“Gideon.” Anwyn's soft voice was a stripe of fire through his mind. “Look at me.” He wasn't a coward, damn it. He straightened, determined he was not going to hurl his last meal, whatever and whenever that was. For one thing, he knew he'd be the one cleaning it up. Daegan was giving him that peculiar look, but he inclined his head, leaving the cell to take the weapons away. Gideon forced himself to look at Anwyn.

The blue-green eyes were vivid like a tropical sea again, his blood still on her lips. Her hair tumbled over her breasts, but he could see the firm, round shape of them against the T-shirt in her restrained position, the hint of the nipples. With the cotton hiked up, she was all long, creamy thighs and shaven sex. The wound was no longer bleeding, getting the same fused but not completely healed look of the other wounds. Despite that, chained, helpless, she was so . . . tempting, that savage sensuality swirling around her like an irresistible perfume.

He closed his eyes.God, to even have such a thought right now. Maybe she was right. Maybe one male wasn't any better than another. But only some of them were evil enough to act on such vile ideas. He wasn't one of them.

“Gideon. Come to me.”

“Not a good idea,cher .” Daegan had come back. While his gaze toward her was compassionate, his voice was firm. “Not while he's bleeding. You won't be able to stop yourself. And he obviously does not have any desire to be a donor. I will arrange for that when it is time.”

“I just want . . . I don't want him blaming himself. He should defend himself, however he needs to do it.” Anwyn drew a deep breath, closing her eyes. For a long moment she stayed that way. Gideon could see her forcing her body to relax, muscle by resisting muscle, despite the quivers and jerks she couldn't control. The frustrated whimpers that vibrated in her throat speared his gut. It took a while, though, and he forced himself to emulate Daegan, both remaining still so as not to distract her.

When at last she spoke, her voice was calm, oddly detached, as if the past few moments hadn't occurred. “Funny. When you bind a submissive like this, the body decides its own movement. Writhing, arched. Begging for a Mistress's attention, or a Master's.” She opened her eyes, looked toward Daegan. “But like this, unwilling, the mind is in control. So you have to make decisions. If your feet are free, do you cross them at the ankle, spread them out to relieve pressure on the lower back? Clasp the manacles with your fingers, or let them hang loose? I guess however's comfortable, right?”

Tossing her head to get hair out of her eyes, she hit the back of her head on the stone with another wincing thud, though she didn't seem to notice. Her lip curled. “And of course your face is going to itch, right?”

Damning Daegan's warning, Gideon moved toward her. Even though the red was gone, he recognized that instantaneous flick of attention from her gaze. The predator was already growing in her blood, making her hypercognizant of any movement around her. So he approached slowly, easily, pushing down his unreasoning anger at her, his justified guilt at himself. Pushing away thought at all.

He readjusted the T-shirt, sliding it back down over her hips. As he did, his fingers made contact with the silk of her thighs. He wanted to linger there, but he didn't. He pushed her hair carefully from her face.

“If you want, I'll braid it. That might hold up better.”

She licked her lips, discovered the blood was causing the itch there. She swallowed, made a visible effort not to keep licking at it. Unsure what was guiding him, and though Daegan made a warning noise, he took her chin, used his thumb to collect his blood off her lip, put it on her tongue. Anwyn watched him, her eyes so preternaturally focused. He could sense the combustible heat below the surface of her skin, the strength and violence churning like a whirlpool.

“You're hungry and I'm giving you the blood,” he said softly. “There's no reason to take. Willing submission, right? That's what you crave. It's so much sweeter than force.” He heard Daegan's indrawn whisper of breath, a reaction to his rash act, but Daegan himself had planted the seed, hadn't he?You will be less of a threat. You submitted to her . . .

He'd never willingly allowed anyone, even Jacob, to feed directly from him. The two vampires that had captured him had done it to taunt him, and he'd felt as though his blood was poisoned by their saliva. The desire to scour himself internally had persisted for days.

Yet this was different. She hadn't volunteered for this. She needed him. Plus, he found he didn't like the idea of Daegan providing her another donor. Maybe from a bag was okay, but for some reason he couldn't bring himself to accept the idea of watching her feed off someone else. Vampires preferred their donors to be those who suited their sexual orientation, so a straight female vampire would prefer males.

It was ludicrous, since he'd known her for a couple days, and her vampire lover stood behind him.

Nevertheless, he was getting possessive.Yeah, I'm an idiot.

“I want to lick your neck. It's bleeding, too.” Anwyn swallowed. She kept her eyes on Gideon's, though, not shifting to the wound her flared nostrils detected so keenly.

“All right.” Putting his arm against the stone wall and sliding his other behind her back to steady himself, he bent one knee, pressing it to the outside of her hip so he could drop down a few inches, bring the shoulder within comfortable range of her mouth. Her bound arm stretched before him like a supplicant reaching toward Heaven, so he reached out to the end of it, linked his fingers with hers.

This was madness. She was going to rip into him like a wolf devouring a sheep's stomach. Daegan had said it was chemical, that there was no way she could control herself. But he'd never been as smart as he should be. He just followed his gut most days, and dumb luck so far had helped him survive his missteps.

Today, he had help from more than luck. Without invitation, Daegan had stepped close, his hands sliding under Gideon's arms to rest on his rib cage. Though he thought about telling him to back off, it was logical. Daegan was ready to pull Gideon away if needed. Functional, but also a strange reassurance to it, a steadying force behind the touch.

His gut aside, he'd been pissed by Daegan's comment that he would refuse to be a donor. He'd donated blood for his brother when it was needed, albeit not straight from the vein. But he wasn't so much of a bastard that he couldn't look past his own squeamishness. With this sensual gesture of trust, he could tell her that he believed things were going to work out for her. God knew, he'd been in situations where everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. The right word at the right time was the only thing that told him the world wasn't ending, even if it had come close to being the end ofhis world.

Tightening his grip on her hand, he encouraged her to get started before he changed his mind. Anwyn's head dipped, her hair brushing Gideon's cheek, her mouth touching his neck where it met his shoulder.

His shirt was in the way, even though she'd ripped it in the back when she bit him there. Daegan slid the fabric to the right to expose the bite area, his fingers grazing bare skin. The brief, startling brush of the man's mouth flashed through Gideon's mind, discomfiting him. Hell, he'd never let a vamp touch him this much, but it was necessary. Whatever else the creature was, Gideon didn't doubt his devotion to Anwyn.

He couldn't help tensing a little, though, when Anwyn fastened her mouth over the bite, but she didn't use her fangs. Just her tongue, licking at the wound, tasting him and stimulating new blood flow. His mind had been focusing only on a way to soothe her, but now he was reminded of other side effects that came from a woman, particularly this one, putting her mouth on his flesh. The thin T-shirt didn't disguise the pressure of breasts against his chest, the nipples a noticeable difference in the soft give of her flesh. Her bare thigh brushed the inside of his. Glancing down to distract himself, he saw she even had pretty knees, smooth oblong curves of bone beneath her pale skin.

Her motion brought him the scent of Daegan's shirt. Daegan had known, like many women, she could draw reassurance and comfort from her lover's smell. Gideon used all his senses to the nth degree in his line of work, and knew he practically had a German shepherd's olfactory skills. Right now, it wasn't an advantage, because the unique male smell, mixed with the scent of Anwyn's skin, wasn't as unaffecting as it should have been.

Daegan had registered the spike in his tension when she'd put her mouth over the wound. His thumb began to rub Gideon's hard shoulder muscle. While he used enough pressure to ease the knot growing there, and maybe he was doing it to keep Gideon calm for Anwyn's benefit, Gideon didn't like it. He twitched, an unspoken message to the vampire to cut it out. The erotic heat of Anwyn's mouth so close to that massaging touch gave both of them more of a sensual flavor, and he was not going to let his cock get hard over Daegan Rei's touch, even if it was just incidental to hers.

Anwyn made a sound in her throat. Her mouth was cruising up the side of his neck, where the artery pulsed even harder. Daegan paused. Gideon wondered if he should pull back, but from the heat coming off Anwyn's body, he thought that might be interpreted by her newly minted vampire senses as prey trying to run. So he stayed where he was as her breath teased the flesh directly beneath his ear. Then she was moving along his jaw, the tip of her tongue tracing that bone, her lips dragging along his skin.

Damn it, his cockwas getting hard, and the fact her nipples were tightening even further wasn't helping.

Yeah, she was getting aroused. No surprise there, because vamps stayed horny about 120 percent of the time with that never-ending fountain of pheromones.

He didn't like the sound of that crude word in his head, though, not applied to Anwyn. Maybe he'd done it to distance himself.Too late for that , he observed ruefully, considering he was positioned between a fledgling vampire who could tear out his throat and a vampire who could dice him with his own switchblade and be sitting on the couch, paring his nails with the blade, before the last piece hit the floor.

When she found his mouth, he turned into the kiss, letting himself go with it. She had his blood on her tongue, but she opened wide, encouraged him to plunge deep, another sexy sound coming from the back of her throat. Pressing into her, he let her feel his arousal against her thigh. He moved his hand around her back, cinched her tighter to him, and she moaned full-out into his mouth, the need vibrating through his own vocal cords.