When she wasn’t there, he always asked about her. I figured he asked because he was uncomfortable around vampires. He didn’t grow up with them the way I did.”

The mere mention of Chuck made Riker’s teeth clench. “Go on.”

“Remember in the lab when he got so angry when he talked about you killing Terese?” All Riker could do was nod. “I think it’s because he was obsessed with her. Maybe even in love with her.”

Riker’s skin grew clammy, and he felt sick to his stomach. “If this is some sort of joke . . .”

“It’s not.” She shifted her weight again, fidgeted with her hair, swallowed repeatedly. And she kept looking at the papers on his desk. Origami withdrawals, he was sure. “I think he transferred his obsession to Bastien. Chuck told him he’d be like a father to him, but when Bastien didn’t return his feelings the way

Chuck probably thought he should, he beat him.” She closed her eyes. “I asked Grant to look him over, and he found a number of healed injuries, including some broken bones.”

Nicole’s revelation hit Riker with the force of an avalanche, literally knocking him back a step. A black, indescribable rage carved out his chest, turning it into a fathomless cavern of frost. Even his heart, which had beating obsessively fast for Nicole, seemed to have iced over.

“Riker?” Nicole reached out, but he dodged her touch, not ready to be consoled by the sister of the bastard who had tortured an innocent boy. “I convinced

Bastien that you weren’t a . . . father . . . like that. I told him he could trust you and that you’d never hurt him. Please don’t go to him like this. He’s timid around males as it is, and he associates the word father with what Chuck did to him.”

Father. The word he’d always wanted to hear a child call him was now associated with terror and pain.

Just when he thought the Martins couldn’t f**k with his life any more . . .

He concentrated on breathing. Breathing was good. It would keep him from bolting out of headquarters and leaving the entire city of Seattle bleeding behind him as he tore the city apart in the search for Nicole’s brother.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

He had to see Bastien. He glanced at Nicole, which should have comforted him, but right now, all he saw was a Martin.

“I need to go.” His voice was utterly shredded.

He didn’t even sound like himself. Fitting, he supposed, because right now, he didn’t feel like himself, either.

Nicole held out her hand to him. “Can we talk about this?”

Dismissing her offer, he went to the door. “Later,” he said, although deep down, he suspected that what he really meant was never.

------------------------------

Riker searched the compound for Bastien, using the time to calm down. By the time he decided to check Bastien’s room, his desire to level Seattle had eased enough that he’d settle for only killing everyone Charles Martin had ever known. Then he’d spend a year breaking the man, piece by piece.

He forced himself to walk slowly up to Bastien’s door. The boy was skittish as it was; if he sensed Riker’s anger, every bit of progress Bastien had made could be reversed.

Bastien’s door opened as he approached, and Morena emerged, her curly brown hair piled on top of her head in a messy knot.

“Good to see you,” she said. “Bastien just had breakfast. Myne should be coming by in a little while to take him to the training room.” She smiled. “He’s going to teach him to shoot a crossbow today.”

If that wasn’t a punch to the gut. Yes, Riker had asked Myne to engage Bastien with physical activity, but Riker should be the one to do it. He should be teaching his son to shoot and fight and hunt. “Thanks, Morena.”

He knocked lightly and entered. Bastien was curled up on the couch with his nose in a book, but when he saw Riker, he froze.

“Hey,” Riker said. “Do you mind if I come in?”

There was a heartbeat of hesitation and then a shy “Okay.”

“I brought you something.” He moved to Bastien, going slowly, slowing even more when the boy tensed.

Riker silently cursed Chuck to an eternity in hell. And Riker planned to send him there.

“You’re angry.” Bastien inched toward the far end of the couch, and Riker’s throat constricted with disappointment and self-loathing.

“I’m sorry, son,” Riker said. “I’m not angry with you. I’m angry about what happened to you. You never should have grown up the way you did.” He paused.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Several agonizing seconds later, Bastien shook his head. Relief practically made Riker lightheaded. He crouched next to the couch and held out Terese’s ring.

“This was your mother’s. Nicole kept it safe for a long time, and I think you should have it.”

Bastien took it as if it were made of the most delicate glass. “What was she like?”

“She was beautiful.” Riker smiled, recalling her fine features. “She was very quiet and shy, even with me.”

“You were the wild vampire who killed her, weren’t you?” Bastien asked, and Riker broke out in an oh, shit sweat. “Chuck said that if Nicole hadn’t raised the alarm that day, you would have killed everyone.”

Wait . . . Nicole? The crystal-clear recollection of that day shattered into a million pieces, each shard of memory sharper than the next. He’d been on the verge of talking Terese out of her suicide attempt when the siren went off, and she’d plunged the blade into her throat.

Nicole had been responsible for the alert?

The world fell away as his rage from earlier roared back, and Bastien, who was apparently as sensitive to negativity as his mother, shrank into the couch cushions.

Get it together, dumbass. Riker cursed silently and forced himself to relax.

“I swear I didn’t kill her, Bastien. Humans killed her.” Now wasn’t the time to tell the boy that she’d killed herself. Hell, there might never be a time or need to tell him that. “They drove her to her death. You can’t believe anything they said to you.”

Very precisely, Bastien placed a bookmark in his book and set it aside. “But Nicole is human.”

“And it was her family who killed your mother and who kept you in a cage for twenty years.” He probably shouldn’t have said that, but at least he’d said it very calmly. Progress.

Bastien frowned. “Then why is she here?”

Well, shit. Riker had stepped in that one, hadn’t he?

He didn’t want to vilify Nicole, and he certainly didn’t want to destroy her relationship with Bastien. No matter what her family had done to him, she’d helped the boy more than anyone else. More important, Bastien was still working on trusting his instincts and trusting people. He trusted and cared about Nicole, and to make him second-guess his own judgment could be damaging.

“We needed her help to rescue a vampire her company kidnapped,” Riker said.

“Did you rescue the vampire?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“But Nicole helped, right?” There was so much hope in Bastien’s voice that Riker had to smile.

“She helped a lot.”

Bastien smoothed his thumb over the ring’s smooth surface. “She loves you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that, but she might like me sometimes.”

“She said that,” Bastien insisted.

Riker’s gut plunged to his feet. Love? Nicole had told Bastien that she loved Riker? Bastien must have misunderstood. Surely Nicole wouldn’t do that to him, wouldn’t expect him to give himself to not only a human but a Martin.

The door swung open, saving Riker from thoughts he wasn’t ready to explore. Myne strode in, ready to hit the gym in sweats and a T-shirt that was stretched to the limits on his muscular upper body. The duffel in his hand had a crossbow handle poking out the unzipped top.

“Hey, man,” he said to Riker before turning his attention to Bastien. “You ready to put on some muscle and then blow a few holes through some melons?”

“Ready.” Bastien’s shy smile reminded Riker so much of Terese that fresh anger reared its ugly head again.

Myne, always on top of things, gestured to the duffel. “Rike, you wanna come?”

As tempting as it was, Riker sensed that he’d done enough with Bastien for now. Time to let the boy absorb the visit and end it on a good note.

“Thanks, but I need to see Hunter.” Riker came to his feet and shot Bastien a wink. “I’ll see you later, okay? Have you ever had a root-beer float?”

Bastien shook his head.

“Ah, dude,” Myne said, “you’re in for a treat. Riker makes the best root-beer floats ever.”

“Really?” Bastien asked.

Myne nodded. “Really.”

Riker had never made Myne a root-beer float, and seriously, how did anyone screw one up? But he appreciated the male’s help.

“I’ll come get you later, Bastien,” Riker promised.

“I’ll show you how to get in and out of the kitchen without Syrena the Wooden Spoon Tyrant catching you.”

Bastien’s grin spread from ear to ear, and for the first time, Riker felt like he had a chance to truly be a parent. To live the life Terese had been denied.

Chapter 26

Nicole spent two hours making origami animals and pacing around Riker’s quarters, waiting for him to come back. He’s been so angry and distraught when he left, and God, she hoped he was okay. One thing was for sure, she wasn’t leaving until he came back.

She wandered into his bedroom for the eighth time today, but there were no new pictures on the wall or trinkets on his bare dresser since the last time she came in. Well, his dresser used to be bare. Now it was home to a menagerie of paper animals and one paper vampire . . . her fi rst. Taking the little vampire in her hand, she sank down on the bed, wishing he’d come back. Wishing he’d climb onto the bed with her and relax. Or ravish her.

She’d take either.

What she really needed right now though, was a purpose. And a future. She fl opped back onto a pillow and stared at the ceiling. At this point, she was certain she wasn’t going to turn into a vampire, so the challenge became a question of how she fi t in at MoonBound.

For the most part, the clan members had warmed up to her, and some, like Grant, treated her like she was no longer an outsider but a colleague. She especially liked that she’d earned some respect here, rather than it being given by Daedalus personnel simply because of who she was.

Maybe she could work with Grant in the lab. She’d spent her entire adult life working to make human life better. Could she not do the same for vampires?

At least, she could until her disease progressed to the point where she could no longer function. Or until she ran out of meds.

She heard the front door open, and she clutched the paper vampire harder, her pulse picking up with excitement. “I made you something,” she called out.

Riker’s boots struck the floor with heavy thuds, and then he was in the doorway, his expression as dark and stormy as she’d ever seen it.

“Get out.”

She sat up, baffled by his anger. “Excuse me?”

“Out.” His guttural voice was as deep as thunder and just as loud. “Out of the bedroom.” He stalked over to pull her off the bed, and then he escorted her into the living room. “I told you it was off-limits. You are never to go in there, do you understand?”

She blinked, startled by his behavior. “No, I don’t understand. What is your problem?”

“Nothing.” He yanked open the fridge. “Just stay out of there.”

The image of him with Benet came back to her, of him holding her against the wall. The living-room wall.

He’d said he hadn’t been with any female since Terese died. So . . . he hadn’t had a woman in the bedroom, had he?

“The bedroom reminds you of Terese, doesn’t it?”

Shrugging, he peered into the fridge. “Want a beer?”

A beer? He’d dragged her out of the bedroom like she was contaminating it with her presence, and now he wanted to play polite host?

“No, thank you.” She tapped her foot on the wooden floorboards. “Are you going to answer the question?”

“No.”

“Dammit, Riker. You owe me that, at least.”

“Fine.” He reached for a bottle from a local micro— brewery. “Yeah. That’s the only place we ever had sex.

She was extremely vanilla and conservative. She didn’t let me go down on her or f**k her up against a wall like you did. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Heat infused Nicole’s cheeks at both the memories and the crude reply he’d made sound like an insult, and she had to clear her throat before she spoke.

“Okay, so what are you saying? We can have sex but only on your couch? Or against your wall? Maybe on your kitchen table?”

He fisted the bottle and popped off the cap with a violent twist of his wrist. He still wasn’t facing her.

That fridge must be extremely interesting.

“I’m saying you’ve outdone her in every way possible. Sex, strength, brains. Hell, you’ve even made sure her son cares about you. And now you want to take her bedroom, too?”

“What?” Nicole felt like she’d crossed into the

Twilight Zone. “Where is this coming from?” When he didn’t answer, she laid it out for him, plain as day, because hell if she was going to be his punching bag for whatever had triggered his ass**le switch. “Your mate is gone, Riker.”