“Not fully and consistently, but I’ve seen moments in him, where I could feel his mind pushing against my power. He’s getting there.”

“In any case,” Samson interrupted, “we have no choice about putting a human on the dayshift. I’d rather have Oliver do this than any of the other human guards. I trust him. He won’t disappoint us.”

Gabriel nodded. “And Zane? Do you think this will work?”

Samson contemplated Gabriel’s words. The assignment sounded low-risk and low-stress. “How difficult can guarding a twenty-year old girl be?” He caught Amaury’s doubtful look. “What?”

“He’s gonna flip a lid when he hears that.” Then he grinned. “Can’t wait to see it.”

Thomas nudged him. “You’re such a troublemaker, Amaury.” Then he looked straight at Samson. “Let’s just hope it won’t backfire and blow up in our faces.”

“We’ll keep a tight leash on him,” Samson said.

From the corridor, voices drifted to them, mingled with the yapping of a dog. A moment later, the door opened without a knock and Delilah stormed in, a yellow Labrador puppy in her arms.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I just had to show you, Samson.” Her face glowed.

Behind her, Yvette and her mate Haven appeared. “Hi, guys.”

Yvette looked stunning as ever, and the fact that she had traded her spiky short haircut for long dark locks, made her look softer and more feminine. Haven, the bounty hunter she’d saved from an evil witch, was responsible for Yvette allowing her feminine side to emerge. After Yvette had turned him into a vampire to save his life, Haven had blood-bonded with her. Yet, so far, he hadn’t joined their ranks at Scanguards. Samson hoped that he would do so one day. An ex-bounty hunter would be a great asset.

“Hey Yvette, Haven,” Samson and his friends responded. “What’s going on?”

“Look what Yvette gave us for Isabelle! One of the puppies. She’ll have her own puppy to play with.” Delight shone in Delilah’s face, and Samson’s heart expanded. God, how he loved this woman. He’d never been happier in his entire life.

“Isabelle will love it.” He stroked his hand over the puppy’s soft head, and the dog licked him enthusiastically. Then he nodded toward Yvette and Haven. “Thank you, guys, that’s so thoughtful of you.”

Yvette smiled. “We have four more, so—” She looked into the round. “—if anybody wants one …”

Amaury’s face suddenly lit up. “Actually—” He winked at Samson who instantly caught on to his oldest friend’s thinking. “—I think we have another taker. Don’t you agree, Samson?”

Samson smirked. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

***

Zane set the two fifty-pound dumbbells on the ground before dropping down next to them. One arm behind his back, he pushed off the floor with the other and started counting. Push-up after punishing push-up, he performed until sweat dripped from his naked torso. His gym shorts were soaked, but he kept pushing himself. Forty-nine, fifty. He changed arms and started counting anew.

His body was on auto-pilot, his muscles tearing and repairing themselves as he continued his grueling workout. Tonight, he couldn’t stop. His usual two hours of extreme physical exertion weren’t enough, because the rage that still ran through his veins like acid demanded that he hurt somebody. And tonight this somebody was Zane.

By the time he counted to fifty, a pool of sweat had collected on the mat beneath him. Zane rose and reached for the jump rope that hung on the wall.

When he moved to San Francisco, the first thing he did was to equip his private gym even before he’d had a bed delivered. Sleeping wasn’t important to him. He rarely needed more than three to four hours a day, which left him with plenty of daylight hours during which he was confined inside.

And even during those three or four hours he slept, a part of him remained alert, always listening for danger, aware that just as he was hunting his enemy, the enemy could be hunting him. Because he was the only survivor left who could destroy the man who had escaped justice: Dr. Franz Müller. He’d memorized the name and face just as he’d committed the names and faces of Müller’s colleagues to memory: Andreas Schmidt, dead; Volker Brandt, dead; Mathias Arenberg, dead; and Erich Wolpers, dead.

Zane’s hands curled tightly around the handles of his jump rope as he remembered their last moments. Brandt had squealed like a pig when he’d found Zane standing over him with murder in his eyes. He’d made sure that his victim remembered who he was and why Zane had come after him before he’d killed him. Not that Brandt needed much of a reminder: Zane hadn’t changed a bit since Brandt had seen him last, and it only took seconds for him to recognize his erstwhile prisoner. He remembered how he’d enjoyed the fear that had emanated from Brandt. He could smell it even now, and the scent filled him with satisfaction. But the four men he’d executed had played minor roles in his torture compared to what Müller had done. Their leader, Müller, was still on the run.