Landscape sped past so fast the colors were mere blurs to them. But I could see each landmark, each pebble and tree as I pa.s.sed it. When I reached the Vicksburg area, gunfire echoed, and the smell of death hung heavy in the air. No time existed for discussing options. If I ran through the gunfire, it would hit us. If I stopped before we reached the bridge, they would turn on us. We didn't have the firepower to join a gun fight.

The river loomed ahead as a nanoseconds slid by, each dragging through my mind as if they were hours instead. I could jump, but it would cost me dearly.

I reached the bank, south of the firefight on the Vicksburg bridge, and leapt. Hundreds of feet of water sped by, and we landed on the other side with a thud. I slowed only long enough to regain my bearings on the high-wire fence ahead. Crouching low, I lunged up and hurled the three of us over the fifty-foot electric-wire barrier.

When I landed on the other side, we were surrounded by soldiers within seconds. I sank to the ground with a scream as hunger tore at my insides. The urge to feed overwhelmed all logical thought. My vision changed, and my fangs descended.

Killian's scent surrounded me. He pushed my mouth to his neck, and I bit, drinking deeply and quickly. His blood coursed through me, and his Elvin magick replenished the drained energy I'd used to make the trip.

"Eira," he whispered, tugging gently at my hair.

I could hear him, but all I could focus on was the thump thump of his heart. The sweet taste of his blood filled my mouth, and I drank even more.

"Eira, stop." Jared's voice was deeper and harsher. "Eira!"

I paused and pulled away from Killian's limp body. Terror seized me, and I cut my tongue on a fang and licked over the bite wound, spreading my blood across it. Biting my wrist, I pressed it to his mouth.

"Drink, Killian. G.o.ds, I'm so sorry. Please," I begged.

His tongue emerged from his mouth, and I felt the weak pull as he swallowed. A sigh slipped from my chest, and I hugged him close. He would recover. The special enzymes in my blood would replenish him as his had me.

He started to come to and glanced up, his blue eyes full of love and compa.s.sion. Not anger or disappointment.

"Hey," a man standing a few feet away with a rifle aimed at my head shouted.

"We need to speak to Martins. He knows we are coming!" Killian shouted. "They are not a threat. Lower your weapon, Private."

"She almost killed you."

"No, she didn't," Killian responded, jumping to his feet and pulling me along with him. "If it wasn't for her, neither of us would've made it through that s.h.i.t on the other side of the river. What the f.u.c.k is going on?"

The soldier, along with the five others standing next to him, relaxed and lowered their weapons. The first one turned to his closest comrade. "Go find out who they are from the Commander." When he turned to us, his body lost its rigidity, and he seemed instantly more relaxed. "We have no idea. The SECR showed up on the other side of the bridge and began lobbing explosives across the river at the gate on our side. We set up a perimeter to protect the gate. So far they haven't attempted to cross the bridge, just to cripple our base."

"Do you have scouts running the fence?" Killian asked, sounding as though he belonged in a TR uniform.

"Yes, sir. The SECR manages to sneak soldiers onto Texas Republic land regularly. Haven't figured out how or where. Scouts haven't reported any unusual activity. But there has to be a breach in the fence we haven't noticed yet."

I nearly opened my mouth to tell him about a tunnel under the fence fifty miles north, but we depended on it to cross unnoticed when Vicksburg was too heavily guarded. Still. If the SECR had found it, they could be using our tunnel.

Killian might have connections in the TR army, but they wouldn't be so friendly if I admitted to knowing how to smuggle people in and out without detection. Right now, I just needed to focus on how to move the rest of the people in the lake house over the river. That tunnel might be the best way to do it, but if the TR had scouts running the fences, they would see us come out for sure, especially with as many trips as I needed to make. We were bound to be seen. Then the tunnel would be compromised permanently.

Jared turned to me. "You have to come and go the same way you just did. You can't go through that firefight."

I snarled; the tightness in my chest made me want to rip someone's head off. I couldn't do what he was asking, not without feeding each time I made the run. It was more blood than they could give.

"It won't work. I'll be too hungry. I almost killed Killian this time. Each trip will be harder. I'll need more, not less."

"Eira." Killian's palms settled onto my shoulders. He turned my body toward his and waited until I met his blue gaze. Strength and determination flowed from him. "You can do this. I know you are strong enough."

"He's right," Jared added. "Rose wouldn't be trying to recruit you if you weren't. You've got a strength of will inside you unlike most. You will not fail." His comment sounded nice, but I was a realist before I was anything else. I would need a lot of blood to do this, and neither of them truly knew how much.

The hunger from this first trip wasn't sated. I could hear every pump of each heart within a mile radius. Thump thump. Thump thump. Like a chorus of African drums. Each and every beat coaxed my hunger higher.

"You don't know what you are asking." I tore my gaze from him and looked out across the river. My telescopic eyesight bore down on the units of SECR soldiers grouped along the eastern riverbank.

Perhaps I could take down two problems with a few bites in the right places.

A lot of blood was to be had on the east side of the river. Blood that I wouldn't feel guilty about taking. It wasn't magickal blood. So I would need more of it, but plenty was available as long as I went about it carefully.

I had to slow down to feed, and if the soldiers realized what was happening before I could blur away, I'd be cut to pieces by the heavy artillery they were using. Plus I had to move slow enough to be sure none of them had the sweet-smelling poison flowing in their veins.

When I finally turned to Killian again, my heart was heavy. I'd killed hundreds in my long lifetime. I tried not to kill now unless forced, but this would be a ma.s.sacre, and the man I loved would be watching it happen. What would he think? How could he still love me after watching me rip the throats out of dozens of men?

He would see me for the monster I truly was.

A vampire. An unnatural demon of the supernatural world.

I knew he had killed and regretted it. But killing and feeding was different than killing for vengeance. Feeding was animalistic, primal, and ugly. Modern society had romanticized the vampire in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, but nothing made drinking blood or killing people romantic.

"We do what we must to protect our loved ones, Eira. Without you, it will take the others days to arrive. And in that span of time..." His gaze flitted to the ground.

He didn't have to finish. I knew what would happen to my friends if I didn't do what was necessary.

My stomach clenched, but I nodded and pulled him closer, pressing my lips against his.

"I love you," I whispered against his lips before blurring from his arms.

Chapter Thirty.

KILLIAN.

As soon as she left my side, I missed her the evergreen scent of her and the softness of her body.

Reaching up, I rubbed the place on my neck where she'd fed only moments before. My fingers slipped through the smear of blood left behind. My skin was smooth, healed, but still tingled a little.

Jared slapped me on the shoulder, startling me out of my thoughts. "Tell your Army pals by the end of this there won't be any SECR on the other side of the river." He smiled and ambled off toward the small group of soldiers that had surrounded us just a few minutes ago.

I took a deep breath. Was that supposed to mean Eira was going after the soldiers? s.h.i.t. I ran toward the command center at the gate. Several of the young men recognized me and saluted. I stopped in front of one of them.

"Who's running this command?"

"Commander Park, Master Sergeant North," the young man spouted off, saluting me again.

I returned the respectful gesture, even though I wasn't enlisted any longer. "Point me in his direction. We have a friendly entering the enemy lines."

"Yes, sir!" He took off toward a large tent, and I followed.

We entered, and I waited at the front while he went through the proper channels to secure me a moment with their commander. When the private finally returned to my side, my old friend Thomas Park was with him.

"Killian. The boys told me they'd seen you on the road recently. And what's this I hear about you jumping the fence with a vampire and some other guy?"

"Sorry about that. We were in a hurry, and the bridge was a little crowded."

He extended his arm, and I clasp my hand around his forearm as he did the same with mine. We leaned into each other and embraced. Our history went back a decade. Park had been in the same unit with me when I lost my brother. I trusted this man with my life and felt a sense of relief to know he was in charge here now. Eira would be safe with him calling the shots.

"So where is the vampire? I heard she bit into you," he said, nodding his head at the red smear on my neck.

"The jump took a harder toll than she expected. I'm fine, but we have others in our group she's bringing over next. I need you to call off your snipers and the heavy artillery. She's going to be thinning out the soldiers on the east bank on her way through."

"Of course," Thomas said. "Corporal Miller," he said, turning to a large man standing guard at the tent entrance. "Give the order for the sniper team along the fence to hold fire unless targets are wearing SECR uniforms. We have a friendly behind the lines. Also give the order halting all large artillery fire."

The Corporal saluted and hurried from the tent.

I glanced around the tent, taking in the computers, radios, maps, and other gear. The sound of orders being given and reports being taken echoed. The smell of gunpowder and explosives tickled my nose. Adrenaline surged, and for a moment, I missed all of it. Missed the organization and purpose I'd felt.

Since I'd left, I'd drifted, becoming a vigilante of sorts. Park knew, just like Martins did. They all knew why I left and what I did. But they didn't care. As long as what I was doing protected the TR, they would let just about anything slide, especially under-the-radar executions of SECR black operatives who had illegally crossed the border.

Park picked up a couple pair of binoculars and handed one set to me. "Let's go take a look."

I took them and exited the tent. Parks footsteps echoed behind me as I walked toward the base of the fence. Dropping to my knees, I knelt behind the ma.s.sive steel beams that formed the platform for the huge electric wired barrier between the TR and SECR. Park knelt beside me and lifted his binoculars to his face.

"South edge," I said. Several bodies were already on the ground, and I knew she wouldn't be far.

"I see them. But not her."

Movement behind some shrubs clued me in to her location. The sword on her black glinted for a second. Just to her left a small unit of men, packing heavy-duty automatic rifles approached, making the hairs on my neck stand on end.

My concern wasn't warranted. I'd forgotten who Eira was. What she was.

Not one of the four soldiers had a chance. All of them hit the ground within seconds. My stomach churned only slightly when their heads rolled down the hillside of dead gra.s.s.

Eira crouched a few feet away from their fallen bodies, canvasing the area. No alarms had sounded. She wiped my brother's sword on her pants to clean it and returned it to the sheath strapped to her back.

"She's a piece of work, Killian. Where did you find her? We could use someone like that in special ops." He chuckled. "Of course, what I'd really like is to enlist you onto the force again."

"I knew Eira a long time ago." My voice was quiet, remembering the times I'd trained with her on the rocky hillsides of Rygjafylke, an area on the southwestern tip of the country of Norway.

"She's not the one-"

"The one what?!" I yanked the binoculars from my eyes and glared at my old friend.

"The one you accidentally killed. Except if that her, she's not dead." Park caught my gaze and c.o.c.ked a confused eyebrow.

"I did and that's her," I answered, turning to the river and raising my binoculars again. "The sword on my back is the one that went straight through her body and the body of the man using her as a shield. Everything happened so fast. Just as I pulled it out, another wave of warriors came at our line. They drove us so far that I lost sight of her body on the ground. When everything was done and our enemies had been cut down... she was gone."

"G.o.d, sorry, man."

I grunted an acknowledgement.

"But now you know she's alive...sort of. At least you can be with her, right?"

"If we can just get everyone home in one piece," I said, training my sights on the dropping bodies. Every now and I'd catch a glimpse of her as she tore into a soldier. Blood covered the lower half of her face. Her fangs were bared, and the body cradled in her arms flailed against her hold only a few moments before the blood loss and trauma to his neck put him under.

It was vicious and messy.

I hadn't realized how civilized she kept things around all of us. How powerful and lethal she really was. Her hunger when we'd landed on this side of the fence had overwhelmed her so much that she had taken more blood than she meant to. But even in her state of bloodl.u.s.t, she'd bit carefully. She still hadn't let herself become wild. But now...now she was ripping men to shreds.

"Well. I take it back. Now I know why we don't recruit vampires. d.a.m.n, she's amazing. But I'd be f.u.c.king scared s.h.i.tless if she was on a team with me. How do you handle being bitten like that?"

"It's not like that." I paused. "I've never seen her quite so..."

"Vicious?"

I nodded. She'd looked straight at me after finishing off another soldier. The embarra.s.sment and shame in her expression made me want to hold her and tell her that even though her vampire side was more terrifying than I'd imagined... I would never fear her.

She wiped her face with her shirt and blurred from view. "She'll jump the fence in about ten minutes. I need to go warn Jared."

The radio on Park's belt crackled. "Commander, over."

Park pushed the b.u.t.ton. "Commander here."

"Commander, this is sniper seven. The female friendly took down forty-eight soldiers by my count. Lost visual. Will continue to watch."

"Eyes open, sniper seven. Commander out."

I crawled away from the fence and stood. Something hit my chest like a mule kick, and I coughed, trying to catch my breath. Air wouldn't go in, and pain shot through me like I'd been hooked up to the live end of an electrical line.

"Killian! f.u.c.k." Park leapt for me and yanked on my arm, dragging me to the ground. His radio crackled to life with shouts from different officers. Park's voice carried in the forefront of my mind. "Rounds fired! Duck and cover. Find and shoot the sonofab.i.t.c.h that hit Master Sergeant North."

The pressure on my chest was so intense. Everything around me was going dark. All I could feel was the pain and the sensation of choking. It was like I was drowning, but there was no water.

I squinted. Park was over me, and his hands were on my chest. He appeared to be shouting, but I couldn't hear anything anymore.

Jared's face came into focus next to Park's. He was snarling something at Park as he pulled out a flat gla.s.s cell phone from his pocket and turned away.

f.u.c.k. Everyone knew the satellites were tapped. Why the h.e.l.l would he call someone on a cell phone?

The blackness was closing in. The pain from earlier was rapidly becoming a distant memory. It was colder now, too. My sluggish mind strayed to Eira. I tried to picture her face, but the black spots in my vision were growing. No matter how hard I fought to suck in a breath, nothing happened.

It wasn't fair. She'd hate me for leaving her again, and it wasn't my fault.