But the sweet relief was temporary. His tongue flicked over the hard nub as his mouth drew deeply and his hands caressed and massaged both breasts. Her breath left her, leaving her gasping for air and bucking beneath him. God, if this wasn’t a dream she’d be humiliated by the way she’d clenched one of his thick thighs between hers and was pumping against him, on the verge of orgasm already.

She clung to his massive shoulders, and when she dug her nails into his skin he let out an erotic, encouraging growl. “That’s it,” he murmured against her breast. “Take what you want.” He shifted his h*ps and let his hand drift down, flattening over her abdomen and then dipping between her legs. “Oh, damn… you’re wet. So f**king wet.”

His fingers slid back and forth through her cleft, and on each upstroke, he gently rolled her cl*tbetween his fingertips, bringing her to the edge each time.

He was cruel. Skilled. Devious. She wanted it all and then some.

Still working her br**sts with his tongue, he pushed a finger inside her, and they both groaned. He began a slow, steady rhythm with his hand, working the ring of her entrance with his finger, working tight circles around her cl*twith his thumb. He brought his lips to her ear and nipped her lobe gently. “Do you like to be touched like this?”

Her h*ps bucked, and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.”

“Good. I want to touch you a lot more.”

She thrashed wildly, wanting more but unable to voice her desire because she was caught in a maelstrom of pleasure so intense she couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe.

“That’s it. Let go, Serena.” He added another finger and slid them in and out, faster, but his thumb stopped circling. He applied steady, vibrating pressure to exactly the right spot, and commanded her, “Let go now.”

She did, with a scream he captured with his mouth. Colors exploded behind her eyes as she shattered. Before she even came down, he ripped open his fly the rest of the way and entered her hard. She knew there should be pain, not just because of her hymen but because he was huge, and not gentle. But this was a dream, a perfect, wonderful dream that felt so real she wondered if she’d be sore in the morning.

She grasped his shoulders, soft skin stretched tight over steely muscle, and clenched her thighs around his waist, taking him deep and making the ache inside throb.

“You still don’t want slow and gentle?”

“No. Please… just move.” This felt so good, so right, and when he began to pump his hips, the aftershocks from the first orgasm turned into the forewarnings of a second one.

“Ah… fuck.” His head fell back, the tendons in his neck straining, his mouth open in male ecstasy, his canines elongated into fangs.

Fangs?

He dropped his head forward again, eyes focused like gold lasers on her. “I’m a vampire, Serena.” He thrust into her so forcefully she banged her head on the headboard, but she didn’t care. She was lost to sensation, pleasure, won-der, and wow—he was a vampire. How cool was that?

“Will you bite me? I mean… are you going to?” Please say yes.

“Hell, yeah. I want to take you inside me, like you’ve taken me inside you.” He licked her neck in a brief, wet stroke. “Does that scare you?”

Unease flickered in her belly, because it didn’t scare her, and what did that say about her? “No,” she moaned, “it doesn’t.”

He nuzzled her throat where he’d tasted her. “Did you know some vampires can orgasm if their teeth are stroked? Would you do that? Run your fingers up and down my fangs until I came?”

“Yes…” She wanted to touch them, lick them… but he didn’t give her the chance. In an instant, he was at her throat, his fangs cutting into her flesh. There was no pain, only the most amazing pleasure as he began to suck.

Her orgasm tore through her, a stinging pleasure so intense it nearly hurt. He joined her, his body convulsing, his mouth pulling until she felt dizzy. But it was a good dizzy, and as his weight settled on top of her, she couldn’t imagine not knowing this kind of bliss again.

“I don’t want this dream to end,” she whispered, as she sifted her fingers through his hair.

She felt the warm caress of his tongue over the bite, and then he lifted his head and peered at her through sad blue eyes. “I don’t, either.”

He seemed surprised at his own admission, and then he was gone, and she was alone.

She was awake. This time, she was really awake. She sat up in bed, slapped a shaking hand over her neck. There was no pain. No wound. But her body tingled and her sex throbbed with the sensation of a recent release. Could women have wet dreams? Obviously, because that had been the most intense, realistic dream she’d ever had, and she was definitely wet.

Wet, and now, more than ever, craving the one thing she could never have.

The floor beneath Wraith fell away. Groaning, he dropped to his knees in front of Serena’s hotel room door. He kept one hand braced on it for support, but that didn’t help the fact that he could barely suck air into his lungs, his fangs pulsed, and his dick was so hard it might break

Breathe, motherfucker. Breathe.

Pain rocketed from his throbbing balls into his groin, and he doubled over, waited for the agony to pass. This was the dark side of his ability to get inside someone’s head and make them think anything he wanted them to. The Seminus gift was intended to be used on females in order to make them receptive to sex, and it worked… but he was supposed to actually be in the same room with them so he could get out of their heads and into their bodies to make the imagined sex a reality.

But he’d fallen victim to his own gift, something that had never happened before. He’d been so into the dream sex he’d planted in Serena’s mind that he’d not only finished it in her dream, but he’d revealed his vampire self. And asking her if she’d fangjerk him? He couldn’t come like that any more than he could with a handjob.

Has to be the poison. Making him sick. Weak.

He ached. He throbbed. He was jonesing so hard for sex that he was a danger to both himself and any female who might be unlucky enough to walk down the hall. At this point, he had two choices: He could hunt down a female or he could stumble back to his room and inject himself with the libido-relieving drug Eidolon had developed to keep Wraith level while he was on this mission. Eidolon had tested the drug on himself, and though it hadn’t worked on him, he’d been certain that in Wraith’s weakened condition it should suffice.

It had to. Eidolon had suspected that in order to seduce Serena, Wraith would have to get both her and himself worked up multiple times, and it would look suspicious if he kept having to excuse himself to find a female to screw.

Wraith had figured he’d have Serena in bed before debilitating pain became an issue, but he’d seriously under-estimated her willingness to hang on to her virginity.

And the charm.

And her life.

Head spinning, he lurched to his feet and somehow made it to his room at the end of the hall. Once inside, he dug through his backpack to the nylon med kit E had stuffed full of a variety of pill bottles and pre-filled syringes full of medications to help relieve the pain and nausea he experienced as the poison ate away at his organs—and his life.

He found the bottle of the libido drug, drew two ccs with a shaking hand, and jabbed himself in the thigh. Almost instantly, the maddening desire to find a female melted away, though he really could go a round with one. The images of being inside Serena kept playing through his mind in agonizingly slow motion, every detail as real as if it had been a true memory. He could smell her, taste her, feel her.

He’d never, ever wanted to bed a human before. Not like this. They’d been forced on him, and he’d nearly taken one—Kynan’s wife, no less—during a fit of bloodlust, but he’d never actually allowed himself to be attracted to one. How could he, after what he’d been forced to endure… after what he’d been forced to do to them. There were too many memories gnawing away at him, too many nightmares lurking in his sleep.

He tossed the syringe into the trash and stumbled to the bathroom for a glass of water. When he looked into the mirror and saw his reflection, he dropped the glass, shattering it on the counter.

His personal symbol, the hourglass, had changed. Oh, it was still an hourglass, still inverted. But more of the sand had drained to the bottom, marking time he didn’t have.

Eight

“He’s crashing!” Gem moved away from her patient’s head, where she’d been securing a Sora male’s breathing tube, and quickly crunched a set of compressions into his broad chest. “Page Shade,” she snapped, and Chu-Hua, a Guai nurse who resembled a wild boar on two legs, dove for the intercom.

“It’s not working!”

“Shit! Then get him.”

-Chu-Hua lumbered off, and Gem cursed under her breath. Things were breaking all over the hospital, always at critical moments—Murphy’s Law in action. Wraith had better get into that human’s pants, and fast.

“I’ve got a pulse.” Shawn, a vampire physician assistant, didn’t bother to hide the relief in his voice. This Sora was a victim of an Aegis slayer’s stang, and no one wanted to see a demon die at the hands of the enemy.

“We need to get him into surgery. That hole in his gut needs to be plugged.” Gem hit the intercom button, remembering too late that it didn’t work. “Anyone know if the OR is ready?”

-Chu-Hua stepped into the room. “I can’t find Shade, but Dr. Shakvhan is ready in OR two.”

Within moments, Gem had the patient, whose normally bright red skin had faded to a bleached brick color, wheeled to the operating room. She volunteered to assist, but Shakvhan and Reaver could handle things more expertly there than Gem could. She was better at adrenaline-fueled emergency patch jobs and routine, minor medical procedures than she was at surgery, which required stamina, patience, and a steady hand.

Exhausted, she tossed her bloody gloves and gown and headed back to the emergency department. She’d been working for sixteen hours straight, and still there was no end in sight. The hospital was seriously understaffed, and naturally, the slayers had been extra busy.

The only break she’d had since the underworld had gone nutso was last night, when she’d met an impossibly handsome demon named Lore, and he’d asked her out for coffee. Apparently, he’d been heading into the hospital because he was interested in a medical career, so he’d picked her brain about the hospital, how it got started, the staff… anything she cared to share.

Afterward, she’d invited him to Vamp, the Goth club where she liked to hang out, and he’d agreed. They’d spent the evening doing some rather daring dirty dancing, though he’d never taken off his jacket and gloves.

She wondered if he was scarred beneath his clothes, or maybe if he was hiding some demon feature unique to whatever species he belonged, like scales or quills.

Maybe next time she saw him, she’d get him undressed.

It was about time she got over Kynan and got back on the dating horse, and Lore, with his off-the-charts danger-and-sex vibe, might be just the guy to ride.

And this time around with a guy, she was calling the shots.

The doors to the ambulance bay slid open, shaking her out of her thoughts. She hoped like hell whoever entered wouldn’t be another patient.

“Hey, Gem.” Kynan Morgan walked into the ER like he owned it, halting mere feet away, so close she could smell the leather of his jacket and the natural male spice that made her world tilt, and she had to catch herself on a crash cart.

With spiky dark hair that begged her to run her fingers through it, eyes the color of new denim, and tan skin stretched over perfect, angular features, Kynan was as handsome as ever. Beneath his jeans, black henley, and bomber jacket, he had a lean, powerful athlete’s body to freaking die for. She’d seen it back when he used to come into the human hospital where she’d worked, way back when she thought he was nothing more than a married man who took in street kids and put them on the path to a good life.

The truth, that he and his wife had headed a local Aegis cell, hadn’t changed her feelings for him. Sure, he’d killed demons for a living, but her heart hadn’t cared about that. Especially after his wife died and he quit The Aegis to work at UG. She’d actually believed she had a shot at him.

Fool.

“What are you doing here? When did you get back?” And why did her heart have to jump around like it was excited to see him even after he’d broken it?

She could still remember the day that Runa, whose brother also worked for the R-XR, had invited her to the house she shared with Shade, handed her a margarita, and then said, “Kynan gave me a message for you. I’m sorry… but he said to tell you not to wait for him.”

God, Gem had been devastated. She’d waited anyway, until last night, when Lore had caught her on a particularly bad day. She’d been exhausted, worried about Wraith. To top it off, that morning Runa had brought the babies by the hospital.

Gem was thrilled for Shade and Runa, but their happiness had been like a blow. Kynan was gone, probably for good, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever have children. She wanted them, but she was half demon, stuck between two worlds, and she refused to subject any child to what she’d gone through.

“I got back last night,” he said in his gravelly voice, a result of a battlefield injury he’d suffered years ago while serving as an Army medic in Afghanistan.

“So why are you here?” She tried to keep her hopes in check because while she wanted to hear that he’d come back for her, she’d been stomped on hard enough to know she needed to be realistic. Not that realistic was a possibility when his masculine scent swirled around her, embracing her like a lover.