There was so much blood. He liked that. The splash and splatter of it. Like a painting and he was the artist. He’d wanted a different card. He couldn’t use the women. Either of them. The girl was fourteen and the mother—ah—the mother. She was beautiful. And such a f**king snob. He would love to force her to watch him do the daughter first. But he’d lose points. How many points if he f**ked them both? Would it be worth it? They’d all be mad at him, but what the hell, he deserved a little fun.

It wasn’t his fault that he pulled the wrong card. The sound of their voices sobbing and pleading were better than any high, better than any aphrodisiac. He’d done the husband first. Macho man. Idiot, thought he could keep his family safe. Then the son. Waste of time killing the brat, but he didn’t want to bother with the kid screaming. No, now came the fun. He had hours for fun, but if he indulged his fantasies, he’d lose points. Whatever should we do?

He squatted down beside the woman, smirking, high on the power. She’d do anything to live. Anything at all he wanted. Too bad, baby, your death is in the cards . . . He began laughing at his own joke.

Tansy could hear a far-off voice calling her name. The voice sounded familiar and she tried to concentrate on it. She was in a labyrinth of the dead. So many bodies. So much blood. The victims begged and pleaded. Debased themselves. Endured both physical and emotional torture, and she went through it with them, helpless to aid them. Sometimes she could see their faces, the desperation in their eyes, the pleading. Sobs welled up. She couldn’t reach them. She couldn’t touch them. She couldn’t stop their killer.

“Tansy, drop it! Damn it. Hear me. Feel me. I’m real, they’re not.”

The voice was stern, commanding, penetrating through the blood and gore. For a moment she was aware of being in two places, the long blood-filled tunnel with glassy eyes staring at her and a hand gripping hers. And then the killer laughed and clothes ripped and women screamed. A child pleaded, the voice hopeless, dragging her down, down into the oily black and red sludge where she took a breath and went under.

Screw them all, doll face. We’ve got all day to get acquainted. Fight me. I want you to fight me. See how pretty your daughter looks with all those cuts over her br**sts? Nice red stripes.

He slowly took off his belt, knowing two pairs of eyes were mesmerized by him.

Won’t she look even prettier with nice wide stripes all over her? Come on over here, doll face. Crawl on your hands and knees, right past your old man who didn’t do a thing to save you. He would have given you up, begged me to use you however I wanted just so I didn’t kill him. He wasn’t strong. You needed someone strong. And now it’s too late. Crawl over here and put that whiny mouth of yours to work while I teach this little girl what a real man is. If you’d chosen the right man, none of this would have happened, would it?

He caught the woman by her hair, yanking her head up, sticking his face next to hers. Spit ran down her face as he shouted at her.

Would it?

Kadan tried prying open Tansy’s fingers. He was going to lose her if he didn’t pull her back. Her face was nearly gray it was so pale. Beads of perspiration dotted her forehead. Her pulse was out of control, her eyes staring at something that wasn’t really there.

“Drop that f**king thing.” His voice didn’t even sound like his own. He growled the command in a demonic voice. Kadan Montague, the killer who had ice for blood, was desperate, terrified he was losing her.

Swearing, he dug the pads of his fingers deep into her wrist, finding the pressure point that would open her fingers, slamming her hand against the ground at the same time. The game piece flew a couple of feet and rolled free. Tansy’s body convulsed. Blood trickled from her mouth and nose. Kadan knelt in the dirt, his body blocking the early morning sun while he tried to wake her. He shook her, called her name, and then left her to get water.

Tansy choked, coughed, turned her head and then rolled to her knees, her stomach rebelling, the retching relentless. Waves of dizziness disoriented her. She wiped her face, and her hand came away smeared with blood.

“Here. Drink this.” Kadan thrust a bottle of water into her shaking hands and a jacket around her nude body.

Tansy tried to raise it to her mouth, but she spilled droplets everywhere. Kadan reached around her, his hand closing on hers, steadying the bottle.

“Take a drink.” His voice was gruff.

Tansy did, swishing the water around and spitting it out to cleanse the oily taste from her mouth. It didn’t go away. Her mind seemed unusually calm, and she had a bad feeling she wasn’t the one controlling the voices. She took a couple of more cautious sips, letting the cool liquid trickle down her throat, before she looked up at Kadan.

“They’re still there in my head, aren’t they? Just like always. You’re stopping them.”

He nodded. “Why in the hell when that f**ker knew you were chasing serial killers didn’t he give you the tools to work with?” Fury shook his voice.

Tansy took a deep breath and let it out. “I presume you’re referring to Dr. Whitney.”

“Didn’t your parents call him in when you became ill after chasing a killer?”

She nodded. “It seemed part of the adoption agreement. He arranged the adoption and my father seemed to think he was the best person to treat me. I had to recount, in great detail, how each case affected me.”

“He could have helped you deal with it better.”

“I usually did deal with it better. If I prepare my mind for the shock, I can control the energy and voices for a short time. Unfortunately, the times became shorter and shorter, until I reached the point of really being useless. And I can’t get them out of my head once they’re in there.” She took another drink of water, savoring the cool water when her throat felt raw.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Her eyes met his. He looked as if he meant it. She shrugged. “I guess you had to try.”

Kadan shook his head, refusing to take the out. “I wasn’t thinking about the job when I threw the game piece. It was left behind at the crime scene. There’s always a piece left behind. There seem to be eight different pieces, and one of the eight is always left at each scene.”

“Because you have eight players.”

Kadan blinked. Sank down into the dirt beside her. “What do you mean, eight players?”

“It’s a game. A game of murder and there are several players. It stands to reason if there are eight game pieces then you have eight players. Have any of the game pieces repeated?”

“Four of them. Two on the East Coast and two on the West.”

She was silent a moment, her expression thoughtful. Blood continued to trickle out of her mouth and nose. Kadan couldn’t stop himself from wiping it away. The sight bothered him more than he cared to admit. She didn’t pull away from him, and he was connected so tightly with her that he could almost follow the speed of her brain as she began computing data with small facts she’d pulled from the brief glimpse she’d received of the killer’s mind.

“It’s possible he’s on a team. He was concerned about losing points if he raped the victims.” She looked up and he swore she blinked back tears. “He did rape them, didn’t he? Both of them. He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself. He likes what he’s doing and he needs the rush of it. He needs it more than he wants to win the game.”

Kadan nodded his affirmation. “They were both raped.”

“Control really matters to him. He kept taunting them about choosing the wrong man. Is it possible the wife knew him? It was odd the way he acted. He doesn’t like rejection and obviously feels superior to everyone, men and women. He fed their terror, and the more afraid they were, the higher he became.”

Kadan didn’t want to interrupt her. She was fascinating. Her mind was fascinating. He’d worked with some great minds, yet here was a woman, without training, who thought like a detective, her brain compiling data faster than he’d ever seen.

Tansy swept a hand through her hair, frowning when her fingers caught. He tried not to notice the disarray of her hair, falling like tangled silk around her shoulders and down her back. Her br**sts held faint marks, marring the perfection of her skin. He’d done that. Those were his fingerprints on her. His body stirred no matter how hard he tried to control himself.

“Why don’t you get dressed?”

For the first time she seemed aware of her lack of clothing, frowning, a little confused while she looked around her. She nodded and rose unsteadily. Kadan caught her arm to make certain she didn’t fall. Tansy pulled clothes from her backpack and moved out of his sight. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t very well insist she dress in front of him. He spent the few minutes of her absence fixing her a cup of hot coffee.

Tansy was back a few minutes later, her face a little swollen as if she’d been crying. She took the coffee mug and blew on it. “Do the murders follow one another? In other words, if one is committed on the West Coast, then does one follow on the East Coast? Are they alike?”

He shook his head. “Similar. Well planned. More than one person has to be in on the planning, but only one actually performs the kills. At least that’s what I think. There’s never been any evidence of more than one killer at a crime scene. The murders are connected by the game pieces. They’re unusual, carved out of ivory and very distinct.”

Tansy looked around. “Where are my gloves?”

“Why?” His gut protested the question and the answer in her mind.

She flicked him a reprimanding glance. “Don’t be silly. I need to take a look at the piece. I haven’t really examined it and I can’t touch it without gloves on.”

“I don’t want you to touch it again.”

She sighed. “Look, I’ve already got the voices in my head and they aren’t going to leave me alone, so I may as well do what I can to at least point you in the right direction. I pick things up even through gloves if the impressions are strong enough. I have a feeling this man kept the piece with him through the entire planning stages and liked holding it in his hand.”

Kadan swore as he turned away from her. She was gone from him. She had distanced herself from him and he felt the barrier even in her mind. He couldn’t blame her. He even understood, but damn it all, she belonged to him, and the separation after sharing her body and her mind was unacceptable. He could barely breathe with the thought of losing her for good.

Reluctantly he handed her the game piece. It was a small stallion, anatomically correct. She took it between two fingers, turning it over and over. Her index finger began to stroke along the horse’s neck, where there was no wild mane.

“He’s the Italian Stallion. He likes being called that. He enjoys knowing he can manipulate women, and his friends know it. He makes the claim that it’s their responsibility to keep their women away from him, not his.”

“Italian Stallion is so trite. It’s been done too many times.”

Her gaze jumped to his face. “I’m sure it has.”

He wasn’t Italian, but he felt like she was accusing him of seducing her. Damn it. Maybe he had. He hadn’t told her the story of his childhood on purpose. It had slipped out. He’d been horrified, but he couldn’t stop talking, couldn’t stop the flow once the dam had been pierced. He hadn’t told the story to seduce her, or even to gain sympathy. He was in her mind. Sharing each other. He saw her. Saw inside of her. She was—everything.

Tansy studied the carving from every angle. “He wants this identity more than he wants his own. He encourages this one. Mostly they just call him Stallion. Who are they?”

Her finger was mesmerizing, rubbing the neck back and forth, almost in a caress. Kadan remembered the feel of her fingers stroking over his shaft. He’d been so hard. So thick. He’d never been quite like that before, full to bursting. Looking at her, with her hair all over the place, no makeup and that remote look on her face, his heart contracted. And yes, even now, the breeze carried the faint scent of cinnamon, although now it mixed with his scent.