He caressed her cheek with his thumb. “Maybe I discovered during that time what’s really important.”

Faye smiled hesitantly. “Tell me what’s important to you now.”

He opened his mouth to answer when a door slamming made him snap his head to the side. Thomas, a concerned look on his face, was rushing out of the palace.

Instantly alert, Cain released Faye. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Eddie!” Thomas answered, already sprinting down the driveway that led away from the palace.

Having recognized the alarmed tone in his voice, Cain ran after him. As he closed in on Thomas, he shouted, “What’s wrong?”

Thomas didn’t even turn his head and continued running toward the end of the driveway. “Eddie needs help.” Then he veered to the right and ran into the forest.

Cain followed, his hand already reaching to his belt where he kept his silver dagger in a sheath. Ever since arriving at the palace it had become his constant companion. He gritted his teeth. If the guards had ignored his orders to give his friends from Scanguards free passage to the palace, some heads would roll tonight. He’d advised them of Eddie’s and Blake’s imminent arrival, not wanting a repeat of how he, Haven, Thomas, and Wesley had been received.

A sound behind him made him whirl his head around.

“Fuck!” Cain cursed when he spotted Faye chasing him. He wanted her nowhere near any danger. “Go back to the palace!”

But she wouldn’t be deterred and kept running his way. “Maybe I can help.”

Not wanting to stop to argue with her, he continued running after Thomas who was now disappearing behind some trees. “Damn it, Faye!” He slowed briefly to give her a chance to catch up with him then accelerated again, and together they followed Thomas into the thicket.

A few minutes more, and Cain could smell the brackish water of the bayou, but it wasn’t the only thing his superior sense of smell picked up. Human blood was in the air. Instantly on alert, he ran faster, his ears picking up sounds now. Grunts, splashing water, branches breaking. Evidence of a fight.

Cain tossed a concerned look at Faye who was still keeping up with him. “You should have stayed back.”

“I’m nearly as strong as you,” was her reply.

He doubted that. Yes, as a vampire female she was stronger than any human, but she was no fighter. She wasn’t trained, not like him.

But before he could contradict her, his eyes perceived movements in the dark. He focused on it. Thomas had already reached the spot and now cursed, “Christ!”

Cain and Faye reached him two seconds later.

“Help!” Blake called out as he spotted them, while he was dragging himself out of the murky water, his legs kicking at an alligator whose massive snout with its fangs was snapping at him.

Cain’s head whirled to where he heard water splashing and to his horror he saw Eddie engaged in a fight with another alligator, this one even larger than the one chasing Blake.

Thomas was already lunging toward the alligator whose mouth was veering toward Eddie’s arm as the young vampire lost his footing in the shallow bank of the murky waterway and stumbled backward.

“You stay here,” Cain ordered Faye and jumped toward Blake, grabbing him under the arms and pulling him from the reach of the attacking animal just as its jaws snapped shut, hitting air.

Cain blindly tossed Blake behind him and lunged toward the alligator, his hands having already turned into claws. With them, he dug into the animal’s jaw, one from the top and one from the bottom, and ripped its mouth open. A row of deadly canines gleamed in the moonlight that filtered through the trees.

The animal thrashed, its tail whipping back and forth, whirling up the water and splashing it so high and far that Cain was instantly doused in the dirty liquid. But Cain didn’t let go and continued to spread the alligator’s jaw wider until he finally heard it snap and go slack. He’d disabled the animal’s primary weapon, but its massive tail continued to thrash and was just as much a danger as its teeth.

Cain grabbed the alligator behind its head and pulled. Had he been human, he wouldn’t have been able to move the easily three hundred pound animal even an inch, but with his vampire strength he swung the alligator into the air, making a hundred-and-eighty degree turn. The alligator’s body slammed against a tree with such force that the trunk of the tree cracked.

Having temporarily dazed the alligator, Cain jumped onto its back, ripped its head upward and sliced his claws across the animal’s throat. Blood spilled, the stench of it filling the night air. Cain tore at the head, ripping it off the body. Beneath him, the thrashing stopped. The alligator was dead.