“Please, you have to believe me,” she begged.

He felt Maya approach from behind. “You must admit, it’s a fantastic story.”

“And it doesn’t make sense,” Cain added.

“But couldn’t it be possible?” Blake asked. “There are some bad guys out there as we all know.”

Oliver turned, looking at Maya and Cain. “Blake is right. We can’t just dismiss this. If she’s telling the truth, then we have a problem on our hands.”

Ursula jumped to her feet, drawing his attention back to her. “You think I’m lying?”

Oliver got up and instinctively reached for her, but she sidestepped him. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

Tears brimming at her eyes, she glared at him. “Then what are you saying?”

Nervously he shifted his weight, glancing at Cain who shrugged. “Want me to tell her?”

Clearly his colleague had the same suspicion as he did. And he seemed to have no qualms about voicing it. But Oliver was man enough to do his own dirty work. And accusing her of something she might be innocent of wasn’t pretty. But it was a possibility he couldn’t simply dismiss.

When Ursula nailed him with her questioning look, he sighed. “It’s possible that the vampire who bit you planted these memories in your mind so you’d tell us about it and lead us into a trap. You wouldn’t even know that you’re lying.”

She jolted, taking another step away from him. “What? You think this isn’t true? You think it’s made up? No! No! I lived through this. For three years, I endured their cruelty, the humiliation, the pain. I know what I saw and what I felt. It’s real.”

Her chest heaved from the effort it must have taken her to raise her voice to him and make her impassioned plea.

“For three years my parents have been looking for me.”

“How do you know that?” Cain asked.

She whipped her head in his direction. “Because they love me. They would never give up on me.” She withstood Cain’s scrutinizing look until Cain was the one who broke it. When he did, she turned and looked back at Oliver. “I need to tell them I’m alive.”

He recognized the pain that sat deep in her eyes and felt his heart clench in response. Maybe she was telling the truth, as outrageous as it sounded. But for the sake of Scanguards and their own safety, they had to take precautions before they could proceed.

“Later, but we’ll have to verify a few facts first.” His years of training with Scanguards kicked in. It was vital that he didn’t make a mistake now: Gabriel was already keeping an eye on everything he did because of his uncontrollable hunger for blood. If he now jeopardized Scanguards by not verifying Ursula’s story first, then his boss would have his hide.

“We need to know about your background so we can confirm who you are,” he said, feeling just a little bit guilty for not believing her.

The disappointed look she shot him cut through him like a knife. Yep, there was no way in hell she would ever sleep with him—not now, not after he’d disappointed her. It shouldn’t matter, but it did. Because the kiss she’d given him had held such promise and made him hungry for more. Was he doomed to fight yet another hunger he had no way of satisfying?

Her voice sounded resigned when she finally addressed him again. “What do you want to know?”

“Your name, name of your parents, where you lived. When you were abducted and where.” Then he nodded to Cain. “Cain, make notes. I want you to search for anything you can find. There would be police reports and possibly newspaper articles of Ursula’s kidnapping.”

He hoped so, because he didn’t like the idea that she was a liar and trying to trick them. However, he liked the idea even less that she had lived in captivity for three years, subjected to a group of vampires who fed from her whenever they pleased, and probably even worse.

He knew what went along with a feeding, the sexual arousal it produced in both the host and the vampire. If her story was true, they would have raped her countless times. Violently.

But he couldn’t bring himself to ask her. For his own sake: because knowing that somebody might have used her that way, violated her body not just by taking her blood, but by sexually assaulting her, made his blood boil. He would have to kill somebody then.

11

After Ursula had given them the details Oliver had asked for, Cain nodded and headed for the door. “I’ll get back to you with my findings as soon as I can.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Oliver answered.