Other than using her fangs on Gabriel, she’d never truly used her new strength on anybody. She knew she had claws—she’d scratched Gabriel with them by accident that fateful night when she’d fed from him for the first time—and she hoped they would just appear the way her fangs did when she needed them.

The footsteps approached and were almost upon her when a soft ping drifted to her ears. The person stopped in her tracks. “Darn,” the female voice grumbled under her breath.

Maya recognized the ping as a call for the nurses’ station—one of the patients had pressed their call button. The nurse turned on her heels and walked in the other direction. Maya relaxed when she heard her enter a room and close the door behind her. She counted to three and emerged from her hiding place.

Swiftly, she walked to the empty nurse’s station and looked around to make sure nobody saw her. Then she walked behind the counter and crouched down near the desk. She pulled the bottom drawer open and reached in. She knew that all nurses kept a couple of extra access cards hidden in their desks in case a doctor had forgotten theirs and needed to get somewhere before security could issue a new one.

Luckily, this nurses’ station wasn’t any different. After opening a third drawer, she found a spare access card and shoved it into her jeans pocket. She needed to be able to get around the hospital unimpeded, and now she could.

As she rose from her crouching position, the little hairs on the back of her neck stood. A shiver ran down her spine. She sniffed without making a sound. No human was in her vicinity. The faint scent she picked up could belong to a vampire, but she wasn’t sure—there was too much bleach scent in the vicinity.

Maya darted around the desk and out of the nurses’ station. Her hands felt clammy, and her heart raced—signs that told her she had to get away. Her instinct for flight or fight was alive and well. Flight won out. She wasn’t stupid enough to try to fight a vampire who could be stronger than her, older and more experienced. Her advantage was that she knew the hospital—every corner, every supply room, and every shortcut. Whoever was on her trail didn’t know the place as well as she did—she hoped. This was her only chance.

She had to get to Barbara and protect her. She should have never allowed her to respond to the Code Blue, but knowing the oath they’d both sworn as doctors, she realized that she couldn’t have stopped her from doing her duty. Maya would have done the same. Nevertheless, she should have insisted on going with her and blown past her boss.  Hell, she should have flashed her fangs if she’d needed to.

Maya ran along the corridor to get to the service stairs. They were safer than taking the elevator. In an elevator she would be trapped, but the stairs would get her safely to the seventh floor to find Barbara. She halted just before the corridor when faint footsteps reached her sensitive ears—it was somebody trying hard not to be heard. She couldn’t filter out the person’s scent—the smell of ammonia and bleach was too overwhelming. The corridor must have only recently been cleaned. Frantically, Maya scanned the doors on the corridor. There was only one choice. She opened a door and slipped inside the dark room. Without a sound, she closed the door behind her and listened.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she realized she had no problems seeing her surroundings. The janitor’s room was a little bigger than a closet and filled with cleaning supplies, brooms, and buckets.

A sound from the corridor made her hold her breath. The person had stopped not far from her hiding spot. Had she been spotted? Had he tracked her by her scent? Maybe he had better senses and wasn’t as affected by the cleaning materials in the hospital as her own sense of smell was.

In desperation, Maya grabbed the broom and broke the wooden handle. It splintered, providing her with an effective weapon: a wooden stake. She pressed herself to one side of the wall next to the door and waited.

Her hearing was so sensitive she could hear when someone touched the door handle. Adrenaline shot through her body—or was it her vampire blood boiling? Light drifted into the small room as the door swung in. Maya lunged at the attacker, the makeshift stake ready to plunge into the person’s heart.

A hand gripped her wrist in a vice and squeezed, making her drop the stake. Oh God, no!

Twenty-three

“I got your message,” the voice behind him drawled. Gabriel turned and looked at his second-in-command, Zane. He looked like hell twice warmed over.

“About time,” Gabriel chastised. “I need every man I can get. Maya’s friend has been killed and she’s somewhere in the hospital. We need to find her. The rogue is here.”