“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Her scream. Dee.
His heart started beating again. He hurried around the side of the beaten metal pile, ready to rip and fight his way to her.
The passenger door flew at him.
Zane hit the ground. What the hell?
“Simon! You open those eyes, you understand me? Open them!” Then he saw Dee, crawling out of the car and dragging her vampire with her. Blood covered her, him, and the woman was snarling and swearing as she jerked out her man.
She stumbled, slipping, and Simon’s weight hit her, knocking her flat.
Zane shoved up to his knees. “Dee!” He should have known the woman wasn’t dead. The ambush the vamps had set on her—yeah, he’d gotten the full details on that one, courtesy of some threats and the skillful use of Jude’s claws—hadn’t succeeded. She was still alive, still fighting and—
She rolled her vampire until he lay on the ground. Her hand smoothed over his cheek. “Simon?”
And Zane realized she didn’t know he was there.
Didn’t know any of them were there.
“We’re out,” she whispered and her fingers left a bloody trail on Simon’s cheek. “Everything’s okay now, we’re out.”
“Oh, sweet hell.” Erin tried to shove past him, but Jude caught her arms and held tight.
“No,” he told her softly, “not when she’s like this. The bloodlust—”
Dee’s head snapped toward them. Zane expected to see the black stare of a vampire driven to desperation, instead, he saw Dee’s warm brown eyes, swimming with tears. “Help him.” A demand, a plea. “Help him.”
Zane reached a hand out to her.
She grabbed him. Damn, but the woman was fast, even with the sun out.
And strong.
Stronger than she should have been.
Her fingers clamped around his wrist. “He needs blood.”
Clenching his jaw, Zane gave a nod. Not what he’d ever do for anyone but her.
Dee used her claws to cut a thin line on his wrist. He held his hand over Simon’s mouth.
“You need blood, too,” Erin said, her voice steady and strong. Zane’s stare jumped to her and he saw that she had her wrist up. “Take what you need.”
Shifters didn’t normally offer up their blood to vamps, but Zane knew there was a friendship between the two women. More than that.
Dee had risked death for Erin on one of the Night Watch cases. When you went to the line for someone like that, a bond formed.
Dee hesitated, but her fangs were already out.
Too much blood loss for both of them.
Chase’s fangs weren’t out yet, a bad sign. With the blood at his mouth, he should have responded by now.
“You saved my life,” Erin reminded her. “It’s my turn.”
Dee took Erin’s wrist. Bit.
Another link. Zane’s attention moved to Jude. He already had his wrist up. The first time that the shifter had ever offered blood to a vamp.
But Dee wasn’t just any vamp. She was one of their own.
After this day, they’d be tied to one another, through Dee, forever.
His breath hissed out as a hot pain sliced his wrist. A quick glance showed that Simon’s fangs were out now.
He just had to make sure the guy didn’t take too much. After all, they had one hell of a fight waiting on them all.
A real bloodbath.
Simon awoke to darkness. Quiet, total darkness. No pain wracked his body. No cold chilled his soul.
Alive.
Or as alive as he could be.
“You scared the hell out of me.” Dee’s voice. Soft, shaking, and coming from right next to him.
His nostrils flared and he inhaled her scent. Rich, sensual. His Dee.
When he concentrated, he heard the drum of her heart. Strong and steady.
He rolled and realized he was in a bed. In a bed with Dee. Don’t need anything else. Simon reached for her and touched warm flesh.
Her lips crushed down on his. A hard, angry kiss. Fury and passion. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” she ordered and kissed him again. Harder.
His mouth opened beneath hers and her tongue swiped inside. Yes. His arms rose and locked around her body.
Her ni**les stabbed into his chest. Naked. He felt every inch of her sweet flesh against him. Every single inch.
She shifted against him, straddling his thighs, and she rose above him. “You nearly died.”
His eyes had adjusted perfectly to the darkness so that he could see that fierce tilt of her jaw. “You were going to live.” The choice had been easy for him.
“Bastard.” Her nails raked down his chest. He didn’t know how they’d both gotten naked, but he sure wasn’t going to complain about it right then. “What the hell gives you the right to make that kind of choice?” she demanded.
He caught her hand. Brought it to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her palm. Because I love you.
Monsters could love. Vampires who stalked the night could feel.
They weren’t soul-less devils. They yearned. They wanted.
They loved.
The woman had worked her way right under his skin and into his soul. He hadn’t even seen the threat coming until it was too late.
But then her heart had trembled and he’d known she was slipping away—my life for hers, in an instant.
Love.
Hell, he knew he’d really fallen for her long before. When he’d first started to watch her. To see how bravely she fought. How fiercely she protected the ones she thought were Innocents.
He blew lightly against her fingers and saw the shiver that worked the length of her body. “I wasn’t going to let you die, not when I could save you.” And she would have died. One look at her injuries and he’d known they were much, much worse than his.
“You do that again…” She lifted onto her knees and glared at him, but had to swallow before she could mumble, “I-I’ll kill you.”
Sweet. He almost smiled. Almost. “Why don’t you f**k me instead?” His c**k was up, so stiff it hurt, and the memory of her cold flesh seared his mind.
Warmth.
Life.
Sex.
He wanted it, her—and he wanted to claim her right then.
Where they were, what the hell had happened to them, how they’d both survived—those details could come later.
Now, he just needed her.
Her fingers wrapped around his cock. Her grip, warm and strong, tightened around him. Simon’s breath hissed out as she guided him to her sex.
Wet—warmer. Hot.
Flesh to flesh. Sex to sex.
His c**k pushed past the quivering lips that guarded her core. He felt the brief resistance of her inner muscles, the strain to accommodate his length. With a flex of his hips, he drove deep in a long, steady glide.