"What's ridiculous about it? Mortal women are brought into the Clans all the time. If you want, I-"

Possessive fury warred with outrage, and the world went red around him. Colin lashed out at Tony without thinking.

The other Prime backed away before the blow could touch him and held his hands out in front of him. "Whoa! Calm down. This isn't the time or place for a couple of Primes to get into it."

"Are you challenging me?" Colin demanded. "Forher ?" Jealousy pounded through him, and he didn't care where or when, or with who he got into a fight with over Mia. "First the Tribe, and now you. What's so fascinating about my female, that everybody wants her?"

"I thought you didn't want her."

"I want her until I say otherwise," Colin declared.

"Kid, you are not making a bit of sense."

The worst part was, Colin knew he wasn't. And it was all because of Mia. Not that it was her fault, but...

"I am not a kid," he reminded Tony. "I am Prime."

"Yeah, yeah. You've been out of the nest for what, five, six years? Sometimes when Primes get the bonding call early, they go a little nuts."

"Bonding?" Cold fear ran up Colin's spine. "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" he shouted at the older Prime.

"Are you trying to wake up the whole neighborhood?"

The sharp question from Tony brought Colin back to his senses. But before he could deny the accusation of bonding, the door opened and Mia stepped out of the house.

"What's going on?" she asked as she came toward them.

She'd changed into a short silk nightgown. All Colin was aware of for a moment was the outline of her body beneath the clinging fabric, and the length of her shapely legs. Looking at her drove him crazy.

"h.e.l.lo, there," Tony said.

Colin swore under his breath. Then he said to the other vampire, "I'll deal with her. Get out of here."

Tony looked concerned as he glanced between Colin and the mortal, but he didn't argue. He shrugged, smiled, and disappeared into the night.

That only left Mia to deal with, and Colin wasn't quite sure what to do. His arms came around her automatically when she reached him, and she leaned her warm, curving body into his embrace. His mouth came hungrily down on hers without any conscious volition, and she responded with equal need. He picked her up and carried her into the house, and she was the one who slammed the door with her foot once they were inside.

Chapter Eight.

Mia didn't fully understand what was happening when Colin brought her into the living room and they tumbled to the floor together. She'd thought she'd been dreaming about the men arguing in the driveway. It was as if she'd obeyed a hypnotic command to sleep, but hadn't really. It was all very confusing. But apparently she'd been outside in her nightgown, where Colin had been arguing with Tony...

And she didn't care, because Colin's touch set her on fire. This was the craziest night of her life. Everything was too intense, too weird.

And being caressed by Colin was too wonderful for her to say,What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing? OrGet out of my house!

She could barely think those things, and he'd know she didn't mean them anyway.

All they needed right now was to be together, thoughts and bodies entwined, melted into one.

It had been like that from the moment they met-as though he could read her mind, and sometimes she could read his. It often became impossible to tell who was touching who, who was satisfying who. They simply disappeared into each other.

In the last three months she'd mourned that intimate connection as much as she'd missed the frantic, fierce, totally consuming way she and Colin made love.

Never mind that he'd left her. Never mind that he would leave her again. Sheneeded what he was doing right now. And she wanted him in her bedroom. Pride should keep her from reacting like this.

All she could do was gasp and arch her back when he brought her gown up and over her head. The silk moved against her skin with a sensual slither, drawing sparks of need along her nerves.

He cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, teased her hard nipples, then brushed his fingers over her belly and between her thighs. The touch was soft, feathery, and swift, almost all over her at once. Sensation rippled through her, making her frantic.

What good was pride, when she'd never wanted him to leave her bed in the first place?

With a twist and a firm push, Mia put Colin on his back on the hardwood floor. He made a sound between a growl and a laugh, and she echoed it as she pulled off his T-shirt and tugged down his trousers to get at his hot, hard-muscled flesh.

There was nothing gentle in the way she caressed him, or the hungry way her mouth moved over him, nipping as much as kissing his chest and shoulders and throat. G.o.d, how she'd missed the taste and scent and texture of him! She wanted to eat him up!

"Draw blood if you want to," he growled as her teeth skimmed his jaw and throat. "Cause I'm going to."

His hands smoothed up her back and down her sides to cup her a.s.s. Then he flipped her onto her back, and was buried inside her in one hard thrust.

Mia arched up to meet the force of his entry and the swift, plunging strokes that filled her again and again. She loved it this way- fast, frantic, reckless, consuming. She closed her eyes, riding the shattering waves of pleasure.

Then there was a moment of sharp pain, and Mia was lost to the ecstasy.

She was a feast, and he'd been starving too long. Colin buried himself in her soft heat while his fangs pierced the tender flesh of her breast. He suckled there even after he collapsed on top of her, his body spent and sated. Even beyond the s.e.x, the taste of her filled his senses with more intensity than ever. Possessing every part of her was like nothing else in the world.

d.a.m.n, he'd missed her! How did she do this to him? Why was Mia so perfect? Her spirit was the perfect challenge. Her body gave him perfect s.e.x. Her blood brought him the perfect high.

Colin was almost grateful to the vampires for attacking her, or he wouldn't be here with her now.

When the memory of the attack intruded on his feeding, he lifted his head, abruptly denying himself the fiery taste he craved. As delicious as Mia's essence was, he had a more important reason for taking her blood than the sheer pleasure of it. Selfish he might be, but there was a higher purpose at work here.

Colin rolled to his side, took a deep breath, and forced his eyes to clear from red-tinged night sight, to focus with more human vision on the woman lying beside him. She drifted somewhere between sleep and waking, her body satisfied and utterly relaxed. It wasn't possible to keep from touching her, so he brushed his fingers across her cheeks and through her dark hair. He relished the way the short curls twined around his fingers, but it also reminded him that he couldn't afford having a human woman clinging to him.

Right now she needed his protection. Though he supposed a proper Prime would not have used protecting a woman he'd left as an excuse to have s.e.x with her.

"Tough," he murmured, unable to call up much guilt for what he'd just done.

Should he make a promise to a matri that it wouldn't happen again? He wasn't that strong, or unselfish. And why shouldn't the humans sometimes pay just a little for the protection Primes gave them? Especially when the payment gave the human as much pleasure as it did the Prime.

Colin smiled, in no doubt about what Mia had gotten from the exchange. He'd been exquisitely aware of all her responses, reveled in all the o.r.g.a.s.ms he'd given her.

He bent down and kissed her throat. l.u.s.t coursed through him, but he was caught in an even deeper wave of pure affection.

He got to his feet with her in his arms, naked and blissed out, and carried her upstairs to the bedroom, where he could conduct the delicate mental work of convincing her mind that almost everything that had happened tonight hadn't been at all what it seemed.

He had even less guilt about brainwashing Mia than he had about the s.e.x.

Mia woke with a faint taste of copper in her mouth; an odd but not unpleasant sensation. There was also a ringing in her ears, and it took her a muzzy moment to realize that the sound was her telephone.

Totally exhausted and wanting nothing more than to be left alone, Mia forced herself to get out of bed and pick up the handset on the other side of the room.

"So, is it true you hooked up with that jerk cop again? Morgan said he saw you and Foxe leaving the health center together last night. You weren't just working out together, were you?"

Mia winced at Courtney's angry voice. She'd spent a lot of time complaining to her best friend about Colin.

"There was a bit more to it than exercising," she admitted.

"Why?" Mia almost felt guilty when she answered. "It just happened. We were mugged, or maybe it was carjackers-"

"What? Are you all right?"

She ached all over, but not from being in a fight. "I'm fine." Her memory was a little fuzzy on the exact details of what had happened in the garage. "We were attacked by three or four guys. And this is embarra.s.sing, but I totally reacted like a girl-let Colin defend my honor, or whatever-"

"You? The kick-a.s.s martial arts queen?"

"It's true. I don't know why. It's almost as embarra.s.sing as letting him bring me home and-"

"You slept with him? Out of grat.i.tude?"

Mia squirmed. "Why are you abusing me this early in the day?"

"Somebody needs to abuse you. You have no control where that jerk is involved. I cannot believe that you let him stay the night."

Mia sighed. "He didn't stay."

"Well, isn't that typical? What does that tell you about him? Couldn't he stay the night and be comforting in case you were upset?"

Mia didn't disagree with her friend's harsh criticism. "At least hewas here. He has many faults, but the desire was mutual-this adrenaline thing kicked in. It's not as if we thought about it; there's this almost perverted, animalistic-"

"Oh, yeah?" Courtney sounded almost amused. "What'd you do?"

Mia looked at her body, thinking she'd see a few bruises from the wild s.e.x, but her flesh was unmarked, even though aching muscles told a different story. "I vaguely remember a lot of scratching and biting, but maybe I did all that. And I'm not telling you any more."

"Listen, hon, even if the s.e.x was great, you can't let him break your heart again. You told me to tell you that if you ever saw him again."

"I know." h.e.l.l, the man wasn't here, and it hurt that he wasn't here. Last week she'd halfway thought that she might someday get over him. Now thishunger she had for Colin Foxe was back in full force. She was such a fool. "Maybe I shouldn't have had s.e.x with him, but-"

She couldn't explain her reactions to Colin, not when the gut l.u.s.t he caused sometimes overrode her higher brain function. Last night had been completely out of control, for both of them, she was certain. She didn't think they'd made it to the bedroom, even if she'd woken up in her bed. Alone. It was disturbing not to know how she'd gotten from there to here, or when Colin had left.

"He didn't say good-bye."

"That's typical."

"Yeah," she agreed, though she'd been talking to herself rather than to Courtney.

But she was more disturbed by the holes in her memory, and by the nagging worry that something wasn't right, than she was by her friend's comments. Dream images flashed through her mind, mixed in with what she could remember from last night. Which wasn't as much as she should.

She rubbed a hand across her face. She just didn't feel right. "I'm really not awake, Courtney. Let's meet for lunch and talk about it later, okay?" She hung up before Courtney could answer, and went to take a shower.

Hot water helped, but she could still feel Colin's touch on her body. The hot water also helped clear her foggy mind. Memories and actions fell into place as she scrubbed herself vigorously with almond-scented bath gel.

She remembered the flight back from Colorado. It took her a while longer to remember why she'd been to Colorado in the first place. In fact, for a few minutes she firmly believed the notion that vampires were real was a ridiculous dream.

For a few minutes she was frightened that she was crazy.

When she closed her eyes and let the water pound against her face and throat, memories of the attack last night came back to her.

Except, one set of memories kept overlaying another.

In one image-the one that insisted it was the real memory-she watched Colin fight off a group of carjackers in a dark garage.

The other images were far more chaotic and crowded, and buried beneath the more logical attack. There were monsters in these memories. Not only monsters, but more people. She and Colin hadn't been alone. She still hadn't been much use-that shameful memory was real-but other good guys had ridden to the rescue in a big black SUV.

For a moment she could almost make out the license plate number of a Lincoln Navigator, but the image faded and wouldn't come back.

"d.a.m.n." She struck a fist against the wet tiles of the shower wall. "Remember!"

The vampire attack was the truth, wasn't it?

Yep. Reality was the scary, weird stuff.

Why had her subconscious tried to fool her into thinking otherwise?

She supposed that the trauma of facing real vampires was just more than she'd been prepared for, even if she'd thought she was ready.

Or maybe vampires kept their existence secret by telepathically projecting false memories at people. Her great-grandfather had mentioned that the monsters had hypnotic powers. The vampires projecting false images at her and Colin as they fled made as much sense as the changed memories being trauma-induced. More, if she wanted to believe she wasn't going just plain crazy.

But the brainwashing hadn't lasted long. She was glad that the real memories surfaced so quickly, even though she was left standing in the shower shaking from them. Well, she wasn't exactly glad-but concentrating on vampires would keep her mind off Colin. She left the shower, and dressed.

She was in the kitchen with a mug of green tea cupped in her hands before she thought of the rescue squad again. She squinted, trying to recall exactly what they'd done and said, but those memories remained blurred.

They'd shown up...maybe they'd already been chasing the vampires. They had to be official vampire hunters, and she needed to hook up with them.

One of them was named Tony, she recalled. He drove my car home.

That's right. Colin brought her home in his car, and the other man followed. The men had argued about something in the driveway, but she couldn't remember what.

And it didn't matter, because she'd just thought of a way to find Tony. After all, she did have a backup team of sorts she'd been told she could call on.Mia put down her tea and picked up the kitchen phone. She called her great-grandfather's high-powered attorney. "Can you help me find out a man's ident.i.ty from his fingerprints?" she asked.

Mia smiled when she was told that it was possible. Her addiction to all the CSI crime dramas on television had paid off.