The noise came again, another clumsy b.u.mp, followed by an abrupt clatter of metal as something got knocked off a shelf.

Which meant someone was in the back storage room.

Tess rose from her desk and took a few tentative steps toward her office door, ears tuned to any disturbance at all. In the kennels off the reception area, the handful of post-op cats and dogs were restless. Some of them were whining; others were issuing low warning growls.

"h.e.l.lo?" Tess called into the empty s.p.a.ce. "Is someone here? Ben, is that you? Nora?"

n.o.body answered. And now the noises she'd heard before had gone still as well.

Great. She'd just announced her presence to an intruder. Brilliant, Culver. Absolutely frigging brilliant.

She tried to console herself with some fast logic. Maybe it was just a homeless person looking for shelter, who found his or her way into the clinic from the back alley. Not an intruder. Nothing dangerous at all.

Yeah? So why were the hairs on the back of her neck tingling with dread? Tess shoved her hands into the pockets of her lab coat, feeling suddenly very vulnerable. She felt her ballpoint pen knock against her fingers. Something else was in there as well.

Oh, that's right. The tranq syringe, full of enough Telazol to knock a four-hundred-pound animal out cold.

"Is someone back there?" she asked, trying to keep her voice firm and steady. She paused at the reception station and reached for the phone. The d.a.m.n thing wasn't cordless-she'd gotten it cheap on closeout-and the receiver barely reached to her ear from over the counter. Tess went around the big U-shaped desk, glancing nervously over her shoulder as she started punching 9-1- 1 on the keypad. "You'd better get out of here right now, because I'm calling the cops."

"No... please... don't be afraid... ."

The deep voice was so quiet, it shouldn't have reached her ears, but it did. She heard it as surely as if the words had been whispered right up next to her head. Inside her head, strange as that seemed.

There was a dry croak and a violent, wracking cough, definitely coming from the storage room. And whomever the voice belonged to sounded like he was in a world of hurt. Life and death kind of hurt.

"d.a.m.n it."

Tess held her breath and hung up the phone before her call connected. She walked slowly toward the back of the clinic, uncertain what she was going to find, and really wishing she didn't have to look at all.

"h.e.l.lo? What are you doing in here? Are you hurt?"

She spoke to the intruder as she pushed open the door and stepped inside. She heard labored breathing, smelled smoke and the briny stench of the river. She smelled blood, too. Lots of it.

Tess flicked the light on.

Harsh fluorescent tubes buzzed to life overhead, illuminating the incredible bulk of a drenched, heavily injured man slumped on the floor near one of the supply shelves. He was dressed all in black, like some kind of goth nightmare-black leather jacket, tee- shirt, fatigues, and lace-up combat boots. Even his hair was black, the wet strands plastered to his head, shielding his down-turned face from view. An ugly smudge of blood and river water traveled from the back door, partially opened onto the alley, to where the man lay in Tess's storeroom. He had evidently dragged himself inside, maybe unable to walk.

If she hadn't been so accustomed to seeing the grisly aftermath of car accidents, beatings, and other bodily trauma in her animal patients, the sight of this man's injuries might have turned Tess's stomach inside out.

Instead, her mind switched from alarm and the instinctual fight-or-flight mode she'd been feeling out in the reception area, to that of the physician she was trained to be. Clinical, calm, and concerned.

"What happened to you?"

The man grunted, gave a vague shake of his dark head like he wasn't going to tell her anything about it. Perhaps he couldn't.

"You're covered in burns and wounds. My G.o.d, there must be hundreds of them. Were you in some kind of accident? " She glanced down to where one of his hands was resting on his abdomen. Blood was seeping through his fingers from a fresh, deep puncture. "Your gut is bleeding-and your leg, too. Jesus, have you been shot?"

"Need... blood."

He was probably right about that. The floor beneath him was slick and dark from what he'd lost just since his arrival at the clinic.

He'd likely lost a good deal more before he got there. Nearly every patch of his exposed skin bore multiple lacerations-his face and neck, his hands, everywhere Tess looked, she saw bleeding cuts and contusions. His cheeks and mouth were pale white, ghostly. "You need an ambulance," she told him, not wanting to upset him, but d.a.m.n, the guy was in bad shape. "Just relax now. I'm going to go call 911 for you."

"No!" He lurched from his slump on the floor, thrusting his hand out to her in alarm. "No hospitals! Can't... can't go there... they won't... can't help me."

Despite his protest, Tess started to run for the phone in the other room. But then she remembered the stolen tiger hanging out in one of her exam rooms. Hard to explain that to the EMTs, or, G.o.d forbid, the police. The gun shop had probably already called in the theft of the animal, or would by the time the store opened that morning, just a few short hours away.

"Please," gasped the huge man bleeding all over her clinic. "No doctors."

Tess paused, regarding him in silence. He needed help in a big way, and he needed it now. Unfortunately, she looked like his best chance at the moment. She wasn't sure what she could do for him here, but maybe she could patch him up temporarily, get him on his feet and get him the h.e.l.l out of there.

"Okay," she said. "No ambulances for now. Listen, I'm, ah-I'm actually a doctor. Well, more or less. This is my veterinary clinic. Would it be all right if I come a little closer and have a look at you?"

She took the quirk of his mouth and ragged exhaled sigh as a yes.

Tess inched down beside him on the floor. He seemed big from across the room, but crouched next to him, she realized that he was immense, easily six-and-a-half feet, and 250-plus pounds of heavy bone and solid muscle. Was he some kind of bodybuilder?

One of those macho meatheads who spent his life in the gym? Something about him didn't quite fit that mold. With the grim cut of his face, he looked like the kind of guy who could tear a gym rat to pieces with his teeth.

She moved her hands lightly over his face, feeling for trauma. His skull was intact, but her touch told her that he'd suffered a mild concussion in some fashion. Probably was still in a state of shock.

"I'm just going to check your eyes," she informed him gently, then lifted one of his lids.

Holy s.h.i.t.

The slit pupil cutting through the center of a large, bright amber iris took her aback. She recoiled, freaked out by the unexpected presentation.

"What the-"

Then the explanation hit her, and she instantly felt like an idiot for losing her cool.

Costume contacts.

Chill out, she told herself. She was getting jumpy for no good reason. The guy must have been at a Halloween party that got out of hand or something. Not much she could tell from his eyes so long as he was wearing those ridiculous lenses.

Maybe he'd been partying with a rough crowd; he certainly looked big and dangerous enough to be part of some kind of gang.

If he was rolling with g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers tonight, she didn't detect any evidence of drugs on him. She didn't smell alcohol on him, either.

Just some heavy-duty smoke, and not from cigarettes.

He smelled like he'd walked through fire. Just before he took a dive into the Mystic River.

"Can you move your arms or legs?" she asked him, moving on to inspect his limbs. "Do you think you have any broken bones?"

She skimmed her hands over his thick arms, feeling no obvious fractures. His legs were solid, too, no real damage beyond the bullet wound in his left calf. From the look of it, the round appeared to have pa.s.sed clean through. Same with the one that hit him in the torso. Luckily for him.

"I'd like to move you to one of my exam rooms. Do you think you can walk if I help hold you up?"

"Blood," he gasped, his voice thready. "Need it... now."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I can't help you there. You'll need a hospital for that. Right now we need to get you off this floor and out of those ruined clothes. G.o.d knows what kind of bacteria you picked up in that water out there."

She put her hands under his armpits and started to lift, encouraging him to stand. He growled, something deep and animalistic.

As the sound left his mouth, Tess caught a glimpse of his teeth behind his curled upper lip.

Whoa. That's weird.

Were those monstrous canines actually... fangs?

His eyes came open as if he had sensed her awareness. Her unease. Tess was instantly blasted by piercing bright amber light, the glowing irises sending a bolt of panic straight into her chest. Those sure as h.e.l.l weren't contacts.

Good Lord. Something wasn't right with this guy at all.

He grabbed her upper arms. Tess cried out in alarm. She tried to pull out of his grasp, but he was too strong. Hands as unyielding as iron bands clamped tighter around her and brought her closer. Tess shrieked, wide-eyed, frozen in fear as he drew her right up against him.

"Oh G.o.d. No!"

He turned his bloodied, battered face toward her throat. Sucked in a sharp breath as he neared her, his lips brushing her skin.

"Shhh." Warm air skated across her neck as he spoke in a low, pained rasp. "I won't... not going to... hurt you. I promise... ."

Tess heard the words.

She almost believed them.

Until that split second of terror, when he parted his lips and sank his teeth deep into her flesh.

CHAPTER Four

Blood surged into Dante's mouth from the twin punctures in the female's neck. He drew from her with deep, urgent pulls, unable to curb the feral part of him that knew only need and desperation. It was life pulsing over his tongue and down his parched throat, silky, cinnamon-sweet, and so very warm.

Maybe it was the severity of his need that made her taste so incredible, so indescribably perfect to him. Whatever it was, he didn't care. He drank more of her, needing her heat when he was chilled to his marrow.

"Oh G.o.d. No!" The woman's voice was heady with shock. "Please! Let me go!"

She clutched at his shoulders reflexively, fingers digging into his muscles. But the rest of her body was slowly going still in his arms, lulled to a boneless sort of trance by the hypnotic power of Dante's bite. She sighed a long gasp of breath, sagging limply as he eased her down onto the floor beneath him and took the nourishment he so badly needed.

There was no pain for her now, not since the initial penetration of his fangs, which would have been sharp but swiftly fleeting. The only pain here was Dante's own. His body shuddered from the depth of its trauma, his head splitting from concussion, his torso and limbs laced open in too many places to count.

It's okay. Don't be afraid.

You are safe. I promise.

He sent the rea.s.surances into her mind, even as he held her tighter, brought her more firmly into the cage of his arms, his mouth still drawing hard from the wound at her throat.

Despite the ferocity of his thirst, a need amplified by the severity of his injuries, Dante 's word was good. Beyond the bite that startled her, he would not harm the female.

I'll take only what I need. Then I'll be gone, and you will forget all about me.

Already his strength was returning. Torn flesh was mending from the inside out. Bullet and shrapnel wounds were healing over.

Burns cooling.

Pain fading.

He eased up on the female, willing himself to slow, even though the taste of her was beyond enticing. He'd registered the exotic note of her blood scent on his first draw, but now that his body was rejuvenating, his senses coming back online fully, Dante couldn't help but savor the sweetness of his unwilling Host.

And her body.

Beneath the shapeless white lab coat, she was strong, lean muscle and long, graceful limbs. Curvy in all the right places. Dante felt the mash of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressing against his chest, where he pinned her on the storeroom floor, her legs tangled with his. Her hands were still gripped hard on his shoulders, no longer pushing against him, but simply holding on to him as he took a final sip of her life-giving blood. G.o.d, she was so exquisite he could drink from her all night.

He could do a h.e.l.l of a lot more than that, he thought, suddenly aware of the erection that was wedged hard and demanding at her pelvis. She felt too good beneath him. His blessed angel of mercy, even if she'd come into the role by force.

Dante breathed in her spicy-sweet scent, gently dropping a kiss on the wound that had fed him a second chance at life.

"Thank you," he whispered against her warm, velvet-soft skin. "I think you saved my life tonight."

He smoothed his tongue over the small punctures, sealing them closed, and erasing all traces of his bite. The female moaned, stirring from her temporary thrall. She moved under him, the subtle shifting of her body only heightening Dante's desire to be inside her.

But he'd already taken enough from her tonight. In spite of the fact that she would remember none of what occurred, it seemed less than sporting to seduce her in a puddle of stale river water and spilled blood. Particularly after going at her neck like an animal.

He moved slightly off of her, and brought his right hand up near her face. She flinched, understandably wary. Her eyes were open now-mesmerizing eyes, the color of flawless aquamarine.

"My G.o.d, you are beautiful," he murmured, words he'd casually tossed out to numerous females in the past, but surprisingly never meant more than he did now.

"Please," she whispered. "Please, don't hurt me."

"No," Dante said gently. "I'm not going to hurt you. Just close your eyes now, angel. It's almost over."

A brief press of his palm against her brow, and she would forget all about him.

"Everything's all right," he told her as she shrank back from him on the floor, her eyes locked onto his as if she waited for him to strike her. Dared him to. Dante smoothed her hair off her cheek with the tenderness of a lover. Her felt her tension ratchet a little tighter. "Relax now. You can trust-"

Something sharp stuck him in the thigh.

With a vicious snarl, Dante rolled away, flipping onto his back. "What the h.e.l.l?"