"Hmm." He swallowed hard and opened the blade. Then, bending low, he picked up the blanket she'd been wearing as a cloak and draped it over a gently rounded boulder. "Lie here, face down. It's curved, so it'll arch your back toward me. Should make this a little easier. Faster, at least."

She nodded, her expression one of stoic resolution, even as she complied. She bent over the boulder, and he wished to G.o.d it were for another reason.

He moved to one side of her and knelt to get the best angle. "In a vampire," he told her, "pain is magnified. So this is going hurt a lot more than you can possibly expect."

"Thanks for telling me."

He thought he detected sarcasm in her tone. "I just thought you should be forewarned." "Just do it, Ethan."

This time her voice shook. He knew he needed to get this over with. "All right." Positioning the blade over the tattoo in her lower back, he used his other hand to pinch the hard little knot and force it up.

Then, clenching his jaw, he swept the blade through that stretched bit of skin, slicing it off cleanly and knowing the sound of her anguished scream would haunt him for the rest of his days.

Her head rose, neck tipped back, eyes wide, mouth even wider as her cry filled the forest, echoing endlessly through the night and the mists. It could have been the cry of a tortured animal. But it wasn't. It was the cry of a beautiful woman. A woman who had never harmed anyone, as far as he knew, and certainly didn't deserve this kind of pain. He felt as guilty as her tormentors back at The Farm.

The echoes of her scream faded, and then, as her head fell forward upon her hands, the sounds died completely.

Ethan sliced a bit of cloth from the blanket and pressed it to the wound. Then he took her hand, pulled it behind her and held it there. "Keep pressure on it, Lilith," he told her.

She didn't reply, but she did keep her hand there, even when he folded one side of the blanket over her body, so she wouldn't be quite so exposed.

Rising, Ethan looked at the b.l.o.o.d.y bit of flesh he held between his thumb and forefinger. He turned it over and carefully peeled the tiny electronic gadget from the underside of her skin. Then he took the device toward the horses, moving quickly now that the deed was done. This ruse would only work if they could get out of this patch of woodland before they were boxed in.

The horses were drinking from a stream, so Ethan knelt and rinsed his hands and his knife in the water.

Then he rose and used the blade to slice a tiny hole in the double-layered leather of Scylla's halter. He slid the tracking unit into the hole, then pushed it deeper with the tip of the blade until he was sure it would stay put.

Then, after patting the horse he loved, he moved on to the stallion's side, removing the bridle and patting him, as well. He looked into the horses' eyes, trying hard to make them understand. It seemed as if they did. He hoped to G.o.d it was true.

"I want you to go home. All right? Go home. Go on."

They grew very alert, no longer drinking, but lifting their heads, watching him with their paintbrush-fringed eyes. Their ears flicked as if they were listening hard.

"Go home. Go on!" Ethan clicked his tongue at them, and as they turned, he slapped their hindquarters just hard enough to really get them moving. The pair took off into the woods at a happy trot in the general direction of his place. He wondered if they would make it, or if they would even try to return to their own familiar stable.

Finally he turned his attention back to Lilith. She was still lying there, exactly as she'd been before.

Almost exactly. Her hand was no longer pressed to the small of her back. Instead it hung limply over the boulder. The b.l.o.o.d.y sc.r.a.p of cloth had fallen to the ground.

His nerve endings tingled with alarm, and he moved rapidly to her side, lifting the blanket that covered her back. Apparently she'd pa.s.sed out from the pain, and she was still bleeding. Badly. He ran back to his spa.r.s.e cache of supplies. Bandages. Medical tape. Items he'd been glad to find.

Vampires bled. It was a fact, one he'd learned early, and he should have thought about that sooner, instead of worrying about losing his precious horses.

Kneeling beside her again, he pressed gauze to the tiny wound, pressed hard, as he added layers and layers of it. Then he began wrapping her in tape, all the way around her waist, and he wrapped her tightly.

When he finished, he returned to the stream, dipping a cloth from the pack into the water. He carried the soaked, icy cold rag back to her and carefully washed the excess blood away, watching the entire time for any sign that the bleeding might be starting up again and seeping from beneath the bandages.

So far, so good.

Dammit, though. She needed the day sleep. It would heal the wound completely, but until then, she could easily bleed out. He would have to watch her. And more that that. He was going to have to get her some blood. Powerful blood. Or she just might not make it to the dawn.

He put the T-shirt back on her, lifting and turning her body so he could ease her arms through the sleeves, wincing every time he had to move her. He was so afraid of making the bleeding start again. But he managed to dress her, and the gauze covering her wound remained white and unstained. He wrapped the now-bloodstained blanket around her, too. And then he lifted her into his arms and carried her. They had to get out of this forest.

If only he had some idea where they were going.

"Where where are we?" I opened my eyes briefly, but only because Ethan had been telling me to open them for several minutes. He kept shaking me, saying my name over and over, patting my cheeks. Why couldn't the man just let me sleep?

"Lilith? Thank G.o.d you're awake."

"Not by choice." Slowly, I opened my eyes again, and for a bit longer this time. I narrowed them, willing them to clear as I looked at our surroundings and blinked my vision into focus. I appeared to be lying on a hard wooden bench, with my head and shoulders cradled in Ethan's lap.

Frowning, I shifted my gaze to his face, looming above me. "Are these pews?"

"Yes, and that's an organ. There's an altar up front, and if you'll direct your attention to the wall beyond it, you'll note the giant crucifix with Jesus looking agonized and near death."

"Cheerful image," I muttered. He smiled very slightly and I wondered why. I was being sarcastic and unpleasant. Why would that make him smile? "We're in a church, then?" I asked, although the answer was already quite obvious to me, and he had to know it. I was killing time while waiting for my strength to return. It didn't seem to be in any hurry.

Ethan nodded. "It was the first place I found once we got clear of the forest."

I blinked, then started to sit up as I recalled the gravity of our situation. We'd been surrounded, or about to be, by armed a.s.sa.s.sins determined to see us both dead. And then I blinked. "Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute."

"What?"

I focused on Ethan's face, his eyes, and then his lips. And I felt a warmth uncurling in the pit of my stomach at the intimacy of lying there that way. So close.

No, no, I was losing focus. I'd had a point to make. "Those people in the helicopters were shooting at us."

"Yes," Ethan said.

"With real bullets."

Ethan nodded. "Big ones. Big enough that if one had so much as nicked us, we would have bled out in short order."

"So they wanted us dead."

He nodded. "Want us dead. Present tense."

I tipped my head slightly to one side. "But before thatthose womenthey weren't shooting at us with bullets. They were using tranquilizer darts. Why were the women shooting tranquilizers at us instead of bullets, Ethan?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure it matters."

"Of course it matters. One bunch of attackers wants us dead, but the other intended to take us alive."

Ethan frowned, studying my face. "That is puzzling."

"Ethan, could there be more than one set of enemies after us? Can you think of anyone besides the DPI and our former zookeepers and the vampire a.s.sa.s.sins they've probably sent to hunt us down, anyone besides them, who might be after you?"

"No." He didn't even have to think before answering. "There's no one else."

"What if the Wildborns found out about us?" I asked. "Would they try to hunt us down?"

"Those women outside the cave were no vampires. They weren't the Chosen, either. They were just humans. Ordinary humans."

I lowered my head, shaking it slowly. "I don't get it." And then I started to get up. I sat up and lowered my legs to the church floor, braced my hands on either side of my hips and went to stand up only to discover that my legs would not support me. I sank back onto the pew where I'd been lying. It was the last one toward the rear of the church. Dizzy, I lowered my head into my hands. "G.o.d, what's wrong with me?"

"You lost a lot of blood when I cut the transmitter out of you. Between the blood loss and the debilitating power of pain over our kind, you're extremely weak. I had to carry you all the way here." That caused a hitch in my breathing. The knowledge that he'd carried me. Protected me. Taken care of me. No one had ever done that. I didn't remember every detail about my past, but I knew that much.

And I didn't know what to say to him. The knowledge nearly overwhelmed me for a moment as I sought to understand it and to form some kind of reply. But I found none, so I changed subjects, vowing to think more on it later. "Where, exactly, is here?" I asked him.

"I don't really know. The outskirts of small town in the middle of nowhere, I think. We emerged on the east side of the forest, and I didn't sense any of them around or hear any choppers. I think your ruse with the horses might have worked."

"Mmm. Perhaps. But for how long?" I asked. "How long will it take them to catch up to the horses, figure out what we did and get right back on our trail again?"

"We got rid of the transmitter," Ethan said. "How can they track us without it?"

I lowered my head. I was sitting upright, beside Ethan on the pew, but I would have far preferred lying down. "I have a feeling they'll find a way."

"Don't worry, we've got an ace in the hole. One they don't know about."

"We do?"

He nodded. "My brother James. He found us once. He'll find us again. And with his help, we're going to get out of this mess."

"And rescue the others. And shut The Farm down for good. Right, Ethan?" I watched his eyes as I awaited his answer.

"If we possibly can," he said, "then I promise you, we will."

"I would have preferred a simple 'yes, or die trying,'" I told him.

He smiled a little. "You're weak. And still in pain."

"Does it show that much?"

"I can feel it." He sighed, looked away from me, then back again, spearing my eyes with his. "I can fix that, too."

"Can you?" I was surprised, but also in too much discomfort to want to doubt him. My back felt as if there were a red-hot poker thrust into the base of my spine. And I was so weak that it was an effort just to hold my head up.

"Yeah, I think so. You need to feed,"

"So you have a victim tied up and unconscious somewhere?"

He smiled again.

"Why do you smile every time I say something sarcastic?" I asked him. His smile faded, and another look came into his face. It softened. "Because that's who you are, Lilith.

And it does my heart good to see the real you coming through."

"Oh." I couldn't look away. "So are there bags of blood stashed here somewhere?"

"No." He couldn't look away, either, it seemed. His eyes never left mine, and the intensity in them grew hotter, brighter. "There's just me."

I felt my eyes widen. "You want me to ?"

He nodded. Then he put his hand at the back of my head, his palm cupping, fingers moving ever so slightly in my hair as he pulled me toward him, pulled my head toward his neck.

I kept my eyes open as I drew nearer. I smelled his skin, his scent, and the hunger quickened inside me.

My body tensed, and my mouth literally watered for him.

"Are you sure?" I whispered, my lips grazing his skin as I spoke.

I felt him tremble. "More than sure." And his voice was deeper, softer, than I'd ever heard it, slightly rough-edged.

I let my. lips taste his skin first. Salty, good. I sucked gently, and he moaned, and I knew he was as aroused by this as I was, that he wanted it every bit as badly. I opened wider, settled my mouth over his luscious neck, and bit down. My incisors sank through his tender skin easily, then popped through the jugular, thenthen I tasted him. I sucked at him. I drank him into me.

With the first swallow came an explosive shock that made me go rigid, and I bit down harder. He clutched me to him, letting his head fall to one side to give me better access, and I took advantage of it, devouring him as every sip made my hunger grow. I felt the power of his blood spreading through me, making me stronger, taking away my pain, my weakness.

Eventually he clasped my head between his hands and whispered, "Enough, baby. You don't want to drain me."

At that moment, though, I did. I could think of nothing I wanted to do more. But I withdrew my fangs, lifted my head and saw his eyes glowing red with pa.s.sion. I knew mine were, as well, and being nowhere near sated, I kissed him.

He kissed me back, pushing me down until he was lying on top of me, one hand between us tugging at the shirt I wore. He was too slow, though, so I shoved him off me and tore the shirt over my head. Then I yanked him to me again.

He swore as he ground his hips against mine, taking my mouth with a ferocity that set me on fire. Again he took one hand, away, but this time it was his own clothing he struggled to be rid of. Soon enough it was gone and he'd dropped to his knees in front of the pew, in front of me.

I lifted my legs to wrap them around his waist, then tightened them to pull him to mehard. He sank into me deeplyso deeply I felt entirely possessed by him. My mouth open wide, sounds of intense pleasure issuing from the depths of me, I moved with him as he drove inside me. Deeper. Harder. Back and then in again, stabbing into the core of me, touching places that had never been touched and now longed tobe. Had to be.

My hands couldn't stop moving over his back, his shoulders, his neck, and he fed from my mouth as I had from his throatdesperately, hungrily. He clutched my b.u.t.tocks and jerked me harder, tipping my hips up, giving him even greater access, so that his thrusts went deeper still, and I cried out in a mixture of pleasure and pain at being so deeply probed, so widely stretched, so completely taken by him.

In that moment, I wanted nothing more.

"Oh, G.o.d, yes!" I cried. "Yes, Ethan, yes!" My body coiled tighter and tighter, until I felt as if the muscles were about to tear free of the bonesand then, at his mastery, I broke free in a release that made me scream. It was an animalistic cry of pure, powerful ecstasy. And then I was left shuddering as he poured himself into me with one final, powerful thrust. He held me as he pulsed into my body, and I was certain there had never been a feeling this good. This perfect. This mind-altering.

Never.

Nor was there ever likely to be again.

He slid out of me, only to pull me from the pew onto the floor. He groped, finding our blanket, which, I realized sleepily, he had rinsed free of my blood and somehow dried. He pulled it around us and wrapped me up close to his side. My head rested on his magnificent chest, and his arms enfolded me utterly.

I pressed my lips to his skin and whispered, "I neverI had never"

"I know." He held me tighter. "Did I hurt you?"

"Yes." I lifted my head and stared up into his now-troubled eyes. "Please hurt me again?"

His smile was slow and full of mischief, but before it was complete, I was climbing on top of him, straddling him, rub myself over him. "Please?" I asked again.

"I don't know, let me think a minute."