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  “No one’s going to hurt you,” Tonĩ repeated. “As long as you cooperate.”

  Pändra sucked in the garage smells—oil, petrol, WD-40, Windex—to tamp down another upsurge of Rău. The demon state was flaring up to protect her, but Rău often did her more harm than good.

  Somewhere out of sight, a door slammed, followed by the thunder of running feet.

  “They’re coming.” Tonĩ strode forward, palm outstretched. “I’ll need your immortality ring now, Pändra.”

  She made no move to comply.

  She rarely took off her ring, certainly never removed it in an overtly threatening situation like this one. And hard-shit to anyone who wanted to force it off. Bribe, threaten, torture…there wasn’t anything anyone could do to confiscate her ring if she didn’t fancy having it removed.

  Except for Tonĩ. Aye, Mürk had firsthand knowledge of Tonĩ’s extraordinary ability to get around Raymond’s enchantment and remove their rings without receiving a shock.

  Pändra supposed that meant her ring was coming off, will her, nil her. So, either she could continue to stand here being a stubborn knothead, and then the Vârcolac would hold her down—maybe tank her full of more of that enchanted drug—and take her ring off that way. Or she could make a show of being “cooperative.”

  “Very well.” Pändra held out her right hand to Tonĩ, her brows arched high. Let’s see if you can do what they say you can, Sunshine.

  Tonĩ slipped her ring right off.

  Blimey…

  Tucking the ring into a small box, Tonĩ trousered it.

  Ice washed through Pändra’s belly. “I thought you only needed to change me into real blood for this Thomal chap?”

  “That’s true,” Tonĩ responded.

  “But you’re not giving me my ring back?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Right. I almost forgot. You want to leave the snuffing-Pändra option open to the Rău-vamp over there, don’t you?”

  “Please don’t refer to my people as vamps, Pändra.”

  The pounding feet grew louder, and then four men exploded into the garage.

  A nattily dressed black-haired Vârcolac with a medical bag rushed in first, casting a surprised glance at the zonked-out vamp. Next came Sideburns and her nemesis, Crumpet, the two carrying a fourth limp bloke. They had the fellow propped between them, each with a hand under the chap’s thighs and the fellow’s arms looped around their necks, making it look like he was sitting in an invisible chair. Or slumped in a chair, as the chap’s head was lolling off his shoulders as if held there by no more than an imaginary length of fishing line.

  “Put him against her,” Crumpet ordered Sideburns. “Hurry!”

  The unconscious fellow was shoved into Pändra’s body. He drooped against her, his breath cold as deep water fish against her flesh. She quickly stepped back.

  “Don’t move, you fucking whore!” Crumpet lashed out a fist, the punch catching Pändra with a vicious crosscut to the jaw.

  Her head whipped to the side so hard she felt her cervical vertebrae grate together. Her lungs bottomed out of air. Bejesus, she hadn’t been braced for that.

  “Arc…” Tonĩ began.

  “See what you’ve done to him!” Crumpet bellowed at Pändra.

  Pändra back-paced several more steps, little spasms leaping through her belly like a herd of hunted gazelles. The garage rolled arse over kettle before her eyes, then righted itself. Bile was a rotten lemon in her throat. Now that her ring was gone, all the aches and pains from her recent fighting bouts were coming to life, some nagging, most screaming: kneecaps, cheek, kidneys… Crumpet’s punch to her face just now was really fecking reminding her that her jaw had been broken by Whopping Vamp a short time ago. She had the sudden, silly urge to lie down.

  “Hey, I got this.” The Vârcolac with the goatee came down off the elevator platform and walked up to Crumpet’s side, speaking quietly. “This has been a tough couple of weeks, Arc. So why don’t you let me take care of Thomal on this one?” Without waiting for an reply, Goatee pulled Thomal out of Crumpet’s hold, then looked at Pändra. “You ready to give this a shot?”

  She didn’t budge, didn’t answer, too overwhelmed by another ludicrous urge. She wanted to hum the song Inga used to sing to her when Pändra’s childhood world would spin into a rage, an all-too-often occurrence in a house full of half-demons and a father who always insisted on his own way, and woe betide the person who didn’t give it to him.

  Där satt en liten fågel i päronatä. Å sjongde så många vackra viser…

  A little bird sat in the pear-tree. And sang so many beautiful songs…

  But that was before Pändra had grown into a woman and learned that life was to crush or be crushed.

  “Look, Pändra,” Goatee said. “Thomal’s one of my best friends and I don’t like to see him hurt. But you released my wife, Marissa, from Raymond’s control, so I don’t have a beef with you. I only want you to make my friend better. Can we be cool with that?”

  Why was it so ridiculously relieving to learn that there was at least one person here who didn’t want to have her guts for garters? The pain of her injuries making her weak-minded? She took a step forward, catching a better gander at Thomal. Shitting hell, this was the man she’d sported with nine nights back? Couldn’t be. Her bloke had been unfathomably attractive, golden skin, sharply carved features, vibrant blond hair, and iridescent blue eyes flecked with gold. He’d had a docking great body, too, a perfect combination of muscle and leanness. His sleek, supple form had suggested the ability to move at lethal speeds while the width of his shoulders and the honed shape of his muscles promised his agility came with substantial strength.

  At first she’d been so focused on his brother, the crumpet, she hadn’t realized how attractive this one—this Thomal—was. She’d wager that was a common mistake, too. Most women probably thought Crumpet was the better looking of the two brothers. But no.

  Either man could’ve been splashed all over the cover of GQ magazine, without question, but it was Thomal’s face which hadn’t been Photo-shopped into plastic perfection. A tiny scar nicked through his right brow, his lips were a little off-center, and his eyes were full of a hidden darkness; profound waters moving through his soul, warning that he just might be fighting as many inner demons as she was. All of this gave Thomal character, and made him way more handsome than his brother.

  That magnificent fighting animal was gone now, though, reduced to a Raggedy Andy doll in the arms of Goatee—who she now knew was Nichita. Thomal was definitely on the verge of death, with sallow skin stretched like parchment over wasting muscles and his shimmering blond hair faded to a sickly straw color. A strange knot gnarled up Pändra’s heart. How long would this man have lasted if boredom hadn’t lured her out to the San Diego airport tonight. One day? Two? The thought was oddly disturbing.

  She nodded. “All right.”

  Nichita moved forward.

  “Wait a moment, Devid,” Natty interceded. “I’ll need to shock Thomal. His fangs won’t elongate without it. He’s too far gone.” The doctor opened his medical bag and pulled out two long probes, wires trailing down to a black box.

  Nichita changed his hold, securing Thomal against his chest with one arm, the other hand pressing Thomal’s head back to his shoulder. “Okay, Doc. Fire away.”

  “You’ll feel this, too,” Natty warned.

  “Just light him up.”

  Dr. Natty set the probes onto each of Thomal’s canines and squeezed the trigger. A small bulb on the box blinked on.

  A biting snarl whiplashed out of Nichita.

  Thomal’s body went rigid, his spine bowing, the cords in his neck knotting up. The light went out, and Thomal wilted lifelessly in Nichita’s arms again, his thick, dark blond lashes lying against his cheeks like the wings of a dead bird.

  Crumpet howled.

  Curses erupted from the warriors.

  Nichita gave Pändra a steady look. “I need your he
lp,” he told her quietly. “Thomal has to get your scent into his head, okay?”

  Feeling right knackered at this point, she didn’t protest when Nichita propelled Thomal toward her again, pressing him right up against her body. With a hand on the back of Thomal’s head, Nichita angled his friend’s face into her neck.

  She stood there, arms limp at her sides. Her body hummed as Thomal’s breath hit her flesh in ragged bursts. If memory served, this bloke’s bite gave quite a lot of pleasure and, as shagged out as she felt at present, she could stand with a bit of that. “He’s warmed a bit,” she told Nichita.

  Nichita pulled Thomal back. “Hit him again, Doc,” he told Natty.

  Natty set his probes. The small bulb reignited.

  Thomal came awake with a shout, thrashing in Nichita’s embrace, his body convulsing and his legs kicking out.

  His left foot missed Pändra by mere millimeters.

  “Hey, man, it’s me, Dev. Everything’s fine. Your woman’s here and you gotta feed now, okay?” Nichita placed Thomal against Pändra once more.

  Thomal’s chin came to rest on her shoulder and he shuddered against her, a jumble of quaking, shivering muscles, his body jerking over and over. A low growl reverberated out of him and then his head came up, his eyes locking on hers like blue laser beams.

  The two of them stood frozen in place, suspended in a strange tableau for she didn’t know how long. She started to speak, but…what was she supposed to say? So sorry about all that raping bosh, my good man, didn’t mean to give offense seemed…rather gauche. She wasn’t sure if she was sorry, anyway.

  Thomal broke contact first. With another low growl, he lurched against Nichita’s hold and drove his fangs into her throat.

  She tensed, then air eased out of her lungs. His bite didn’t hurt this time. She gripped his shoulders as the sound of his frantic gulping filled the garage. Her eyesight grew fuzzy at the corners, but she still could make out Nichita, forehead bowed to the middle of Thomal’s back, and everyone else in the garage, also with lowered heads, as if to give them privacy for some intimate act. But they were only—

  Oh, my giddy aunt. Her belly liquefied. She’d bloody well forgotten how intense the pleasure of this was. A quiet moan slid out of her before she could catch it back. She was suddenly sitting on a volcano, hot lava ecstasy boiling up all around her, lifting her up until it felt like she was floating outside of her own body on a cloud of steam. The heated sensations seeped into every cell, swirling through her body in hundreds of mini twisters that funneled directly into her naughty bits. Her knees turned to porridge, joining her belly in the land of mush. She dug her fingers into Thomal’s shoulders as her nethers throbbed with a primal, aching need, wetness slicking the area. She arched in his hold, only a thin remnant of willpower keeping her from slamming her hips forward into Thomal’s and biting him back: his earlobe, his throat, his nipples…

  With a torn breath, Thomal extracted those lovely ivories from her neck and surged back against Nichita.

  She stumbled out of Thomal’s hold, her lungs working heavily.

  Thomal’s eyes glinted like sapphires, his cheeks ruddy with color. His wanger was erect as a Scottish caber in his trousers.

  She swallowed carefully. Intimate, indeed. Her own knickers were practically stuck to her.

  Nichita lifted his head. “How’re you doing, man? Can you stand now?”

  Thomal didn’t answer. His chest moving, he kept his attention nailed on her, his face a churning cauldron of savage emotions, too many for her to read. She was savvy enough to ken most weren’t good, though.

  Tonĩ broke the spell. “Oh, crap,” she hissed.

  They all turned around.

  Visible over the backseat of the Lincoln Town Car were two identical faces, both wearing the same expression of utter, jaw-breaking shock.

  Faith and Kacie Teague had regained consciousness and been watching this drama play out for…how long?

  To judge by the looks on their faces, they’d seen every blooming thing.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Faith sat with the cup and saucer balanced on her knees, the tea cold, the spoonful of honey she’d added two hours ago congealed at the bottom like a modern art blob. She’d barely been able to swallow, much less drink anything, during Dr. Parthen’s lengthy explanation of everything that had…happened…in that garage.

  All three of them, Faith, Kacie, and Dr. Tonĩ Parthen, were currently gathered in the sitting area of a well-appointed bedroom located on the third floor of some glorious mansion. The door to the room was decorated with an opulently painted mural of a Flamenco dancer in traditional Spanish dress, her skirts flared out in swirl of color against the backdrop of a soaring cathedral.

  Inside, the décor was equally dramatic. The walls were covered with dark red velvet wallpaper inlaid with golden whorls, a huge four-poster bed had swags of gold cloth draping the canopy, and over in the sitting area, where they were now, a three-foot-tall earthenware urn was filled with bright silk flowers of the type a Flamenco dancer might wear in her hair. The three of them were seated on iron-framed, black-cloth-upholstered furniture, Dr. Parthen in an armchair, Faith and Kacie on a couch.

  When the doctor had first arrived, a man in a white serving coat had trailed her inside, pushing a tea cart. As if Darjeeling, scones, triangle-cut cucumber sandwiches, and salmon canapés—none of which a ballet dancer would eat, by the way—could soften the blow of what was about to come next. Not quite.

  “I realize everything I’ve just told you sounds far-fetched.” Dr. Parthen’s slim hands were folded in her lap, her legs elegantly crossed.

  Far-fetched? Faith smiled wanly. According to the last two hours’ worth of explanations, they were currently in a town built inside a subterranean cave, complete with its own plumbing, electricity, Internet, houses, a water park, football field, movie theatre, several restaurants, and myriad shops. It was a refuge for a human species called Vârcolac. This species’ blood makeup was different from “regular” humans, requiring them to frequently ingest blood by biting a host using a set of…No, she couldn’t even think that word.

  Oh, and also demons, referred to as Om Rău, lived in a neighboring town and caused all kinds of trouble. Up in the city of San Diego, which was “topside,” there was another group of these nasty characters under the leadership of the now-infamous Raymond Parthen. This Raymond had wanted to capture Faith and her sister for some kind of special DNA they possessed—looked like Wolverine had been telling the truth at the airport—called “Dragon.” This was the same gene which most of the other humans living in this town carried…except Faith and Kacie owned a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious version of it, making them Royal Dragons. Faith sighed. Like most little girls, she had once dreamed of waking up one day to find out she was actually a princess, but this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind by being dubbed royalty.

  Honestly, she didn’t know what she’d had in mind after seeing all she had in that garage. She and Kacie had been left alone in this bedroom for only about fifteen minutes before Dr. Parthen had arrived with the tea. In that short time, “ketamine-induced hysteria” and “cruel prank” were about all they’d come up with. Unfortunately, everything they’d seen had looked very real.

  Drawing a shallow breath, Faith scrunched her toes together inside her shoes, rubbing her calluses together. Too much excitement with Adonis, Wolverine, and their aberrant gang, plus being drugged, were making her punchy. Not to mention that everything had happened after a cross-continental flight which had landed her in California with three hours of jet lag; her body said it was 1:00 o’clock in the early morning, her watch read 10:00 at night local San Diego time, but down here, it was actually 10:00 in the morning. She was really starting to feel like vomiting should be her next course of action.

  Dr. Parthen smiled reassuringly. “Luckily, you two are way ahead of where most people begin when they come to Ţărână. You’ve already seen for yourselves the truth of every
thing I’ve described.”

  They had, at that. Faith swallowed tautly, the tea cup clinking softly beneath her trembling fingers.

  “Do you have any more questions?” Dr. Parthen asked.

  Faith pushed to her feet and crossed to the tea cart, setting her cup and saucer down on it. “I just think…we need some time to let everything percolate for a bit, doctor.”

  “Of course. Take all the time you need.” Dr. Parthen rose from her chair. “The Lucerne room two doors down has been prepared for your use, as well.” Apparently every bedroom door in his mansion was painted with a different European theme to distinguish one from the other. “Rest a bit, and I’ll be back at dinnertime to give you two a tour of the town. Hopefully when you see what a great community we have here, it’ll help you decide to stay.”

  Faith offered up another pallid smile, the best she could manage at the moment. She’d lived her entire life in big cities, her days and evenings filled with dancing, rehearsals, fittings, dinners, the theatre, and premieres. She didn’t need more than a peek outside her bedroom window at the dinky town of Ţărână to know she absolutely did not want to stay.

  Dr. Parthen extracted what looked like a small cosmetic pot from her pocket. “You’ll need to wear this special mud before either of you can go into town. A double hit of Royal scent will knock the single men over like bowling pins.”

  Faith moved her brows together.

  Dr. Parthen chuckled. “That’ll make sense once you’ve read the community manual, which I left for you on the desk.” She crossed to the nightstand and set the cosmetic pot there. “A dollop behind each ear will do. It’s been cleaned and treated to remove allergens. It’s sticky, though. All right. You have my cell number if any questions or problems arise.” She paused at the door. “I would like to apologize once again that you two were drugged. I can relate to how disconcerting and frightening it feels. I also want to reiterate that you were brought here for your own safety. You’re free to go at any time. I only ask that you carefully consider the danger that Raymond now poses to you before you make such a decision.” With a nod, Dr. Parthen opened the door. “See you soon.”