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  “Dr. Sanchez will be fine after a day’s rest and some nutritional supplements,” Jody said. “Don’t forget she volunteered. She wanted the pleasure of feeding you.”

  “The pain won’t go away.”

  “Your body is seriously oxygen deprived.” Jody opened the door and gestured for Lara to precede her down the hall to the main lobby of the infirmary. “What you’re experiencing is severe lactic acid poisoning. You need to replenish the ferrous carrier compounds frequently, or the pain will become debilitating. If you don’t feed, your cells will break down, and your muscles and organs will disintegrate. You’ll become paralyzed, lose consciousness, and die within hours.”

  “Aren’t I dead already?” Lara said bitterly.

  “No, you’re not dead. You’re pre-animate—a living Vampire.”

  “I am a wolf Were!” For an instant, Lara’s wolf surged again, and her eyes shifted to amber gold. The bones in her angular face sharpened. A deep rumble of warning resonated in her chest.

  Jody slowed, untroubled by Marissa’s weight. Although others frequently misinterpreted her slender form and pale complexion as delicate, she was stronger than any human and even some Alpha Weres. Her lineage was ancient, and when she rose after death, if she rose, she would be among the most powerful Vampires in the world. At any other time she would not have tolerated Lara’s display of dominance, but she didn’t want to subdue her again. Lara was still too unstable, her system in chaos, fluctuating wildly between her Were and Vampire urges. Most Weres who were turned, and who survived the turning, were more Vampire than anything else. Many could never shift form again. But Lara was not just any Were—she was one of the strongest Weres ever turned. Where she would fall on the spectrum, the eventual extent of her power, was unknown. She was likely to be one of a kind.

  “You should thank me, Wolf, not challenge me.” Jody captured Lara’s gaze in her thrall. “We don’t have time for this rebellion tonight. Dawn is coming.”

  Lara shuddered, unable to break completely free. Her face was luminous with pain, but still she managed to speak. “When will the hunger stop?”

  “When you’ve fed enough.”

  “Who?” Lara’s gaze fixed on the rapidly bounding pulse in Marissa’s neck. “Can she…a little more?” Her incisors dropped, and as if feeling her call, Marissa’s lids fluttered open.

  “Let me feed her,” Marissa whispered, writhing in Jody’s arms.

  “No,” Jody said. “Any more and you’ll never break the blood addiction. I won’t turn you into a whore.”

  “I’m burning.” Marissa’s eyes were pleading, her lips moist and swollen. Her nipples hardened against Jody’s arm. “Let her make me come. I need her.”

  “No.”

  Lara snarled. “Let me taste her.”

  Elena’s voice cut through the hallway like a whip. “That human needs attention. At least allow me to give her some fluid.”

  Lara spun into a crouch. “Stay out of this.”

  Niki vaulted through the doorway and landed between Elena and Lara, her canines and claws extended. “Stand down, centuri.”

  “I don’t answer to you.” Lara’s eyes flamed Vampire red.

  “You answer to me.” Jody ensnared Lara’s mind and eased Marissa, unconscious again, into Elena’s outstretched arms. “Take her. Some intravenous fluids—”

  “I know what to do.” Elena looked from Lara to Niki, who growled at Lara’s challenge. “Don’t let them fight.”

  “My Vampire needs to feed.” Jody struggled to hold Lara back by force of will. She’d misjudged how strong she would be so soon after turning. Lara was not like any other pre-animate Vampire—she was more like a newly Risen, very strong and very hard to control. “I don’t have time to get her back to the city and find another host.”

  “I’ll feed her.” Niki’s gaze shifted from Lara to Jody. “I’ll feed you both.”

  Jody studied her and Niki held her eyes.

  “Come with me,” the Vampire said and dragged Lara away.

  “Let her go. I’m ready.” Niki tensed, ready to leap if Lara lunged at her. Lara didn’t look like any Were in the grip of sex or battle frenzy she’d ever seen—Lara’s eyes didn’t gleam wolf-gold, but simmered with crimson flames. Lara was all Vampire, a stranger in a Packmate’s body.

  “She’ll tear your throat out,” Jody warned.

  “I can handle her.” Niki’s wolf braced to fight.

  “I want the wolf under me,” Lara growled.

  Niki almost whined in need, but not from Lara’s call. Lara’s Vampire part was ascendant, but her sexual pull was nothing like the magnetic compulsion that emanated from the slim, pale Vampire who now rested her hand lightly on Lara’s neck. Jody’s thrall hammered Niki with another wave of sexual power, and her clitoris jerked erect.

  “You’ll take her the way I say you’ll take her,” Jody told Lara mildly. “When I say.” She looked at Elena. “We’ll need to stay here. After Lara feeds, this close to dawn, she’ll sleep.”

  “Bring the human to the treatment room,” Elena said. “There are empty rooms down the hall you can use.”

  “Secure?” Jody asked.

  “You’ll be safe. The Pack will guard you.” Elena stopped outside the treatment room and stroked Niki’s cheek. “Be careful.”

  Niki nodded curtly, frenzy eating at her insides. She’d fought down the lust too many times since the hunt with the Alpha. She wanted to empty, mindlessly, endlessly. She wanted a Vampire’s teeth in her throat. She shoved through a door and didn’t see the Vampires move, but suddenly they were on the other side of the room, flanking the bed. Waiting for her. She pushed the door closed and did something she’d never done within the Compound before. She locked it.

  Take off your pants.

  Niki didn’t hear the Vampire’s words, she felt them in her head. Jody still gripped the back of Lara’s neck and seemed to be holding her back, not by physical restraint, but with the force of her mind. Lara’s sweat-soaked T-shirt clung to her chest, outlining her tense, swollen breasts. She hadn’t shifted, didn’t even seem to be morphing under the pressure of sex frenzy the way most dominant Weres did when they needed to tangle. Niki couldn’t detect her scent, didn’t feel the prickle on her skin of a Were broadcasting her need. All of the usual signals that marked Lara as Were, as Pack, were muted or gone. Lara’s eyes were opaque red pools of fire, devoid of recognition or connection. Her lips curved not in a snarl of wild Were sexual demand, but in a seductive curl above glistening incisors.

  Niki’s chest constricted. Lara wasn’t Lara, and the loss weighed so heavily on her heart she nearly went to her knees. She was blood-bonded to Lara just as she was to Sylvan and the other centuri, and losing one of their own was worse than losing a body part. A black chasm of despair threatened to swallow her, and she roared in agony. No more. She couldn’t bear any more. She grasped the edges of her open fly with both hands and ripped the heavy canvas from her thighs. Her wolf clawed at her to shift, but she clung to her shredded control.

  “Let her loose,” Niki demanded, her voice roughened by her thickening vocal cords.

  “Not yet.” Jody unbuttoned her shirt with one hand. Her smooth, pale body gleamed like carved marble. With a quick flick of her wrist she tore Lara’s T-shirt down the center. Lara ripped away the remnants of the shirt and pulled off her jeans. Smiling faintly, Jody whispered to Niki, “Come join us.”

  Lara strained in Jody’s grip, a keening whine reverberating in her chest. Her eyes fixed on Niki’s neck. A wave of sexual longing hit Niki, and her sex tightened. Whose call had captured her? Jody’s? Lara’s? What did it matter?

  Come here, little Wolf. Let us taste you.

  Niki’s canines and claws erupted, her pelt line flared, and her clitoris throbbed. Like all dominant Weres, sex and aggression were two points on the same spectrum. If she didn’t release soon, she would fight the first Were who even smelled like a challenge, and Lara was the closest candidate. Niki bounded acros
s the room, landing lightly in a crouch in front of the two Vampires.

  Lara struggled in Jody’s phantom grip, the muscles in her chest and neck straining. Niki’s wolf bristled at the challenge, and Niki snarled.

  “Don’t fight her,” Jody said. “She can’t help herself. Her hunger is ruling her. All she knows is pain.”

  Niki’s heart seized, and the urgency in her loins receded. She straightened and cupped Lara’s cheek. “Lara, I’m here.”

  Lara arched as if an electric current shot through her spine, and her keening became a howl. She gripped Niki’s arms and yanked her onto the bed, covering Niki’s body as they fell. Niki’s back slammed down, and Lara’s thigh drove between her legs, crushing her sex. White-hot agony ignited in her core, and her wolf surged past her restraints. She was under attack! She had to defend herself. She bit Lara’s shoulder, burying her canines deep into the muscles. Lara bucked and spent herself on Niki’s stomach, coating her with hot, thick victus. Lara reared back, incisors bared to strike. Niki struggled, but Lara was strong, so strong.

  Niki saw death coming. Would that really be so bad? Her death would be fast, and she’d be drowning in pleasure. She could let go. Let go of it all. She had only to surrender.

  No! If Lara killed her, Lara would be lost forever.

  Niki drove her hands into Lara’s hair, twisting Lara’s head away, preventing her from feeding. Preventing Lara from giving her what her soul screamed for. She would never believe that Lara was lost to her, lost to the Pack. She sobbed when the pressure in her groin made her stomach cramp and her mind cloud. She didn’t want to think. She just wanted a few minutes of peace. But Lara needed her more than she needed to escape. Lara was Pack, and Pack was everything.

  “Lara. Lara. It’s me.”

  The crimson blaze in Lara’s eyes dimmed, and uncertainty flickered over her face. “Niki? What?”

  “It’s okay. You need to feed. I want to feed you.”

  Lara looked down at herself, at her hands pinning Niki to the bed, at the pool of vital fluid glistening on their stomachs. “What did I…” She shuddered, her face contorting, and reason left her eyes.

  Jody climbed onto the bed, straddled Niki’s hips behind Lara, and jerked Lara against her chest. She held Lara’s head on her shoulder. Lara seemed not to struggle, but her skin rippled continuously as if she were shuddering inside. Jody said, “She needs to feed. Her periods of lucidity will get shorter and shorter. If you don’t feed her, she’ll die.”

  “She won’t die.” Niki turned her head, exposing her neck. Her clitoris pulsed against Jody’s pants. “Tell her to take what she needs.”

  Jody eased Lara down until Lara lay on the bed next to Niki and guided Lara’s face against Niki’s throat. “Feed.”

  Lara struck hard and fast, her bite like a knife cutting into Niki’s throat and down into her chest. Then a tidal wave of erotic power enveloped her, as if a thousand hands, a thousand mouths, caressed her simultaneously. Jody’s voice flowed over her, low and warm and soothing.

  Don’t worry, little Wolf. You’re ours now.

  Jody knelt between Niki’s legs, and Niki gripped Lara’s shoulder, her claws digging into muscle. Lara pulled at her neck and each pull pounded in her groin. Growling, sobbing, Niki arched off the bed. Jody took her into her mouth, her incisors piercing her sex on either side of her clitoris. Pleasure more intense than anything Niki had ever experienced burst inside her. Twisting under Jody’s slender weight, she whimpered and came in Jody’s mouth. The searing release drove the breath from her chest and burned away every fear, annihilating loneliness and uncertainty in utter oblivion. Her wolf receded and she stopped struggling.

  Jody held Niki’s writhing body down on the bed with one hand pressed to her rigid abdomen. She drank, absorbing the power of blood and victus. Her body, nearly starved, flushed with the rapid infusion of life. Powerful Were blood bonded with hers, more potent than any drug. Her hips bucked, and she orgasmed in the throes of bloodlust. She drank and came, swallow after swallow, until Niki’s glands were empty and her clitoris softened. The satisfaction coiling through her was so electrifying she didn’t want to stop. Distantly, she heard a savage growl, and Lara spent again in a thick flood against the Niki’s hip. Jody dragged herself away from Niki’s sex and gripped Lara’s shoulder.

  “Let her go.”

  Niki’s neck and chest glistened with a sheet of red. Lara’s eyes were closed, her throat working convulsively as she sucked at the stream of blood slowly trailing down Niki’s throat. One hand held Niki’s breast, squeezing as she swallowed. Niki’s hips pumped steadily in synch with the rhythm of Lara’s feeding, her thighs drenched with her release. The scent of blood and sex made Jody’s stomach cramp, and her groin throbbed. After turning Lara, she’d fed from four hosts before rushing to the Compound to tend to the newling. She still didn’t feel replenished. She still needed more. She needed more of the Were. But even as strong as this Were was, if they took any more they’d kill her.

  Jody gripped Lara’s jaw, squeezing until she forced her offspring to open her mouth, and dragged her away. Bracing her back on the wall, Jody held Lara in her arms. Lara trembled and whimpered, her eyes open but unseeing. Jody stroked her hair. “It will pass. You’ll survive. Sleep now.”

  Lara shuddered and went completely still. Dawn was breaking.

  Niki groaned and rolled onto her side, squeezing a hand between her legs. Her hips rocked as the hormones Lara injected into her system continued to stimulate her.

  Jody closed her eyes, savoring the languor of feeding and climaxing. The Were was powerful. Niki’s blood filled her with more strength than any host she’d ever had. She stroked the Were’s head as the Were pressed against her thigh. She could get used to this. The Were rumbled, crawled over her thigh, and stretched out between her legs. A warm mouth moved on her sex. With fresh Were blood circulating in her veins, she would be able to orgasm again. Maybe then she could banish the sound of Becca’s voice and the hot rush of desire Becca ignited every time she saw her. She lifted her hips and let the Were take her between her lips. She could be satisfied with this. Very, very easily.

  Chapter Seven

  Becca reached Club Nocturne when the first whispers of dawn glowed above the mountains across the river to the east. Bouncing over the cracked concrete parking lot with foot-tall weeds growing in the crevices, she cruised down the first row of closely packed vehicles and tried not to think about Jody. About who she was with or what she was doing.

  Jody Gates epitomized absolutely everything that pissed her off—she was cold, remote, patronizing, and arrogant. Never mind she was god-awful sexy without even trying—that was the whole point, remember? Vampires didn’t have to try to be sexy—they just were. It was all biology, and Becca knew that. She knew that. Why her body couldn’t catch up to her head, she didn’t know. She’d gotten good at ignoring the constant all-over buzz whenever she was around Jody, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about her, or from worrying that she hadn’t recovered from saving Lara. Her stomach lurched at the Technicolor images of first Lara, then Jody almost dying. Red, bright red. So damn much blood.

  She cringed at the memory of offering herself, offering her blood for crying out loud, to save Jody’s life, and being turned down flat. How many times did she have to hear the word no? Jody had made it perfectly clear she didn’t want her or need her. Fine. She got the message. She was an investigative reporter, and Jody Gates was a detective and a potential source in a developing story. That’s what she needed to remember. That’s all that mattered between them. And if Jody didn’t want to tell her what had happened to the Were Alpha? Fine. She had other sources to tap.

  She squeezed her Camaro into a tiny space between a pickup truck and a BMW, cut the engine, and sat watching the unadorned, windowless door of the hottest Vampire club in town while the engine ticked like a fading heart. Club Nocturne looked as dead as most of its inhabitants—no sign, painted-over windows, and bare s
ecurity lights that did little but laugh at the dark dangling from loose fixtures. There might as well have been a notice saying “Condemned—Keep Out” plastered on the front. She willed herself to get out of the car, but her arms and legs were as heavy as the concrete chunks underfoot.

  The last time she’d been inside, she’d nearly given in to the enticing thrall of a female Vampire and her male lover. Jody had come to her rescue that time, and after berating her and calling her an idiot in not quite so many words, Jody had gotten her to promise she wouldn’t go inside again without an escort. As if an escort was going to be easy to come by. Especially now—Becca squinted at her watch—at 4:40 a.m. Less than half an hour until sunrise.

  The risen Vampires would all leave soon, needing to be sequestered in their lairs before sunrise. If she waited until then, she’d be safe enough. Well, maybe not safe. But safer than she would be right now, when every Vampire in the club would be in a feeding frenzy, sating their blood needs before sleeping. Well, Jody said she slept during the day—Becca wasn’t certain what the Risen did exactly. Did they sleep, become comatose, die? For real?

  Like the Weres and all the other Praeterns, the Vampires didn’t disclose much about their biology or their society. Jody said the pre-animates, living Vampires like herself, could tolerate short exposures of ultraviolet radiation. As to the Risen Vamps, no one—no human, at least—really seemed to know. She’d read reports from human scientists insisting that Risen Vampires really were dead and only appeared to be reanimated. The fundamentalists and xenophobes latched onto reports like that as proof that Vampires did not deserve legal protection or civil rights or much of anything at all.

  The more time she spent around Jody, the less she realized she knew. She didn’t know how often Jody needed to feed or how much blood she needed to sustain herself. She didn’t know what happened when Jody died, but that idea scared her. All she knew was that Jody was capable of enthralling her blood host, and that when she fed, everyone orgasmed. Nice side benefit. She knew that much, and she knew that Jody didn’t want her.