Andie would never admit it, but she was having second thoughts. Possibly even third thoughts. And it kinda felt like fourth thoughts weren’t out of the realm of possibility, either.

Kragen was looking particularly grim as he led them to what Andie still thought of as the murder basement. This time she was seeing it through Kat’s eyes, and during the daylight, or at least as much of it that managed to get through the ground-level windows that were up by the ceiling of the warehouse basement.

Still creepy.

None of that actually helped. It still looked like a darkened Leonid-metal door that was chained up and barricaded against the monster who lived beyond it, in the murder basement.

Even Kat looked a little freaked out. And Kat, particularly while in nurse-mode, was maybe the biggest badass Andie knew. She almost felt bad, but Kat would kill her if she knew that. Besides, Kat had access to a lot of the Alliance data on Leonids, and she had even more access to all sorts of medical stuff. Andie knew her friend could help Rune, and maybe Kat could even help Andie’s messed-up mating bond situation with Kragen. She just wished that help didn’t involve a murder basement with a monster Leonid who was apparently some sort of mad vampire.

Kragen lifted the giant shelving unit from in front of the door with what looked like no effort at all, and chucked it down a side hall that was shrouded in darkness. The crash of metal against concrete rattled the human women, but not Kragen. He turned back to look at Kat and, especially, Andie, before he unlocked the chains surrounding the door.

“I did not think human females would be this difficult,” he said.

“Hey, you came to our planet,” Andie said.

For a moment, it almost looked like Kragen smiled, and Andie could see, suddenly, the way an exchange like that would play out if they were really mates. The way he would take an invitation to discipline her. The way she would give them. She shivered, as though she could feel Kragen’s hands on her, could feel him inside her, pushing her towards orgasm.

And then, just like that, it was over.

“You ok?” Kat whispered as Kragen removed the web of chains covering the door.

“Yup,” Andie lied.

“I kind of can’t believe that worked,” Kat said. They had kind of boxed an actual literal alien Dom into doing what they wanted.

The thing was, Andie knew it would work. She knew as soon as she told Kragen that erasing Kat’s memory would hurt her. Because the one thing that she absolutely knew she could count on in this insane mess was that Kragen would never, ever do anything to hurt her.

She just wished she didn’t know it. Because what she was slowly realizing was that everything she had learned over the last few hours revealed Kragen to be, well, perfect for her. Where all those other guys she had dated had fit her in one particular way, Kragen fit almost all of them. Dominant and honorable, loyal and, in his own way, loving. He listened to her, not because he wanted something in return, but because he wanted to know her. And she wanted to know him. Like the perfect missing puzzle piece.

Well, almost perfect. Because he was still a dangerous alien fugitive who wouldn’t claim her. And she wouldn’t submit, because of that whole thing where he didn’t trust her to make her own decisions.

Yeah, keep thinking about that, Knowles, she said. That’ll help.

“Pay attention.” Kragen’s voice cut through her thoughts, like it always did, and made her come to attention.

Why does that turn me on?

“I’ve been down there before,” Andie reminded him.

Admittedly, she didn’t like thinking about it much. Just the memory of Rune’s predatory eyes scared her.

“Yes,” Kragen said, glowering. “But I had just given Rune his triclosan dose then. This time will be different.”

“How long has it been since his last dose?” Kat asked.

“Long enough,” Kragen grunted.

And with that, he opened the door.

Andie stared into the yawning blackness, vaguely remembering how impossibly heavy that thing was, the reminder of Kragen’s brute strength comforting her a little bit. Kragen stepped half into the dark before Andie spoke up.

“Is there a light?” she asked.

Kragen turned, his heavy features screwed up in annoyance. “The light awakens the hunger,” he said.

Then he looked at Andie’s face.

“We will have a light,” he said, and picked up one of the boxes that lay strewn about the pile that guarded the door. He rummaged around until he came out with an old-timey, broken-looking lantern.

“Um, I don’t think that will work,” Kat said.

“I will make it work,” Kragen said sharply. “From now on you will both be silent, and you will both obey orders. If you do not, I will throw you both over my shoulders and remove you from this place forever. Is this understood?”

Andie’s face flushed hot at the idea of Kragen’s hands on anyone else, even Kat.

“Understood,” she said.

Kat nodded, too. Kragen glared hard at each of them, his gaze lingering on Andie. Finally, he snorted.

“Here is your light,” he said.

And the busted old lantern in Kragen’s hand began to glow with the silvery light of his eyes.

* * *

Andie knew this would be sort of funny later. Kragen knew the lantern was supposed to provide light, but he didn’t know the entire freaking thing wasn’t supposed to glow with an unearthly silvery light. He was doing it to provide comfort for the human women he was intent on guarding, but, like a lot of males, he wasn’t getting it quite right.

Kat’s eyes were wide, but to her credit, she stayed quiet. She was following orders.

Andie, meanwhile, was fighting the urge to touch Kragen. Every time he used his weird Leonid powers—every time he used the kuma, or whatever it was—she got turned on. She kept looking at the glow from the lantern, like a moth to flame, and then up his strong, muscled arm, to his massive shoulders, and then she’d think about what it felt like to have him on top of her. To have that big body on her, those shoulders blocking out the light, his fangs on her neck while he…

He was moving. Kragen took a step into the darkness of the subbasement, then turned to see that they were following. He looked at Andie and growled.

Then he reached out with his free arm and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her close. Andie’s eyes fluttered as the bodily contact washed over her, one more wave of pleasure among many. She looked up at him, and saw in those silvery eyes an intense lust that would have had her on her back with a single word.

Kragen shook his head slightly, like an animal, and when he looked up again he had a look of controlled concentration on his face.

“You will stay close to me,” he clipped.

Andie wouldn’t have argued even if she could have.

Slowly, he led them down the metal steps, into the darkness of the subbasement. At first Andie couldn’t see, hear, or sense anything other than Kragen. His presence overpowered everything else; they might as well have been at Disney Land, for all she knew. For a moment, she forgot where they were, what they were doing, or that they weren’t alone.

And then, about halfway down, she began to feel it.

A sort of buzzing. An interference. Like an interruption in a radio signal, like sudden bursts of white noise that broke through what she felt coming from Kragen. Andie didn’t understand it, but it pulled her back to reality.

She looked around as they came down to the bottom of the steps. The light from Kragen’s “lantern” wasn’t overly bright, but it carried, somehow. Andie watched it spread out through the subbasement like spilled and spreading oil, illuminating everything it touched.

It was cleaner than she’d thought it was. A mostly bare room, with a hard-packed dirt floor. There was an area over in one corner with bedding and blankets, stacks of books that had gone unread, various Leonid contraptions that she didn’t recognize. Like someone had tried to provide the prisoner with sources of entertainment, before realizing it was pointless. There was another area with a curtain drawn over it for privacy.

Kragen had tried to make his brother comfortable. Or as comfortable as possible, given the chains situation.

Because that was the next thing Andie saw. These, she remembered. But she didn’t remember the setup—it was very clever, really. The vast web of Leonid chains were anchored through bolts in the far wall, connected by a complicated pulley system to a huge chain that rain along the ceiling and dropped to the floor by the wall behind them, close to where the stairs began. Andie found herself wondering intently about what the purpose of all of that was, and then realized she was deliberately, anxiously, avoiding thinking about what was chained up.

She forced herself to look at him.

Rune.

He was seated cross-legged, back straight, eyes closed, like some sort of giant Leonid monk. His bronze skin glinted green and gold in the light from Kragen’s lantern, and his white-blond hair fell down around his shoulders. Heavy Leonid chains crisscrossed his chest and wrapped around his arms. There was even one around his neck. He was unmoving, and the air around him seemed somehow dead. It was as though his sheer massive size compelled stillness around him. Even like this, he dominated the space around him. His eyes—the eyes Andie remembered, the eyes that scared her, even now—were closed.

Didn’t matter. Just looking at him, the buzzing in the air, that feeling of interference, got louder. Andie still hadn’t figured out what the bond she had with Kragen was all about, but it was something she’d got used to feeling. A sort of constant stream of give-and-take between them, a current of feeling. Whatever this buzzing interference was, it caused ripples in that current. Eddies. Rapids.

Danger.

Andie shook her head, tried to clear it. No help. It was like being forced to listen to two songs at the same time. She looked at Kragen—but he was looking at Kat.

And Kat was looking at Rune.

Correction. Kat was looking at Rune like…

Like she was spellbound.

Andie wanted to reach for her friend, but Kragen held her back. And then Andie felt it. A sudden, silent boom, a change in pressure in the air around them.

Rune had opened his eyes.

They glowed a deep, reddish gold, and Andie’s hand found Kragen’s arm and dug in. Kragen tensed.

Only Rune wasn’t looking at them with those terrifying eyes. He was looking at Kat.

Suddenly Rune inhaled deeply, his chest expanding as if those chains weighed nothing at all, his eyes glowing that much brighter. His eyes still on Kat.

“Yooooouuuu,” he said.

Andie shivered. That voice—it was deep, deeper than any she’d ever heard, and slow, as though it came from somewhere far, far away. Somewhere words didn’t matter much.

Why did I think that?

Kragen took a step forward, pulling Andie behind him. He reached for Kat to do the same, but as if Kat could anticipate it, she darted forward.

And she kept going.

Toward Rune.

“Kat!” Kragen’s voice boomed in the underground room.

Kat froze, blinking, as though she’d just woken up from something.

Rune growled. Long, deep. Threatening.

He’s in chains. He’s in chains.

He’s in chains, right?

“Kat, you will step back,” Kragen said.

Kat didn’t move. Kragen took a step forward. The air was very still.

“Doooo noooot,” Rune growled, “touuuch herrrr.”

Kragen stopped moving, and Andie could sense a change. Surprise, maybe. Even hope?

Well, that was a complete sentence. Sort of.

Rune’s glowing eyes panned from Kat to Kragen, and, behind him, Andie. An otherworldly smile appeared on Rune’s face.

“Tiiiiime,” Rune said, “for my shooooot?”

“It is good to hear you speak, brother,” Kragen said, slowly. “It has been a long time.”

Rune was not interested. His primeval gaze slid back to Kat, who had never stopped looking at him.

“Sheeeee will giiiive itttt,” he said.

Kragen tensed. Rune answered the unspoken objection with a vicious snarl.

There was a pause, during which everything seemed balanced on a precipice.

The lantern in Kragen’s hand began to glow with a brighter, hotter light, and Andie didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew it was now a weapon. Something deep in her brain, the same place that had told her to run from Rune, was screaming.

Rune’s eyes were like two windows into the heart of a sun. The chains wrapped around his body were beginning to glow with their own heat, and the cold basement was starting to feel hot.

“I’ll do it,” Kat said.

Her voice cut through everything.

Kragen said, “It is too dangerous.”

“So is waiting any longer,” Kat said.

Her eyes still on Rune, she dug a syringe out of her bag, and one of the green vials. With practiced ease, she filled the syringe and removed the air bubble.

Kragen growled, and Andie felt him lock eyes with Rune. There was another silent sonic boom, as though they were wrestling on a plane Andie couldn’t see.

“Get to the wall, brother,” Kragen said finally.

The lantern in his hand was white-hot now.

There was a pause. Then that otherworldly smile appeared on Rune’s lips, and he rose to his feet as though those chains weighed nothing at all. He was as tall as Kragen. Andie shuddered to think what it would look like if they fought.

Rune’s eyes found Kat again, and began to glow with that red fire. He flattened himself against the back wall, the chains draping to the floor in metal spirals around his feet before they arced back up to their anchor points above.

Wordlessly, Kragen reached out with his free hand, his eyes still on Rune, until he found the chain that ran across the ceiling from the anchor points above and down the wall just to their left. He wrapped that one chain around his hand, and began to pull.

Andie understood now. Kragen was taking in the slack. As he pulled, the chains around Rune tightened, pulling him flat against the wall. Binding him there.

Theoretically, he shouldn’t be able to move.

Theoretically.

But as Kat moved toward the imprisoned Leonid, Rune’s eyes flared hot enough to illuminate his face, and Andie was sure she saw his fangs growing. White ivory points extended slowly over Rune’s lower lip as he inhaled Kat’s scent, and a chill ran up Andie’s spine.

She was almost there.

Kat reached forward reflexively, as though she were going to swab Rune’s shoulder. The chains around Rune’s body flared with Kragen’s silvery light, and Rune hissed.

“Do not touch him,” Kragen commanded.

Kat froze, her hands raised, one empty, one holding the syringe. Her eyes locked on Rune.

Her breathing in time with Rune’s.

“Katherine Gale, you give him that shot and you get back here right now!” Andie shouted.

Kat shook her head briefly, like she was shaking off a daydream. She looked at Rune, this time with a determined expression. And she drove the syringe deep into his shoulder.

Rune’s growl filled the basement as Kat pressed on the plunger and the green liquid drained into his body. But it was already somehow not as loud. Not as penetrating.

As they all watched, Rune’s eyes faded from white-hot to furnace-red. His body slumped further against the wall.

And his eyes, finally, closed.

“Holy moly,” Andie whispered. “Let’s get upstairs. Like, now.”