They were just finishing up when the sound of a helicopter approaching signaled Raze’s arrival. He landed smoothly in the empty parking lot and cut the engine. The remote location of the property spoke to the ambition of the previous owners—they could’ve expanded indefinitely as business grew. Instead, the rising cost of fuel and weak retail traffic in stores had led to a short sale. Their loss was now her gain.

The heavily muscled vampire, one of the Fal en like her, climbed out of the aircraft with a grin, his eyes hidden behind wraparound sunglasses, his shaved head shining under the desert sun. He sized up Elijah with a long, sweeping glance. Then he looked at Vash. “I’l have to make another trip, at least. Maybe two more.”

She nodded. “Let’s get you unloaded, then.”

It took al day to move the necessary supplies into the building, even with the help of the four dozen lycans they’d brought in via bus. In addition to the electronic equipment, which took priority, they set up rows of bunk beds that drew groans from the lycans, because they were identical to the ones they’d been provided while indentured to Adrian. Cameras were set up on the roof, since any angelic incursion would come from the air, and the windows were covered with UV-blocking film, to create a safe haven for the minions that would join them in a few hours under cover of darkness.

The most important thing for Vash, however, was the van-sized map that showed the pattern of contagion around the country. She stood in front of it with her hands on her hips, knowing the radiuses had extended in the last few days she’d spent setting up the lycan/vampire al iance.

Turning her head, she watched as the lycans worked alongside her most trusted captains, Raze and Salem. Lycans and vampires working together. It was insane, real y, considering the seething hostility that weighted the air, like flammable gas awaiting the strike of a match. She was restless in anticipation of a sparking event, knowing it wouldn’t take much to set off an explosion that could devolve into a bloodbath.

It didn’t escape her attention that Elijah was the force keeping it al together. As the temperature rose, he took most of the outside shifts, hefting the heavy equipment and carrying it into the loading bays without a word of complaint. She knew how lycans hated the heat; she’d exploited how testy they became when uncomfortable countless times on hunts. But Elijah was such a powerful example of grace under pressure that the others were shamed into good behavior—lycan and vampire alike.

Although sweat poured down the lycans’ laboring bodies and their chests heaved, they worked quickly and efficiently. And the vampires gave the Alpha only a token amount of flak when he directed their efforts with firm, unwavering command. They didn’t trust him, but they couldn’t fault his leadership style. It was impossible to do so. There was something inherently majestic about Elijah, a core strength of wil that was unshakable. And he was compassionate. He took the time to speak to each lycan individual y, putting a hand on their shoulders and gifting personal words of thanks and praise.

More than once she found herself staring at and admiring him. We’re equals or we’re nothing, he’d said, referring to vampires and lycans as a whole. But it was true for them as individuals, too.

No, she corrected herself. He outranks me. His equals were Syre and Adrian. For the first time, she was confronted with an attraction to a man who wasn’t beneath her in rank. She was startled at how much that changed the dynamic.

“If this al iance sticks,” Elijah said at the end of the day, “it’l take me years to get used to.”

“How many of these lycans can you trust to have your back?”

One slashing brow rose. His hair was damp from a recent shower, inciting a mental picture him of standing beneath a spray of water, naked and wet and irresistibly sexy… “Hel if I know,” he said without heat.

Honest to a fault. She liked that about him, among too many other things. He was a goddamned lycan, a race of beings that couldn’t be trusted— His other brow rose to match the first. “Problem?”

“No problem.” She brushed past him on her way out, her nostrils fil ed with the wildly clean fragrance of his skin mixed with the earthy pheromones he exuded as a matter of course…pheromones her senses soaked up as if starved for them. “I’l see you in the morning.”

She didn’t hear him come up on her, but she felt him. Was overly attuned to him. Damn it al to hel . “Don’t nip at my heels, puppy,” she snapped.

“You’re charming when sexual y frustrated.”

Her fists clenched. “I’m hungry for food, not you.”

“I am your food. We discussed this.”

“You discussed it.” She stepped outside into the chil y desert night and took a deep breath of air untainted by the primal scent of hardworking lycans. As she walked, her head began to clear…Then Elijah cut her off by stepping in front of her, fogging her mind with the exotic scent that was unique to him, a fragrance reminiscent of cinnamon and cloves. It was delicious, as everything about him was.

“You stay with me,” he said. “That part of the deal was mutual y agreed to.”

“I’l be back. I need to take care of something.” She needed blood, and—for the first time in damn near sixty years—sex. Then she could deal with him without tripping over how scorchingly beautiful he was.

Sidestepping him, she reached into her cleavage for her Jeep key.

He caught her wrist before she passed him. “How much shit have you got in there? Cel phones, jump drives, keys.”

Yanking her hand free, she gestured at the skintight, sleeveless black catsuit she wore. “Where the hel else am I going to carry things?”

His hand, however, didn’t budge, despite the ferocity of her movement. It remained suspended by her shoulder, close enough that she tensed in expectation of his touch. Slowly, as if she might yet bolt, he adjusted his position to bring them face-to-face again and reached for the exposed zipper that was nestled between her breasts. Breasts that swel ed and began to ache, growing heavy in anticipation of his touch.

She’d forgotten what it felt like to be physical y aroused, forgotten how intoxicating it was, how it impeded the ability to think rational y and act with common sense.

“Keep your paws to yourself,” she bit out, stepping back.

“What are you afraid of?”

“Not wanting to be mauled doesn’t make me scared, asshole.”

Emerald eyes glittering with chal enge in the moonlight, he held up both hands. “I promise to keep my paws to myself. I just want to see what else you’ve got in there. Cash? ATM cards? Spare tire?”

“None of your business.”

“I’ve shown you mine,” he taunted softly, goading her with a lycan’s overt sexuality. Vampires were sexual creatures, too, but lycans were pagans, their demon-tainted blood spurring wild natures. Elijah was more brutal y sexual than any other lycan she’d ever met, his confidence and quiet command stemming from his comfort with himself, his luscious body, and his awareness of his virility and strength.

She couldn’t get the image of him out of her head—naked, bloody, his big hand stroking his big cock, his eyes dark and hot with wanting her. The memory had haunted her al night while he slept soundly. Fucker.

Pissed at the imbalance in the attraction between them, Vash yanked her zipper to her navel and pul ed the separated halves aside. Her breasts bounced free, the tips hardening as a cool breeze slid across them. She was braless due to the natural constriction of the suit, which hugged her so tightly any underwear would have marred the sleek lines. The garment was comfortable, affording her ful range of movement, and it distracted her opponents—win/win al around.

He stared, unblinking, his face hardening into an austere mask of ferocious hunger. His arms fel slowly to his sides, his hands fisting.

“Jesus,” he hissed.

Pure feminine power slid through her, her anger and frustration soothed by his undisguised helpless captivation. When she moved to close her top, he growled low and deep, the rumbling sound an unmistakable animal warning. She stil ed instinctively, her body freezing in place as if lack of movement would make her invisible to the predator stalking her.

In her haste to retaliate, she’d awakened the beast. Now the steady, powerful drumming of his heartbeat was spurring her potent vampiric needs.

The intrinsic hunger for blood and sex. His blood. His sex. That’s what she craved with a force that shook her, as if the desire for a man’s touch had always been inside her. Lying dormant. Waiting for the right man to jolt it to life.

That man stepped closer. Then lowered his head… “Elijah.” She breathed his name, her pulse pounding violently. Her body was straining toward his without her volition, every muscle taut with expectation and wanting. She should’ve backed away again, would have done so if she’d been capable of moving. Instead it felt like her feet had been encased in concrete, rooting her in place.

His breath gusted hot over her nipple, his lips hovering over the stiffened peak. “No paws,” he whispered.

Then he stroked his rough tongue across her with a long, leisurely lick. Her gasp was a whiplash in the stil of the night; her body jerked as if she’d been tasered. She felt as if she had been. Needles of sharpened awareness swept over her skin from head to toe. The roots of her hair stood on end, tingling with the need to feel his grip fisting the crimson strands.

He groaned, the sound fil ed with pleasure and torment. “Offer yourself to me,” he ordered roughly, licking his lips.

She swal owed hard, tasting blood and realizing her fangs had descended and pierced her. Her hunger beat at her senses, rushing through her veins, mingling with her sexual desire until they were one and the same. She didn’t realize she’d cupped her breast and lifted it to his mouth until she was scorched by the heat of his lips. The drenching burn was quenched by a sudden hard suck that made her moan and stumble a fraction of an inch closer. His tongue fluttered maddeningly over the elongated tip, worrying it, making her sex clench in jealous greed.

The wind blew softly, riffling through his dark hair and urging the thick silk to brush over her tender skin. He touched her nowhere else, with nothing else but his mouth, which began to tug with rhythmic pul s. The measured tempo pulsed through her, making her wet between the thighs and achy with emptiness.

He released her with a pop of breaking suction.

“I love your tits,” he growled, each word said with arousing vehemence. “I’m going to squeeze them in my hands, holding them together as I slide my dick through al this lush, firm flesh until I come al over you.”

No man had ever talked to her that way, so crude and raw. No man would dare.

Taming Elijah would be impossible, she realized, quivering with longing tinged by apprehension. She was a strong woman, but she couldn’t imagine bending him to her wil . Because he was strong, too. Maybe even stronger than she was.

Elijah looked up at her as his head turned slightly to bring his mouth over her neglected nipple. “You want that, too. I can smel how it turns you on to think about giving it up to me however I want it. Giving up al that power and command you’re used to shoving everyone around with.”

“Fuck you.”

“Oh…you wil , Vashti. Long and hard. It’s only a matter of time.”

He was suckling her before she could retort, pinning her nipple to the roof of his mouth and massaging it with his tongue. She almost came from the sweet sting of it, the delirious pleasure/pain of voracious draws so powerful they hol owed his cheeks. He was relentless in his taking, his teeth sinking into the turgid peak with just enough pressure to send a shiver of wariness through her.

“Vash.”

Salem’s voice behind her startled her into jerking away from the wicked ecstasy of Elijah’s mouth. She cried out at the sharp scrape of teeth over tender flesh, then again with surprise at the orgasm that was almost triggered by the bittersweet pain.

Elijah had her zipped up and steadied with lightning-quick efficiency. If not for his labored breathing, she might’ve thought he was unaffected.

Then he caught her hand and cupped it around his erection, grinding himself into her palm.

“We’re here,” he cal ed out, pushing her hand aside and taking a step back.

They were only yards away from the door. Salem would have seen Elijah’s bent head and smel ed their mutual arousal.

“I need your wheels,” her captain said, lingering by the warehouse instead of approaching. Agitated by the scent of desire, he shoved a meaty hand through his electric orange hair. It was a testament to how bad-ass he was that he could flaunt a hair color that was a bul ’s-eye on his massive cranium. “Time for a run to Shred.”

Swal owing hard, she stared at Elijah but spoke to Salem. “I’l go with you.”

Shred was one of Torque’s most exclusive and secretive dens. Located far off the Vegas Strip, it was a way station for fledgling minions and older vamps alike, offering safety, sex, and blood.

“I’l drive,” Elijah said, bending to pick up the car keys she’d unknowingly dropped from her lax hand.

Any one of the lycans in the building could have snuck up on her and she would never have noticed, her brain fried by the heat of Elijah’s mouth on her breast. It was unacceptable. She needed to get her shit together before she got herself kil ed. “I’m not tel ing you where it is, lycan.”

“You don’t have to.” He turned toward the Jeep. “I’ve hunted there before.”

CHAPTER 6

Pissed off and frustrated by his own weakness where Vashti was concerned, Elijah made no attempt to hide his raging lust from either Vash or Salem. Instead he obstinately pumped pheromones into the air around him, permeating the Jeep’s interior until Salem cursed viciously and adjusted himself in his leather pants. Vash had chosen to take a seat in the back, a mistake that guaranteed the smel of his need whipped across her face and through her hair, carried by the wind surging through the window Salem opened.