His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, because he was staring straight at me.

“I know you,” he said, no fear in his voice in spite of the incapacitated figures littering the ground around us. “You’re Lucas’s new mate. You’re the girl all this trouble is about.”

“I hardly think I’m the reason Marcus and Alexandre Peyton are trying to take control of this city.”

“Oh, no?”

I was hoping my flicker of uncertainty went unnoticed, because I was getting more and more unnerved by how calm he was with my gun pointed at him. He inched forward, and I loaded another bullet into the chamber.

“What do you think you’ll accomplish by killing Marcus? Do you think he’s the only one who threatens you and your king? Take my advice, princess”—never had the word sounded so condescending—“stay out of Lucas’s life. Stay away from the big dogs.”

“I’m not here for Marcus. He’s just a bonus.”

“Ha.” The sound was humorless. “You’re here because Peyton wants you here.”

“You expect me to believe that someone like you knows a damn thing about Alexandre Peyton’s plan?” I stepped backwards, but he kept coming. He was advancing slowly, but there was no mistaking the minute movements. I steadied my hands and raised my gun a few inches so it was even with his sternum.

“I know more than you can imagine.” His voice told me otherwise. The bravado was gone, replaced with wavering uncertainty. I’d hit the nail on the head. He had no clue about Peyton’s plans.

“You don’t know anything,” I said.

He snarled and moved to close the small space between us.

I shot him.

I might have wanted to hear him out if he’d claimed to be privy to what Marcus’s plan of action was, because it was feasible the alpha could have trusted him. But I didn’t believe for one second Peyton would let a werewolf, even the leader of the guards, be privy to his real agenda. I doubted Marcus himself knew the details of what Peyton had in mind.

If this had really been the plan, the vampire would have wanted me here at night when he could kill me on his own. He was such a ham he’d want it to be showy and over the top, and he wouldn’t want to miss it. Opening the doors to Marcus’s bedchamber in the middle of the afternoon would not be a part of anyone’s plan but my own.

Alone at last, I gave a hard tug on the door they’d been guarding. “Little pig, little pig, let me in.” The door was locked from the inside, and through the wood I heard someone scrambling. Then the door swung open abruptly and I staggered backwards, almost tripping over one of the still forms on the floor.

Marcus stood at the end of a bed, butt naked, with a shotgun pointed at me. After dispatching nine unarmed guards, I hadn’t expected anyone to have a weapon. We locked eyes from across the room, and my heart skipped a beat as he pulled the fore-end towards him with a deafening click.

“Pleasure to see you again, Miss McQueen. It’s a shame you can’t stay.” He aimed at my chest and fired.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Either I was dreaming again or I was dead.

I was lying in bed, naked. A tangle of buttery-soft sheets that smelled like sun-dried linen kept me modest from the waist down, and a male arm covered my breasts. I rubbed my face against a downy pillow, breathing in the smell of sunlight that made my eyes water.

Lucas, naked next to me, opened his eyes and fixed his blue irises on my brown ones.

“I’ve never been here,” I whispered.

He wiped a tear away from my eye. “Pink?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” When he stuck his thumb in his mouth, I cringed. “Blood?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you, Secret?” Where, not what. His question surprised me.

“Not here.”

He pulled me near, and the line of our touching bodies made my skin explode with heat. He buried his fingers into my hair and brought my face close to his.

“This is real,” he told me.

“No.”

“You are dying.”

“I am?” I hated dreams. Especially when I knew I was dreaming, but I couldn’t make myself behave like I should. I kissed him and tried to push my conscious sense away so I could just be naked in bed beside him. His hands slipped down to the small of my back, and he returned my kiss with renewed vigor.

Then he seemed to register what we were doing and pulled back. We were always stopping short of the good stuff.

“Secret, focus.”

“I was focused.” My eyes were closed, my mouth trailing down his neck.

“No. You need to tell me where you are.”

I kissed his clavicle, grazing it with my teeth. “I’m with you.”

He was getting frustrated; I could tell by the heaviness of his sigh. “You are dying.”

“You’re killing me,” I quipped.

Before I could make another pun, something in my stomach twisted and pain seared through me. It started as a throbbing ache, and I made a whimpering sound. I looked down and saw the cream-colored sheets turning red.

“Like my wedding dress.”

I began to cough violently, expelling something hard from my gut. It clicked against my teeth, and he reached between my lips, pulling out a bullet.

When I scrutinized my own body, I saw a gaping hole beneath my ribs where blood was spilling out. Pain rocked through me like angry waves battering a ship at sea, and my breath was sucked from my lungs. I looked to him for help.

“Lucas? Why?”

He grabbed my face to keep me from looking at the blood. “Where are you?”

I screamed back, but only because it felt like I was being ripped open from the inside.

“The Or-Orph-pheum.” I was beginning to shiver, my teeth chattering. “Lucas?” I looked at him with pink tears streaming down my face as I fought to breathe. “I’m so sorry. I want to be here.”

“You will be.”

“I’m dying.”

And then he was gone and I was alone in a widening pool of my blood. Pain shot through the whole of my being, and I knew I wasn’t dreaming anymore.

“She’s coming to,” Marcus said.

I felt fingers withdraw and realized they had just been inside my body. A pitiful, keening noise echoed in the air. It too had just been inside me.

Red fog slipped from my eyes, leaving me looking at a low ceiling in a poorly lit room. Everything came back in tiny shards. The Orpheum, the guards, Marcus and the gun.

Another agonized sob escaped my throat. On instinct I scrambled for a weapon, but my hands were empty and when I tried to move them they were heavier than anchors. I could barely lift them from the floor. My rib cage was punctured, just as it had been in the dream. I didn’t need to see the hole to know it was there; it felt like someone was shredding me open from the inside. There should be more wounds from the spray of the buckshot, but I could only feel the one. I tried to take a deep breath but was left sputtering. Only the left side of my chest rose when I tried, and there was a build up of pressure on the right side that made it feel like my body was caving in on itself. I whimpered, but even that hurt.

Marcus came into view, still nude, standing over me with an expression of triumph on his face.

“You bleed slowly. You’ve been out for hours.”

In all that time he couldn’t find a robe?

Something else sunk in. Hours? “N-night?” Saying the one word felt worse than any torture I’d ever endured. My throat was raw, and though every breath I took seared through me like a blitzkrieg, I couldn’t stop my labored panting.

“Oh she is clever, even as she dies,” someone else spoke up. This voice was more familiar than Marcus’s and sent a chill through my body and turned my bones to ice. No. Not this. “Her blood does smell delicious, doesn’t it?”

“No.” I couldn’t even breathe without wanting to black out, but still I tried to sit up. Dots of white light swam across my vision, and I was forced back down by a wave of nausea. Every inch of me thrummed and reverberated with the swell of hot, liquid pain, the way a thumb pulses after being struck by a hammer. “No.”

“She’s quite adamant, non? Apparently it is not night. Shall I return to my rest, then?” The vampire was laughing as if the whole situation was the funniest he had ever encountered. His face came into view over me.

I blinked several times to be sure it was really Peyton. He had not aged at all in six years, which was to be expected, but there was something different about him all the same. His hair was a dull rust color and fell in waves around his face. He peered down at me with soft brown eyes that reflected the laughter of his voice. When Peyton had been turned he’d probably only been sixteen or seventeen years old. He had the face of a boy on the verge of becoming a man and forever caught in between.

He was lovely, with a youthful roundness to his features. The paleness of his skin against the coppery hair made him look angelic. It was his smile that made the angel fall from grace and gave away the devil inside.

He stepped over me, placing one foot on either side of my legs, and crouched low, not kneeling so as to avoid getting my blood on his pants.

“Secret, it has been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Not.” My lips quivered, and I tried a few times to take a deep breath to finish the sentence. “Long.” A new sensation rolled over my body, replacing my torment with a cold nothingness. “Enough.”

“Haha!” He gave me an assessing once-over. “I am pleased Marcus and his queen abstained from finishing you off until nightfall.” He caressed my injured side, and I cried out again. “Very pleased.”

Peyton had always been a fan of playing with his food. It was one of the things that got him in serious trouble with the council before he’d gone rogue. His idea of play was more in line with the Marquis de Sade than sports and rec. Funny, but even on the verge of bleeding to death on a concrete floor, I still wasn’t in the mood to be penetrated by a sadist. Especially not when I had a gaping chest wound waiting for him to explore.