Her throat worked on a hard swal ow. The yearning in her eyes almost broke him, but he held his ground. He wasn’t going to be satisfied with her the way things were. Last night had shown him that he was moving beyond the sexual attraction phase into something deeper. He wasn’t going to wade into those waters alone. Too many people were depending on him. He couldn’t afford to get al twisted up over a woman who didn’t feel the same pul he did. Or at least wouldn’t admit to it. Accept it.

Vashti moved toward the door slowly, al the anger she’d hit him with seeming to have drained away. It no longer stiffened her spine or propel ed her steps. She paused on the threshold and looked over her shoulder at him. “Elijah…don’t be like this. It was a tactical decision that was best for the mission. Let’s talk it through.”

“No need. Raze and I get along fine, things are moving forward, and I’l get to Huntington before the end of next week. Al ’s right in your world, Vashti. Leave it be.”

She stepped outside.

“For what it’s worth,” he said as he swung the door closed, “I was crazy about you, too.”

Vash stared at Elijah’s closed door and didn’t know what to do with the vibrating anxiety that rattled through her. Everything inside her rebel ed at the realization that she was on the outside and he was locked away from her. Closed off in every possible way.

Christ, she’d come al this way with the thought that she would be with him tonight. She’d been pushing toward that al day and now she had nothing at al … She’d never seen him so furious. He was livid. And his anger was more terrifying for its quiet strength. If he’d yel ed or hit the wal … anything…the passion of his response would’ve given her something to hang on to. But his chil y fury had been emotionless. His parting comment had been made without any inflection at al . And spoken in the past tense.

Cursing, she ran both of her hands through her hair.

“Fucked it up, didn’t you?”

She glanced at Raze, who sauntered toward her, flush with the healthy glow of a vampire who’d just fed.

His gaze darted over her face and he sighed. Pity shadowed his eyes. “Ah, Vashti. Maybe it’s for the best.”

She nodded violently.

“You got a room?” he asked.

“I should head back.”

“Nah.” He tossed an arm around her shoulder. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow and we can use you. Wanna stay with me? I have two beds.”

“What about the waitress?”

One thickly muscled shoulder lifted in an insolent shrug. “What about her?”

Vash leaned her head in to him. “Stil hung up on that med tech in Chicago?”

“Just not in the mood for anything complicated. You know what that’s like.”

“Sure.” Only she didn’t, not real y. She’d connected with Char and, to a certain extent, Elijah. Raze had only ever connected with one woman, a mortal who’d drifted through his life as quickly as al the others but somehow managed to leave an indelible impression behind. Raze had been a man whore as long as Vash had known him. But when he’d come back from Chicago not too long ago, he’d gone from barely keeping his pants on to never dropping them at al . Aside from his fangs, he kept his body parts to himself.

When she had the time, Vash intended to look up Kimberly McAdams in the Windy City and see if she could get a handle on what it was about the woman that had so drastical y altered one of her best captains.

He changed the subject. “I have to head to the airport in a couple hours to pick up the night shift and backup crews we have coming in. If you want to tag along, you stil have time to feed. Plenty of selection in the restaurant—a couple truckers, the bartender, a handful of locals. You’l feel better.”

No…she wouldn’t. Her head turned involuntarily toward Elijah’s door. He had to hear their conversation with his lycan hearing, yet he didn’t come storming out with his demand that she not feed on anyone but him. He’d real y washed his hands of her.

Stil , she couldn’t do it. Didn’t want to, even though she was now two days out from when she’d last drunk from Elijah.

“I’m good,” she said instead. “Why don’t you fil me in on what you picked up today and what you’ve got on the agenda for tomorrow?”

“Where’s your stuff?” His mouth curved. “You brought an overnight bag, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I’ve got the Explorer over there.” He handed her his keycard and she tossed him her rental keys. As embarrassed as she was that she’d been kicked to the curb, at least no one knew she’d been hoping for some after-fight, make-up monkey sex when she’d hopped on a plane a few hours ago.

A girl had to have her pride.

Then she looked over her shoulder at the worn blackout curtains that blocked Elijah’s room from her gaze and wondered if maybe she had a bit too much of it.

CHAPTER 14

Vash’s brows rose when she saw Syre exit from the private plane.

“Damn. We got the big gun,” Raze murmured before stepping forward to clasp forearms with their commander. “Syre.”

“An entire subdivision?” Syre asked without preamble. He stood on the tarmac with the wind blowing gently through his hair, his head-to-toe black attire making him nearly one with the darkness.

A beautiful and deadly dark prince, Vash thought whimsical y. Regal, powerful, and lethal.

“That’s Elijah’s take.” Raze glanced at the three lycans and four minions disembarking. “Good thing we brought two cars.”

“Where is the Alpha?”

“Snoozing. It’s damn near two in the morning. Unlike us, he needs sleep.”

Syre acknowledged that with a nod. “What’s your take, Raze?”

“Same as his. Place gave me the wil ies. It’s like a ghost town.”

Syre looked at Vash.

“I haven’t scoped it out yet, but if Elijah says it’s squirrely, then it’s squirrely. We’ve never faced a cleanup of this magnitude before,” she said grimly. “How do you keep a lid on an entire neighborhood vanishing overnight?”

“UFOs.”

They al turned their heads toward the minion who’d spoken. Vash placed him in his mid-thirties when he’d gone through the Change, and by the brightness of his smile and his twinkling eyes, he hadn’t been a vampire long enough to become world-weary. He wore his dirty-blond hair in a shaggy style, which gave him a laid-back and youthful appearance.

“Seriously,” he said. “We snag a few of the video cameras that we’re bound to find when we enter the houses and film the rest of you running around with flares in the darkness. You’l look like streaking lights. Then let the government cover it al up.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Vash said, deciding to run with the absurdity. “I’l man a camera. Syre, you’re the fastest. You can run around with the flares.”

The look on Syre’s face was worth the cost of admission. Grinning, she asked the minion, “What’s your name?”

“Chad.”

“Don’t talk around Syre, Chad,” she suggested. “He might kil you.”

Chad laughed, but she was only half kidding.

He was definitely a newbie. One who hadn’t been around long enough to figure out what his moniker would be. Most minions changed their names a century or two into their new lives, when everything they’d once known and loved had burned through the finite days of mortality and passed away. Vamps often chose names that represented who they’d become. Like Raze, who leveled every opponent in his path, and Torque, who tweaked, finessed, and applied pressure to situations as necessary. Contrarily, Vash had kept her angelic name, as a reminder of the woman she’d once been, one who’d been worthy of Charron’s love. She’d changed a lot since then. She wondered what Char would think of who she was now, whether he’d want her as much as he had before, whether he would want her as much as Elijah did.

Syre held out his hand. “I’l drive. Chad, ride with Raze.”

“Gee,” Raze muttered. “Thanks, sir.”

Vash took the three lycans with her and Syre; Raze took the four vamps. They hit the road with Vash resetting the GPS so Syre knew where they were going.

“I’m surprised to see you here, Vashti,” Syre said, glancing at her.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes. I am.”

“Not as surprised as I am to see you.”

He adjusted the rearview mirror. “I’ve yet to see one of these wraiths in the flesh and it’s high time I did so.”

She hit the button to lower the window and rested her elbow on the frame, relishing the cooling kiss of the breeze on her face. “I feel like you’re checking up on me. Again.”

“Maybe I am,” he conceded. “You’re valuable to me and I’m concerned that you’re…conflicted.”

Great. Pretty soon everyone who mattered would know she was a mess. “There’s a lot on our plate right now. I’m worried we won’t be fast enough.”

“We’l know more once the other teams check in.” His voice was low and soothing, wielding his ability to mesmerize and charm.

“And if they al come back with reports of entire neighborhoods taken over by wraiths? What then?”

“Ah, my eternal pessimist. Then I guess we’l stock up on zombie apocalypse movies and try to pick up some pointers.”

She didn’t want to smile, so she turned around and looked at the crew instead. The males were dark haired and big. Beautiful male specimens real y, but mere shadows of Elijah. The female was blond and petite, pretty in a wholesome homespun way with her stick-straight hair, green eyes, and pink bow lips.

Vash briefed them. “Elijah wil be able to zero in on the aspects relating to lycans better than I wil , but I’l tel you to be careful regardless. Wraiths seem to have a hard-on for you guys, and our al iance is new enough to be a liability. We haven’t fought alongside each other long enough to dance together without stumbling. A stumble with these guys can get us kil ed. Watch each other’s backs more than usual.”

Al three glared at her with mute hostility.

“Names?” she asked, lacking the energy to get into a pissing match now.

John, Trey, and Himeko, she was told. Turning back around, she cal ed Raze. “Hey. How’s the sleeping situation going to work at the motel?”

“I picked up three additional rooms, aside from the one Elijah’s got. I wasn’t expecting you, Syre, or a five-man backup crew. Hopeful y, we can snag another room for the commander; the motel isn’t exactly in high demand. If not, we’l put you with Syre and I’l take one of the vamps in my second bed. The other two rooms have multiple beds, so we’l have them bunk up.”

“Sounds good. Thanks.”

But when they arrived at the motel, they found the place sold out, thanks to a popular band playing at the restaurant next door. Vash claimed her backpack from Raze’s room and exited out to the sidewalk to wait for Syre, who was grabbing his bag from her rental on the other side of the lot.

Raze was in the front office, taking care of getting keycards for the new arrivals.

She stood alone, feeling inexplicably lonely.

Drawn to Elijah, she sidled closer to his room. Her stomach knotted with every step she took, her mouth watering with the need to taste him. Not just for blood and sex, but the sound of his voice, the beat of his heart beneath her ear, the warmth of his arms around her. It struck her that she was terribly afraid he might open his door and she would plead for him to stop shutting her out, forfeiting al her dignity and pride.

She was shaken by the depth of her craving. She didn’t understand why he had to make their… association—she wasn’t going to cal it a relationship—so complicated. Couldn’t they just take what they needed from each other, give each other what they had to give, and take it one day at a time?

She was formulating an argument to hit him with when a suspicious sound caught her ear. When she heard it again, her lungs seized and an icy lump settled in her gut.

“No, no, no,” she growled, stalking closer to Elijah’s door. Her blood heated and her heart began to pound.

Horrified and disbelieving, Vash stared at the number on the door, wil ing it to change when she blinked. The unmistakable sounds of enthusiastic sex emanating from Elijah’s room twisted her stomach into a hard knot. A shard of white-hot pain speared through her chest.

A woman’s breathless pleas for more…rhythmical y squeaking bedsprings…the growl of a man pumping his way to climax… Her bag fel from her nerveless fingers to the ground. For a moment she stood shattered, something inside her broken into pieces. Then fury took over. Lifting her foot, she kicked in the door. The woman’s high-pitched scream only spurred her bloodlust. The smel of sex hit her hard, propel ing her across the room toward the big figure rising up from the mattress.

“I’l kil you!” she hissed, backhanding him so hard he flew from the bed and crashed into the dresser. Her head swiveled toward the cowering nude woman on the mattress, her hand rising and clawed to strike.

Her wrist was caught in a steely grip midair. “Vashti.”

Syre’s voice, low and furious behind her, penetrated her wrath. She glanced at him. “Let me go.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

Her spine stiffened at Elijah’s barked question. Her gaze shifted to the silhouette in the doorway—the familiar broad shoulders, tapered waist, and long legs. He was shirtless, barefooted, his jeans unbuttoned and barely clinging onto lean hips.

The woman on the bed was stil screaming like a banshee. The man who’d been fucking her moaned from where he was sprawled on the floor.