Maggie tossed and turned in bed as she replayed everything that had passed between her and Aiden tonight. Her body ached for him, but her mind retained enough sanity to know having sex with a vampire might be the biggest mistake she’d ever made, and she’d made some whoppers in her life.

Like stealing that car at fifteen. She still swore the tree jumped into the middle of the road that day. The police hadn’t caught her after the accident, but she could have been killed, and she could have killed A.J. who was riding shotgun when the tree pulled up its roots, strolled on into the middle of the road, and committed suicide. Miraculously, she and A.J. had been uninjured enough to run from the scene, but the car was totaled.

Then there’d been the time she’d gotten herself expelled from school after setting the trash can on fire. She’d done it so she could be sent back to the group home where A.J. was staying, but it had been the first school where some of the teachers had taken an interest in her. She’d enjoyed attending there, she’d started to like learning, and she’d purposely blown it.

She didn’t regret her choices, she wouldn’t be where she was if she hadn’t made them, but she could come to regret sleeping with Aiden. She suspected he might break her heart if she got too close to him and it all blew up in her face.

And she couldn’t see it doing anything other than blowing up. He was a vampire, and she was… Well, she didn’t know what she was anymore.

My mother was telling the truth.

That realization bolted her out of bed at two in the morning. She paced restlessly over to the heavy drapes covering the window and pulled one back. Across the roadway, the crescent moon created a small path across the waves.

My father is a vicious rapist. And a vampire.

Shivering, she dropped the curtain back in place. Stalking over to Blue, she watched as he happily flitted around his bowl, completely unaware of the turbulent state of her mind. When she put her finger on the outside of the bowl, he went to it and nudged it with his nose. She ran her finger over the plastic side, and Blue followed her motion as if he were receiving a pet. She’d discovered a couple of years ago it was something Blue liked to do. It always made her smile.

Done with his petting, Blue swam away with a flick of his tail. Maggie’s heart sank as she lifted her head to take in the room. She’d never felt so alone in her life. Could she return to her old life with everything she’d seen and now knew about this world? About herself? What would her mother say when she got up the courage to see her again? And what of Aiden?

Screwing a vampire was a Bad idea with a capital B, but she’d never felt as alive as she did when she was in his arms. He may be a bloodsucker, but she also liked him. He made her smile, made her laugh, and he’d saved her ass a few times last night. But then, she’d also been put in danger because of him.

No, not because of him. He’d been attacked, and she’d done her job.

But even if everything that happened last night wasn’t his fault, she sensed there was a lot more to him, his life, and his relationship with Carha than he was telling her. She believed him when he said he didn’t use prostitutes or do drugs, but whatever that more was, she didn’t want to be part of it. And she definitely didn’t want to be anywhere near Carha again.

Aiden may be drop-dead gorgeous, but his life was perilous. Her life had been too uncertain for too many years to risk losing the stability she’d worked relentlessly to achieve by getting more entangled with him. She would never have millions of dollars, but she had what she’d always dreamed of: a place to call home, a career she enjoyed, and control of her life.

And she could lose it all if she couldn’t return to her job soon. She hadn’t been this scared since she’d been a sickly child who had no idea what was wrong with her or where she would be sleeping the next night.

Maggie ran her finger over the rim of the bowl as she thought about the blood that made her healthier as a child, her mother’s ramblings, and the reports she’d read. How had she not put what she was together sooner?

Because who in their right mind would think they could be the offspring of a vampire or that vampires were real?

Maggie prowled to the window before going to the bathroom then crawling back in bed. She turned on the TV and flipped idly through the channels. What she needed was a run, but even before her knowledge of vampires, she wouldn’t have been foolish enough to go for a run by herself at two in the morning.

There was a gym in this hotel; she’d seen signs for it when they checked in. She hated running on treadmills, but she figured it was the treadmill or she knock on Aiden’s door and jump him when he opened it. One of those two things would get this restless energy out of her. Running may not be the more fun option, but it was the far saner one.

Tossing the covers aside again, she turned off the TV, changed, threw her sneakers on, grabbed a towel, and checked the peephole before cracking the door open. It didn’t matter if she stayed here or in the gym, one of those Savages could get her in either place. Aiden had explained no invite was necessary to enter a hotel room because it wasn’t someone’s home. The only thing safer about her room than the gym was having Aiden next door. In her current mood, that seemed more hazardous to her.

Leaving her room, she crept past the closed doors to the stairwell. The hush of the hotel at this hour was more than a little unnerving, and she kept expecting a Savage, or even a poltergeist, to attack her. Refusing to live in fear, she continued down the red-carpeted hall.

When she arrived at the door to the concrete stairs, she hurried down. Her sneakers squeaked on the steps, making her location obvious to any would-be attacker, but nothing leapt out to suck her blood or slime her before she reached the lobby.

Located on the first floor, the gym was in a side hallway beyond the check-in desk. She hesitated outside the restaurant when she heard music coming from the club. The club would be closed to the public at this time of night, but Maggie suspected the employees were hanging out, listening to music, and probably having a couple of drinks as they cleaned the place. She almost went to see if she could join them but decided against it.

She left the restaurant and empty front desk behind as she followed signs to the gym. The lights were off when she located it, but when she stepped inside, they flickered to life overhead. Maggie glanced over the equipment stashed in the rectangular room. The concrete walls made it feel more like a prison than a gym, but at least there was a treadmill.

Maggie found the remote for the TV, turned it on, and searched for a music station. She settled on a nineties alternative station, did a quick stretch, and hopped on the treadmill. Working her way through a warm-up, her feet thudded with increasing speed as Nirvana followed Green Day.

A sense of calm descended as her feet settled into a comfortable rhythm, and she found herself starting to work through everything that had happened in the past two days. Much of it was beyond her control, but some of it wasn’t. She focused on the things she could change, or do, as she worked out a plan in her mind. The one thing she had to do was the one thing she dreaded the most, but she couldn’t put off seeing her mother for a week or two, not even a day or two. She would get it over with tomorrow.

When Aiden appeared in the doorway, she wasn’t surprised to see him, but she didn’t acknowledge him either. He didn’t say anything before ducking out of the room again. She couldn’t see him anymore, but she knew he stood outside, watching over her. She wasn’t sure if she found it charming or annoying, but she didn’t stop running until her legs turned to rubber, sweat coated her, and her lungs burned.

She moved through a cooldown and wiped herself with the towel when the machine came to a stop. Draping the towel over her shoulder, she strolled over to the water bubbler, pulled a paper cup from the dispenser, and filled it.

“Are you going to be my new shadow?” she inquired when Aiden returned to the doorway.

“You should have let me know you were leaving.”

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“I wasn’t. It’s not safe—”

“Maybe not, but you said a Savage could enter my room too, so it’s no safer there than it is here. Besides, I won’t be caged. For years, everyone else dictated my life, where I would be, what I would do. I won’t allow that to happen again.”

“I’m not trying to cage you.”

“No?” she inquired and tossed the cup into the trash can next to the bubbler.

Aiden rested his hand against the doorframe as he sought to maintain his composure. Being near her helped to steady him, but it also made him more uncertain. When he’d heard her leave her room, he’d believed she was fleeing him. The crushing sense of relief he’d felt when she came here, and the anger that followed when he realized she’d risked herself for a run, nearly unraveled him.

This woman held his future in her hands, and she didn’t know it. Only part vampire, she had no idea what was happening inside him or what she meant to him. She may decide to reject him, but he had to make sure she remained safe.

“I should have taken you to Ronan’s estate. He owns a large property, with a big gym, and you can move about freely there. It has a lot of security.” He didn’t like the idea of having her close to so many vampires, but he trusted enough of them to keep her protected if something went wrong with a fellow vamp. “We’ll get our things and go there now.”

“First off, that sounds like it’s a big cage to me. Second, no one is taking me anywhere I don’t agree to go. Third, I have no idea who Ronan is, where his place is, or anything about it, and I was taught young to avoid going anywhere with strangers.”

“Not with strangers, you would be going with me.”

“You’re not much more than a stranger to me,” she replied.

Aiden shoved down the twinge that statement caused to his heart. “You’ll be safer there, and they have a much better gym.”

“Treadmills aren’t much of a bribe.”

“Maggie—”

“I have a life. I know it’s in danger, I got that memo when that thing bit me. But I have friends, an apartment, a career. I worked hard for all of it, and I refuse to let it go without a fight. This problem will be fixed so I can go home. I’m not going to hide out with a bunch of vampires I don’t know. Which sounds about as fun to me as a tween concert where I’m the only adult and they don’t serve alcohol.”

His fangs pricked in his mouth, and his hand on the doorframe—the one she couldn’t see—dug in so deep the metal bent beneath his fingers. She had to realize she couldn’t return to that life, that she belonged to him.

If I change her, maybe she’ll feel the bond, maybe—

No! He angrily broke the thought off. She’ll have the life she chooses, even if it’s not with me.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to win her. He just wasn’t sure how to go about doing that, and with the way he felt, he might only push her away from him.

“I can take you somewhere else,” he offered. “Anywhere.”

“You said you wanted to stay close to the city.”

“The Savages have to be taken care of, but I will take care of you first.”

“I have a job. That might not be much of a concern in your world, but I can’t warp Mrs. Mackey’s mind into believing I paid my rent, and air doesn’t fill my belly. I have to return to work.”

“You can’t return without putting yourself at risk.”

Maggie slung the towel over her shoulder. “Can I ever go back?”

He stared at her, his eyes hooded and his body tensed. The crunch of metal drew her attention to where he’d placed his hand on the other side of the doorframe, but she couldn’t see what had caused the noise.

“I will do everything I can to give you the life you deserve,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because you deserve it.”

“You don’t know that; you don’t know me.”

“No, but you didn’t know me either when you tried to save my life.”

“It’s my job to help others.”

“Yes, and mine is to protect the innocent from those of my kind who would destroy them. Where would you like to go, Maggie?” he asked to distract her from questions that were edging perilously close to his connection with her.

“If I can’t go home, then I would prefer to stay here. I won’t be locked up in some vampire compound. I also want to see my mother. Today if possible. I have to get it over with.”

“We will do that then. The next time you decide to go for a run, or leave your room, will you let me know you’re going?”

The look of concern in his eyes buried the resentment swelling within her. He was only trying to protect her, and no matter how much she disliked it, for the time being, she might need his protection.

“Yes,” she said.

Aiden lowered his hand and stepped away from the door when she approached him. As she left the gym, she looked up, and her eyes widened on the dents his fingers had left in the metal trim around the door. She gazed questioningly at him, but he didn’t say anything as he turned and strode down the hallway.