"Alyaushka." He used his old pet name for her. "I know how strong you are, but you're outmanned and outgunned."

"I won't do it."

"Then we'll both die."

"You underestimate me."

"I understand odds. You know it's the only logical plan. Tap my strength. Get out of here, however you can. Go home, get your men, call my family and rain h.e.l.l down on these people."

She stared at him, trying to break his resolve, but he just stared back, knowing he was right. Somewhere, a bird began its morning song.

"There is no time!"

Alya turned toward the mountains, as if some last hope might be found there. A second later she turned back, her jaw set. "Okay."

Mikhail let out the breath he'd been holding.

She leaned over and kissed him fiercely, her hands deep in his hair. This was right. It would work.

She climbed up on the table and crouched over his body. "I don't know how I'm ever going to do this."

"l.u.s.t."

They'd both ex'd at the climax of a fight. The pa.s.sion of violence helped drop the inhibitions against cannibalism. l.u.s.t would work the same way.

"l.u.s.t? You're feeling l.u.s.t now?" She wiggled backward. "Oh. So you are."

"You're on top of me. Naked." That was incitement enough, but strangely, he found that the idea of imminent death aroused him. The cuffs and the smooth steel at his back aroused him. The prospect of her bite aroused him.

"You're disturbed. I've said it before."

She didn't even begin to know. The things you learned about yourself when you were dying.

He lifted his head to meet her kiss. He closed his eyes and savored the taste of her mouth, remembering the powerful ambrosia of her blood, and how it warmed his throat and blew open his mind. She took hold of his c.o.c.k. He was so ready. He groaned aloud and thrust into her fist. "Hurry."

She spat into her hand, rubbed her spit on the head and then guided him in. Her brow creased as she settled over him. She wasn't ready. But she bit her lip and wiggled until she took him anyway. He couldn't repress another groan as he sank into her heat. "Okay," she whispered, "I've got it."

Mikhail said, "Tell me when to come."

He meant to remind her of her wicked b.l.o.w.j.o.b. It might have worked, because she turned slick and took him deeper. With the first hints of pink breaking over the horizon, she began to ride him.

She ran her palms over his chest and pinched his nipples hard. He jerked under her. But then she stroked the pain away and gave him a sad smile.

"You'll come when I bite you."

He smiled to rea.s.sure her. But instead of rea.s.suring her, it made her cry. She didn't sob, but tears flowed down her cheeks. He wished he could wipe them away, but all he could do was watch her fight her embarra.s.sment, lock down her emotions and transform herself into a predator.

And it was this predator, not Alya, who fell upon his throat.

Play biting was highly stimulating, and once started, it took an iron will to back off. Each vamp had a point of no return, and she was racing toward it. In no time, her nips became more aggressive, the licking more frantic, the kisses bruising. Her hips rocked faster and faster. She was losing control-and he loved being devoured by her.

This is an excellent way to die.

She growled low in her throat. The sensual, satisfied sound curled around his spine.

One of her hands slid behind his neck, lifting his jaw skyward, exposing his veins and arteries. Her scratchy tongue traced his neck. Her sucking kisses called up his blood. He went lightheaded, loose limbed and warm. No wonder feeders begged for it.

She jerked upright with a short cry, climaxing fast and hard. Just as fast, she swooped down and ripped open his throat. The pain jolted through him, spurring his release. As he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, she began to suck. He flowed into her. His spirit soared free.

"Misha." There was no holding back from her, no secrets, no half-truths. Her consciousness flowed into him and saw all of him. At the same time, everything he ever was or hoped to be rushed to join her.

"If there's a child, I'll keep it."

A child of theirs. He'd never even considered...

Her inner voice pushed into his reverie. "I'm sorry, so sorry."

Outside he heard her swallowing convulsively. His heart lurched crazily, trying to compensate for blood loss. Fascinating. What had she been saying? She was sorry for something that happened a thousand years ago. It didn't matter.

She was still drinking, but she was crying again. He smelled her tears. They made him thirsty. He wished he could have tasted her one last time. Dying under her mouth was like sinking into a velvet void. Summoning his strength, he opened his eyes to see blazing wisps of orange clouds reflected in the windows of the skysc.r.a.pers.

"Finish. Go."

Alya tore a fresh hole and sucked viciously. The black closed in gently.

Chapter Nine.

Mikhail flowed through her, icy and powerful as a river roaring out of the mountains. She'd known all along that it would come to this. That she would kill him. But now that the time had come, she hated it. He belonged in the world. He deserved to live.

But his blood leapt into her mouth, insistent. She didn't even have to suck. His strength renewed her, giving back all he'd taken and so much more. His goodness staggered her. She rubbed up against it, hoping some of it would rub off.

Alya knew exactly how much blood she could take from anyone before she did harm. Mikhail had reached that point. He slipped into unconsciousness, but still his blood sang, yes, take me.

He was perfect and beautiful. His dying thoughts were of her. He loved her. As if she deserved it. As if she'd done anything decent in her life.

The compulsion to finish the kill was strong, almost too strong, but she tore her mouth away. With a few quick strokes of her tongue she halted his bleeding and paused, gasping, confused, her head and heart br.i.m.m.i.n.g.

I've got to save him.

She had no plan. No hope at all, really. More than likely she'd be dead within five minutes. But if there was even a sliver of a chance that she could get him out too, she had to try. And if she failed, well, with any luck he wouldn't wake before the sun hit him.

Resolved, she sprang off the table and grabbed a six-foot length of chain.

Mikhail was with her. Not his consciousness, but his essence, unabsorbed and unsettled. Like a drop of dye spreading in pure water, it tinted everything she did. His caution tempered her recklessness. On her own, she would have rushed the building. Instead she crept through the door on a.s.sa.s.sin's feet, descended a few stairs and entered a long hall, her senses p.r.i.c.kling. There were guards at the end of the hall, she could hear them talking. A TV blared in the room to her right, and men shouted at it. She recognized the sound of sports. Using her finer senses she took a second sweep of the area and realized a single vamp was in a room to her left. Quiet. Maybe sleeping.

She slipped into that room, hoping to find Halverson, and walked straight into the b.u.t.t of a rifle. The blow to her forehead bounced her off the nearest wall. Anna Halverson spun the rifle around for a killing shot.

Alya swung out with her chain and caught Anna's leg by either chance or luck, because she couldn't see straight. But she felt the chain grab hold and she yanked hard. Anna fell on her back and Alya was on her.

Unable to shake images of the sun igniting Mikhail's flesh, Alya wasted no moves. She strangled Anna with the chain and claimed her gun. The room contained another treasure: an acetylene torch. With the chain around her neck, the gun across her back and the torch in her hand she crept back into the hall and began to set the place afire. As the smoke spread, the men came out to investigate. There were more than Mikhail had guessed. She picked them off one by one, first with the rifle, then with the chain, and then with her bare hands.

"Halverson!" she called, retreating to the stairs, hoping to lure him out to the roof.

Gunnar attacked out of nowhere, pushing her out the door. A cloud of black smoke rolled with them, obscuring the morning sky. He was brave, but he was just a boy. In a couple of moves she had his arm wrenched behind his back.

"You b.i.t.c.h!" he cried, his voice breaking with fear. "I'll kill you for this."

"Stupid child. I eat boys like you for breakfast. You're going to tell your people what happened here. You're going to tell them to live clean and stay quiet or I will come to the f.u.c.king North Woods and paint them red. And believe me, I will start with you."

She pitched him to an adjacent rooftop some eighty feet below. Young vamps had some bounce to them. Usually.

"Gunnar!"

She turned to see Halverson running at her with a fire axe.

Mikhail knew he wasn't in heaven. Black smoke billowed around him in smothering clouds, stinging his eyes. A terrible stench filled his nostrils, a noxious combination of burning plastic and flesh. He'd killed too many people in his life to go to heaven. Thou shalt not kill was a basic commandment, after all.

A man screamed, agonized, but his cry was ominously short. After that he couldn't hear anything else except the roar of the inferno. And then, out of a fountain of glowing embers, walked Alya-or some demon G.o.ddess that looked like Alya. She was naked, her skin shining black. Ash whitened her hair. Her face was contorted with blood l.u.s.t. Her eyes, red. In one hand she carried a battle axe. In the other, a club.

No, not a club. A dismembered arm.

"I'm getting you out of here," she said.

Chapter Ten.

Night. Home. Bed. Uninjured. The window is open.

Before she opened her eyes, Alya went through her checklist. If it were daytime she'd be lethargic and cold. She was warm. She knew her sheets down to the thread count. The jasmine outside her window scented the room with heavy perfume.

And then she felt him. Inside her, his blood colonizing her body. And physically close. Within reach. Watching her sleep.

Oh my G.o.d. What have I done?

She scrambled to protect her mind from him, throwing up crude barricades and no trespa.s.sing signs. It wasn't enough. He was there. Right there. Reading her. Well aware she was awake.

She opened her eyes.

And freaked out even more.

He looked like the Angel of Judgment, come to claim her. Clean and composed, dressed in a black shirt and trousers, he sat in a chair by her bed, his hands spread on his knees, his feet bare. He met her gaze with absolute confidence. He'd won. They were bonded.

She sat up warily. Her skin felt too tight. She glanced down and realized her body was glazed with dried blood. Her face, too, by the feel of it. She rubbed her temple and a shower of brown flakes fell on her sheets.

"The blood of our enemies." Mikhail's voice rang inside her, his eyes glowed with approval.

No. No. No. Get out of my head. Her head was no place to be. She clutched the sheet to her chest as the memories of battle came flooding in. Black memories. Red memories. She'd fought and killed before, but never like that. Never like a bloodthirsty djinn. Nothing stood in her way that awful dawn. They'd fallen before her like lambs.

Even Halverson. She'd thrown him to the ground and ex'd him while he struggled. She'd enjoyed it. Afterward, she dismembered him. She'd enjoyed that, too.

Somehow, during all that madness, she'd managed to box up his essence and store him away with the other dead princes inside her. As carefully as she'd touch a wound, she probed this fresh tenant. How could she ever bear to access his memories?

How could she when she'd almost popped his wife's head off her shoulders?

The blood would never come off.

Mikhail put one hand on the bed, and then the other. Then a knee. The bed sank under his weight. Trapped in her thoughts, she could not stop him.

He took her head between his hands. "You did what had to be done."

When she finished her slaughter in the hallway, the bodies had lain so thick that she had to walk across their broken backs and tangled limbs to return to the roof. She could remember how their hair felt between her toes.

Mikhail shook her. "Stop it. Leave it alone."

Her lips parted but no words came out. All she could see was Halverson's face.

"You know how to compartmentalize."

Yeah, so why can't I compartmentalize you? She whispered it to herself, not knowing what he could hear or see inside her. She knew she could see more of him if she wished, but didn't go there.

Strangely enough, his question worked. It focused her attention on him, instead of the Minnesotans. And Frank. Oh yes, she'd caught up with Frank.

Mikhail probed her mind, grabbing at anything she let slip. Unlike her, he'd use this connection between them any way he could. She fought back, making her mind slick as gla.s.s, as reflective as a mirror.

"Why are you locking me out?" he said.

Alya would have laughed, but feared if she laughed, she'd start to cry. Why would he want in? What if she was carrying his child? Could this be any more f.u.c.ked up? When she rescued him, she'd stepped in a cell of her own making and tossed away the key.

Mikhail spoke slowly, as if she were brain damaged. "You're safe with me."

That wasn't true. She was safest alone. Like a gun in a box.

He looked hungry. Beat to h.e.l.l and hungry. That was her fault.

"Alya, don't. Don't."

He pushed back her hair, searching her face. He lowered his head and sniffed her, skimming his nose over her forehead and nuzzling her hair. She couldn't help but sniff too. The skin on the underside of his jaw smelled good beyond belief.