Her arms like lead, she paused and leaned forward, striving to reduce her choppy gasps to long, even breaths, unable to find the strength to even raise her weapons high enough to serve as a shield.

When nothing happened—no blades took advantage of the lull and carved her up, no fists struck her, no fangs closed on her vulnerable throat—she frowned. Straightening, Ami peered at her surroundings. Her eyes widened in disbelief.

Bodies in various stages of decay littered the field, the road, the dirt shoulder.

Feet shuffling, she turned around just as Marcus yanked one of his swords from the chest of the last vampire standing and spun toward her.

Like Ami, he gave the land around them a disbelieving once-over. He closed his vibrant amber eyes, tilted his head to one side, and listened, drew in a deep breath. Lids lifting, he met her gaze. A wide, triumphant smile stretched across his handsome face. Throwing his head back, he released an exultant whoop. Then, dropping his swords, he swept forward, wrapped his arms around her, and hoisted her into the air, hugging her tightly and spinning her around. “We did it!” he shouted.

Letting her own weapons fall, Ami wearily rested her head on his shoulder and twined limp arms around his neck, her feet dangling somewhere in the vicinity of his knees.

“I can’t fucking believe we did it!” Laughing, he set her down. “There must have been three dozen of them! Are you all right?”

She nodded, incapable of doing any more at the moment.

As he paced away, stepping over bodies, wagging his head with that unshakable grin, Ami recalled some of the other immortals’ concerns that Marcus’s grief had turned him into an adrenaline junky who only felt alive when faced with death.

The fact that they couldn’t see him now was probably a good thing.

“Three dozen and we kicked … their … asses!” He swooped back toward her and, stopping mere inches away, cupped her face in his bloody hands. “You were amazing, Ami! Bloody amazing! I’ve never seen a Second move so fast! So fluidly!” His thumbs smoothed across her cheeks as his glowing amber gaze held hers and the expression on his blood-spattered face softened. “Amazing,” he murmured. Her already laboring heart stuttered when his head lowered and his warm, soft lips met hers.

Electric.

Her lids fluttered closed. Ami rested her hands on his chest and clutched his wet shirt, leaning into him when her knees threatened to buckle.

His tongue slipped out and stroked her lips. She’d never felt anything so incredible in her life.

Just as she opened her mouth, wanting to touch her tongue to his, he drew back a few inches.

A slow smile accompanied the heat in his gaze. “Your heart sounds like it’s going to burst from your chest,” he whispered in a deep, silky voice.

Of course it did. Her knees were also about to crumple. But was that any reason for him to stop kissing her?

His brow furrowed. His smile faltered. Drawing one big hand over her hair, he brushed it back from her face. “Your heart sounds like it’s going to burst from your chest,” he repeated, the silk replaced by concern. “Ami?” Backing away a step, he gave her a more detailed visual exam.

Ami kept her hands twisted in his shirt, afraid she would sink to the ground if she let go.

With every second, his expression grew more alarmed. “Oh, shit. You’re not all right. You’re hurt.”

Bending forward, he slipped an arm beneath her knees and hoisted her into his arms.

He was so warm.

And she trembled with cold.

“Stay with me, Ami,” he murmured in her ear as he carried her over to the dented Prius. “Stay with me.”

She intended to.

If he let her.

Cursing himself, Marcus gently settled Ami on the hood of the car. He could feel her trembling and kept his hands on her shoulders until he was sure she could sit up without assistance.

Because she had remained on her feet and fought nonstop, he had assumed that whatever wounds she had suffered were superficial, the blood on her clothing that of the vampires she had destroyed.

And she had destroyed many of them, holding her own better than even the most seasoned Seconds with whom he had fought. Better even than fledgling immortals.

Yet she was human. Wasn’t she?

He raked her torn, crimson-stained clothing with a frantic glance. “Which is the worst?”

She shook her head weakly. “I-I don’t know. My hip? Maybe my thigh?”

Her thigh?

Dread filled him. Please, not her femoral artery.

He ran suddenly clumsy hands over her slender, black fatigue-clad thighs. Rage, directed at both the vampires and himself, grew with every blood-soaked tear he found. She jerked when his fingers found the deepest cut.

“Sorry,” he muttered. Located on her outer thigh, it bled sluggishly and was deep enough that he was surprised it hadn’t hampered her fighting. “This is going to hurt,” he warned and, pinching the edges together, he applied pressure with his right hand.

Hissing in a breath, she bit her lip. Tears sparkled in her eyes, then spilled over her lashes, every one making his gut cramp.

Selfish bastard. As stubborn as she had proven to be, he should have known she would refuse to leave. Instead of staying and forcing her to fight, he should have whisked her out of harm’s way.

And risk leading thirty plus vampires to a more populated area or leaving them to freely troll for victims here in the country.

Marcus really hated lose-lose situations.

Dragging his attention away from Ami’s blood-streaked face, he studied her hips. With one hand pressed to her thigh, he used the other to peel back the ragged cloth hanging from her hip on the opposite side and grimaced at the ragged rip in her pale flesh.

The low rumble of an approaching vehicle rose in the night. Marcus looked in the direction from which Ami had come when she had arrived.

“What is it?” Ami asked, glancing over her shoulder.

“A car is coming.” His acute hearing had allowed him to listen for it before she could.

Her eyes swept the carnage around them, widened, and met his. “What will we say? We can’t hide this. Whoever it is will take one look and call the police.”

And if the police arrived before Chris Reordon’s cleanup crew did …

Reordon might have connections in cool places, but the risk of discovery was greater if they didn’t gain control of the situation before the authorities arrived.

Marcus perused the makeshift battlefield. Half of the deceased vampires had completely disintegrated, leaving behind scarlet-splashed clothing, empty shoes, watches, nose rings, and assorted weapons. The other half were decaying quickly, most boasting a mummified appearance that could never be mistaken for a fresh kill.

“Filmmakers,” he blurted out.

“What?”

“We’re independent filmmakers.”

She motioned to their surroundings. “Where are the cameras? The lights? The cast and crew?”

Trying to fabricate at least a mildly plausible scenario, Marcus applied pressure to the wound in her hip. “We’ll just tell them that … filming has wrapped for the night. Most of the crew has packed up the equipment and gone home. The rest … went on a beer and pizza run before we finish cleaning up. You and I are actors who volunteered to stay behind and wait because … my brother is the director.”

Her forehead crinkled with doubt.

“I know—I know. It’s lame. But it’s all I can think of right now.”

“Maybe we’ll luck out and they’ll be supremely gullible?” she suggested hopefully.

He smiled. “Maybe.”

A car sailed over the nearest hill.

“Merde!” a voice abruptly exclaimed behind him. Ami jumped and gasped.

Spinning around, Marcus positioned himself in front of her, reached for the daggers strapped to his chest … and realized he had used them all. His short swords lay several yards away, out of reach and—

He relaxed as his gaze fell on the French immortal standing just three or four yards away.

Clad all in black with short, wavy raven hair and a sword in each hand, Richart gaped at the bodies and empty clothing scattered around them.

“Really?” Marcus demanded irritably. “You show up now?”

“The call didn’t come from your phone,” he responded with a shrug, his voice tinged with a light accent. “So Chris didn’t know you were the one who needed help or where to send us until the GPS identified your location.”

“I dialed the number,” Ami murmured in Marcus’s ear, sending a warm shiver through him, “but the vampires attacked before I could say anything.”

He nodded, his unforgiving eyes still trained on the other immortal. “It took this long for him to track our location? I thought that shit worked faster than that.” If backup had arrived sooner, perhaps Ami wouldn’t have been hurt. She felt so small and fragile beneath his hands. The more he thought about the vampires converging on her in the numbers they had, the more impossible it seemed that she had survived.

And the more admiration he felt for her.

“No, it took this long for us to get here. You are way out in the sticks, you know.”

“Why didn’t you just—”

“I’m not as powerful as Seth. I can only teleport to places I’m familiar with, and I’m new to this area.”

The car skidded to a halt with far less flourish than his Prius had, the bumper nearly brushing the hem of Richart’s long black coat.

The driver’s door flew open, and Richart’s twin, Étienne, emerged.

Marcus felt one of Ami’s hands clutch the back of his shirt and recalled Seth’s mentioning that meeting new people was difficult for her. Leaning into her hold, he reached back and rested a hand on her shin, then winked at her over his shoulder. “You’re a better driver.”

The uncertainty on her face eased somewhat as her lips twitched.

“Merde!” Étienne exclaimed. Had Richart not teleported, Marcus would have been unable to tell the two apart. “How many were there?”