Dragging his fingers through his own blood, he rubbed it over her lips, sliding his fingers into her mouth and massaging her gums. Her tongue touched his fingers instinctively, taking in even more of his blood. She swallowed at last, feebly, then coughed, and cried out in pain, tears leaking from beneath her closed eyelids.

Raphael felt his own face wet with tears. “A little more, lubimaya,” he whispered encouragingly. He widened the tear in his wrist, letting a few drops fall into her mouth and rubbing her throat gently. She swallowed again, more easily, her mouth opening eagerly as if some part of her understood, even in her unconscious state, that his blood would save her.

She swallowed once more, strongly this time, and he fed her a few more drops, murmuring to her the whole time, slipping into the fluid rhythms of his native Russian. Her chest rose in a deep breath and his heart soared . . . only to crash again when he began to remove her clothing and saw the true extent of her injuries.

Her ribs were broken along her right side, her chest black and blue where the vest had protected her. But the vest could do only so much, and its protection had not extended below her waist. The assassin’s bullets had torn into her stomach and belly, ripping apart her intestines, damaging so many vital organs. Saephan had been worried about blood loss, but Raphael knew that was the least of it. Infection was already spreading through her damaged body, its heat like a malicious beacon taunting him.

Anyone else would have been dead already. Only her connection to him, fortified by the blood she took from him almost daily, had given her the strength to survive this long.

But his Cyn was not immortal. The blood they shared made her seem so to those who didn’t understand. But for all their closeness, for all that she was life itself to him, the reality was they had not been together for long—less than a year, which was not long enough for her to have more than a minimal healing ability. A hundred years from now, she would be virtually immortal, but even then she would still need his assistance to heal something this devastating.

A spike of pristine fury stabbed him in the gut. He wanted to tear down the walls of his so-called civilized existence, to destroy every human who had dared to harm her, to lay waste to their foolish little town and leave every one of them bleeding and broken for the buzzards to feast upon.

Cyn moaned softly and Raphael jerked back to awareness, cursing himself. She had felt the strength of his anger and reacted to it. It had hurt her. He had hurt her. He wiped the tears from her eyes and lay down next to her, pulling her gently into the curve of his body, tugging the covers up around them. Ignoring everything else, everyone else, he sank into the depths of his power and pulled Cyn in with him. He would heal her. She would survive. Or they would die together.

Chapter Thirty

Sophia woke with a start, a howl of raw power still thundering in her head. She sat up, heart pounding with adrenaline, her own power roiling just beneath her skin. The sun wasn’t down yet. She could feel it clinging to the horizon and yet she was awake. And she wasn’t alone. Doors slammed open down the hall and footsteps pounded past. Voices were raised everywhere, shouting orders, demanding information.

Sophia closed her eyes and listened. Not to the voices of panic and confusion outside her door, but beyond to that ephemeral something which was the aura of power, the gift of Vampire.

She stretched out her senses as much as she dared in this unfamiliar place. She was a guest here, not welcome but tolerated. She had to be careful. A second wave of fury shook the walls, silencing the noise outside her door, sucking the breath from her lungs. She pressed a hand to her chest, drawing on her own power to insulate her from the anger and the pain that was all but oozing from the walls. Something had happened. Something terrible. Raphael was raging, his unbound wrath waking every vampire in the building, threatening to tear the walls down around them and causing the very air to vibrate for those with senses to feel it. She’d never experienced such raw pain from one so powerful. And she dreaded to discover what could have caused it.

She dressed quickly, pulling a t-shirt and sweater over her head, stepping into her denims and jamming her feet into low boots. She yanked open her door, braiding her long hair as she ran, joining the guards and others who were hurrying in the same direction.

The great room upstairs was controlled chaos. She smelled blood, a lot of it. She turned her head, tracking the scent to a location on the far side of the room, near the hallway to Lord Raphael’s private lair. Two of his vampire guards were removing a couch soaked in blood, another rolling up the rug which had lain before it. Across the way, a door stood open to the large room where she’d met Raphael that first night and she saw Duncan standing just inside, talking to someone out of sight.

She headed that way. Whatever it was that had happened, Duncan would know. No doubt her presence would be unwelcome, but at worst, he’d ask her to leave. And at best, she would find out who was dead. Sophia hurried, determined to find out what had happened before Raphael’s people had a chance to shut her out. This had to be connected somehow to the recent murders and to Lucien’s disappearance. And she wanted to know whose blood had stained the couch red. She could think of no one but Raphael’s mate who could trigger an outpouring of such agonized rage from the powerful vampire lord. But if Cynthia had been injured or if, God forbid, she was dying, how had it happened? And had Colin been with her?

She slowed down when she reached the tall double doors and slipped quietly inside the room. Duncan was there with his back to her, the mountainous Juro by his side. For the first time since she’d arrived, the two were dressed in something less than sartorial perfection. Duncan had clearly pulled on the first thing at hand, a pair of worn sweatpants and a t-shirt, his feet still bare. Juro had managed shoes and a pair of dark slacks, but his plain white shirt was untucked and only half buttoned.

Neither acknowledged her presence, focusing instead on the third person in the room—a human male who was speaking rapidly.

“It was bad, Duncan, as bad as I’ve seen. I don’t know if even Raphael can heal something like that.”

“What happened, do you know?” Duncan asked intently.

The human shook his head, clearly frustrated. “I didn’t ask. Robbie called ahead, warning me they were coming in with her. When they arrived—”

“Who’s they?”

“Ah, I think it was that local policeman—”

“Colin?” The name slipped out before Sophia could stop herself. She froze as everyone turned to stare at her.

“Sophia,” Duncan said in a cool voice. He paused, then tilted his head slightly. “Join us. This is Doctor Peter Saephan, a valued member of Lord Raphael’s staff.” He gestured in her direction. “Sophia, Lucien’s representative.”

Sophia strode forward, nodding an acknowledgment. “What about Colin?” she demanded. “Was he injured?”

“No,” Saephan said, shaking his head. “Well, not that I could see,” he amended. “I mean, he and Robbie were both scratched and bloodied, but I think most of the blood was Cyn’s. Murphy was driving. Robbie was in the backseat with Cyn and . . . Ah, God, Duncan, when I opened that door and saw them . . .”

When he looked up, his eyes were full of misery. “There was nothing I could do for her. Even with a full trauma unit, I don’t know if I—”

“You did what you could, Peter,” Duncan reassured him. “And so did Robbie by bringing her directly here. Where’s Robbie now?”

“I sent him away. I was afraid of what Raphael would do when he saw her. I don’t know—”

“They’re still at the gate,” Juro interrupted. “Murphy refuses to leave until he knows her condition.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Sophia said, keeping her voice every bit as emotionless as Duncan’s.

Duncan turned that impersonal gaze on her once again, his face completely expressionless. “Very well,” he said. “Juro will walk you to the gate.”

Sophia wanted to protest, to say she didn’t need anyone walking her the hundred yards to the damn gate, but decided it wasn’t worth arguing over. This was their compound and she’d only lose.

“As you wish,” she responded impassively.

* * * *

Colin forced himself to remain still, aware of the hostile gazes of the vampire guards who had poured out of the building right after Raphael went ballistic and now seemed to have doubled in number over the last few minutes. Robbie was crouched a few feet away, next to the wall, his head lowered into his hands. He’d washed off most of the blood, using a garden hose near the garage. He’d all but forced Colin to do the same, turning the water on him almost without warning. Colin had thought it inappropriate, a waste of time and effort. Until the vampire guards had shown up to replace their human counterparts. Until every one of them had stared hard at Robbie, nostrils flaring. They’d paid less attention to Colin, but then he’d had less blood to wash away. Robbie had been almost bathed in it.

Colin strode over to his Tahoe just for something to do. It was pretty much wrecked—there were no windows left, except the windshield which was cracked, the body was riddled with bullet holes and the inside was soaking wet from the water they’d used to wash away Leighton’s blood. Not that it mattered. He didn’t care about the damn truck. The only thing that mattered was whether she was dead or alive. And no one seemed able, or maybe willing, to tell him that.

He tightened his hands into impotent fists. It was hard standing around here when what he wanted to do was start looking for the person who’d done this. That voice kept coming back, haunting him. He had to be wrong. It couldn’t have been—

The vampire guards suddenly stiffened to attention. Colin spun around as Raphael’s huge Japanese security chief appeared out of the darkness, followed by—

“Hello, Colin,” Sophia said. Her face was utterly calm, her voice devoid of any emotion.

Colin just stared. This wasn’t Sophie from the village. This wasn’t even the seductress Sophia who’d shown up at his house the other night. This was Sophia in her true vampire visage. Her usually warm brown eyes were frigid pools of black in the low light, her body held haughtily upright. He turned his gaze away, wondering which was her real face, or if any of them were.