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  A gasp erupted behind him, and he whirled to see three weres in varying forms of transformation creeping down the hallway toward them.

  As he faced them, deep-throated snarls erupted from the wolves.

  The newly installed panic room lay just beyond the three. Quentin guessed they had been about to enter, so at least he knew where Lily was.

  He pushed past Darcy and shoved her against the wall, bending at the last moment to slide his knife from beneath his pant leg. “Watch for your break,” he shouted.

  Still crouched low, he summoned the beast inside, letting his body bulk out with just enough of the monster to even up the odds. When his shirt strained across his shoulders, he lunged at the closest of the wolves—a brindle bastard, fully transformed and nearly foaming at the mouth.

  They met in midair. Quentin rolled with him, coming up on his feet after slashing deep into the wolf’s neck. The next, a dark-furred cur, caught him from behind and knocked him to the ground.

  Darcy shouted and a shot rang out.

  Quentin couldn’t look back. He kicked backward and grabbed for the muzzle locked around the top of his right shoulder. Adrenaline and rage numbed him to the pain of teeth sinking deep into muscle.

  The knife traded hands, and Quentin stabbed over his shoulder, hoping to spear eyes. When the wolf broke his hold with a screeching whine, Quentin came to his knees and slammed the wolf clinging to his back against the wall, at the same time digging his right elbow into a vulnerable belly. With the stunned creature wriggling to come to its paws, Quentin slammed the blood-slick knife in its chest.

  With the red haze of rage threatening to steal his intellect, Quentin pitched through the bedroom door, ready to take the next foe.

  The sight that met his eyes brought a howl of pain and denial. Before the closed panic room door, Darcy lay beneath the bloody claws of a man-wolf, a gaping maw in her belly, her arms and hands nearly shredded. A gun lay on the ground beyond her feet. Darcy hadn’t gone on her walk without backup after all.

  Quentin’s heart screamed and he crouched, ready to spring at the wolf to tear its head from its shoulders, when he saw the slightest movement of Darcy’s lips.

  Thank God! She still lived.

  The monster’s lips pulled back in an unholy grin and he held up a red, wriggling baby, its placental cord dangling from its round belly.

  Quentin had only a moment to note Darcy’s child was a boy with a thick cap of dark curls.

  Then the creature placed the child in his mouth and completed his transformation to wolf, dropping on all fours to the floor.

  The dark wolf approached him and brushed boldly past.

  Quentin clenched his fists and let him pass, fighting the encroaching haze—Darcy lived. The baby was likely already infected by the bite Darcy had received, and if not, it soon would be from the saliva of the wolf using it as a hostage for safe passage out of The Compound. The baby was lost whether the beast ate it or not.

  But Darcy wasn’t—yet. And while she had breath, there was still a chance to save her.

  He crossed the room and knelt beside her, taking her head into his lap, cupping her face between shaking palms.

  Darcy’s eyes fluttered open. “Quentin….the baby,” she whispered, her voice thin, her breath labored. “Save the baby.”

  “I will, love,” he lied and bent to end her life.

  Chapter Two

  Dylan O’Hara contemplated the many ways he intended to make his wife pay for her interminable teasing throughout the long flight from Seattle. Her lush body, encased in a red pantsuit that hugged every sweet curve, was a flag to his snorting bull. The woman had squandered their one opportunity for a quickie when their companions had sequestered themselves in other parts of the plane. She wasn’t near enough for him to give her the spanking she deserved.

  At the moment, Emmy’s lush mouth curved in wicked delight as she pressed her ear to the plane’s bathroom door.

  “For fuck’s sake, Em, give them some privacy,” Dylan said, knowing there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell she’d obey, and wishing he had the lack of decorum to join her. Curiosity about the old Master’s new amour was nearly eating him alive. He’d always thought Navarro was strictly asexual.

  “Shhh!” his wife whispered, a finger to her lips. “There’s a whole lot of moaning goin’ on in there.” Emmy cupped her ear and bent closer. “Wait, she’s doing the please-oh-please thing. Oh! Sidney just told him to bang her like a drum!”

  Dylan pressed his lips together to prevent a grin—he shouldn’t give the minx any further encouragement, but he couldn’t resist. “And what was his reply?” he asked, his voice strained with suppressed amusement.

  “He said he’ll give her the whole damn percussion section if she’ll just be quiet.” She pressed her ear close again and snickered. “God, I wonder if I’m ever that needy-sounding when we’re doing it. It’s kinda embarrassing. Oh! Now she’s doing the praying thing. Must be getting close.”

  Dylan grinned. Emmy was a howler, and her eavesdropping was arousing her—her cheeks flushed a lovely rose, her breaths coming faster.

  Her eyes widened like saucers.

  “What?”

  “He told her to shut up or he’d give her mouth something to chew on for a while.”

  Dylan snorted. “Good man! Only thing that works.”

  Emmy giggled again, and then leapt back when the door beneath her cheek rattled with an insistent pounding from the other side.

  Dylan chuckled and held out his hand. “Em, time to leave them be.”

  His wife wrinkled her nose. “Spoilsport.”

  “You know, Navarro probably knows exactly what you were doing.”

  “Impossible. I was quiet as a mouse.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to remind her that she’d just given him a blow-by-blow commentary that grew louder the more excited she’d gotten. So loud a vamp’s superior hearing wasn’t needed. “Be that as it may, Navarro doesn’t need to hear you with his ears, love.”

  Emmy’s gaze landed on him, startlement causing her to pout her lips. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s got a little something more than the average vamp in the way of powers.”

  “Oh? You mean something besides harnessing an inner demon with superhuman strength, like me?”

  He patted his knee, knowing her curiosity was stronger than her sense of self-preservation. When she perched on his lap, he said, “Yeah, he can enter another person’s mind and see what they see and hear their thoughts.”

  “Really? How come he’s so special?” she asked, her voice breathy as he lifted the blonde hair from her neck for him to nibble.

  “He’s old as Methuselah, sweetheart. The older we vamps get, the more any latent talents we possessed as humans emerge and strengthen.” He shifted her closer and slipped a hand between her thighs.

  “So, you’re like ancient. What superpower do you have?”

  Dylan waggled his eyebrows. “I was counted as a right whore when I was a youngster.”

  “Oh, so your forte is sex?” She grinned and encircled his shoulders with her arms.

  “Didn’t you get lucky?”

  “Not yet,” she said, as she snuggled on his lap, squirming on his aching cock. “What do you suppose I’ll get?” she asked, walking her fingers up his chest.

  He pulsed his hips. “One guess.”

  She pouted her lips again, knowing it drove him crazy. “No, I mean in the way of special powers.”

  He grimaced. “Lord, with your talent for gab, I’ll have to keep that mouth of yours occupied twenty-four-seven.” He cupped the back of her head, bringing her closer for a kiss.

  Her resistance was only for show—to remind him who was really doing the seducing here.

  Dylan recognized the glint in Emmy’s eyes and wondered whether the aft coat closet had enough room to play her favorite game—”Hide the Sausage”.

  Just as his mouth closed on hers, the door to the c
aptain’s cabin slammed.

  Emmy drew back, and they both turned toward Joe Garcia as he barreled out—his jaw straining, his hands clenched at his side, his eyes wild and hard as obsidian.

  Dylan set Emmy on the seat beside him and stood. “What’s happened?”

  Joe’s chest heaved and his dark eyes lightened to gold as he attempted to curb his inner demon.

  Dylan grabbed his arm. “Joe!”

  The younger vamp’s lips thinned. “The hangar team just called to give us a heads-up—we’ve got trouble at The Compound.”

  * * * * *

  Navarro crept toward the outer wall of The Compound with Joe Garcia and Emmy and Dylan O’Hara at his back. They’d followed the musty scent of wolf from a point beyond the highway where the wolves had been dropped, down the long drive to the wall that surrounded The Compound, and right up to the front gate.

  “How the hell did they get through this gate?” Dylan whispered, his hands gripping the iron spokes. “Not only is it supposed to be guarded, you need electronic key access.”

  “Which isn’t working at the moment,” Joe snarled.

  “I’m worried about the security force,” Emmy said, wringing her hands.

  Navarro searched the air for scent, ignoring the overpowering lupine stench. “I don’t smell blood.”

  Dylan’s expression hardened. “An inside job?”

  Joe’s jaw tightened. “Fuck Max! I’ll kill him myself.”

  A ragged howl—vampire, not lycan—erupted from within.

  “Inside now,” Navarro said. Gathering tension in his muscles, he crouched low before leaping to the top of the thick curtain wall and down to the ground on the other side.

  The others landed beside him, bodies and faces honing with vampiric bloodlust, teeth bared.

  Navarro pointed to his eyes then at Emmy and Dylan, indicating they should circle the house to search. Joe, he kept behind him, determined to rein in the young vampire’s rage. Joe would be no help to his wife Lily, still inside The Compound, if he let his inner beast surface now.

  Navarro was glad his woman, Sidney, was still with the limousine parked farther down the road along with the three geneticists they’d brought from Seattle. That he’d had to give the limo driver orders to sit on her if she tried to follow filled him with grim amusement. Sidney might try to beg, cajole, threaten or lie to get her way, but the driver wouldn’t risk displeasing a Master, no matter how tempting the sexy little baggage could be.

  He could well imagine how Joe felt at the moment, wondering whether his woman still lived. Only last night, Sidney had been in Zachary Powell’s grasp, with the winged vamp ready to make a meal of her. Navarro drew in a deep steadying breath and focused on the task before them, stretching out his mind to search the grounds for an animal’s intellect…but finding nothing.

  Along the outer walkway encircling the house, one door stood ajar. Navarro and Joe slipped through it, following the scent-trail of wolf through the room, the foyer, and up the long curved staircase.

  At the top of the stairs, Navarro found the remains of two men sprawled on the landing, wolf-stink clinging to their naked skin, stab wounds leaking blood sluggishly into the carpet.

  Joe shoved him from behind. “Lily!” His whisper was harsh.

  Navarro pushed him back and entered the bedroom first, finding at last the tangy musk of human blood—a lot of it.

  On the floor lay a woman, her stomach opened, gray entrails visible inside a gaping wound. Blood seeped steadily, darkening her blue dress. Her face was ashen, her features pale and lifeless. Quentin Albermarle crouched over her, draining what was left of her life, his harsh breaths punctuating each long draw.

  So this was Quentin’s new wife. Navarro shuddered. The agony etched on the other vampire’s face and the destruction of a young, vital human, who minutes ago had been filled with the promise of new life, produced a heavy ache in the center of his chest.

  Pushing back feelings that threatened to overwhelm him, Navarro’s gaze fell on the woman’s wounds, the ragged tears made by claws and the deeper gouges that could only indicate a wolf’s bite. “Quentin, you must let her go.”

  The golden-haired vampire lifted his face, a look of pure hatred twisting his features. “Try to stop me and I’ll kill you! Get out!” he snarled, lisping a bit around his elongated fangs. He raised his wrist to his mouth and slashed it open with his teeth. Then he held it above the dying woman’s slackened mouth and let his blood drip onto her tongue.

  “Sweet Jesus!” Joe jostled past Navarro and stared down at the couple, his body trembling. “Darcy,” he said, his cry anguished.

  Quentin’s face hardened, and his shoulders bunched. His jaws opened wide around a roar as his gaze narrowed on Joe.

  Navarro found the tension between the two vamps telling. So despite their seeming truce, not all issues were resolved between the two vampires regarding Quentin’s wife. Understanding Joe’s grief for the loss of his child and soon his former lover, nevertheless Navarro grasped Joe’s shoulder to hold him back.

  Joe tried to shrug off his hand and fisted his own at his sides. He closed his eyes and turned. “Lily,” he whispered. “I have to go to Lily.”

  Navarro released him and took a step back.

  Joe skirted Quentin and his woman and ran to the metal door beyond, pounding on it. “Lily, are you in there?” he shouted, his voice thickening with the need to fully transform.

  With emotions running thick and thoughts whirling and clashing like Hell’s demons, Navarro fought the urge to release his own inner beast. He could commiserate with their pain, but he couldn’t permit it to suffocate him. Focus! He fought the bloodlust and the red haze receded.

  “Joe?” a woman’s voice, broken and thick with emotion, sounded from the speaker next to the door.

  Joe slumped against the metal. “Baby, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. What about Darcy? I can’t see her on the monitor. Joe, what’s happened to Darcy?”

  Joe’s gaze fell on the dying woman, and his eyes filled. “Stay inside until it’s safe. Don’t open the door until I tell you.”

  “Joe!” she cried out.

  Navarro grabbed his arm. “Sweep the house. Make sure there aren’t any more cur-dogs inside.” Best to keep him busy venting his rage in a productive way—and keep him away from Quentin.

  Joe’s shoulders bunched, a refusal on his lips, and his gaze fell on Darcy one last time. Then he nodded and left the room.

  Alone with Quentin and his dying wife, Navarro hesitated. Since he’d opened his heart’s door to Sidney, sentiment flooded in, bringing overpowering surges of anger and grief. He felt awkward, even inadequate, but needed to offer comfort, while at the same time issuing a command that would devastate one of only two men on the planet he considered friends.

  He knelt beside Quentin and placed his hand on the other vampire’s shoulder. “Quentin, you have to let her go. She was bitten by a wolf.”

  Quentin reared back his head and roared, his face crackling as his vampire mask presented fully. He snarled, but kept his hand poised above the woman’s unmoving lips.

  Navarro understood his pain, but he also understood the woman’s soul was already gone—stolen by a wolf’s bite. If she were turned to a vampire now, her bloodlust would be uncontrollable. If she lived.

  Blood pooled in her mouth and she had yet to swallow.

  Navarro’s jaw clenched at the gruesome evidence of her suffering. For so long he’d kept himself apart from others, building a wall around his heart. Their thoughts, their pain, even their joys had made him writhe inside. Over time, his heart had grown cold—and blissfully inured. Until Sidney. She had changed all that in just a few days. What would he do if he were faced with the same gut-wrenching decision?

  Perhaps he had only to bide his time and let Quentin come to the realization his woman was lost to him. Her body was likely too damaged to withstand the transformation anyway.

  He rose and backed away, then
closed the door behind him to shut out the sounds of Quentin’s anguished breaths as he sobbed, his lifeblood seeping away as surely as Darcy Albermarle’s humanity.

  * * * * *

  The wolf rushed through the open door, into the darkened room beyond, its claws clattering on the tiled floor.

  Woman! Mate! It had to find her.

  Following wolf scent and the musty odor of blood, it sped through the room and up the curved staircase toward the light beckoning at the top.

  Heedless of any danger, the wolf charged upward, stretching its limbs to leap several steps at a time in its desperation to find her—the slim, dark-haired one.

  At the top of the stairs, the wolf came to a halt, hackles rising on shoulders and back at the smell of blood—wolf blood. Bodies stretched on the floor before it, blood soaking the carpet beneath its paws. But what gave the animal pause were the looming, growling figures that faced it, standing above the corpses.

  Enemy! Danger breathed in their combined rage.

  The wolf started forward, first left then right, retreat being impossible because the dark-haired woman was nearby and sobbing. The sounds of her harsh cries brought up a howl that echoed in the narrow hallway.

  The wolf heard the sounds the men made, harsh and loud, echoing in the hallway, but didn’t comprehend, only recognized the hatred tightening the voice of the nearest manlike creature.

  Another sob drew its attention, just as the nearest foe leapt, wrapping powerful arms around the wolf’s throat—so tight it couldn’t breathe. It wriggled and jerked, gnashing teeth, but the man held fast to the wolf while another drew a shining rope over its muzzle.

  Another spate of harsh sounds and a moment later, a jolt knocked the breath from its body and brought the wolf to its haunches, leaving it quivering in the aftermath. Still, it fought to stand.

  Another jolt, this time searing in its ferocity left the wolf powerless, its tongue lolling from between its jaws. Blackness encroached, and in the moment before it surrendered, the wolf knew itself trapped.