She threw up her arms and started walking again. "Great. I needed stealth for undercover work and I get Rambo with a definite need for a time-out chair."

He clamped a hand on her arm and pulled her around, none too gently, to face him. "Oh, no. You cannot make proclamations like that and then just walk away from me."

She got right back in his face. Nobody was going to tell her what she could or couldn't do, ancient warrior or not. "Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, you're going the wrong way."

She glanced around, feeling a little foolish. "Oh."

"And for another, I need to kiss you right now," he said, pulling her against her body. "Do you have any complaints about that?"

"I'm sure I'll think of-"

He kissed her, just a quick press of his lips to hers, cutting off whatever she'd been about to say. "You'll think of what?"

Tiernan sighed, then put her arms around his neck. "Nothing. But you're so getting juice and a nap after this, mister."

He laughed and circled her waist with his strong arms. "May I have a cookie with that?"

When she opened her mouth to reply, he took swift advantage with a searing, deep kiss. The forest floor melted away from under her feet. Nothing remained but a swirling tornado of emotion, and she and Brennan stood in the middle, clinging to each other as a drowning sailor clings to a piece of driftwood.

His tongue swept into her mouth and claimed it-claimed her-for his own, and he pulled her so tightly against his body that she couldn't miss the hard bulge of his erection pulsing against her exactly where she needed him. She moaned, or maybe he did, and she tunneled her fingers through the silky long waves of his hair and pulled his face even closer to deepen the kiss.

He ravaged her mouth, kissing her with such intensity and skill that she believed her bones were turning to liquid silver in his arms. She was helpless to do anything but cling to him and tighten her hold, devouring him as if the kiss itself were the only thing keeping her from shattering into pieces and flying off into the storm of passion.

She pulled back a little, trying to catch her breath and regain a little balance, but he kissed his way down the side of her neck and then oh-so-gently kissed the exact spot where the vampire had bitten her earlier.

"What are you doing?" she whispered, as he gently cupped her breast with one large, elegant hand.

"I am torturing myself," he said, breathing hard, "since there is no way I will allow myself to take you against the side of one of these trees, even though everything in me screams to do nothing else. I am having fantasies of lifting this sweater and covering your lush, ripe breasts with my hands and covering your lush, ripe nipples with my mouth. Then I want to kneel before you and peel these jeans down to your ankles and lick the sweetness from your lush, ripe body until you come in my mouth."

She was breathing pretty hard herself by the time he was done painting that visual picture. "That's a lot of lush and ripe," she whispered.

"I need you, Tiernan. Two thousand years of need," he growled. He lifted her completely off the ground, and she instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her over to one of the trees he'd just mentioned, more than a dozen yards away from the road and deep in the night shadows cast by the other trees. Even the moonlight didn't penetrate to where they stood. "Let me do this. Just for a few short minutes. Let me give you pleasure."

He stopped when they reached the tree, and ever so gently, he pressed her back against the cold bark. "Please, please, please," he mumbled against her mouth before taking her lips in another searing, passionate kiss.

Exquisite waves of ecstasy sizzled through her body just from the touch of his mouth on hers, and she knew she should remember all the reasons why this was a bad idea, but all she could think of was yes, and-after all-two thousand years of need, and so she said it.

"How can a girl resist that? Yes, yes, yes," she whispered, urgent, needing his hands on her. Needing his mouth on her.

He roared out a sound of triumph or possession or maybe it was just an Atlantean lovemaking thing, but she didn't care because seconds later he was lifting her sweater and pushing her bra cups to the side, and before the first chill could even spark goose bumps on her skin, his hot mouth covered one nipple and his hot hand covered the other. He made a humming sound against her breast and it tingled, but before she could react he put his lips around her nipple and sucked so hard she cried out.

"Brennan, Brennan, oh, God, yes." She tightened her fingers in his hair, and he took it for the encouragement it was, apparently, because he began rhythmically sucking that nipple and flicking it with periodic swipes of his tongue. She squirmed against him, the hot, liquid desire pooling between her thighs, opening and readying her for him. She wanted, she needed, and oh, yes, he pushed the big, hard bulge of his erection against her and began pressing against her in the same rhythm that his mouth used on her.

A flash fire of sensation raced through her veins, and she was so close to coming, just from his mouth on her breast. So close, oh, how could she be so aroused so fast, and then he bit down gently on her nipple and his fingers pinched her other nipple, hard, at the same time, and she cried out.

The heat, oh, the heat, the sheer driving, pounding force of her need was climbing through her and demanding more and more. More of the incredible sensation.

More of him.

Tiernan was nearly crazed with the wanting, it was so powerful. Never, ever had she felt anything even close to this before. Desperate, she pulled at his head until he released her nipple with a wet, sucking pop that she felt all the way down to her toes.

He looked up at her and his eyes were glowing emerald flames. "Tell me," he demanded. "Tell me what you want."

"I want you," was all she could manage. "I want you now, I need you, oh, please oh, please."

He carefully released her, until her feet were on the ground again, and she had to lean back against the tree to hold herself up since her wobbly knees were not cooperating. Then he stared at her, his gaze sweeping from her flushed face and swollen lips to her breasts that were still bare, her hard nipples so swollen that every breath of the cold wind touching them built her arousal even further. He gently pulled her sweater down.

"So you don't get a chill," he said tenderly, and she was bewildered, trying to make sense of his words. Was he stopping?

"What? What? But I thought we-"

"Oh, we definitely are," he said, grinning wolfishly, and even in the dark she could see the gleam of his teeth. He dropped to his knees on the leaves at her feet and in seconds had stripped her jeans and panties down to her ankles. Before she could take a breath, or think, or move, he caught her hips in his hands and put his mouth on her.

At the first touch of his hot, clever, skillful tongue on her clitoris, she cried out again, and then she couldn't scream, couldn't even catch her breath as he licked her and sucked her and swirled his tongue around her until she was almost crying with pleasure.

"Please, please, please, please," she begged, repeating the word until it was meaningless sound, just a wordless plea, and then it didn't matter, she couldn't talk, because he put his fingers inside her and drove them in and out, in and out, and began sucking with the same rhythm and pressure he'd used on her nipple. Mere seconds later, the pressure and pleasure and passion rocketed through her body and exploded out the top of her head and she screamed again, calling out his name, as the most powerful orgasm she'd ever had in her life took her up and over and into the universe.

She lost consciousness or at least went fuzzy for a few seconds, and when she blinked her way back, he was cradling her in his arms, gently kissing her forehead. She flushed when she realized her pants were hanging down around her ankles, and her bra was still unfastened under her sweater.

"I-" She had to stop for a calming breath. "I have no words for how amazing that was. But I need to get dressed."

He laughed. "I am very happy to have pleased you so well," he said, and there was plenty of smug male satisfaction in his voice.

She had to grin. After all, he deserved to feel satisfied. Wow. "The scent of wilderness is going to be an aphrodisiac to me for the rest of my life," she said, laughing a little herself.

He kissed her again and bent to retrieve her pants and underwear before she could do it, stopping midway to kiss her stomach. When he'd pulled her pants halfway up, he paused and swiped his tongue across her in a last long, savoring lick. She gasped and clutched the tree behind her as the burst of sensation flashed through her sensitized skin yet again.

"I needed one final taste of you to sustain me until the moment I can do this again, more properly and thoroughly," he said, smiling up at her.

"If you're any more thorough, I'll pass out."

He laughed again and then pulled her jeans up over her hips, leaving the fastening to her. Since she was looking down, she noticed the huge bulge in his pants, which was even more pronounced than it had been earlier, and a trace of guilt surfaced.

"You didn't, um . . . We didn't do anything for you," she whispered, feeling her cheeks flaming.

"Now isn't the time, but trust me when I say you can have no idea of how much you did for me." His voice was incredibly deep and husky, and it resonated through her, making her shiver in anticipation of what exactly "more properly and thoroughly" might involve.

She finished arranging her clothes and glanced up at him, fascinated by the way his eyes were glowing with magic, or power, or maybe Atlanteans got glowy eyes when they were turned on. "Maybe later, we could get to know each other more? See where this might take us when we're not hiding from evil scientists and power-hungry vamps?"

He pulled her close for a quick hug, then froze, his body against her going ramrod straight.

"Brennan-"

"Shh," he whispered in her ear. "I believe we're about to have company, and it's nobody good."

Chapter 14.

Brennan heard the leaves rustling, but it was their only warning before the vamps were on top of them, flowing out of the trees like dark ribbons of liquid night. There were only three, but they were armed with daggers, which was unusual for vamps. Generally they counted wholly on their preternatural strength and their fangs.

This wasn't a good development.

"Stay behind me," he ordered Tiernan, who responded with her usual meek submission.

"Like hell." She bent and grabbed a small fallen tree branch and snapped it in half. "Two stakes for the price of one, what do you think about that, boys?"

The vampires arranged themselves in a three-point semicircle around them, and one of them bowed deeply before speaking. "You mistake our intent, Miss Baum. We're part of the security force for the conference, and we merely wish to be sure you make it safely back to the hotel. There were vicious animal attacks near here tonight."

"We're wounded that you would so quickly assume we intend you any harm," said another, fake innocence oozing from his oily tone. "Just because we're vampires doesn't make us bad people. You, as a reporter, should know that."

"It's not the vampire part that bothers us," Brennan said. "It's the security guard part. We are not at all in the mood for a second unpleasant encounter with overzealous security."

"Exactly," Tiernan added, flashing a big smile. "Some of my best friends are vampires."

The vamp farthest away from them made a strange gurgling sound, and it took a moment for Brennan to realize that it was laughter. "Some of our best friends are humans, little snack."

"Just a guess, but I don't think calling a human 'little snack' is usually going to win you points, buddy," Tiernan said, pointing one of her newly made stakes at him. "You wouldn't like it if I called you 'bloodsucker,' would you?"

The vamp who'd bowed to them earlier hissed in a breath. "You know, this is not going as smoothly as I'd hoped, and now I'm bored. Either come with us now or we will take action you will not enjoy, I promise you."

Brennan unsheathed his daggers and snarled at them, dark urges to stab and cut and kill swarming through him. "There isn't much about you that I enjoy so far, so I don't see that we'd be any worse off. We're not going anywhere with you."

"Perhaps not willingly," the vampire countered. He slashed his hand in a signal to his friends and all three of them started forward.

Brennan was ready for them. He shoved Tiernan behind him so that her back was against the tree, a more defensible position. Then, daggers whirling, he faced the three. "These have silver tips. Is that an injury you are prepared to suffer for whatever they're paying you?"

The leader hissed but froze in place. Silver wounds did not heal easily for vampires and could even be fatal. Not something your average human billionaire businessman might be expected to know, but Brennan wasn't too concerned about protecting his cover story at that particular moment.

"We heard about the animal attacks," Tiernan said. "We promise to come back soon. We just wanted a little alone time." She laughed, and it was light and flirtatious-almost a giggle. Brennan clenched his jaw tight to keep his mouth from falling open.

Tiernan? Giggling?

Damn, but she was good at this undercover work.

The vampire leader shot another glance at Brennan and his daggers, but whatever orders he was following evidently didn't give him room for independent decision making. "We may bleed, but your woman will suffer threefold for every blow you land on one of us."

"I look forward to playing with her a little," one of the others said, and then he laughed, a long, shrill cackle of unholy glee. "Devon didn't say we couldn't play with them."

"Devon?" Tiernan's voice was sharp. "He knows you're doing this?"

The leader made an ugly hooting noise. "Knows? We follow his orders, little snack."

Before he'd even quit speaking, the vamp launched himself at Brennan, leaping twenty feet through the air, nails lengthening to outstretched claws and fangs glistening in the ribbons of moonlight that shone through the trees.

Brennan met him in midair.

Daggers clashed and steel rang, but Brennan's towering rage gave him the strength of ten warriors, and he parried the vamp's attacks and whirled around, one dagger extended in a death blow. Even before the vamp's head thudded onto the ground, the neck still smoldering from the orichalcum blade, Brennan turned and shot four razor-sharp shuriken in a smooth underhanded motion at the second vamp. The throwing stars served their purpose brilliantly, decapitating the second vamp as neatly as his daggers had done to the first.

He whipped around to the tree where he'd left Tiernan, just in time to hear her scream. The third vamp was closing in on her, laughing and dancing from foot to foot, mocking her and making lewd suggestions as to what he was planning to do to her cold, dead corpse.

Tiernan, from the tone of her remarks, was not a fan of this.

Brennan's newly found emotions swept through him with the force of a hurricane. Part of him was overcome with pride to see his woman holding off a vampire with only two sticks. Another, far larger, part of him was burning with a fierce rage so powerful that it seemed as if the earth itself must be scorched from the heat of his fury.

Then the vamp shot out a claw-tipped hand and scratched a furrow on the side of Tiernan's face before she could block him, and the balance tipped far, far over into insanity.

Brennan rode the fury, harnessed it and pulled magic, water, and power out of the soil and the trees and the very air itself. He roared out a challenge-a grim promise. "By Poseidon and Atlantis, you will die for daring to touch her."

He called to the water and transformed it into perfect, shining spears that rained icy death onto the vampire. Each glittering spear arrowed into the vamp's neck, one after another, with unerring accuracy. None a whisper off, none posing the slightest danger to Tiernan, and none missing its mark.

In a split second, the vampire was down, dissolving into a nasty pool of slime on the forest floor, only the ice spears standing to mark the spot where they'd pinned him to the ground.

But Brennan had gone far, far past the point of reason. He was drowning in the rage-no longer a man, or a warrior, but a being of anger, fury, and madness. He yanked Tiernan into his arms-his woman, only and forever his woman, how had they dared to try to touch her-and held her so tightly that she could never, ever get away from him. She struggled a little, and he threw back his head and screamed his defiance into the night, a wordless howl of pain and feral wrath.

Into the silence, broken only by the echoes of his rage, a familiar voice called out a quiet challenge.

"Brennan," Alexios said. "You need to put the nice human down, or I'm going to have to kick your ass for you."

Brennan dropped Tiernan to her feet and whirled around to face the new threat, recognizing but not recognizing his friend through the red, shimmering haze of berserker fury that smashed through his mind. His skull pounded with the driving need to hurt, to kill, to tear and maim.

To protect.

To protect Tiernan. His only purpose as the rest of his mind fractured.

"Tiernan?" he said, his voice hoarse and broken. "Tiernan is safe?"

Alexios nodded, but didn't take his hands off his daggers. "Tiernan is safe, my friend. She's right behind you."

"I'm right here, Brennan," she said, the sound of her voice like a balm to his ragged soul. "Turn around and look at me. Please."

He turned, and she put her hands on either side of his face and looked up into his eyes. "I'm here. I'm safe. You saved me from those vampires. You killed them all."

"Killed them?" he croaked. "Safe?"

"Come back to me, Brennan." She put her arms around his waist and leaned forward into him, sharing her warmth with his cold, cold heart. "Come back."

Brennan pulled her closer and stood like that, unmoving, for several seconds, holding her as tightly as he dared, content simply to breathe in her scent and bask in her warmth.

Alexios cleared his throat. "I think we probably need to talk."

Brennan cautiously opened his eyes, and blew out a sigh of relief when his vision was clear. The berserker haze was gone. The miraculous healing power of holding Tiernan in his arms had restored him to some measure of calm.