Adele

The warehouse, a large, pre-fab metal building, stood on the outskirts of Hudson. A forest thick with evergreens ran behind it, full of shadows. I parked up front, the gravel lot crunching under the Porsche's wheels. A lone streetlight shone over the whole thing, and once we parked, Davian chucked a rock at the light. It broke with a sharp crack and darkness fell over the area, thick as a winter blanket.

I blinked, pushing my eyes to adjust faster.

Davian, unfazed by the change in light, strode toward the building. I discerned his movement via my ears more than my eyes, tracking the sound of his footsteps. Metal jangled and then something clicked. A weak light came to life inside the building, outlining Davian's silhouette in the doorway.

"Come on," he said, waving me forward. "We need to set up."

I stepped into the building, quickly scanning its interior. There wasn't much to see beyond a bare floor and plain sheet metal walls.

"What do you need me to do?" My breath fogged in the air. Winter had deepened its hold on the area while I'd been underground.

"Our equipment is in there." He nodded toward a pallet of boxes just to the left of the door. Using the SUV keys, he stabbed through the packing tape and pulled a smaller box out of the bigger shipping box.

I frowned at the pictures on the outside of the carton in his hand. "Security cameras?"

"Yes. We'll need Zion on tape confessing to everything to clear both our names."

"How did you get all this?" I asked. "We haven't had a lot of time for shopping."

"I bought it all online and had it shipped here."

"You're a resourceful guy for someone who didn't know what GPS was."

That made him smile. "I've had my moments over the centuries." He punched through the tape on a box and pulled out a camera.

"How many centuries are we talking about?" I took the box from him and worked on pulling the camera free from all the Styrofoam inside.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I want to know everything about you, Davian."

He grunted and opened the next box. "Be careful what you wish for."

I gave him an impatient look. "Just tell me how old you are. Or is it a state secret?"

"I'm two hundred something."

"That's vague."

"I stopped counting. Time loses its meaning after a while."

"You lived in the Eighteen Hundreds then?"

He nodded.

"How did you become a vampire?"

"Through my own stupidity."

I'd freed several cameras from their packaging by now and started gathering up bubble wrap and paper, shoving it into one empty box. Davian grabbed one of the cameras along with a drill that had also been on the pallet and walked away. "I'm going to install these."

I wanted to ask him what he was running away from, but couldn't bring myself to do it. I carried my own regrets, and if I didn't like rehashing them, I could only imagine how Davian felt. Perhaps, with time, he would open up to me. Until then I wouldn't push it.

Clearing my throat, I asked, "Should I open the rest of the boxes?" Only a few plain cartons, smaller than the camera boxes, remained.

"Sure." His voice was faint with distance. "They're dresses. Yours is the red one."

I dug through the boxes. Each one contained two dresses and matching shoes. I lifted out a dress and frowned. I checked the next one and then the one after that. They all looked like something a lingerie model with a serious exhibitionist streak would wear. The red one was the worst, much shorter than the others with lots of cutouts.

"What's this for?" I held the dress against me and grimaced. It was about as big as a slutty postage stamp.

Davian looked at the dress, his gaze brooding. "The merchandise is always dressed up for an auction."

I raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"If Zion gets spooked, he'll run. We want this to look easy to him. He'll be here early. It'll just be us as far as he knows, and that will make him think it's a good idea to swoop in and grab what he wants. If he comes in here and doesn't see what he's expecting to see, we lose the advantage of surprise"

"Okay. Fine. I get it."

"There's a bathroom in the back."

I started to head for the bathroom, but stopped and turned back. "Hey, Davian?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For asking how old you were. I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories."

He was silent for a moment and then said, "I let time fade everything I was, everything I knew. I thought I'd left all that pain behind and then you showed up, reminding me how good it is to be alive, how important it is to not be alone."

"Maybe I'm not as old as you, but I've been alone a long time, too."

"And yet we keep finding each other." He flashed a smile. "Maybe it's a sign."

"Maybe." Our gazes locked for a long moment.

Davian broke eye contact. "Go get dressed. We'll have time to talk later."

I nodded and spun on my heel, heading for the back of the warehouse. The bathroom turned out to be a dingy room I didn't want to touch. Grime caked the toilet along with cigarette burn marks on the seat. The little bit of water that dripped from the sink faucet came out poop brown.

I took off my clothes, doing my best not to touch anything, and yanked the dress overhead. I kept my pants and shirt off the floor by pinning them between my knees. Once I was dressed, I looked in the mirror and immediately wished I hadn't. The cleavage plunged down to my belly button, the fabric held in place by clear plastic straps that ran horizontally from one side of the dress to the other, and the red looked stark against my skin.

Ugh. I looked like a walking red blood cell with a side of slut. I hated it, but had to admit the dress probably wasn't the worst thing ever given the goals for the evening: Kill the bad vampires. If this dress got rid of Zion, I would wear it with a smile.

Gathering up my clothes, I stepped back into the warehouse. Jackson arrived at the same time, his wide shoulders almost touching either side of the door frame. The sheriff and a handful of deputies followed him into the building. Spotting Davian, they immediately moved to corner him against the wall.

"Hey," I said, dropping my clothes and hurrying toward them on my precarious heels. "Leave him alone."

Jackson stalked over to me, his eyes narrowed. "I told you no vampires."

"We need him," I said, refusing to cower. His alpha power rushed me in a wave of testosterone. My wolf wanted me to drop to the floor and roll onto my back, but I wasn't so sure I owed Jackson that. This wasn't just about Huntsville, it was about me, too. I wasn't about to turn on myself. Not again.

"Why do you trust him? He's just another pair of fangs." Jackson glowered at me.

"He needs Zion dead as much as I do and as much as you want him dead." I glared at him, refusing to look away. He wasn't my alpha. I didn't have to cower. "I trust him with my life, and he's here to help. He's got a plan and we could use that. You remember how strong Zion was? What he did the last time he was here? Davian won't let that happen again."

"Zion's coming," Davian said. "We can either be ready for him, or argue until he comes and picks us off one by one."

Jackson growled and no one looked happy, but the alpha nodded. "Fine. What do you want us to do?"

"We need more shifters for the auction. If it's just Adele, he might get suspicious."

Jackson scowled. "You want my pack to come here and put themselves in danger?"

"I want them to help me kill Zion," Davian said. He pointed to the walls. "We'll chain people up. It's common for auctions to have a pre-auction viewing."

I inspected the walls, just as surprised by the chains as everyone else. Davian must've put them up while I was changing in the bathroom.

"You're not locking my people up." Jackson took a menacing step toward Davian.

"No, of course not. The chains aren't real. Go ahead, check them." Davian waited while the sheriff and Jackson tested the chains.

"Is this plastic?" asked the sheriff, pinching a link between his fingers.

Davian nodded. "Yes. We need to fill this room with shifters. Can you do that?"

Jackson gave a grudging nod.

"And we want women. Not men. Zion likes women." Davian gestured to me. "And they need to dress up."

"How many?" Jackson asked.

"As many as you can get. We need to make it real, and we want enough numbers that Zion can't walk away from this."

Jackson nodded to a deputy. "Make the call. We need as many women as we can get."

The deputy stepped away from the group, pulled out a cell phone and started dialing. In a hushed voice, he passed on Davian's request to whoever was on the other end of the line.

"Where will we be?" Jackson pointed to himself and the sheriff.

"Zion's going to bring a security team in. They'll set up a perimeter before he gets here. Your job is to take that team out after they give Zion the all clear. We don't want them coming in and helping Zion."

The sheriff nodded. "We can manage that."

"Do you all have cell phones?" At everyone's nod, Davian said, "Mute your phones and text each other updates."

"Why don't we just kill him the second he gets here?" Jackson asked.

"As much as I'd like to do that, I need evidence for the Vampire Council." Davian pointed to the cameras. "Once we've got him on tape, he's finished."

"Who said I cared about the Vampire Council?" Jackson's upper lip curled in a snarl. "I'm here to keep my pack safe."

"Then give me proof of what Zion did so I can stop the next vampire who wants to suck shifters dry." Davian remained calm and met Jackson's gaze without blinking. "He's the one who enslaved all those shifters at the club. And he's the one who came on to your pack lands and killed people just to make Adele look bad. But the thing is, alpha, there are more vampires and some of them are like Zion. I don't want to stop just Zion, I want to stop all of them."

Jackson narrowed his eyes, his gaze speculative. "You're working against your own kind? Why?"

Davian shook his head. "No. Not against—for. Our future isn't in blood slavery. Smart vampires know that."

"Then why are you alone? Or are you the only smart one?"

"I'm not alone."

"Looks like you're alone to me." Jackson peered into the shadowed corners of the building. "Unless you're hiding your allies." The deputies took a step closer to Davian. A few of them put their hands on their gun holsters.

"It's complicated," Davian said, holding up his hands. "My contacts have to hide. Some can't risk coming out in the open."

"He's not hiding anything," I said moving to stand between them. "He's telling you the truth."

"He bit you. You'll do anything he says," the sheriff scoffed. He rolled his eyes and looked at Jackson.

"No. He didn't bite me. He could have, but he didn't. Zion's the one who bit me," I said.

Davian stepped forward and slipped his hand into mine. "And that's why your chains will be real."

"What?" I twisted away, but not fast enough. Silver slid over my skin, fading my wolf and my strength with it. A stinging burn throbbed over me like a thousand angry hornets. I flashed my teeth and growled. "Let me go."

"No. Once Zion can see you, he can compel you. I don't want him forcing you to fight on his behalf," Davian said. "He's in your head, and until he's out, we need to keep you safe."

I tried to come up with an argument as to why he was wrong, but I couldn't. "Fine." I slumped against the wall, defeated.

"I'm sorry," Davian said.

I just shrugged, frustrated and annoyed that I was a liability more than anything else. I wanted to be the one to rip Zion's heart out of his chest. I owed him that.

"You're sure this plan will work?" asked Jackson.

"With you, yes. Without you, probably not," Davian said.

"We're all in this together then." Jackson looked at the sheriff, who gave a slight nod. All the shifters in the room relaxed a notch. We were on the same team now.

"Whether we want to be or not, alpha," Davian said. "None of us chose this, but we're going to finish it."

"I will personally kill you if one of my pack gets hurt." Jackson stabbed a finger in Davian's direction.

"Just make sure Zion doesn't have any help coming to save him," Davian said, his tone sharp. "Do your part and I will do mine."

Jackson nodded and then he and his men melted into the night to watch for Zion's security team. We weren't alone for long, though, several women from Huntsville arrived a few minutes later.

I knew some of them; Mona who ran the little coffee shop in Huntsville, Rebecca who'd called Marie about her elderly grandmother and Donna who had a house for rent that I'd inquired about. With them came Sheri, the woman whose mate had been left for dead in the middle of the street.

"We're here. What's the plan?" asked Donna. Turning in a slow circle, she sized up the warehouse. Her eyes narrowed when she caught sight of me.

Davian picked up the boxes with the dresses and shoes, passing them out to the women. "If you ladies would put these on."

"We're not here to play dress-up," snarled Mona, tossing her sleek dark hair over her shoulder.

"I'm not a hooker." Rebecca held up a purple mini-dress, a look of disdain on her face. "And this size is way too small. FYI I'm not small."  She gestured to her generous curves.

"Put on the clothes or go home and figure out how to explain to your alpha why you didn't fight for your pack," said Davian.

They weren't happy about it, but pulled off their clothes and put on the dresses. Davian turned his back while they changed, giving them some privacy.

"At least you chained up that bitch." Sheri scowled at me and yanked on a green dress

My gut twisted like a rag. She'd lost everything, and I could feel how much that hurt. The emotions hitting me must have shown on my face because Davian came over to me.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I turned my head so I didn't have to meet his eyes.

He caught my chin and forced me to face him. "Tell me."

"If I'd just kept using, would any of this have happened?" I nodded to the women.

"It's not your fault, Adele. You weren't running the ring or luring shifters here promising them rehab. Mason and Zion did all that. This would have happened one way or another, with or without you."

"But at least without me, no one would blame me."

I watched the women who alternated between refusing to look at me and shooting daggers my way. Their anger was palpable and the energy pummeled me. I'd spent so much time with vampires recently that I'd forgotten how hot shifters' emotions could run. Sheri stared at me like she hoped her gaze would bore holes. Her anger hit me with a tangible heat even from across the room.

Nodding her way, I said, "If you ask her, she'll tell you I should die tonight, too."

Davian turned and watched Sheri for a moment. "She's hurting and wants everyone else to hurt, too."

I sighed. "I know. You're right." Maybe someday she'd appreciate that I'd come back to make the asshole who killed her mate pay. I couldn't bring anyone back from the dead, but I could give the living a shot at vengeance. Closing my eyes, I sent a wish to the moon that second mates were a real thing, that someone would come into her life and make it hurt less. None of us deserved what Zion had done.

"We're dressed. What do you want us to do?" asked Donna. She took her first steps in the platform heels, putting her hands out to keep her balance.

"Now, we make you look like prisoners." Davian motioned to the chains on the walls. "Each of you pick a spot."

"You are not locking me up." Mona crossed her arms and fixed Davian with a glare made of steel.

"It's all fake. Only Adele's are real." Davian let her feel the plastic chains. "Stand against the wall over there and I'll hook you up."

The women did as he asked, lining up opposite me, their heels tapping on the floor. Now they all glared at me, not just Sheri. I looked away, unwilling to take on their emotions when mine were already such a mess.

"Don't attack until I do, okay? And try to look afraid," Davian said, fastening them into place.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever." Mona rolled her eyes. "Can't believe I'm taking orders from a vampire."

"I'm not your enemy," Davian said.

"You sucked shifter blood with the rest of them. You're part of it. Don't try to say you're not." Rebecca glared at Davian.

Davian looked away. "I had no choice. And I protected who I could."

"Yeah. Helpless Adele," said Sheri with a snarl.

"I'm not helpless," I said, gritting my teeth.

Sheri growled. "Then why did you need our pack? You can't live on your own and you know it."

"That's not true." I lifted my head high, refusing to be cowed by these women and their anger. "I stayed for training."

"Your sister had to save you, remember?" Sheri snorted. "We all know the story. The truth is you bring trouble wherever you go. First your pack, then ours. When are you going to stop getting good shifters killed?"

"My sister found me, she didn't save me."

"Whatever." Sheri rattled her plastic chains at me. "After this, you're gone, understand? We don't need wolves like you in Huntsville."

"Like me? Last I checked, I was the one taking care of our enemy. You're here because of me."

"Exactly. That's the problem: You." This came from Mona.

I looked at them each in turn, finding their gazes hard and pointed as arrows. "That's how it is, then?"

"Yes. If you don't leave, we'll drag you out of our lives by force, if we have to," said Donna. To the other women, she said, "To think I almost rented my house to this vampire bait. Ugh."

"And everyone in the pack agrees with you?" I could understand their anger. The pack had lost a lot, but I'd hoped they would see I was just as much a victim as they were. I hadn't asked Zion to come back. But there was no forgiveness from the women. I could see it in the steel of their gazes. I wasn't wanted.

I glanced at Davian, who gave me a sympathetic look. Frowning, I said, "Fine. I'll leave Huntsville. Your loss."

"No. Not just Huntsville. The entire area." Sheri moved her hand in a big circle to indicate all of Appalachia. "We don't want to see you ever again. If we do, you'll pay for it in blood. Let your problems find you somewhere far from us."

I swallowed hard. The rejection hurt more than I cared to admit. "My sister lives here."

"Not our problem. Stay away from us," Mona said, her voice flat.

Davian waved at us. "Quiet. We're not here to argue. Focus on what's important."

The women continued to glare at me but fell silent.

Davian frowned at them. "Fear, ladies. That's what he needs to see. You all look like you're ready to rip people's heads off."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Show time. A dark energy filled the air, a power signature that must be Zion's. It felt like someone had grabbed my gut and twisted it into convulsing knots. The spot where he'd fed from me twinged as if a hot needle had been thrust into my flesh. "He's close," I whispered. A sense of dread fell over me. I hadn't wanted this fight and now I had to face it tied up.

"Shh." Davian pressed a finger to his lips. He pulled out his phone and pretended to be on a call, pacing back and forth as he spoke. "I have several females. Grade A shifter prime. All clean. Pure as a spring." He turned his back to the door and rattled off prices. "A hundred K each. Yeah, I got a volume discount. Ten per cent if you buy three together."

Zion crept into the room, his dark suit allowing him to blend in with the shadows. I pretended to be unconscious, sagging in my chains and only leaving my eyes open a crack. He scanned the room, smiling when he spotted me.

Stepping forward, he said, "Ah, excellent. It's true. You are having an auction."

Davian carefully arranged expression of surprise on his face and spun around. "Zion? What are you doing here?"

"Did you really think you could run from me?" Zion laughed. "How did you get out?"

"This one," Davian pointed at me, "thinks she loves me. She wanted to save me."

Zion looked my way, his expression thoughtful. "But she's not yours anymore, is she? I didn't feel you in her blood."

Davian shrugged. "I hadn't fed from her in a while. The bite went stale."

"Ah. I forgot. You're a weak vampire." Zion laughed. "My bite took over."

"Probably, but she still thought she loved me. When she found out I was in the cell, she set me free. She didn't tell me you bit her." Davian shot an angry look my way. "If I'd know that I would've sucked her dry."

"You're an amateur, Davian. Always have been."

"Get the hell out of here!" Davian stalked over to Zion and crowded him backward. "This auction is invitation only and you weren't invited."

"But all these girls will be mine, anyways." Zion side-stepped Davian and walked the room, inspecting each woman.

"Your last blood ring didn't work out so well," Davian said.

"Which is why these ladies are the perfect fresh start." He put a finger under Rebecca's chin and forced her to look at him.

"I'm not selling them to you, Zion. You locked me up and framed me for your crimes."

Zion shrugged. "No one's perfect. And who said I was buying them?" He spun around and stalked over to me.

"Go to hell." A growl rumbled in my chest, rattling my rib cage. I yanked on my chains, wanting to rip out his internal organs, one by one, until he was the kind of dead that didn't suck blood out of the living.

"That's impossible, I'm afraid. I'm not going anywhere I don't want to." His cold hand closed around my throat. "And I'm taking you with me. You're a problem I'm going to solve once and for all."

His gaze locked with mine and the full weight of it crashed into my skull. Unable to close my eyes, I turned my head, hoping to regain control that way, but moving took so much effort my wolf became alarmed and whined. We were trapped and she didn't like it. Zion's hold on me pressed against my skin, heavy and unyielding. My heart fluttered fast in my chest, trying to give me the strength to run away.

Zion squeezed my throat. "Look at me, Adele."

"No."

"I said, look at me." Anger throbbed in his voice. Using his other hand, he grabbed me by the cheeks and forced my head to turn.

I gave a soft whine, unable to hold back my wolf's concern.

"You're mine. Understood?"

I fought with everything I had, but I couldn't stop him. Like Davian had said, Zion was in my head.

Zion gave me a shake. "Say it."

"D-Davian." His name came out of me in a high-pitched whine. I couldn't do this alone. Zion had shattered my will, and I'd lost all ability to protect myself from him. The shadow in my mind swelled, covering my wolf, but it didn't blunt Zion's hold on me.

Davian stepped into the center of the room."Leave her alone. This is between you and me. I was the one the Vampire Council sent to find out what you were up to. Only you turned the game on me, made it look like I was the one selling and feeding on shifters."

Zion let me go and edged toward Davian. "Yes, I did, didn't I? The Pack Council wanted someone's heart on a silver platter and the Vampire Council had promised to deliver. I preferred for it to be yours rather than mine."

Zion and Davian circled each other. A thin smile danced on Zion's lips. He reached into his suit jacket. "And look, here you are. Even though you escaped. Are you sure this isn't your destiny?"

Davian frowned. "What do you mean 'destiny?'"

"To make me rich and innocent." Zion's hand moved faster than my eyes could track and cast a fine silver net over Davian.

Davian dropped to his knees with a groan of pain.

"Davian!" I screamed. Pulling on my chains, I tried to run to him, but the bolt in the wall held. Channeling my wolf, I yanked harder. Nothing. I tried again and again until the metal cut into my wrists and blood flowed down my arms.

"It's silver soaked in holy water. Hurts like the sun, I know." Zion leaned down. "It'll keep you contained until the Vampire Council shows up. As for these morsels..." He shot a lascivious glance at each of us. "Being a good vampire citizen, I will have set them free to return to their packs, which in case you didn't know, is code for 'sold them to the highest bidder,' but we'll let that be our little secret, right?"

Davian nodded to the women. "Now," he said.

The women cast off their fake restraints and lunged for Zion. Sheri and Donna shifted into their wolves, leaving their dresses and shoes behind while Rebecca and Mona stayed human—although they too ditched their shoes. The four women quickly circled him and closed in, all of them growling until the very air vibrated with menace. Zion stepped back with a look of utter shock on his face. We'd surprised him.

"Adele, protect me." His gaze sought mine and the power of his compulsion washed over me.

Unable to deny him, my body fought the chains even harder. One of the cuffs cut my wrist to the bone and I yelped.

"What are you waiting for? Get over here and kill these bitches," Zion yelled, swinging at the women trying to pile onto him.

"I can't," I shouted back.

The blonde darted forward and feinted with a jab to his face. When he moved to block her, she slammed a fist into his stomach.  Sheri's sable furred wolf circled around to come at Zion from the back.

"Take off his head," I said. "And rip out his heart." Once Zion was down, I didn't want him to ever get up again.

The women worked in concert, attacking from multiple directions all at once. Overwhelmed, Zion couldn't keep up. He couldn't block all their hits, and they had him pinned against the warehouse wall in less than a minute. Unlike the night he killed Cal, the women were landing more punches than he was. He wasn't as strong this time. He hadn't fed on shifter blood. This could go our way.

One of the women peeled away and went to Davian to lift off the chain. She winced when she first touched the silver. I knew the metal had scalded her skin, but that didn't stop her. Moving fast to minimize contact, she got it off him. The second Davian was free, he flew across the room and grabbed Zion by the throat.

I continued to pull at my chains. The bolt wiggled a little now. If I ignored the pain and kept going, it would break sooner or later.

Davian grabbed Zion by the neck and squeezed. Zion screamed, hands pulling at Davian's fingers. The sound started loud and then fell to a hoarse whisper. Probably because his vocal cords had been crushed.

Zion fumbled with his pants and pulled something out of his pocket. He raised it over his head and I caught the gleam of light on metal.

"He's got a knife," I shouted.

Davian didn't seem to care, but the women backed off, leaving him to bear the brunt of the knife. Zion plunged the blade into Davian's neck. He sawed back and forth and blood spurted everywhere.

"No! Do something. He's going to cut off his head." I used my feet as leverage, pushing against the wall and willing the chains to break. The women of Huntsville didn't move and neither did the chains.

"Don't you dare let him die." Bracing my feet against the wall, I tried again. Desperation lent me an extra burst of strength, and this time when I yanked, the bolt holding my chains came out of the wall.

The chains fell away and the compulsion to defend Zion danced over me, making my muscles twitch. The only way to fight would be to attack Davian. I couldn't go against Zion. I growled in frustration at that, but with Davian's head about to leave his body, I had to take the risk.

I bounded over to where Davian and Zion were locked together. Davian's head sat at an odd angle, but he hadn't stopped squeezing Zion's neck. The vampire's eyes bugged out of his head from the pressure and his face had turned a sickly gray.

"Here. Let me finish it," I said, figuring that fit with Zion's compulsion. Work with, not against, right? It would get the knife away from him.

I reached for the knife and we grappled for control of the hilt, but his grip held tight. Davian swung a fist and punched him in the face. Zion didn't even grunt at the hit, he just kept sawing at Davian's neck.

Closing my eyes and pulling on my wolf, I channeled her into my hands. The bones broke and rearranged themselves into a paw tipped with sharp claws. The compulsion pushed back at me, making it feel like I was shoving my will through gelatin.

"I just want to defend you," I snarled through gritted teeth. "That's what you wanted."

"Stop grabbing the knife," Zion said. "Just stop. Go aw—"

He didn't get a chance to finish. He'd put power into his words and that had dissolved his earlier command. Finally. He'd made a mistake. One I would make sure he couldn't come back from. My hands dropped from the knife. I couldn't defy him there, but I didn't have any other compulsion dictating my next move.

I covered his mouth with one hand-claw, silencing him, and then sank my other hand-claw into his chest, raking away his flesh. When I reached the ribs, I smashed through them, driven by pure rage. My wolf slavered in my head, desperate for blood. Pushing past shards of broken bone, I rummaged through his chest until I had what I wanted in my hand—his heart.

With a quick twist to break the connective tissue holding it in place, I jerked it out of his chest. He must've fed on someone recently because a huge amount of blood poured out of him, splashing over my feet and up my legs. He finally went limp, his body sagging down to its knees and then sideways to the floor. I threw back my head and howled in victory. Zion would never tell me what to do again.

My celebration didn't last long. Without Zion holding him, Davian collapsed to the floor. I dropped Zion's heart and knelt to hold Davian's head in place. Having your head half sawed off was life threatening, even if you were already dead. Scoring the inside of one wrist with my teeth, I made a fresh wound and held it against his lips.

"Drink."

He pressed his lips together, a steely determination shining in his eyes.

"Drink, dammit. Don't you dare die on me." I lifted my wrist to my mouth and made the cut deeper so that blood gushed out in a torrent. Holding up my arm so he could see it dripping, I said, "Either drink or know I'll die with you. Your choice, Davian, but we either both walk away from this or neither of us do."

His eyes narrowed and he didn't look happy, but he finally drank. My blood poured into him and his body knit itself back together from the inside out. Bone and sinew became whole, muscle grew over that followed by skin. I gave a sigh of relief when his head was wholly attached once again to his body. Seeing it hanging and half decapitated had been terrifying.

Pushing away my hand, Davian sat up. "You didn't have to do that. I would have healed on my own."

"Sure. Like a week from now. We don't have that kind of time." I gestured to the women who stood around us in a semi-circle. "We're not exactly among friends."

"But now I've claimed you again."

I ducked down and pressed my forehead against his so my gaze could bore into his. "That's okay by me. Got it? I didn't go through all of this for you to walk away again, understood?"

He gave a slight nod.

"Aw. She's in love with a blood sucker," said Mona's snide voice behind us.

"Good. Maybe she'll die and leave us alone," said Rebecca.

I straightened up and turned around. "What do you care? You've made it clear I'm not welcome."

"You're a perversion, Adele. Sick. Twisted. Full of drugs and vampire blood." Sheri stepped toward me, anger flushing her features. "We should have killed you, not saved you."

"I never turned my back on you." I snapped my teeth at them. "Never. Just remember that."

Davian pushed himself to his feet and came to stand at my side. "Everything she has done has been to protect you and your pack. You should be thanking her. Without her, Zion wouldn't be dead."

I pointed to Davian. "He was a major help, too. We're not your enemy. Vampires like Zion are."

The women stepped closer, forcing us back against the wall. Low growling filled the air. They were going to attack.

Before they could jump, Jackson and the other men spilled into the warehouse.

"What's going on in here?" Jackson's voice bellowed above the fray.

"Zion's dead," I said. "The ladies were just explaining how I wasn't welcome in the Huntsville Pack anymore."

"She brought death to our pack, she's no friend of ours," Sheri said. "If she stays, we go." She looked to the other women who nodded their agreement.

Jackson threw back his head and roared, filling the air with his alpha dominance. "She helped birth my son, the next alpha of our pack. She brought our enemies to us so we could destroy them, and you demand that I should kick her out. Do you believe the only people of value in a pack are the ones who never cause trouble? I heard you caused quite a stir before you were mated, Sheri. Dating humans and trying to bring them back to Hunstville. Shouldn't you leave, too?"

She ducked her head. "No, alpha."

"It's okay," I said with a nervous smile. "I think it's time to move on anyway. I appreciate everything you did for me, what Marie taught me, but Huntsville isn't my home."

A flicker of relief flashed in Jackson's eyes before he hid it behind a level gaze. "Thank you for helping us," he said, his tone formal.

"No problem. I wasn't going to let Zion live anyway."

"If you need something, give me a call." He held out his hand. Flicking some bloody gore off my now human fingers, I put mine in his.

"I will."

Jackson offered his hand to Davian. "And thank you."

"It was the right thing to do," Davian said, shaking hands with Jackson. "To protect Adele and prevent a war."

"But you didn't owe us that."

"I happen to believe we all owe that to each other."

Jackson gave him a confused look. "Anyone ever tell you you're kind of odd for a vampire?"

Davian just smiled.

"Well, my pack owes you. If there's anything I can do, let me know."

"I will, Alpha."

Jackson waved to the rest of his pack. "Time to go home, folks. We're all done here." Everyone filed out, and Davian and I were alone, standing in a puddle of blood—mostly Zion's but also his and mine.

"So," I said.

"So," he echoed.

"I should clean up." I waved toward the bathroom.

"Good idea."

"But I'm afraid you won't be here when I come back out."

"I'll be here."

"You sure?"

"You'd just follow me, right?"

I nodded. "Damn straight. My wolf says we belong together. She won't give me any peace until I find you."

"I swear I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere."

"No more running?"

"No more running." He held out his hand and we shook on it.