But he didn’t flinch. Didn’t fall to his knees. Didn’t stumble. Just stared at her, and smiled. “You’ll wish I killed you, before it’s over.”

She still had more bullets. This time, Dee aimed for the head. “Promises, promises.” Her finger tightened around the trigger—and they attacked.

Five, no, six vamps jumped from the darkness, teeth and claws out and ready to kill. Dee didn’t waste breath on a scream. She fired, fired until the trigger just clicked. They took her down and her body hit the ground, hard. But, twisting like a snake beneath the fists and bodies, she managed to grab her stake—new weapon, new fight. Dee swiped out at them, too aware that she’d made a fatal mistake and walked right into their trap.

You’re dead, Dee. Sunshine’s voice rang in her head. No one will mourn. No one will even miss you when you’re rotting in the ground.

Simon had just walked into Onyx when he heard the distinct thunder of gunfire. Hell.

His gaze scanned the big room. Dee, be here.

A curvy redhead walked by him, a wide smile on her lips. “Hi there, handsome, I’m—”

“Not interested.” He brushed by her and cut a quick path to the bar. He slammed his hands down on the counter. “I’m looking for a woman.”

The bartender didn’t glance up. “Try looking behind you.”

Growling, Simon leaned over the counter and grabbed the idiot’s shirt. Whiskey spilled over his hand. “You remember the woman I was with last night.” Not a question.

The guy’s eyes bulged. “You kidding me? Do you know how many chicks come in here every night? No way do I—”

“Small. Blond hair she’d hacked to pieces. Tight ass and lips that—”

“Her.”

“Where is she?”

The bartender pointed one hand to the left. Exit.

Simon thrust him back. He spun around—

And came face to face with a demon.

Not just any demon. Her demon. Another Night Watch hunter. Zane Wynter. The guy looked like a human, but Simon knew he was far more monster than man. Simon snarled, “You’re supposed to be watching her ass.”

“Thought that was what you were doing last night.”

The music had kicked up. The band blasted some screaming shit and—was that another shot? “Out of my way,” Simon ordered.

The demon didn’t move. Fine.

Simon shoved the bastard back, a good three feet, and ran for the exit even as the demon shattered a table before he hit the floor.

A kick sent the door flying open. “Dee!” He could smell her, that wild scent drifting in the air.

Simon rushed forward and saw the gun tossed on the ground. Her gun. “Dee!”

But he couldn’t see his little hunter.

Gone.

Maybe dead.

Sonofabitch.

Growling, he took off into the night, following the scent of the blood trail as fast as he could. Dee had made her attackers bleed and that sweet scent would take him right to her.

If he could get there in time.

The wail of sirens woke her. A loud, hard scream she’d heard too many times before. Dee fought to open her eyes. A groan tore from her lips as pain wracked her body.

Vampires.

The breath she’d tried to suck in now choked out as realization crashed into her.

Had she taken them down? Or had they Taken her?

Please, no.

The stench hit her then. The coppery odor she’d first caught long ago and had never forgotten. Couldn’t.

No, not again.

Her lashes fluttered open. She squinted, trying to see. But it was so dark. Pitch black.

She shoved up and a blast of agony burned through her head at the move. Shit that hurt. Her hands slapped down as she struggled for balance, and something sticky and wet coated her fingertips.

No.

The scent hit her again, stronger now that she was aware, striking like a hard punch in the face. Bile rose and she choked, scared, sick.

Not again.

She scrambled back, but hit something. Something soft and still.

Her eyes narrowed as she strained to see but the darkness was too perfect. Her hands fumbled, reaching out.

Flesh.

An arm. Cold to the touch.

A hip.

Stomach.

Then—oh, God, no—

A loud boom blasted to her right and light exploded on her as—what? A door?—flew open.

“Dee!”

Her head jerked at the sound and the move sent fire burning through the base of her skull.

“Oh, damn, what the hell happened?”

That voice…Simon.

A crack of light shot in behind him, illuminating the sparse interior of her hell. She glanced away from him, following the horror in his eyes to see the body.

High-end clothes, soaked red. Long, tangled black hair covered half of the woman’s face. A face she knew. Little Miss Sunshine lay dead beneath her hands. Not a pretty death. Too brutal.

Dee’s fingertips fluttered around the wooden stake that had been driven into the other woman’s heart.

Her breath rasped out. “I-I didn’t—” Her hands flew back. A human. Sunshine had been a human. In life, and in death.

Dee tried to scramble up, but she slipped and fell in the blood that coated the floor.

Just like before. “Mom? Mom! Help me!”

But no one had helped her.

“Dee? Dee?” Simon grabbed her and lifted her into his arms. “Are you hurt?”

Yeah, but the other woman was dead.

Did I kill her?

Please, God, no. She couldn’t remember anything. Not since the alley, when all those vamps jumped her—

Her hand flew to her neck. Had she been bitten? Christ. If they’d bitten her, they’d be able to get into her head. Sick, twisted freaks.

Simon turned away from the body. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here!” His hold bruised her.

“No, no, we can’t leave her. The cops—”

“Are about to storm the place any minute.” The sirens screamed, so close now. So close.

Dee heaved against him, but he just clamped his hands tighter around her and ran from the pit. No, not a pit, she realized as more light spilled onto her. Some kind of warehouse?

Simon raced outside, holding her tight.

Yeah, a warehouse. With some boarded-up windows, a condemned sign on the side, and a few streetlights spilling light on her hell.

“The cops find you here, your ass will be headed for jail.” He all but shoved her into his car. The smell of leather flooded her nostrils but it couldn’t block the stench of blood. So much blood.

Sunshine’s blood had stained her skin.

A car door slammed. Dee glanced up just as Simon cranked the engine, then he gunned the Mustang and they flew forward with a snarl of the motor.

“We can’t…leave the scene.” Her mind wasn’t working right. She knew it. Everything seemed slow. The streetlights too bright. Dee squinted as she ran a hand over the back of her head.

When Dee touched the fist-sized knot at the base of her skull, her breath rasped out. What did they do to me?

Simon jerked the wheel to the right and turned down a street. Then another. Another. The mustang snaked through alleys and back roads, taking so many turns that Dee felt dizzy.

She’d thought she knew the city.

She’d thought wrong.

Her eyes squeezed shut and she saw—

A stake, driven deep into the woman’s chest. Blood.

“Why?” The word broke from her lips as her eyes cracked open. “She was a…lure. She shouldn’t have been—”

“Dee.” Simon spared her a glance. “Focus for me. How much of the blood is yours? Did the bastards bite you?”

Don’t know. Her hands started to tremble. The steady pounding in her head had nausea rolling through her. “Not sure.” Okay, that sounded normal. Didn’t it? Her tongue seemed so thick in her mouth. “The woman…”

“Fuck, Dee! She’s dead! She was part of a setup! The vamps left you there, with a stake—probably one of yours—in that woman’s heart, and they sent the police to find you.”

The sirens—how had the police known to come?

He took another corner and the tires squealed. “What do you think would have happened when the cops found you crouched over a dead human?”

The throbbing was worse. She could actually hear the pulses. That couldn’t be good. “Got…friends who are cops.” They would’ve listened to her. Tony—she could count on him. “T-Tony…” Okay, that had been slurred.

“Hell! You’re about to pass out, aren’t you?”

Maybe.

Um, yeah.

“Dee? Dee!” He hit the brakes and she fell forward. The seat belt she didn’t remember buckling—maybe he had?—cut across her chest. “Stay with me. I’ve got to know…it’s important. Did they bite you?”

The street lights didn’t seem so bright anymore. Or maybe her eyes were just closed. Hard to tell for sure.

“Dee?”

“Maybe,” she whispered and the last thing she heard was—

“Fuck.”

Yeah.

Death had a way of making the beautiful…ugly.

Baton Rouge Police Captain Antonio “Tony” Young stared down at the body before him. He was used to the blood, so the stench and the sight didn’t bother him. This wasn’t his first time to find a horror/freak show crime scene. Wouldn’t be his last either.

He crouched beside the body and a soundless whistle passed his lips. Someone had screwed up. He could see the bite marks on the woman’s neck, so yeah, she’d been a vamp chew toy, but—

But she hadn’t been a vamp.

The movies and TV shows had vampire killings all wrong. When vamps were staked, they didn’t age or shrivel or explode into dust.

Nothing so fancy.

But the change was there. You just had to know what you were looking for to see it.

At death, well, their second death, anyway, a vamp’s elongated fangs retracted. The darkness in their eyes—the darkness that came when they hunted—faded away.

Their bodies stiffened, hardening immediately so that when an ME looked later, the TOD was never right. No way could you determine the time of death for a vamp, just couldn’t happen.

Their skin whitened, not slowly turning ashy and yellow like a human’s. No, the skin drained of color until the flesh was the starkest of whites, and the drain was nearly instantaneous.

Those signs were always dead giveaways that you were dealing with a vamp. Those indicators, and the wooden stake that was generally lodged in the chest. Hard to miss the stake.

“Oh, man, is that who I think it is?” The uniform next to Antonio pressed in a bit too close.

Antonio slapped his hand against his chest. “Don’t even think about screwing up my crime scene.” Like things weren’t screwed up enough. That tip they’d received…“Two women fighting, screaming, someone needs help at Belmont and Queens. The crazy bitch was screaming about vampires.”

Screaming about vampires—and now the victim had been staked.

“Captain, don’t you recognize her?”

He turned to stare at the uniform. Red spots blotched the kid’s face. “Should I?” Another body. Another case that would give him heartburn. Couldn’t the supernaturals ever back off?

A quick swipe of the cop’s tongue. “She’s Lisa Durant. You know, Senator Durant’s niece. I saw—I saw her on TV a few weeks back. She was…” His gaze fell to the body. “Hot.”

Not anymore.

Antonio’s back teeth locked. Senator’s niece. Oh, hell. Keeping this quiet would be a bitch.

He glanced back at the stake. His eyes narrowed. “Jon…is that what I think it is?” Not enough light to tell for sure from this angle, but that looked like—

The crime scene tech who’d crouched beside the body shot him a grin. “Bloody fingerprints. Hell, yes.”

Antonio’s hand ran over his face. “Run ’em, and give the report to me.” His eyes held Jon’s. “Only me, you got that?”

Jon gave a grim nod.

“Good.” Because he had a feeling the supernatural shit was about to hit the fan in his city.

“Dee.”

Somebody shook her. Hard.

“You’ve got to wake up. That hit you took to the head left you concussed. You can’t sleep.”

But she really wanted to, just a little longer anyway.

“Dee!” Another shake. One hard enough to rattle her teeth.

She managed to crack open one eye. “Should you really…shake a woman with a…concussion?”

A brief grin turned up his lips. “It was either shake you or maybe let you slide into a coma.”

Something wet and cold pressed against the back of her neck and Dee sucked in a fast breath. “What the hell?”

The grin flashed again. Was the guy enjoying her pain or what? “The ice will make the giant knot go away sooner.”

Both of her eyes opened. Dee realized she was on a couch, propped up against some cushions, and Simon, he was over her, around her. One hand held her shoulder, urging her close, while the other anchored the ice pack at the base of her skull. Mere inches separated their faces. His smoky eyes were so deep and intense. She noticed his lashes then. Really long, dark lashes. Weird, because his face was hard and—

“You back with me this time?” he murmured.

She blinked, realizing that though her skull still throbbed, the grogginess of before was gone. “Yeah, I…think so.” If she could stop being an idiot and gazing into his eyes like some lovesick teen with a crush. Jeez. Dee fumbled for the ice pack. Her fingers tangled with his. “I’ve—I’ve got this.”