“Call me skeptical, but I somehow doubt you’ll just let me go my own way.” Casually, she rubbed her ruby ring against her thigh, taking comfort in its weight . . . and in the weapon concealed inside. “And I swear to you, I won’t go down easy.”

His gaze dropped to her neck. Automatically, she reached up, as if covering her throat would prevent him from sinking his teeth into it. “Maybe I like a challenge,” he drawled.

“Let me have one of those knives strapped to your chest, and I’ll show you a challenge.”

The light of battle flared in his eyes, and a sinister smile curved his lips. “Do your best, human.” He whipped a dagger from a sheath and pressed it into her palm. “This should be fun.”

“Fun?” Shaky legs barely supported her as she backed away from him. “I don’t stand a chance against you.”

“Then why did you ask for the knife?”

With a macabre sense of satisfaction, she put it to her throat, to the scarred skin where Boris had chewed through her flesh. “Because I’d rather die than let any one of you touch me.”

As true as that was, driving a blade into her own jugular was a last resort. She’d simply needed the dagger so she’d have a weapon against other vampires after she took him down.

The amusement fell off his face, and he barked out a nasty curse. “Don’t. Don’t do that.”

“Why not? You’re going to kill me anyway, right?”

She would not die at the hands of a vampire. They’d tried to kill her once; they wouldn’t succeed the second time.

Riker held out his hand. “Give me the knife. Now.”

Again, he hadn’t answered her question. Again, she made a suggestion for a vacation spot. “Go to hell.”

“I can take it away before you can blink, female.”

She pressed inward, until the sting of the blade let her know she’d broken skin. A warm drop of blood rolled down her neck, but oddly, the lingering pinch energized her. For the first time since she’d been grabbed, she had a measure of control, even if the control was merely over her own pain.

Or her own life.

Riker’s body went taut, a subtle sign she comprehended too late. Then he was there, fist around the blade. Startled, she jerked, driving the tip of the knife deeper into her throat. “You stupid human!”

With a snarl, Riker wrenched the knife away and shoved her against the wall. The blade clattered to the ground, but the fangs jutting from Riker’s gums were just as sharp and probably far more lethal.

Nicole’s therapist was a huge fool if she thought vampires were more afraid of humans than humans were of them. Dr. Bhatia was so fired.

Riker’s gaze shifted down. To her throat.

Then his mouth shifted down. To her throat.

Boris’s face flashed in front of her eyes, and panic squeezed her heart in a cold fist. Like she had so many years ago, she tried to fight, but Riker held her easily, pinned to the wall with his weight. As his lips closed over her skin, she stopped breathing and waited for the rip of his teeth.

Instead, there was only a warm sweep of his tongue and, with it, the most bizarre and disturbing sense of pleasure.

Vampires could release a chemical through their saliva that created a euphoric feeling in their victims, but she doubted Riker would use it on her. And even if he did, given her background, how could she possibly feel even the slightest amount of pleasure? Self loathing gurgled up inside her like a storm sewer after a torrential rain.

But her disgust didn’t stop the odd tingle of awareness that spread from where Riker’s tongue soothed her laceration to every part of her body that touched his. Everyone said that vampires were inherently sexual creatures, dangerously seductive even when they weren’t trying. Hell, a special market existed for vampire sex slaves, which Nicole had never understood.

Until now.

Now she got it. But she wished she didn’t.

On her wrists, Riker’s fingers were callused, his skin hot. Vampires ran three to five degrees warmer than humans, and she felt the difference in body temperature with every blistering stroke of his tongue and every point of skin-to-skin contact.

Why was he being so . . . well, she wouldn’t call it gentle, exactly, but he could be causing her a lot of pain. Vampires are crafty. They’re predators that play with their food. They feed on blood, pain, and fear.

One of her father’s many lectures rang in her ears, and she started to tremble. Riker wasn’t hurting her at the moment, but he would. The way Boris had so easily hurt her after years of being kind to her.

A slow roll of anxiety threatened to smother her.

She drew a deep, calming breath, desperate to keep her head clear.

Think. Hard to do when there was a vampire licking you.

Think. Her bottom lip stung. She was biting it again.

Think, dammit! She needed a weapon, a . . . duh. The ring. How could she have taken leave of her senses so easily? Other than the fact that a vampire was licking her. And then there was the distraction of her tingling br**sts and an odd ache starting low in her pelvis.

Jesus, if Riker was ever captured by hunters, he’d be tagged for the sex market, for sure. Too bad he hadn’t been caught a long time ago, because if he had, maybe Terese would still be alive.

The thought was enough to hurtle Nicole back to her senses, and as she ran her thumb over the cool metal ring, she thought about how ironic it was that

Riker was going to be taken down by his own mate’s jewelry.

Smiling, Nicole wedged her fingernail under the ruby lid’s latch.

This is for you, Terese.

Chapter 6

Sixty seconds ago, rage and pain had twisted through Riker, so intertwined that he couldn’t separate them. The stupid human had put a blade to her own throat. Why did this keep happening to him? Why were females so damned eager to kill themselves?

Fuck it all, this one wasn’t going to die. Not until he was ready.

So he’d put his mouth over the scarred skin of her throat with the noble intention of sealing the wound.

But the moment he tasted her, a jolt of sheer, burning bliss streaked all the way to his groin.

Full. Stop.

He hadn’t felt much in the way of a sexual stir from feeding in decades, let alone with a female he despised. A human female, at that.

He froze, his body tense as a trip wire, but his heart was pitching a fi t against his rib cage. His fangs throbbed in time to the pulse in his swelling c**k as both body parts made it clear how much they wanted to sink deep into warm, wet flesh.

“Stop,” Nicole whispered in his ear. “Please, stop.”

Her voice quivered, and shame formed a knot in his belly. He’d never worried about his victims before, but then, he usually brought down his prey quickly, taking pride in a swift, silent kill few of his kind could match. It was a special-forces skill left over from his military days and amplified by vampire speed, strength, and supertuned senses.

His prey rarely had time to know the sour taste of fright. When they did, it was because he’d wanted them to.

This was different. Nicole had been in a prolonged state of fear and would be until they got Neriya back.

She might be the CEO of the most reprehensible company on the planet, and she might be complicit in crimes against his people, but he’d never been the type of male who reveled in a female’s fear.

Even if it was deserved.

He shoved himself away with deliberate, measured composure, as if backing off was entirely his idea.

Nicole’s wide peridot eyes kicked him right in the gut, but he steeled himself, summoning his inner hardass.

He didn’t have to reach very far for it.

“There. You’re healed. No thanks necessary.” He licked his lips, savoring the last rich, silky drop of her blood. Unlike most of the humans he fed on, she tasted of health and a hint of fine wine. He wanted more.

“Don’t try that again. You die when I say you die. Help us, and you’ll avoid that fate.”

“You’re going to be hanged and staked for this.”

Her fingers fluttered up to her throat, scarred by some sort of heinous injury, to trace the thin crimson line that had been bleeding a moment ago.

“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine.” He breathed deep, measuring her fear level by scent. She was afraid but not as much as he’d expected. “What happened to your throat?”

The sour note of fear spiked. “Why do you want to know?”

The ring on her right hand glinted with little crimson sparkles as she covered her neck with her palm.

Her scars forgotten, he snared her hand, bringing it and the ruby ring decorating one of her fingers—so close he caught a metallic whiff of gold.

“Let me go.” Nicole struggled against his hold, but he squeezed her wrist as tight as his lungs felt. He could barely breathe, barely speak.

“Where did you get that ring?”

“It’s mine.”

His blood, already vibrating with the heat of un— wanted arousal, began to boil with anger. “Where did you get it? ”

A glint of pure, unadulterated hatred sparked in her eyes. “From. Your. Mate.” She hurled the words at him like weapons, and like an expert marksman, she hit every one of his vulnerable spots with sniper precision.

With a snarl, he wrapped his fingers around the throat he’d just healed. “Did you take it from her while she was alive, or did you loot it off her corpse?” Rage made his voice warble, which only made him angrier.

“Did you even wait for her body to get cold before you stripped her of everything she loved?”

“How dare you!” Nicole spat. “How can you talk about love, when you’re the one who killed her?”

He blinked in disbelief. “How dare I? Your family killed her the day they put her in chains and forced her to wait on your despicable asses hand and foot.”

“And that,” she said, “is why I don’t believe for a second that you’re ever going to set me free. You plan to take your revenge on me, don’t you?”

Her voice was as flat as his was furious. It should have been a clue. He shouldn’t have been surprised when she flipped the hinged lid on the ring and jammed her hand in front of his nose.

When she blew a powdery substance into his face, he could only utter a single curse before he was gasping for breath and stumbling backward in an uncoordinated tangle of his own feet.

“That was for Terese, you murdering bastard.”

For his mate? Why? Through blurry eyes, he saw Nicole swipe the dagger off the ground and tuck it into her waistband.

“What . . .” He inhaled, coughed, doubled over in agony. Someone had replaced the air with fire. Holy f**k, he was breathing napalm. “What . . . did you . . . do?”

“Boric acid.” Her reply was muffled. Or maybe the ringing in his ears was dampening outside sounds.

“Bitch.” He dropped to the ground like a sack of rocks, his lungs burning, his vision developing spots that swirled around her as she crouched next to him.

“I’m not done. See, boric acid is lethal to vampires.

My company, the one you hate so much, figured it out.

I figured it out after analyzing why your kind can’t use firearms. I’m sure you’re aware that gunshot residue and propellant destroy your lungs. It made me wonder what else would do that.” Damn, but she sounded like she was enjoying this. “We’re starting to put acid-delivery devices out on the market so that soon, humans everywhere will have their own handy-dandy vampire pepper sprays.” She leaned in, so close and personal he felt her warm breath whispering across the shell of his ear. “In forty-eight hours, you’ll be dead, and it’s no less than you deserve.”

He’d laugh if his lungs weren’t burning as hot as the surface of the sun. Forty-eight hours? That was nothing. He’d been dead for twenty years already.

• • • • • •

Riker’s Clas’s home was like a maze. Or, more accu-rately, like a warren. A series of dimly lit tunnels and caverns skirted what appeared to be a massive complex of dwellings, all carved out of dirt, stone, and a framework of tree roots. The closer Nicole got to what she guessed was the center, the more finished, clean, and bright the tunnels became.

How had they built this? How did they have electricity? They’d even decorated. When she’d first escaped the cell, the paths leading from it had been bare, simple dirt and rough-carved stone. But as she scurried through the passages, the stone became smoother, the walls dotted with carved wooden or leather art or paintings in a variety of styles, mostly Native American. The pounded dirt floor became inlaid with cobblestones, and once, Nicole peeked over a carved wooden railing into what appeared to be an elegant, if basic, common room with colored floor tiles that formed a giant dream catcher.

The sophistication of the place stunned her. By most accounts, vampires were supposed to be instinctive, base creatures that, if not cared for and trained by humans, lived like animals. Nicole had never been convinced that vampires were so primitive, but her arguments with her college instructors, colleagues, and peers had been met with either scoffing and derision or accusations of being a “filthy sympathizer.”

She couldn’t wait to rub this in their faces. Assuming she got out of here alive, anyway. She just hoped Riker remained in the boric-acid stupor for at least half an hour. The chances of her getting caught were already astronomically high, but if he came out of it before she escaped, she might as well schedule her funeral.

She kept to the shadows and crevices as best she could, instinctively moving along uphill paths and staying far away from the few vamps she saw and definitely avoiding eye contact. Even if a vampire didn’t sense the fact that she was human, she had a feeling everyone knew everyone else in this community, and a stranger would stick out like a neon sign.