his hand slid away from her, “no one is going to let you enter their store looking like that. If your whole goal is to go incognito for the vampire race, walking around shirtless and with a gaping wound in your back won’t help your cause. Do you plan on taking out all the security cameras inside the store and along the way to the store too?”

“You can go into the store and buy a phone.”

“Hate to break it to you, Nosferatu, but I require money for purchases, or at least a credit card.”

Aiden felt the pockets of his jeans, but he knew they would be empty. He’d tossed his cash onto Carha’s table. A sick feeling built within him at the reminder of Carha. He suddenly felt filthy standing next to Maggie, as well as ashamed of where he’d been earlier and the reason why he’d been weak enough for the Savages to take him down.

His foul appetites had put him in this position, and because of it, he’d placed Maggie in danger. “I’ll keep you safe,” he murmured as self-hatred grew within him.

“That means a lot coming from the guy who sucked a pint from me earlier,” she retorted. “Without asking me first, by the way. Which I think should be proper etiquette before sinking your fangs into someone’s throat, just so you know.”

“Noted.”

“Hmm,” Maggie grunted and sent him a side-eyed glare.

It was going to be difficult to get her to warm up to him, he realized, but he’d work on that later. Now, he had to get a hold of Saxon, let him know what happened, and find somewhere safe for Maggie to stay. Too much had happened, the bodies of the Savages were too scattered, and too many humans were involved for him to be able to clean this mess up by himself.

“Where do you live?” he asked.

“Like I’m going to tell you?”

“Do you have a phone at your place?”

“No.”

“Magdalene—”

“No one calls me that,” she interrupted. “And I don’t have a landline. I’m not eighty, are you?”

Caught off guard by her question, he did a double-take before chuckling. “Maybe one day, but I turned twenty-five on February twenty-seventh. And how old are you?”

“Twenty-four. Are vampires immortal?”

“Yes.”

“All right. So anyway, I don’t have a phone at my place.”

Aiden’s hand fell to his empty pockets again. He’d always kept his cell in the front pocket of his jeans. “Did I have my phone with me in the ambulance?” he asked her.

“I didn’t go through your coat pockets. Once I discovered a crossbow, I decided it was best not to touch your things.”

“I kept my phone in my pants. Did you notice it?”

“I didn’t see any phone when we put you in the ambulance.”

Aiden stopped at the end of the road. There were a few cars parked nearby, probably from overnight employees working the warehouses. At the end of the road was a cross street. A few cars idled at a red light there. When they started driving, one of them turned toward them and crept forward. He’d run at least a mile from the ambulance before stopping, not nearly as far as he would have liked, but he’d had to check on Maggie.

He should have gone further.