His hands, warm, strong, closed around her thighs. He pushed her legs apart and his breath blew against her damp curls.
“Your smell.” His nostrils flared. “I could devour you.”
Um, now, since he was a vamp that could—Oh, damn.
His mouth took her sex. Lips, tongue. Tasting, claiming. Her hands fisted in the sheets. Dee heard a hard rip. Didn’t care.
That mouth.
His tongue swiped over her clit and Dee nearly came off the bed. She squirmed, trying to get away, no, get closer, but his hold stayed tight and strong.
And he took. His tongue drove into her sex.
She climaxed against his mouth. A long, hard wave that trembled through her body.
But he didn’t stop. That tongue tasted and licked and stroked and Dee realized she was calling his name.
Nearly freaking begging. Her.
She swallowed and her nails dug into his back. “Simon!” Demand there.
Command.
One more swipe of that tongue. Her calves stiffened. Oh, sweet hell.
Then he rose above her. Positioned his cock and drove into her.
Yes.
Her legs clamped around him and when he began to thrust and retreat, she shoved right back at him. Harder. Harder.
The bed banged against the wall. Simon’s gaze burned hers. So much fire there. So much need.
He lifted her hips higher, plunged deeper even as his fingers bit into her flesh.
Marking her.
She’d marked him.
Another climax bore down on her. Her sex trembled, tightened, and she tossed back her head.
Simon came, pouring into her.
She watched him. Watched the pleasure, the near-pain of it sweeping over his face.
Then she came, pulsing, throbbing, breaking, beneath him.
Pleasure. So much pleasure.
Enough to nearly die from.
Good thing they were both already dead.
Zane Wynter didn’t glance to the left when he exited the Night Watch building. He didn’t need to look to know that blood still stained the sidewalk.
The blood of hunters.
The scent teased his nose and a growl built in his throat.
Vampires. Hitting here.
Come and get me.
The stakes he’d taken from Dee’s stash were slung in a pack that dangled from one shoulder. He hadn’t needed to sharpen them. Dee always kept her babies in such fine form.
He’d find the assholes, all right.
An eye for an eye. He’d always thought that way.
“Zane!”
He swore at the call. Not one from another Night Watch hunter, but from the cop he sometimes called friend.
A mistake that. Taking humans for friends just led to trouble.
Tony hurried to his side. The guy’s badge flashed. It hung from Tony’s hip. All official-looking. The cop had to be on the clock.
Or hunting, just like he was. Pity they didn’t always play by the same rules.
“I need to find Dee,” Tony said the minute he reached him.
Zane didn’t stiffen. Just stared back at him. “Good luck with that.” Dee. Pak hadn’t called him in when she’d been hurt. Hadn’t told him about what happened, not until the bastard had given Dee a running start.
Pak had always had a soft spot for her. He wouldn’t do what needed to be done. The guy just didn’t understand…
“I—if something ever happens, you’ll come for me, won’t you, Zane?” He could see her so clearly. One hand tight around a stake as she stared down at the still body of a teen, a young girl with blond hair and blood all around her. A girl who’d gone on a killing spree and attacked her two younger sisters. “I’d never want to be like them.”
Dee’s nightmare. One some bastard had made come true.
Pak said she’d adjusted. That she’d maintained control. And that she had a pack of vampires after her ass.
But could any vampire maintain real control? What happened when the bloodlust grew too strong? What happened when Dee turned on an innocent?
“You’ll come for me, won’t you, Zane?”
Good thing they’d never fucked. If they had, knowing what was to come would have made the job so much harder.
Impossible.
Tony grabbed him and shoved Zane back against the side of the building. The bricks bit through his shirt. “I need to find her!”
Tony had slept with her. There was pain there. In his eyes. On his face. “Haven’t seen her.” Truth. Though he had a good idea where to start looking.
Dee would be licking her wounds. She’d need shelter. Someone she could trust.
Mistake.
Tony’s face mottled. The guy had always been so in control. So restrained. One of the reasons why he and Dee hadn’t lasted.
She’d needed a guy who didn’t understand control.
“That bastard Leo bit his own wrists open and the fucking guards didn’t check on him. He was in a padded cell, they thought he was safe. The vamp bled out, bled out!”
Zane blinked at that. Yeah, vamps could die from blood loss, but he’d never heard of a vamp taking his own life that way.
You had to want death pretty badly to take that route.
“Last night, he said some SOB named Grim was after Dee. She needs help. I’ve got to find her, help her—”
At that, Zane knocked the cop back. Tony staggered, nearly fell to the cement. “And how are you gonna help her?” He demanded. “Offer to be her snack?”
A muscle flexed along Tony’s jaw. “She’s not like that. She wasn’t crazy, she was just…Dee.” Sadness again.
Fucking shame.
Tony’s chin jerked up. “I don’t want her to wind up like Gomez or Grace. I don’t want—”
He stiffened. Okay, yeah, this was one of those moments in life that sucked. “Grace was working with the vamps. She lured the hunters out, got them to lower their guards.” Then served them right up to the vampires.
A woman he’d known for years. He’d laughed with her. Talked with her about her dumbass dog. Stolen her coffee more days than he could count.
And she’d set them up.
“What? No, man, she was a vic, same as the others, Grace wouldn’t—”
“We hacked into her hard drive today. Did interviews with family, friends, and we got her doctor to talk.” Patient confidentiality, his ass. That old rule stopped the moment the patient got zipped up in a body bag. “She was dying. Cancer. She had about six months left to live.”
“Christ.”
“You know humans,” Zane said softly, watching the cop carefully. “Once the clock starts running out, they get desperate. They’ll try anything.”
“Hell!” His throat worked. “Grace saw Dee.” He ran his hands over his face. “She was here. She saw Dee change, survive—live.”
Vampire. “Guess it was too much temptation for her. The bastards sent her an e-mail. Told her to bring a trade outside to them. The vamps promised her a new life.”
But just gave her death.
“They’re going after Dee. You know they won’t stop until she’s dead.”
No, they wouldn’t. “It’s time for you to step back, Tony. You’re not strong enough to handle the hell that’s coming.” Not with a Born Master playing in the game.
“I’m not leaving her alone.”
His brows shot up. “Who says she’s alone? Word I have is that Dee’s got a new lover, a vamp who risked the fire for her.” Interesting. In his experience, vamps really didn’t like to burn.
“I don’t trust that bastard.”
Neither did he. “You think he’s setting her up to die?” Grim. That was the Born’s name. Old as frigging dirt. And the older the vamps were, the stronger they were and the harder to kill.
Dee was a newbie. So easy for her to die.
“No,” Tony gritted out. “I think he’s setting her up to kill for him.”
Footsteps shuffled and a woman with short, red hair appeared, rounding the corner. She drew up when she saw them, her eyes widening.