As if she needed the reminder that the trajectory of her entire career was going to be determined one hour after lunch, when everyone on the board was full of food and liquor. Jesus. She was facing an absolute catastrophe. This wasn’t the job she would have chosen for herself, especially not after dedicating her life to becoming an expert in vampire physiology. But the inherited duty had been thrust upon her, and she’d always prided herself on being the best at whatever she did. Even if what she did wasn’t what she wanted to do.

Failing her parents’ company, especially after the tragedy that had killed them, would be devastating.

“’Night, Chuck.” Nicole clicked off the comm unit and started toward the grand living room. She’d been here almost two months, but she still took the long route, avoiding the dining area where her mother had “passed away.”

Passed away. The words everyone but Nicole used for what happened sounded so . . . polite, when there’d been nothing polite about it. Elise Martin had had her throat brutally ripped out, but only after she had to endure unspeakable torture at the hands of her assailants.

The front door creaked open, and Nicole made a mental note to say something to Roland about letting himself in so casually. She’d let it go this long because he’d lived here as the caretaker for years while Nicole was in France, but now that she was back, he needed to learn to knock.

“I’ll be right there,” she called out.

“No, Nicole—” Roland’s strangled voice broke off, and a sudden lump of foreboding plummeted to her belly.

She rounded the corner, skidding to a shocked halt. The lump leaped into her throat, strangling her, cutting off her scream before it even started.

A black-haired male who was clearly a vampire— with gleaming metal fangs—was holding Roland against his chest, one massive arm wrapped around

Roland’s neck. Roland’s eyes were wild, his struggles almost comically futile.

But that wasn’t what stopped her cold. No, what froze her all the way to her marrow was the monster standing beside him.

Funny how Boris wasn’t the monster who came alive in her scariest night terrors. No, the title of Nightmare king belonged to the male looming like a death sentence in front of her, a gorgeous sandy-haired vampire in worn, bloodstained jeans and a loaded weapons harness beneath a long leather coat. A male named

Riker who, twenty years ago, had killed Terese.

His own mate.

The murder in his cool silver gaze said he was about to do the same to Nicole.

A cold rush of fear coursed through her, destroying two decades of therapy in a matter of heartbeats.

“Fucking animals,” Roland rasped. “Slavery is too good for your filthy kind.”

The dagger-fanged vampire grinned, and Nicole watched in horror as, with a jerk of his head and a spray of blood, the vampire ripped out Roland’s throat with his teeth.

Oh, dear Lord, please, no. Not again. A soundless cry escaped from her lips as she wheeled around. Terror made her clumsy, and she slammed her hip into a spindly Elizabethan table, sending a priceless Tang bowl filled with Nicole’s origami flowers crashing to the floor. She made it four steps before a heavy body hit her like a truck and sent her sprawling on the floor.

The jarring impact expelled the air from her lungs in an agonizing burst.

“Don’t bite her!” The male voice boomed, and the vampire on top of her, his teeth shredding her turtleneck, cursed.

“Aw, come on, Riker.” The memory of being not bitten but chewed made Nicole tremble violently as fangs scraped across the scars Boris had left on her throat. “I wasn’t going to kill her. Just taste.”

“Not now.” Riker barked something that sounded like “She’s mine,” and the male on top of her cursed again.

“You got a reprieve, human.” Ginsu-Fang’s softly spoken words against the shell of her ear were more menacing at a whisper than if he’d snarled. “Temporary reprieve.”

With agonizing slowness, he pushed off her. Before she could even think about trying to run again, a hand clamped down on her wrist and yanked her to her feet. Nicole tried to wrench away, but with just one hand, Riker managed to hold her still.

“Give me the vampire named Neriya, and I’ll let you live.”

Neriya?

Riker swung his powerful body into hers and shook her hard enough to rattle her teeth. “Did you hear me? Give me the female.”

Ginsu-Fang slipped silently to the window, but

Nicole kept her attention on the vampire holding her tightly. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she croaked.

Riker’s silver eyes, which gave him away as a turned vampire instead of a rare born one, flashed like razor blades. “Daedalus captured her two weeks ago. I want her . Now.”

His voice, warped with rage, turned her insides to liquid. Despite what he’d said, there was no doubt he was going to kill her regardless. None at all.

But Nicole still had no idea what he was talking about. “I don’t know where she is.” Her voice was shaking as much as she was. “How do you even know Daedalus has her?”

“It doesn’t matter how we know.” His fury blistered the very air around them, and she braced for a blow. Instead, he growled, “Find her.”

“Find her?” she echoed. How was she supposed to do that? As far as she knew, all vampires brought in from the wild were tagged with new designations, so

Neriya’s name wouldn’t be on file. Tracking her down was going to take time, which was something Nicole doubted she had much of.

“Yes,” he said slowly, as if she were a child. “Find her.”

“Why? Who is she? Your new mate? Are you going to kill her?” Nicole blurted before she could stop her runaway mouth. She had a terrible habit of saying dumb things when she was afraid or nervous.

Riker blinked as if taken aback, but he recovered quickly, his face shuttering. “Why the f**k would I want to rescue a vampire just to kill her? And why do you keep asking questions? I told you what to do. Do it.”

Bluff. “I’ll need to go to my office. I’ll have access to computer files there.”

“How stupid do you think we are? Your offices are crawling with security.” Riker squeezed her arm to that wire-fine line between mere discomfort and pain.

“You’ll do it from here.”

Indignation at his order pierced her bubble of fear, and she squared her shoulders in defiance. “I don’t negotiate with vampires who break into my house and kill my friends.”

Riker smiled, the coldest smile she’d ever seen, which was saying something, since, as CEO of a multi— national conglomerate, she swam with grinning sharks on a daily basis.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. This isn’t a negotiation. You cooperate or you die. It’s that simple.”

The other vampire appeared at Riker’s side. “If you’re going to torture her into giving us what we want, you might want to do it somewhere else. Our secret is

out. Two armed males approaching from ten o’clock.”

“They won’t be alone,” Riker said.

Myne’s long fingers found the hilt of the dagger at his hip, and a deep, rumbling purr pumped from his chest, which was still wet with Roland’s blood. “Bring ’em on.”

He relishes this. What a bastard. And what the hell was up with his fangs?

“My fangs?” Ginsu asked, and she realized she’d spoken out loud. “What, do I have something in them? Yo, Rike. Do I have a piece of that Roland dude in my teeth?”

Abruptly, stupidly enraged, Nicole lunged, but Riker caught her before she could punch Ginsu in the mouth.

“Last chance, Nicole,” he warned. “Call off the guards, and make the calls, or you’re coming with us.”

As if her body suddenly remembered she was in grave danger, a fresh shudder of fear wracked her. Her options were limited, and the few she had sucked. If she went with Riker and Ginsu, she’d probably die.

Then again, if she assured the guards that everything was okay, Riker and his steak-knife-toothed friend would likely kill her after she made the calls anyway.

So her choices came down to death . . . or death.

That left her with choosing the timing, and maybe the method, of her demise. The vampires would kill her after she finished with the phone calls, but maybe if she went with them, she could use the travel time to plot a way to signal for help or find an opportunity to use the one weapon she had for an escape.

Riker’s eyes flared at the same time she tasted blood. Dammit, she was biting her lip again. In front of a vampire. Might as well ring the damned dinner bell.

“Human,” Riker snapped. “Call off the guards.”

“Go to hell,” she said, with a lot more calm than she felt. But if she was going to die, she was going to go down fighting the way she hadn’t been able to when she was a child.

“You first.” He gripped her chin roughly in his palm and held her face up so she was forced to look at him. And then . . . Blackness.

Chapter 4

Fuck. Never before had Riker’s favorite four-letter word been so appropriate. Because f**k, they were f**ked.

He caught Nicole as she slumped against him,  a victim of his hypnotic ability. Given how terrifi ed she’d been, he’d expected her to capitulate to his demands and make things easy. But no, nothing could ever be that easy for him, could it?

“Man, I wish I had your hypno-talent,” Myne said, as he moved swiftly to one of the windows. “Handy for feeding.”

Riker barked out a laugh. “You wouldn’t use it. You like your food to fi ght back.”

“Adrenaline adds a pleasantly piquant note to the blood,” Myne said in an obnoxious French accent, as if he was a food critic describing a tasty menu item at his favorite restaurant. “Also, six more dudes are approaching from the main gate.”

Myne wheeled around in a blur; his speed made a mockery of most vampires’ already enhanced movement. Being a born vampire instead of a turned one came with a shit-ton of perks.

“We can slip out the back. There’s a row of hedges that’ll keep us in the shadows.” Riker had often taken advantage of the area designed to conceal the gardeners’ equipment when he used to sneak onto the property to visit his mate.

Myne glowered at the woman in Riker’s arms. “I don’t like this. She’ll slow us down.” He paused, probably hearing the guards’ shouts outside. “Leave her. We can work over the other Martin.”

Bad idea. The minute word got out about Riker and Myne’s breakin, Charles Martin would ramp up security measures and take every precaution to avoid a similar incident. No, it was Nicole or nothing.

“We won’t be able to get close to the bastard.”

Riker hefted Nicole more securely against his shoulder as Myne palmed two long blades from the sheaths on his back.

“Would have been a lot simpler if she’d cooperated,” Myne muttered, putting his spine to a wall to peer between the slats of a window blind.

Riker’d give Myne that one. Now they had to evade the authorities while hauling an unconscious human through the forest. Assuming they didn’t get hunted down and executed in front of TV cameras, that still left them having to take the human to the clan’s headquarters. Had everything gone as planned and Nicole cooperated, VAST would still been sent after the vampires who broke into the Martin mansion, but kidnapping one of the most prominent people on the planet was going to launch them into a whole new level of manhunt.

“We don’t have a choice,” Riker said. “If we don’t get Neriya back—”

“Then we rain hell down on ShadowSpawn before they know we failed and come after us.”

Attacking ShadowSpawn clan before they knew what hit them would give MoonBound a distinct advantage, but eventually, the enemy’s sheer numbers and utter lack of ethics would result in MoonBound’s destruction. Riker would never risk that.

No, Nicole was the key to MoonBound’s survival, so she was going with Riker and Myne. One less human in the world, especially a Martin, would only be a good thing.

Myne brought up the rear as Riker hauled ass to the back of the mansion and took the old servants’ passage to the south entrance. The dust on the scuffed wooden floor spoke of months, if not years, of disuse, and the door Riker had seen his mate disappear through too many times had been chained closed from the inside.

Myne tugged on the lock. The thing snapped with a loud crack, and they slipped out into the night.

The hedges were manicured to perfection as if frozen in time. Memories clawed at him as they ducked between the shrubs, and he made a point of not looking at the spot where Terese had taken her last breath.

The scene had been too well preserved, and although he knew it was impossible, he didn’t want to risk seeing his mate’s blood splashed on leaves or pooled in the grass.

Using the landscape and shadows as cover, they made their way toward the stone security wall. Three Rottweiler guard dogs merely watched as Riker and Myne broke out of the hedges and jogged across the expansive lawn. Riker had zapped them with his hypnotic gift on the way in. They’d love him forever now, which was cool, because he liked dogs.

They’d made it just more than halfway before half a dozen humans in black and red Vampire Strike Force uniforms flanked them. Riker assessed the enemy in an instant, and if Myne’s lopsided grin was any indication, he had, too. These were first responders, their weapons deadly but average.

“Put. The human. Down.” A male with a blond high-and-tight cut that made his head look like a toilet brush broke away from the pack, easing forward in a smooth crouch. “Do it now, or I blow your head off.”