"And still you pursued and fought him," Bronson pressed.

"What can I say? He got under my skin." Malcolm shrugged.

My confusion gave way to a thin sort of panic. He'd screwed up and Bronson was going to hurt him. Everything we'd been through and everything we'd done didn't matter. No matter what we did, no matter what we gave up, the possibility of pain-of punishment-would always be hanging over him like a noose. He'd never be allowed to win.

"Wait at the resort," Bronson said to me. "Take her."

Someone touched my arm, wrenching my gaze away from Mal. The back of the hand was slick, like the scar tissue over a burn. I raised my eyes. Vesta, the soldier who'd tried to snack on me. She had the good grace to look sheepish.

"She should stay," Mal said, his words heavy with influence. "She hasn't agreed yet. Let her watch before she makes her decision about allegiances."

I held his gaze, but I blinked compulsively in antic.i.p.ation of the first strike. I could try to use my newfound status to make this last year better for Malcolm. But I wouldn't be able to give Bronson what he wanted. I couldn't make myself want to help him, and then where would we be? Malcolm couldn't leave.

"I honestly thought that, in twenty years, you would learn self-control," Bronson said, sounding puzzled. "At the very least, I thought you would try, for her sake."

"You don't know me very well," Malcolm said. "At least release me."

"And what would be the point of that?"

"Because, if there's an afterlife, I don't want to be chained to your sorry a.s.s."

Bronson actually laughed. "This is the afterlife, Malcolm. But very well. You're released. Enjoy your freedom."

My brain caught up and I shoved Vesta out of my way. She recoiled almost before I touched her. They weren't talking about punishment. A sound caught in my throat, a gasp of disbelief or a scream of protest. Mal's eyes were fierce and full of...everything.

He jerked when Bronson grabbed him, then the Master flared so strongly that I threw both arms up as power rent the air. Unlike Chev's, the blast wasn't bright. So I was able to see very clearly when Malcolm fell to the ground.

I dropped almost on top of him, as if I could shield him from further harm. But it did no good. I couldn't help him. He was already dead.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

The sound of the Bradigan pulled me back, that self-satisfied purr promising speed and distance. A year ago, that would have been all I wanted out of a night. Speed. Power. A little fun.

Tonight I wanted Malcolm back.

He didn't look all that different. His face was smooth, as though he were sleeping. But his upper lip was swollen from the fight. And his skin was slowly turning from ivory to gray.

"Take your argument elsewhere," Chev said, her voice flat. It was the third time she'd said it, but neither Soraya nor Bronson acknowledged her as they screamed at each other a little ways behind me. When she'd fully regained consciousness, she'd bailed from whatever safe house they'd found and come for Mal. She'd arrived a quarter of an hour too late.

Bronson had been surprised by her rage, just like he'd been surprised by my tears. He was more powerful, he'd explained patiently, as though I was too simple to get it. Malcolm was dead, so obviously I would turn all of my attention and affection on him. Like trading up for a better model of vampire.

The stupid a.s.shole.

That t.i.tle applied to Bronson, but also to Malcolm. In telling Bronson I was worth the Master's protection, he'd secured my safety, but also in Bronson's mind positioned himself as a rival. Mal's fight with Abel was a ready-made excuse to kill him.

Why? Why did he tell him? If I were just another human girl, it wouldn't have mattered. Bronson would have punished him and we'd all have carried on. That would have been better than this. Anything would have been better than this. He'd fought so hard to get us here.

"I will kill you both if you do not stop," Chev said. "I don't care that you aren't technically on my land."

Bronson and Sora's argument fell from a clashing roar to a grumble. They continued to bristle, though, their power sparking where it met.

Bronson glided up behind me and reached down but did not touch me.

"Come, Sydney. You will be safer inside, and you need to...rest."

As though he couldn't remember the word. Or maybe the concept was alien to him. I'd have to get used to it, if I was going to live in a master vampire's cage for the rest of my life, cooking his energy into a balm to soothe his endless days and nights.

f.u.c.k that.

I leaned down and kissed Malcolm. The blood pearl had grown flat from the pressure of my tongue, and it took effort to tear it loose. The roof of my mouth began to bleed, but the pain was like punctuation rather than sensation. It should hurt if it was going to be worth anything.

I had to use my fingers to get his mouth open so I could force it inside, and they slipped in the ash coating his skin. He was cold and stiff to the touch, but that wasn't the worst part. This was the moment where Malcolm would make some small joke to ease the horror of the night. But I waited, and waited, and he didn't say anything to make it better.

He'd held me. He'd loved me. And now he was gone.

The last of his energy, of the warm spark that was as essentially him as his voice, was sputtering and going out. If the blood pearls required intent to work, then they had it. I wanted him back. I wanted him back so badly, and tried to project that-my will, my wish-into him.

"Come on, Mal," I whispered, waiting for a sign, the smallest movement, to show that he was coming around. "Come on, come back." I kissed his forehead, his cheeks, his chin, leaving behind small b.l.o.o.d.y prints.

Nothing changed. He didn't respond in any way, and my heart sank through the still sh.e.l.l of him and into the cold earth beneath.

"You can get over this," Thurston said, his accent thick, his voice a low rumble. "You need to." My own words, thrown back at me, and making so much sense in that moment that he couldn't possibly have meant them to have that effect.

"You're right." I pushed to my feet, standing unsteadily on the uneven ground. Slipping the other pearl out of my pocket, I feigned a trip and slipped it into Soraya's hand when she caught me.

Chev was still there, though most of her people were gone. The broken cars had disappeared as well, hauled off while I was paralyzed. She stood still, her arms crossed behind her, making the muscles of her shoulders bunch oddly in the sleeveless dress. Very formal for someone overseeing a crew that had tossed cat litter onto the spilled fluids, then dug the soil up and hauled it away.

"You promise," I said to Bronson, the effort of forming the right words in the right order making my head ache, "that you're always going to keep me safe and you're never going to force or will me into doing anything for you?"

"I pledge this, yes." He looked delighted at his victory.

"And you will accept my judgment on what const.i.tutes force and will. Not yours. And you'll never threaten my friends, other humans, or any of your underlings with harm or discomfort to make me do something for you."

His eyes narrowed, and he made a sound like a rusty sigh when I looked at Chev, making sure she was witnessing everything. She inclined her head.

"I so pledge," Bronson ground out.

"Fine." Hollowed out down to my bones, I didn't object when he took my arm. I couldn't even hate him for killing Malcolm. In his mind, it wasn't a malicious act. It was the fulfillment of an agreement, a simple decision.

"We will take him somewhere pleasant to complete this process," Soraya said. She made a feminine sound of effort when she picked up Malcolm and I didn't turn around to watch her carry him to the car. I didn't even turn around when Mickey revved the engine and pulled away.

I had a new life to get to work on.

That life started three hours later when Thurston and Mickey returned in a hushed frenzy to jailbreak me as dawn broke, red and angry, over the desert.

Chapter Twenty-Five.

"These girls have no idea what they're doing," Mickey said, rising on her knees and craning her neck to see down the road.

"They probably haven't been outdoors much."

I jabbed the campfire with a stick and shifted so that the k.n.o.b in the stump I was leaning against didn't poke me directly in the spine. But then my view of the sunset was obscured by the ambitious campground shrubbery. I couldn't win.

"More like never. Check this out." She shoved my shoulder, sending my vertebrae b.u.mping right over the k.n.o.b again.

"Stop that. You're going to paralyze me." I rolled onto my knees. The girls Mickey was watching couldn't have weighed two hundred pounds put together. One wore a puffy yellow down coat and a white hat. The other wore a matching white coat and yellow hat. The Montana Rockies were cool in mid-September, but not that cold. Of course, they were dressed more for fashion than for the elements. Long blonde hair streamed out from under the hats, and tall, heeled boots rose up from the ground.

"Maybe they are models on a photo shoot," Mickey suggested. The girls stumbled through a campsite that had been occupied for the past two days by a bearded man who played guitar for his dog at night. One of them held a thick branch of green wood that was smoldering and dropping embers from the end.

"I see no photographers, but I'm pretty sure they're about to burn that dude's tent down." I shoved to my feet and brushed dirt and tree debris from the back of my jeans as I crossed the gravel road.

"Are you guys looking for something?" I asked.

They turned in unison, all but striking a pose. One of them tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes, and I found myself mimicking the motion in return. She was familiar. She was...

"Chast.i.ty?"

"You're Sydney, right?" She beamed, then held up a set of keys. "We're here to exchange cars. Niall's tired of rentals. He wants his car back."

The Bradigan had taken us to Vegas, Disneyland, the Biggest Little City in the World, and Yellowstone. Mickey and Thurston had checked off a bunch of places they'd flagged in their travel books and I'd received thousands of high speed therapeutic miles and several servings of distraction. There'd been a few sobby benders in there as well, but by the time we landed in the lap of Mickey's extended family in Missoula, we were all a little more solid. And a lot calmer.

I didn't feel so calm now.

"Where is he?" I asked in a rush, looking around even though rationally I understood that he couldn't be there. The sun hadn't set yet.

"Waiting in the car," not-Chast.i.ty said.

"Niall had to wrestle him down to keep him in the car so we volunteered to find you." Chast.i.ty stabbed the branch into the fire pit. "Ready for a reunion?"

Was I ready? Ready for the miserable nightmares to stop? For the hollow ache inside of me to go away? A weightlessness filled me, making me feel like I was floating even as I crunched along the gravel path.

"What's going on?" Mickey asked, falling into step beside me, her stick with four roasted marshmallows held out before her like a flag.

"We're trading cars," Chast.i.ty said. She looked between the two of us. "So you ladies have been sharing that throwback vamp, huh?"

"He's not a throwback," Mickey protested. "He has a strong sense of personal style when it comes to his facial hair." She leaned close. "How do these campers know about Thurston?"

"That's Chast.i.ty and the other one isn't. They're Niall MacInness's...friends. He's the vampire who owns the car we've been using."

"That's not yours?" she asked. I shook my head. "Is he going to be mad about that ding?"

Chast.i.ty gasped and I waved dismissively.

"He'll barely notice it."

"He's a vampire," Chast.i.ty said. "He notices everything. And that thing is his baby."

"It's really small. Like, minuscule."

We rounded a corner and I broke from the others and walked to the edge of the steep hill. At the bottom, laid out at the end of a lazy switchback, was the parking lot for the hiking trail. At the edge of the lot, on a watercolor bed of gray pavement and orange leaves, a large white SUV sat idling. The windows were tinted darker than was legal outside of vampire-friendly states.

The back door nearest us opened and I stopped breathing. Mickey made a surprised sound as Thurston, who'd been waiting out the daylight in our cabin, appeared behind us. He asked a question, and the words fell apart before they entered my mind. MacInness swung himself out of the SUV, his red hair visible even at that distance. The girls cooed and waved. He turned back and spoke to someone inside the vehicle.

I started straight down the hill, gravity and something stronger dragging me down. Malcolm stepped out, running a hand down his front to smooth the sweater he wore. It would be soft, and warm from his body. He looked up and I skidded to a stop, kicking out a flurry of fallen leaves.

His eyes sparked gold, visible even from that distance. All the air left me like I'd been punched. He rushed through the intervening s.p.a.ce in a matter of seconds, using that disconcerting speed that he was always so careful not to employ in front of me. And then he was in front of me, smooth and whole. He was close enough, there enough, to touch. But I couldn't make myself reach for him, afraid that he'd disintegrate the way he did every night in my dreams. I closed my eyes when he reached for me, held my breath as strong arms encircled me and pulled me against him.

"You're here," I whispered, my hands landing lightly over his ribs.

"I'm sorry I took so long," he said. His voice reverberated through me. The feel of him slicked over me, hot in the cool air, intimate after months without contact. I opened my eyes.

Smile lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes. His lips were dark against pale skin, and his upper lip curled sensually.

"I don't care." I only meant to touch him, to a.s.sure myself he was there, but my hands fisted in his hair as I dragged his mouth down to mine. "Malcolm."

"Sydney."

He tasted crisp and faintly spicy, and the kiss. .h.i.t me like our first meeting. Even though I was ready for the shock, desire coiled low in my abdomen. Only he created this particular hunger in me, and only he could feed it.

But I couldn't very well drag him down to the ground on a forty-five-degree hill in front of friends and strangers. Pulling back, I forced my hands down to his shoulders and dropped my forehead against his chest.

"Don't you ever f.u.c.king do that again." I banged my head against him a few times for emphasis.