“Yes, she is.” He’d trained her wel , having seen the kernel of greatness in her from the very beginning. She was bright and thorough and fil ed with a restless energy that fooled many into thinking she was reckless. She never had been…until the Alpha came along.

Syre was watching that situation closely. He wouldn’t tolerate Vash’s upheaval for long. A day or two more, and if the lycan didn’t rectify what he was doing to her, Syre would kil him. It would be a waste of a prime hunter, but the Alpha was less valuable if he wasn’t firmly beneath Vashti’s thumb. There was also the possibility that now that the lycans were settled in the warehouse and most were already out in the field, they could turn to vampires for leadership and protection if they lost their Alpha. If not for Vashti’s turmoil, the death of Elijah Reynolds might be ideal… “The majority of the samples had no effect whatsoever,” Grace went on. “However, Subject E is another matter altogether. Whose idea was it to anonymize the samples? Vashti’s?”

“Of course.” He slid his iPhone over and tapped into the cloud, finding the document that linked donor with sample. But he knew who Subject E was before it was confirmed—the Alpha.

“Wel , Subject E is known as FUBAR around here. You want to knock out the wraith population for good, FUBAR’s your man. Or woman. His or her blood is like the Hiroshima bomb to wraiths. Boom, game over.”

“Why? How?”

Grace snorted out a laugh. “I’m good, but I’m not that good. I got these blood samples yesterday evening. I’ve had just a little over fourteen hours with them. I can give you a ‘what,’ but it’s going to take more time to work on the rest.”

“Vashti ran across a wraith with enough brain function to speak coherently. He appeared to be leading a group of other wraiths.”

“What?” Al levity left her face. “Every wraith I’ve seen has cotton for brains.”

“I need more than that, Grace.”

She scrubbed the back of her neck. “Perhaps the subject had only recently been infected, within a few hours maybe. Not enough time to fry the synapses. Or maybe he’d been infected long enough to kick-start his brain cel s again. I honestly don’t know. I haven’t run across anything like that here in the lab.”

“Too many questions, Grace.”

“And not enough answers. I know. I’m doing the best I can.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Absolutely. And if you can get me more of that blood, it would real y help. Total y the other end of the spectrum there. One annihilates; the other is a possible cure. Knowing you, you’l want both in your arsenal while dealing with this, and I’ve got a friend here I’d like to have back.”

Syre thought of his daughter-in-law. It was too late for Nikki, but hopeful y others could be saved. “I’l work on it.”

“And the virologist, please. I’ve got skil s, but this is real y outside my field of expertise.”

With a nod, he ended the cal and exhaled harshly.

“What do you know, Adrian?” he murmured softly to himself. “And what wil I have to do to get you to tel me about it?”

Vash raced through the trees, darting and weaving, her heart and limbs pumping strong and steady. Her body was a machine, built for her existence as an angel and sculpted by her life as a warrior. Although she heard the pounding lunges and heaving breaths of the lycan hot on her trail, she didn’t look back. There was no point. It would only slow her down, and knowing where he was or how close he might be wouldn’t make her run faster.

She’d never been outrun by a lycan. Never. She was too quick, too nimble.

But she knew Elijah was different. He’d proven that back on the highway, and even while she thought of that, he proved it again.

She leaped agilely over a fal en log, but he vaulted past her. His front paws dug into the earth and he pivoted, his tail end whipping around 180 degrees.

“Damn it,” she hissed.

Faced with a wild beast she didn’t have the heart to injure, she sprang and flipped over him. But the leaf-littered forest floor gave her no traction.

Her feet slipped out from under her. She hit the ground on her bel y and skidded forward, her fingers and toes scrambling for purchase.

He was on her in a heartbeat, straddling her and catching her by the shoulder with his teeth. His breath was hot and fast, a growl rumbling in his chest. When she tried to move, he shook her gently, his teeth dug in but not breaking the skin. He snarled a warning.

Vash melted into the ground, completely pliant. Her stomach quivered with something she began to suspect was delight. Perhaps triumph.

Certainly relief.

He’d chased her. Captured her.

Her heart rate kicked up, as did her breathing, reactions her exertions hadn’t been capable of eliciting. She lay prone beneath him, absorbing his warmth into her back, her fingers digging restlessly into the dirt.

It took several moments before Elijah released her. When he did, it was with another growled admonition to remain unmoving. He gave her a few moments to prove that she would do so without his interference; then he nuzzled her cheek with his wet nose.

The surprisingly tender gesture had her lifting her head to meet his gaze. “Elijah…”

His lip curled in a snarl. His eyes stil had that primal light burning inside them.

“Okay. Al right.” She exhaled and relaxed again, her mind trying to work out why she was submitting so meekly. She submitted to no one but Syre and only in certain respects. In many others, she was the dominant. Yes, because he al owed her to be, but stil …even Char had known to give her the lead.

She jolted a little when Elijah settled his weight careful y on her, his bel y curving into her spine. He didn’t give her the whole of it, which would have crushed her, but he gave her enough to pin her and make sure she didn’t forget he was there. As if that were possible.

Vash couldn’t say how long they lay like that—he atop her and quietly panting, gently sniffing her and nudging with his snout. She couldn’t say why it soothed the jagged edges of her mood, edges that had been ripping at her from the inside since he’d shown her the door the day before. She couldn’t say when she realized those edges had been tearing her up for years. She knew only that the equanimity she found in the forest with Elijah exposed an inner torment she hadn’t been aware she was carrying. Anger and hunger for revenge were her constant companions, but the pain had been buried beyond her awareness of it, an ache not noted until it was gone.

When he shifted forms, she felt the power of it, the ripple that displaced the very space around her. The softness and warmth of rough satin fur morphed into rock-hard muscle and scorching skin. He continued to rub his cheek against her. He continued to pant as if he were exerting himself to his limits.

Her palms grew damp when she felt the unmistakable length of his erection resting in the seam of her thighs. “Elijah…?”

“Vashti.” His voice was stil guttural. Rough. Sexy as hel . “Isn’t enough…Sorry.”

She stiffened, disappointment piercing her like a blade. She wasn’t enough? What they had—whatever it was—wasn’t enough?

CHAPTER 16

“Don’t tense,” Elijah gasped, grinding his hips into the plush swel of her buttocks. “Don’t fight. Let me…have you. Make it good…”

Vash had no defense against the shiver of arousal that rippled through her. “You want sex? Here? ”

Just the thought made her slick and hungry, the idea that he was so hot for her he couldn’t wait, that he would take her on the ground in a forest like an animal in rut… He adjusted his position, his thighs bracketing hers. Then he straightened, pul ing her up with him. One hand slid between her breasts, a strong hand gripping her throat and pul ing her tight against him. The other reached for the waistband of her stretchy black pants, shoving them down to her knees.

“Sorry.” His words were a tormented moan in her ear. “Can’t stop. Don’t run…”

Her head fel back into his shoulder when he cupped her between the legs with a shaky hand. She couldn’t stop the circling of her hips into his touch.

His forehead pressed into her temple. “Wet. Thank god…” Bending forward, he urged her back down.

Her arms stretched out, her palms breaking their fal . With her on her hands and knees, he reached between them and fisted himself, sliding the thick crest of his cock through the moisture coating her cleft…up and down…nudging her clitoris…his body trembling behind her.

Every muscle in her body was strung tight as a bow, the expectation so thick Vash thought she might snap. She’d wanted this, her hunger for him as elemental a force as her thirst for blood.

“Need you. Now,” he growled, rocking her backward to meet the thrust of his entry.

She screamed at the stretching depth of his possession, the pleasure so fierce her vision blurred. He gave her no time to adjust or steel herself, launching into a primal pounding fuck that used her as a vessel for his lust. A dozen wild thrusts were al it took. His roar reverberated through the forest, sending birds screeching in panicked flight from the trees. He came so hard, she felt it inside her, pulsing hot and thick as he emptied himself in fiery pulses. Her thighs were wet with him when he straightened to his knees, bringing her up to sit in the cradle of his spread thighs.

He was parting the lips of her sex and rubbing her aching flesh before she could catch her bearings or her breath. Vibrating with the ferocity of her arousal, she shattered into climax with a drawn-out moan of relief, her body clenching and rippling around his spurting erection.

Then his wrist was at her mouth, offering his franticly throbbing vein. Stil shuddering in orgasm, Vash turned her head away. “No…”

Elijah buried his face in her hair. “I’m sorry.”

She sincerely wanted to reply, but her synapses were fried. And he was stil massaging her clitoris, keeping her hot and needy and so damn ready to come al over again, if she’d ever stopped coming.

“Couldn’t get a grip.” His teeth ground audibly together. “You ran. I couldn’t think…You have to know, I’d cut off my arm before I hurt you.”

Something vital wel ed up inside her, twining with the understanding of what he was apologizing for—he’d lost control. She shouldn’t have been pleased that his beast responded by marking her in the basest, most animalistic way possible, but apparently she was perverse in that way. Oh wel . If their fights always ended with him coming inside her, she could live with it.

But his guilt had to go.

When he pushed his wrist at her again, she shoved his arm out of her face, insulted. “Stop that.”

Elijah lifted her careful y off of him, no easy task when he was stil hard and thick. She let him. Let him throw himself backward into the leaf litter with a forearm tossed across his eyes. Let him ramble hoarsely about her needing to eat and him finding some way to let her do that, since she wouldn’t drink from him…not that he blamed her…he was out of control, losing his mind— As he muttered to himself, Vash swiftly and silently pul ed off her boots and her clothes. Until she was naked. In the woods. With a lycan. What the hel was the world coming to?

“Elijah,” she purred, crawling over him. “Shut the fuck up.”

She watched his breath catch, then heard it leave him in a rush as she sank back onto him, seizing the intimate connection she craved. His cock was slick with semen cooled by the air, making him cold and hard as marble inside her. He jackknifed upward with a growl, and she caught him with her arms around his neck, meeting him eye to eye.

“I see shrinkage isn’t a problem for you,” she said drily, noting how his eyes were stil feverishly bright. He was savagely gorgeous. Flushed and disheveled and glistening with sweat. She could stil smel the animal on him and her sex tightened in primitive appreciation. It was so similar to the scent she’d loathed viciously for so long, yet none of her painful past touched him. She stopped debating why and just…accepted it.

“Vashti, I—”

“—offended me. Oh, not with the wild animal sex,” she assured him, seeing the torment that crossed his features. “For offering me your wrist, which—if you didn’t know—is the most impersonal way to give blood to a vampire. I’d like to think we’re beyond that. And if we’re not, we need to work on getting beyond it.”

His arms tightened around her like steel bands. “Beyond ditching me when you’re scared? Beyond apologizing for some stupid shit instead of the real issue?”

“Wow.” She pushed her fingers into his hair because she knew how much he enjoyed it. Also because she needed to soothe the beast so she could work things out with the man. “You bounce back quick. I think I liked you better contrite.”

“Al or nothing.”

“Do I have a choice? I’m thinking you’l just chase me if I run.”

His gaze narrowed, studying her. After a moment, his nostrils flared and he accused, “You liked it.”

“I never said I didn’t. You’re the one who kicked me to the curb.”

“Who started it?” Elijah’s voice was ominously neutral.

She swal owed, her eyes sliding away to find the powerful y steady pulse in his corded neck.

“Vashti.” He shook her a little. “Talk to me. What are we doing here?”

Her gaze shot back to his and she scowled. “Are you kidding?”

“If sex is al you want, I’l point out that there are other options that aren’t such a pain in the ass.”

“Like Himeko?”

His grin was slow and purely male. “Feeling territorial?”

“How fabulous that you’re enjoying my confusion and misery,” she groused. “Listen, I’ve already screwed this to hel and back trying to pick my way through on my own. You need to tel me what you want from me. Then I can tel you if I can give it to you.”