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  Talia stepped inside, her breath catching as she took in the room. “It’s beautiful.”

  Joe’s face lit up with the first real smile she’d seen from him. Not charm, but genuine pride. “I’m glad you like it. I’m going slowly so I get everything right.”

  There was a small sitting room separated from the bedroom by an ornate plasterwork archway. There wasn’t much furniture in the sitting room, just a couch and chair, so she could see the deep green wallpaper and paler green wainscoting below. The floor was covered by an area rug that left a border of oak marquetry visible around the edge of the room. A small fireplace was set into one wall.

  Talia walked under the arch into the sleeping area. The half-tester bed looked original, as did the mahogany dressing table and chest of drawers. The forest green color scheme carried on through here and into the beautifully appointed three-piece bath. Joe had managed to find the right balance between Victorian ornament and a simpler modern aesthetic.

  Or had someone given him decorating advice? She turned to ask, but found she was alone. Whatever Joe’s mysteries were, they would remain a secret for tonight.

  Friday, December 31, 1:15 a.m.

  Empire Hotel

  A strange bed, however lovely, didn’t make for happy dreams. At least not on top of magic, and hidden tunnels, and the nightmare prospect of freezing into a coma and being chewed by rats.

  Sure, Joe’s drinks and a hot bath had warmed Talia back to her normal self, but they’d also made her sleepy. She’d laid down for a midnight nap, safe in the luxurious emerald oasis hidden in the derelict hotel. Safe, or as safe as Fairview got.

  Except from her memories.

  Belenos, King of the East, had stood beside the stone table where she was stretched out, her arms folded across her chest like the effigy on a sarcophagus. Later, she’d find out she’d been like that for days, losing her humanity little by little as Belenos fed on her, then fed her, and finally stole her life. Those memories he’d ripped from her mind. Turning a victim was a trade secret held only by vampire royalty. It wouldn’t do to let the minions make their own toys.

  The last thing she’d remembered was falling on the muddy soccer pitch behind the high school. There had been five Hunters—Talia, her father and brother, Uncle Yuri, and Tom. She’d just told Tom she wouldn’t marry him, so when she’d taken the bullet to the back, he’d barely cast a glance over his shoulder as he ran with the others. They’d left her there, fleeing before the mob of vampires that had risen out of the grass like a flock of nightmare crows. From where she’d lain in the grass, crippled and helpless, Talia had watched the Undead levitate into the clear, moonlit sky.

  If they’d wanted all the Hunters dead, they could have had their wish, but this was vengeance. This was Belenos’s piece of theater: a death for a death, but with a twist.

  Her father had killed Belenos’s second-in-command. Turning the great Hunter Mikhail Rostov’s daughter into the very thing he hunted was the vampire king’s idea of an artistic punishment. In short, the Hunter struck, the vampire struck back, and Talia paid the price.

  When her eyes had opened on her Unlife, they hadn’t focused all at once. Belenos had been dressed in a white suit, his long red hair like a cape of flame. She’d had a sudden, crazy idea he was an angel before her vision had cleared and his Nordic features had emerged from the haze. She’d guessed what had happened in a microsecond. She was dead, not stupid.

  He’d bent over her, grasping her chin to keep her face turned to his. “Congratulations, my duck. You survived.”

  His touch had jolted her fully awake. She’d tried to sit up, but he pressed a hand to her chest, keeping her pinned to the cold stone. “Not so fast.”

  Talia’s body had raged at the confinement. She felt enormously strong. Belenos’s blood was potent, and she was bursting with its power. She was terrified. Horrified. Revolted, and yet when she gazed on her maker’s face, she vibrated with a reverent lust.

  She was his slave, and they both knew it.

  She folded her hands over his, stroking the long, strong fingers. At that moment, he was her universe, and she ached to obey in the same moment she longed to rip into his veins and drink what she needed: more of the powerful, amazing blood that had Turned her into a dark goddess.

  “There is something you must do for me,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “Drink.”

  She clutched his hand, ready to raise his wrist to her mouth, but he pulled away and gave her a paternal smile. “No, it’s time for you to take your first steps. To learn to hunt for yourself.” He said the word with all the irony it deserved. Imagine teaching a Hunter to hunt for blood, ha-ha.

  She rose to follow him, her limbs as unruly as a newborn colt’s. Then she smelled the most delicious scent, sweet, fresh, and human. Hunger hit her like the blast of heat from a kiln.

  “There you are, my child,” said Belenos, taking her by the hand and leading her a little way. They seemed to be in an underground crypt. More of her sire’s overblown sense of drama.

  Tom was chained to a heavy iron ring in the wall, a metal dog collar around his neck. He was naked, his shaggy blond head matted with blood. Obviously cold, he huddled close to the floor.

  A pitiful thing, said a new, dreadful voice in her mind. You never loved him. You thought he was weak, your father’s puppet. You knew he couldn’t protect your happiness—and you were right. He ran away when he should have saved you. Go ahead, make a meal of him. At least it’ll be fast. Faster than the slow death of spreading your legs for a man who is half the warrior you are.

  That voice terrified Talia, even though it had a point. It was vile, and it was part of her. It was the voice of a real hunter, not humans with visions of species purity and moral stick-up-the-assedness. Belenos had given her more than just fangs. He’d turned her into a killer. Part of her wanted to dance, paint herself with that rich life-blood, and shriek with the sheer ferocity of what she had become.

  Tom must have seen it in her face. His eyes went round, the whites showing as terror and revulsion twisted his face. “Oh, God, Talia, you’re one of them!”

  You could have turned back to help me. Instead, you ran.

  But what arrowed into her heart was his disgust. She had become the Vile Thing. Worse, he smelled good, like a chilled orange when her body raged with fever. Quenching. Succulent. The object of a desperate craving.

  This isn’t me.

  But it was. Her body raged with the urgency. A new, unfamiliar aching in her jaw told her there was venom waiting to render her meal cooperative, to give him a lustful bliss more potent than any wedding night.

  “I brought him just for you,” said Belenos.

  She looked up at her sire, and realized she loathed him: every pore, every cell, every hair of his fox-red mane. Her feelings had turned on a dime after that look on Tom’s face. Shaking, her voice came out barely more than a whisper. “I don’t want to play your games.”

  “Ah, but my games are all you have left,” he said, his voice sinuous with anticipation. “You’re just a pitiful dead thing.”

  With one hand, he hauled Tom to his feet, with the other tilted the man’s head to the side. Chains swayed and scraped against the stone, a sound like the gates of Hell dragging open to swallow Talia whole.

  Belenos bit down, sinking enormous fangs into Tom’s neck. Tom screamed, a pitiful wail of despair. Talia’s insides jerked, responding to the cry of prey. Her teeth suddenly felt enormous in her mouth.

  Blood sprayed all over the king’s white suit as he tore out Tom’s throat. He looked up, his face a mask of gore. “Are you going to join me? I’ve got your brother for dessert.”

  She couldn’t remember what happened next. The reel of memory stopped short, as if it had been sheared away with a pair of scissors.

  Perhaps forgetting protected her from insanity.

  Talia twisted as she lay on top of the bedclothes, caught in the web of remembered imagery. She cried
out, half of her already trying to wake up. A sharp sound brought her fully conscious, followed by a cold swirl of air. Her mind groped, trying to understand what she’d heard, but the unfamiliar surroundings disoriented her.

  She bolted upright, aware something was in the darkened room, but not able to see it. Steeling herself, she reached out her hand toward the shadowy form of the bedside lamp. She touched the cool brass, letting her fingers slide up the base until she found the switch. Hesitating a moment, she swallowed, afraid of what she might see. That cold breeze curled through the room again, reminding her that something had opened a window.

  She clicked on the light. It cast a feeble puddle of light across the bedclothes. Talia blinked, a ripple of fear slithering up her arms.

  A huge shape hulked at the end of the bed. It seemed made of rags of shadow, scraps of it feathering away as the shape moved, as if stirred by the breath of Hell. Utterly black, it seemed more an abyss than a solid body, except for the two sparks of demon fire that were its eyes. Hellhound. Once she named it, she could make out the upright ears and long, pointed snout. The hounds weren’t made to be seen by human eyes, but she was a vampire.

  “Lore?” she whispered.

  The savage snarl told her otherwise. Talia’s hand darted under the pillow, grasping the gun she’d taken from Max. It felt hard and real in her palm, far from the magic talisman she needed to dispel this nightmare.

  The hound crouched, baring teeth as long as Talia’s hand. Ropy saliva trailed from its jaws, glistening in the lamplight.

  “Hold it there, bud,” Talia snarled in her turn, showing the hound her weapon. “Good doggy.”

  The hound sprang, the movement too quick for real animal bones and muscles. With a gasp of alarm, Talia fired, the gun in a two-handed grip as she rolled off the bed. Plaster exploded from the ceiling, showering dust on the bed. The hound landed with a thump that sent pillows flying, swinging its massive head around with another ferocious growl. Its lolling tongue was scarlet against the black fur, the teeth starkly white.

  Talia thought she had hit the beast straight in its chest. With a burst of horror, she guessed that the bullet had passed through the hound without a trace. Demons!

  Before it could lunge again, she dropped to the floor, rolling beneath the high Victorian bedstead. Paws thumped to the floor. Moments later a black snout pushed aside the dust ruffle, snuffling greedily.

  Talia shot out from the other side of the bed, using all her vampire speed to dive into the bathroom and slam the door shut behind her. Splinters of glass covered the floor tiles, cold air streaming through the smashed window pane. So that’s what woke me up.

  Claws tore at the bathroom door, sending Talia scrambling for the window. The toilet tank made a good step up, but she’d shred herself on the jagged teeth of glass sticking from the frame. Suck it up. Vampires heal.

  Then the scrabble of nails abruptly stopped.

  Chapter 23

  Adeep baying rattled the drinking glass at the edge of the sink, stealing a sob from Talia’s throat. The hound’s cry was like the last moan before the sun and moon winked out.

  But it hadn’t come from outside the door. This one was farther away.

  Her attacker answered, an awoo-woo that echoed in the tiny bathroom, making Talia feel like she was inside the dog. She shook with it, momentarily frozen.

  A crash of splintering wood followed. Fresh snarls shredded the air.

  Dog fight. Talia jumped off the toilet, not sure what to do. The dynamics had changed. Someone new had come.

  Had someone finally shown up to help her when she needed it?

  She cracked the bathroom door open, peeking out. The bedroom was empty, but she could hear the thump and crash of battle in the living area. Her gun in hand, she crept out of her hiding place. Whether or not bullets worked on hellhounds, she wasn’t going unarmed.

  The room was a writhing mass of shadow, like a dark star wrestling its way to implosion. Flashes of crimson eye and white fang streaked through the blackness, but it was impossible to see where one hound ended and the next began.

  Then suddenly it was Lore, his hand around a woman’s throat, pinning her to the floor. His movements were fluid, too quick to be human.

  The woman was dark and muscular and starkly beautiful, like the spirit of wild Arctic tundra—and about as friendly. She struggled under his grip, giving an unholy snarl of fury.

  “What’s going on?” Talia demanded from the shelter of the arch that joined the two rooms.

  Lore’s shoulders bunched with the effort of holding the woman still. His eyes flickered to Talia for a moment, but his opponent had his attention. “Mavritte?”

  The female spat back in a language Talia didn’t know.

  “She tried to eat my face,” Talia said acidly. “I think I deserve to listen in on the conversation.”

  Lore’s expression was still more hellbeast than man. “This is Mavritte of the Redbone pack. Beware of her.”

  He let his prisoner twist out of his grip. She was on her feet in seconds. Talia scanned the woman, looking for vulnerable points, weaknesses in her stance. There weren’t any. Crap.

  “I protect the pack,” the woman said to Lore in a lowpitched, husky voice made for whispering dirty secrets. “It is you who wastes time with other species.”

  “How did you find this place?”

  “Because I am a skilled tracker.”

  “Tell me!”

  She spit in derision. “You left the hospital in pursuit of a pretty young vampire, wringing your hands because she was lost in the snow like a newborn lamb. I thought to ask the Castle guards who had passed by them this night. They told me to look in the Empire.”

  He came looking for me. Talia’s throat ached with astonished emotion. My God, he told the truth when he said he’d protect me.

  Hellhounds really didn’t lie.

  Lore glared at Mavritte. “How did you know I was at the hospital?”

  She grinned, a baring of teeth. “Not all wolves are your friends. Your professor had other visitors. Some would like to be my ally.”

  Lore closed the distance between them, looming over her. “If I had been a little faster, you would have never made it here alive.”

  Mavritte folded muscular arms beneath her breasts, looking like Mr. Clean’s badass girlfriend. “By rights, the Alpha is mine to mate.” She thrust out an accusing finger at Talia. “What fantasies do you indulge with this bloodhungry corpse? This is what you would betray us with?”

  “Hey!” Talia snapped, misty longing giving way to annoyance.

  Mavritte glared. “She is a breach of everything we believe!”

  Lore made a grab for the other hound, but she ducked and wheeled, putting herself out of reach. He sank into a half crouch, ready to spring. “Be careful what you force me to do.”

  “The hellhounds need a bonded pair. You are pack father, the fertile seed. You can’t make the dead our pack mother.”

  “Whoa, who said—” Talia lost her words, too astonished to keep going.

  Mavritte rounded on her. “You do not care for him?”

  Talia dared not look at Lore. “Yeah, but grab some dignity, girlfriend. No catfights, and I don’t do bikini mud wrestling.”

  Mavritte looked confused. Maybe hellhounds didn’t get the specialty channels. She turned to Lore. “She will not fight for you.”

  Talia couldn’t resist a glance at Lore. He looked like he was going to explode, but she couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or infuriated by the conversation. “It is not the human way.”

  “Then what good is she?” the hell bitch asked.

  Talia folded her arms, mirroring Mavritte’s stance. “Hey, I’m not stopping him from finding a hellhound girlfriend.”

  “Enough!” Lore interjected.

  Mavritte ignored him. “Then whose fault would it be that he will not have me?”

  “Gee, I dunno.”

  Mavritte dropped her arms, holding them at her sides,
slightly away from her body. Ready to grapple. “Don’t mock me, vampire.”

  “Enough!” He grabbed Mavritte by the arm. He looked angry, but stricken. “Leave. Leave us. And leave Talia alone.”

  Mavritte broke his grip with a sweep of her arm. “You have no right to throw me out.”

  Lore’s face flushed. “I have every right to a minute of peace! I have a right to myself. To my privacy. I have the right to be with who I choose. I have done enough.” He spit the last words as if he were throwing a gauntlet at her feet.

  “I have the right to be heard by my Alpha.”

  “Hearing you is all that I’ve done from the moment you left the Castle!”

  “If you will not have me to mate, I challenge you for leadership. I have to protect the pack.”

  Talia’s jaw dropped. Holy crap!

  Lore’s face went granite-hard. “Mavritte, don’t. I don’t want to fight you.”

  She slammed both hands against his chest. “I demand it of you. By pack law. And don’t think I will be an easy victory.”

  Lore pushed her toward the door. “I refuse. Pack law cannot be invoked simply because you are angry that I don’t want to bed you. Try this again and I will shame you in front of both packs.”

  “You would not dare!”

  “Go, lick your wounds. Lick Grash. I don’t care.”

  Mavritte turned. “You can’t do this.”

  “And yet I do.” Lore shut the door in her livid face.

  He held the door handle a long moment, as if expecting her to burst back into the room.

  Talia remembered to close her gaping mouth. “What did she just say? She wants to fight you?”

  Lore held up his hand, signaling her to wait. After a long minute, he dropped his hand from the door. “She’s gone.”

  Talia grabbed his arm. “What the hell is going on?”

  He put a hand over hers, squeezing it gently. “Mavritte is angry. No one refuses her, and now I have. Her pride is wounded. She will get over it.”