Aden grimaced. “I’m sorry about that, Lucas. It’s not the way I wanted it to go, but the damn minions wouldn’t stop coming. They blew up three fucking vehicles tonight, and Sidonie was with me. She could have been killed.”

“Sidonie?” Lucas’s voice sharpened with interest, and Aden realized he’d said more than he intended.

“A friend. Look, I’ll be there tomorrow night to do it properly. I just wanted to touch bases.”

“Consider the bases touched, and congratulations, my friend,” Lucas said cheerfully. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And bring Sidonie with you!” he added. He was still laughing when he hung up.

“Fuck,” Aden swore softly. Lucas was never going to let him live this one down. Not that the other vampire had any ground to stand on. He was fully tethered to his new FBI girlfriend and looked to stay that way for a while.

Aden threw the phone onto the desk and joined Bastien and the others in the outer office.

“All right,” he said. “As you heard, we’re going to South Dakota tomorrow night. In and out. We’ll be back here by dawn. Once that’s taken care of, our first order of business is building a solid core of fighters. Bastien, I want you to put out a call for recruits. Priority goes to the vampires we worked with in Kansas, and then pretty much anyone from Lucas’s or Raphael’s territory. You know the drill. The four of you can do the initial screening, but I’ll want a list for final review. No one, and I mean not one, of Klemens’s brood gets in on this round. Maybe in the future, when things have settled down—don’t close the door on the possibility, it’ll only cause resentment. But right now, I don’t trust any of them.

“I have to figure out how far Klemens’s rot has spread and take out any of his former allies who have a lingering loyalty to the old guard. I don’t want to have to worry about where the next fucking bomb is coming from. They’ll say it’s not fair, but fuck fair. We’re vampires, not children.

“Next, we need a new place to live and use as a headquarters. Yesterday’s attack showed how vulnerable this place is. Right now, I’m more interested in the acreage than the house. We can always build more house, but I want some space between me and the city. Put Hamilton on it. He can screen properties from a security standpoint, and he can also work with a realtor during the day. Once he has a few possibilities, I’ll take a look, but I want it within the next week.”

“What about Klemens’s estate on the Gold Coast?” Bastien asked.

“My inclination is to burn it to the ground and sell the lot, but that might draw too much attention. Freddy, you know who handles this sort of thing. We need to make sure there are no secrets inside, no hidden passages or cubbies, nothing that can come back on us. I want it emptied to bare walls and naked floors. I want every closet emptied, every window opened. I want sunlight in every crevice and corner.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Okay,” Aden said, more than ready to call it a night. “Anything else?”

His vampires shared glances, shaking their heads in unison. “Nothing, Sire,” Bastien said for all of them.

Aden grinned. “Then get some sleep. And congratulations, gentlemen. We did it.”

SIDONIE LEFT ALL of her clothes in a pile on the floor of the bathroom, not sure if any of it was salvageable and not really caring. The only thing she took proper care with was her gun and bellyband. Folding the holster carefully, she stepped outside the bathroom and laid it on the dresser top, placing the gun on top of that and patting it fondly. It was probably silly, and not at all consistent with a tough girl image, but this was the first time she’d used the gun in a life-or-death situation. She felt proud and a little proprietary about the whole thing.

Smiling at herself, she gave the gun a final pat and went back to her shower, leaning into the stall to turn on the hot water and let it run. Guilt stabbed her about the wasted water. She was generally very conservation-minded. But sometimes a girl needed steam, and this was one of those times. Her pores needed opening. She wanted every trace of Carl Pinto and his hell house gone. Not to mention the fucking explosion afterward. She figured she’d pretty much used up her life’s supply of adrenaline in the last two days.

While waiting for the bathroom to become foggy, she leaned toward the mirror and used her hand to rub away a clear space so she could study the damage.

“Oh my God,” she muttered, horrified. This was so much worse than she’d thought. It was a wonder Aden hadn’t walked away and left her on the street. Her hair was a rat’s nest, and she was wearing a couple of days’ worth of running mascara, but okay, that was expected. What she hadn’t anticipated, although she probably should have, given her throbbing headache, was the red and purple bruising that covered half her face. She didn’t know how much of it was from Pinto and how much from the explosion and didn’t care. It all came together to create the nightmare image that was staring back at her. She literally looked like a refugee from a horror movie.

She closed her eyes and turned away, not wanting to see any more. The bathroom was steamy and warm, and she drew a deep, calming breath. The steam felt good on her sinuses, which were swollen nearly shut, but she’d forgotten about the injury to her side where Pinto had kicked her and had to swallow a cry of pain. She frowned and pressed the damaged ribs tenderly, checking for breaks. Not that she was sure she’d know the difference, but they didn’t feel broken. Nothing squished when she pushed on it, no knife-sharp pain. Just really sore.

She sighed, wishing she could go back to that house, back to the moment when Aden had asked if she wanted to have the honor of finishing off Pinto herself. She wouldn’t pass it up a second time. She’d blow that fucker’s head off, but not before kicking him a few times so he’d know what it felt like to be tied up and helpless.

It was funny, in a not-funny-at-all way, that the worst of her injuries had come from her short time with Pinto and not the gigantic explosion later. That was because Aden had protected her, cushioning her fall and taking most of the damage himself.

She stepped into the shower, standing with her eyes closed and her head bent, letting the hot water pummel her back and neck, washing away the dirt and grime… and blood. Most of the blood was Pinto’s, but not all of it. Needing to be clean, she turned around and reached for the shampoo. Her hair was a tangled mess, but the dirt had to come out first. She washed it quickly and thoroughly, then again, and finally massaged in about twice as much conditioner as she’d normally use. She was rinsing the last of that away, her eyes closed, her head tilted forward under the hot spray, when the shower door clicked open behind her.

She smiled without opening her eyes.

“I was wondering when you’d get here.”

Aden’s strong arms surrounded her, one hand going low on her belly as he nudged her back against his chest, his erection a hard length against her butt.

“I told you it wouldn’t take long,” he murmured. Reaching over her shoulder for the soap, he lathered it between his big hands and began to rub it over her skin with exquisite care, his touch far gentler than she would have thought him capable of.

Aden was a man of such contrasts. Not a man at all, according to him. He’d have her believe he’d left behind his humanity long ago when he’d been enslaved, treated like a thing. But that didn’t explain his concern for the captured women, his kindness in making certain they were not just cared for, but safe and on their way home. The careful way he’d protected her. He was so powerful, and yet his touch when he examined her bruises was so tender, so full of . . .

She wanted to say love, but she didn’t know if that was true. It felt like love, but maybe she was projecting her own feelings onto him. Because she was definitely falling and falling hard. She’d been teetering on the edge ever since the first night she’d met him. As rude and irritating as he’d been, there’d been an undeniable spark between them. She’d initially dismissed it as nothing more than sexual attraction. After all, the guy was sex on a stick. Any woman still breathing would want him. But the truth had crept in, growing with every hour they spent together, every tiny bit of himself that he revealed to her, until she could no longer deny it. She even knew the precise moment when she’d reached the point of no return. It was the look in his eyes when he’d seen her standing in that kitchen doorway tonight. His relief at seeing her alive, and his rage when he’d seen what Pinto had done to her.

She knew he cared, but she didn’t know if he loved her.

“Turn around,” he murmured against her ear, and she shivered at the rumble of his deep voice.

She obeyed, turning around to face him, lifting her gaze from his thickly-muscled chest to his wonderful, broad shoulders, past the strong column of his throat to his sensuous lips which curved slightly with amusement, before she finally met his dark eyes.

“I look awful,” she lamented.

“You look beautiful. You’re alive, and that’s all that matters to me.”

Sid sighed and rested her forehead against his chest. “I knew you’d come,” she told him.

“But you didn’t wait anyway.”

She rolled her head from side to side. “I decided I was no fairy tale princess.”

“Whatever that means,” he growled. “He could have killed you. You should have waited for me.”

“I couldn’t. I didn’t know what he would do to those women.”

“I would have taken care of them. You know that.”

“I did know, and I knew you’d come after us, but I was worried you’d be too late. Pinto was getting ready to move, and I was afraid he’d have us all packed up and gone before you got there.”

“Then, I’d have tracked you down,” he said implacably. “I am a vampire lord, Sidonie. I have resources.”

“But you’re not infallible. And I couldn’t take that chance. Besides, I am woman, hear me roar.”