Mencheres scanned the rows of houses in the vall ey below them. A slight breeze ruffled his hair as he narrowed his focus on each residence, seeking one that didn't contain a beating heart. Beside him, Kira was silent, but a slight shiver went through her. They were both still wet, and it was cooler here, much farther up the California coast than where they'd first entered the ocean hours before.

"There," he said, standing.

Kira rose, letting out a noise of relief. "I know it's wrong to enter someone's home while they're gone, but I can't wait to get all this dried salt off me. It itches." He gave her an amused look as they started toward the empty residence. "The home has a FOR SALE sign on it. I doubt anyone occupies it. Would it ease your conscience if I later arranged to have funds sent to the homeowners to cover our brief stay?"

"It would, actually," she replied. "It still doesn't make breaking and entering okay, but then I wouldn't feel quite as much like a burglar."

"Consider it done." It was a small enough gesture to appease her sensibilities, even though he didn't intend for the residents or the Realtors to be aware that anyone had been in the home. Still, they had four hours before he was to meet his ally, and he didn't intend to spend that time with Kira wet, cold, and miserable.

They came upon the lawn of the house five minutes later. Mencheres burned out the motion-sensor lights with a flick of his mind once they neared the premises, then he disabled the lines to the alarm before unlocking a side door. He could have picked a more modest neighborhood to seek out empty homes in. Ones that might not have security systems, but this was closer to his meeting point. And Kira deserved a little more luxurious surroundings to make up for the squalid equipment room she'd woken up in yesterday.

The empty quietness of the home beckoned invitingly. Kira wasn't the only one who looked forward to resting for a few hours. He'd depleted a great deal of his energy between the Enforcers, the heights he'd flown to, navigating them through the ocean, then flying them here. He needed to feed as well, but that could wait until later, when they were safely with his ally.

"You could be the world's best bank robber if you wanted to," Kira remarked as she went inside the door he opened. No alarm sounded. Good. Some systems were more sophisticated than others. The home was furnished as well, but it had an empty feeling that spoke of weeks since it had been occupied.

"It gives me no pleasure to steal," he replied with a shrug. "Sometimes it is necessary, as with waiting here, or when I drink from humans who do not knowingly offer me their veins. Or when I compelled those drivers to bear us to our destination. But to take when the same thing can be purchased or freely given . . . no, that is not my way." Kira gave him a long look before turning away. "I'm going to find a shower and hope the water's on so I can get this salt off me."

So saying, she climbed the shiny marble staircase and disappeared onto the second floor. Mencheres stared after her, measuring if there was additional meaning behind her words.

Much might have changed between them after the Enforcers charged the park. She'd obviously been shocked at the things he'd done, but then she'd held him in the dark depths of the ocean with tenderness while they waited to make sure no Enforcers would find them. Kira's voice also deepened ever so slightly when she said she was seeking a shower. He couldn't tell if her scent changed as well; she still smelled too strongly of the ocean for him to catch any faint nuances of desire. But her eyes might have glinted with emerald just a bit before she turned away.

He intended to discover if he was right.

Water turned on when Mencheres took the first step up the stairs. He climbed them slowly, listening to the rustle of wet clothing being removed, then the soft sound of enjoyment Kira made when she stood under the spray. He followed those sounds as he continued onto the second floor, stepping in the same damp footprints she'd made on the marble, drawn toward the bathroom where she was.

The bathroom with the open door.

Mencheres pulled off his wet shirt, leaving it on the floor. His shoes and sodden pants followed suit, the useless cell phone inside them making a soft thud as it hit the marble.

Then he walked naked into the bathroom.

Steam enveloped him when he stepped into the enclosed shower. Kira stood under the spray, her back to him, her body softly glistening. The weight of the water turned her hair a darker shade of topaz as it dragged it down to coat her shoulders.

She leaned back into his embrace without hesitation, unleashing a feeling of profound relief in him. Not until that very moment did he realize how much a rebuff from her would raze him. His hands almost trembled as he slid them down the sleek, supple planes of her body. My Kira. My strong, beautiful dark lady.

He kissed the back of her neck, the water running over his face from the spray. A soft moan came from her. She attempted to turn around, but he held her where she was. In his impatience before, he'd neglected to explore her the way he'd wanted to. Slowly.

Thoroughly. Until she writhed for him.

Mencheres spread Kira's arms out, bracing her against the shower wall with her body bent slightly forward. His hands caressed her front even as he dipped his mouth along her back, enjoying the small, sharp gasps that came from her. His power enclosed her as well, seeking all the curves of her body that his hands hadn't reached yet. When his mouth dipped to the slope in her lower back, he let his shields drop so Kira could feel his hunger. His anticipation and lust as he spread the globes of her cheeks to delve his tongue along their vall ey.

She shuddered, a harsh sound escaping her. He spread her legs wider, sinking to his knees, seeking her sweet center. His next lick found it, and he pressed her closer. She bent forward more even as her spine arched. A long ripple went through her.

"Please," Kira gasped. "I need to touch you."

Her knees trembled as his tongue swirled deeper inside her. He inhaled, reveling in her scent, her taste, and the tremors he felt vibrating against his mouth. His power held her upright while his hands continued to stroke her, the wetness on his tongue increasing even as Kira's moans grew into sobs. She leaned back, rocking in her ecstasy, inciting him to thrust his tongue faster and deeper within her. A primal triumph filled him as her juices began to cover his mouth even though the water still cascaded around them.

"Now, now, now," she all but screamed, letting go of the wall to clutch his hands.

Mencheres rose in a lithe motion, filling her in one powerful stroke. A cry tore out of her, but it wasn't edged in pain, and her walls clenched around his shaft in rapture instead of tension. A guttural moan came out of him as he grasped her hips and began to move with slow, deep strokes. She was so tight, but so wet, each twisting squeeze flooding his body with almost unbearable pleasure. His mouth latched onto her neck as he brought her flush against him, her back rubbing his chest and those deliciously full globes teasing his loins. Her head fell back while her arms rose to encircle him from behind, her hips matching the increasing pace of his.

Pleasure raced across every nerve in his body. It grew even as her cries became louder, the squeeze of her flesh around him tighter. The intensity increased until it felt like he burned from the inside out, his skin so tight and heated, even the continual spray of water from the shower was painfully erotic. He couldn't stop himself from moving faster, driving into Kira with an unrestrained hunger that demanded her response. Exultation filled him when she cried out, and spasms squeezed his shaft. Her ecstatic inner clenching only sharpened his pleasure, making his whole body throb with an answering cadence. He wanted to bury his seed deep inside her, but even more than that, he wanted to feel the sweet clamp of her orgasm around him again. Right now.

She hadn't ceased trembling from her release when Mencheres pulled out of her, spinning her to face him, his mouth covering hers to capture her moan. Kira's tongue stroked his almost feverishly as he thrust inside her again, the remaining shivers from her climax vibrating along his flesh with endless sensuality. He lifted her, using his power to glide them from the shower into the bedroom before lowering her onto the bed. Another long, deep thrust had her legs curling around his waist while her nails dug into his back.

Even through his haze of desire, he felt a flash of clarity. This was where Kira belonged

- in his arms, sharing every emotion that rippled through him with devastating intensity.

Then he lost himself in the taste of her mouth, the rub of her skin, the strong grip of her arms, and the wet, tight embrace that flooded his body with indescribable pleasure. Her name left his lips in a groan as his mouth slid down her body, reveling in the scent and flavor of her silky skin.

"Don't stop," Kira urged, trying to pull him back up.

"I want to feel you come again," he all but growled.

She let out a breathy laugh. "Then come back here and give me a few more minutes

-  oh! "

The cry wrenched out of her as he sank his fangs between her legs, right into the heart of her sensitivity. A deep satisfaction filled him as Kira's soft flesh seized beneath his mouth almost instantly. Then he rose up and thrust inside her, a groan escaping him at the feel of her flesh convulsing around him.

Her back arched while those shudders continued within her. He moved faster, kissing her throat, her lips, and her jaw while he let his control slip away. That throbbing in him grew until it felt like his skin would split from the pleasure frothing inside him. It overtook him, drowning him in sensations that intensified until they exploded in a climax that left him clutching Kira hard enough to bruise her.

For several long moments, he stared at her while the last ripples slowly faded from his body. Her eyes were greener than he'd ever seen, and her fingernails still dug into his shoulders.

"I can't believe you bit me there," she finally said. "But what I really can't believe is how it felt. "

A smile curved his lips. "There are perks to being a vampire. That is one of them. I'll enjoy showing you the others."

"I can't wait," she murmured. Then her expression changed, losing its sultry lethargy to become serious. "There's something I need to tell you."

He pulled away, leaving the bliss of her embrace to lean back against the headboard.

Kira sat up as well, pulling the outer blanket around her either out of chil or an attempt to put another barrier between them aside from the space that now separated them.

"I'm listening," he replied. Dozens of centuries spent concealing his emotions made his face blank and his voice neutral while his walls went up, keeping Kira from feeling any of his inner turmoil.

Her gaze was steady. "I'm in love with you. Yes, it's very soon. Yes, there's still so much I don't know about you, but this isn't infatuation or lust. It's real, and it's something that's been growing in me since before you left me on that roof."

Mencheres was stunned. He felt his mouth open, but he could not seem to make it form words. Reason at once rejected her statement. She couldn't love him. Kira had a clean heart. Not a spotless one - no one's heart was - but if she'd seen all the darkness in his life over the course of the years, she would run away from him.

Her gaze remained level. "Say something. I don't care what, just speak."

"I am a murderer."

The words came out without thought, but they were true. She deserved to know what he was, even though it would probably drive her away.

Her full, lovely mouth twitched. "I know that. I saw you knock the heads off those ghouls the day we met, remember?"

"Not just then." Mencheres met her gaze, waiting for it to cloud with revulsion at his next words. "Many times. More than I can remember."

"How many of those times had to do with protecting yourself or your people?" she asked, no change in her expression.

His brows drew together. She'd surprised him yet again. "Does it matter?"

"Yes," she replied with emphasis. "Your world operates by very different rules. I might not have seen much of it, but that part's clear. You're calling yourself a hardened killer, Mencheres, but I've seen you protect or save lives that shouldn't matter to you if you were such a cold person. I should know. Mine was one of those lives you saved, and at the time, you didn't even know me."

"I set my wife up to be killed. I watched her die and did nothing to stop it." His voice was flat.

Kira touched his face. "Cat told me she tried to kill you and everyone else close to you.

So you had no choice. Neither did I when I turned Pete in."

He set her hands from him. It was too difficult to say this next part with her touching him, but she needed to know exactly who it was she thought she loved.

"I killed Patra long before that day. You asked me if I ever took a life outside of protecting myself or my people. The answer is yes. Before Patra married me, she loved someone else. I slew her lover, and it was not in defense. I was a vampire, and he was merely human."

The memory of that murder rose within him, as it had done so often in the past several years while Patra edged ever closer to her fate. Intef's broken body on the floor, his blood soaking into the pale clay, and the stunned faces of Mencheres's guards as they looked at him.

"I told Patra her lover was murdered by Romans. We married a few years later, but eventually, one of the witnesses spilled my secret. I tried to explain the circumstances behind his death, but she didn't care. What I did caused Patra to hate me, and that hatred is what led her to attempt to destroy me and my people. All her actions can be laid at my feet."

"You killed him out of jealousy?" Kira asked, her voice raspier.

His eyes closed. "That day, the humans were warring. Soldiers injured Patra enough that I had to change her over instead of merely healing her. Then I went to fetch her lover as I'd promised. I felt no real jealousy toward Intef. He was one of many amusements Patra had indulged in during her unpleasant marriage, though he had a stronger hold over her because she did want him changed into a vampire, too."

"Weren't you worried that changing him over would ruin things for you? You must have cared for her by then, or were you two not, ah, involved yet?"

Mencheres opened his eyes to give Kira a pointed look. "We weren't lovers yet.

Patient I would be, share I would not. I cared for Patra then, but I wasn't blind to her nature. She was attracted to power and riches. I had both, Intef had neither. I knew she would soon choose me over him."

"So if it wasn't jealousy . . . ?" Her voice trailed off.

"The power to move things with my mind can be influenced by my emotions. That is why it requires absolute control, which is also why my sire knew Radje would have been a poor choice for it. I hadn't met Intef before that day, but when I went to fetch him, I heard his thoughts. He'd been using Patra to curry power, selling her secrets to her enemies.

He was the one who'd sent the Roman soldiers to kill her, the same ones who'd injured her so badly I had to turn her. I heard all that, and my rage let loose my power." Mencheres's mouth tightened into a grim line. "He was dead before any of my people could speak to stop me."

Pink glistened in Kira's eyes. "You were wrong to kill him," she said softy. "But you know that, and you've served a nine-hundred-year sentence of guilt under it. I think that's punishment enough - and you are not responsible for what Patra did. If that's the excuse she used for all the misery she caused, especially considering he tried to have her killed, then I call bullshit. That man's death is on your hands, but everything she did is on hers." Once again, Mencheres found himself in the rare position of being speechless.

People just did not love him if they knew him. They respected him, were loyal to him, feared him, hated him, envied him, lusted for him, needed things from him, or felt a combination of several of those things. But no one simply loved him - most especially, no one like Kira.

She slid her hands along his arms, moving closer to him.

"For all your experience, I'm guessing this is one thing you're not very familiar with, so let me help you out," she murmured. "For starters, it doesn't require weeks or months to know what you feel is love. For another, this is something that even with all your power, you can't control. You don't have to echo my feelings, Mencheres, but you can't talk me out of them, either. I love you." Her smile was wry. "Deal with it." She pulled his head down to her then, her mouth moving over his with such gentleness, he could have been a human she was trying not to bruise. He still couldn't summon the words to respond to her incredible statements, but this . . . this required no words.

He kissed her with everything in him that he could not form into speech, pulling down the barrier that prevented Kira from sensing his emotions. Her arms tightened, her fangs lengthened, and her body molded to his. A powerful need rose in him, stronger than lust, deeper than possessiveness. He let Kira feel all of it as he rolled on top of her, pulling away the blanket that was the only barrier between them.