Fangs flashed. Fingers turned into claws. Eyes glowed red. Men turned into bloodthirsty vampires. He’d seen it often enough—prison had been a perfect microcosm of what happened on the outside.

Samson slammed his full body weight against Luther, pinning him against the wall. Though Luther could have pushed him off, what would have been the point when at least seven other vampires were surrounding them, ready to interfere should their boss be in danger? Not even Luther could beat those odds. So he didn’t even try.

“Go ahead, slice me open!” he challenged his old friend. “But it won’t change my answer. I don’t fucking know where your daughter is.”

At least now he could guess that the slightly hostile treatment he was receiving had nothing to do with what had happened twenty years ago. Rather, he seemed to have stumbled into an incident that was only just unraveling. And he sure had no interest in sticking around to find out what this was about. If Samson couldn’t keep tabs on his daughter, it wasn’t Luther’s goddamn problem.

Through narrowed eyes Samson watched him intently, as if he could find out the truth by staring at him. Luther didn’t blink. He had nothing to hide.

From behind Samson, another vampire appeared. Luther had never seen him before, but he knew nevertheless who he was. After all, he was a younger edition of Samson himself—and a hybrid. He had to be his son.

“He’s lying. He has to be lying!” the young hybrid spat. “Dad, you can’t possibly believe Luther! Not after all he did!” It appeared Samson’s offspring knew who he was—and what he’d done in the past. Mistrust spewed from the boy’s eyes.

“Grayson!” Samson growled, tossing his son a warning look. “You take care of your mother and Patrick; I’ll handle this.”

Reluctantly, Grayson retreated a couple of steps. By doing so, he gave Luther a view of the people standing farther back. In the door frame of what appeared to be a backstage area, a woman stood dressed in a long blue period dress with an empire waist, which accentuated her full breasts. Outside he’d seen posters about a play when he’d arrived. Apparently she was one of the student actresses.

For a moment, the sight of such female perfection made him forget that he was in the middle of a confrontation. One thing was immediately evident: she wasn’t a vampire. However, she didn’t appear fazed by the show of aggression the vampires around her demonstrated.

Luther slowly lifted his eyes from her cleavage to her graceful neck and the beautiful oval face framed by dark brown hair, which was upswept with curls dangling from it. She looked like she didn’t belong in this century. As if she was a time traveler, a mirage from a different era. Not quite human, but something more. She was beautiful, and the sight of her filled him with an odd sense of yearning. A longing he didn’t understand.

“I’m asking again, where is my daughter?”

Intrigued and at the same time irritated, Luther tore his gaze from the dark-haired beauty and glared back at Samson.

“I don’t fucking know. So take your hands off me.”

“Luther?”

At the sound of Eddie’s voice, Luther spun his head to the side. His protégé, the young man he’d turned into a vampire over twenty years ago, came toward him.

“Hi Eddie, been a long time,” he said dryly.

Only once, Eddie had visited him in prison, and back then they’d gotten into a physical fight. He wasn’t expecting Eddie to take his side now either.

“What’re you doing here?” His protégé seemed genuinely surprised and interested.

“He abducted Isabelle,” Samson claimed.

“No, he didn’t,” Eddie contradicted his boss.

Luther raised an eyebrow, surprised that Eddie would give him the benefit of the doubt.

Eddie moved closer, addressing Samson directly. “Blake asked me to check any surveillance recordings from the cameras inside and outside the building. We have a visual. Isabelle was taken. But not by Luther. If he’s behind it, he didn’t do the dirty work himself.”

Well, so much for Eddie’s confidence in him.

“Who? Who took her? Did she get hurt?” Samson asked, easing off Luther and reaching for his wife’s hand.

Luther recognized true fear in his old friend’s face.

“All I could see on the tape is that some guy grabbed her outside the dressing room. She struggled, but she couldn’t shake him. Which suggests that he’s a vampire or a hybrid himself—we don’t know for sure, since a video can’t capture a vampire’s aura. But with Isabelle’s hybrid strength she would have been able to defeat any human.”