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  The thought seemed to bring her alive somehow. Holy crap—he’s really killing him! Right here on my front porch, right in front of me—he’s killing him!

  “Stop!” she gasped, lurching forward to grab Six’s muscular arm. It was far over her head and Randy’s dangling feet were in the way but somehow she managed to get her hands around his bicep. It was as hard as iron. “Stop!” she demanded again. “You have to stop!”

  “Why?” His red left eye scanned her as though searching for answers. “You told me this male would come back again and again unless he was terminated. You said you could not come with me until he was dead.”

  “I never said that!” Or had she? Vaguely she remembered saying something about how Randy would keep coming back until the day he died unless he was stopped. But she’d never expected the big Kindred to take her literally.

  “You did. You cited him as the reason you could not come with me.” His grip on Randy’s throat loosened slightly but he still dangled the other man in the air like a rag doll.

  “But I thought you didn’t want me after all!” Mei-Li protested. “You said you only came to make sure I could take care of myself.”

  “I thought that you could and then I saw this male behaving suspiciously when he left the domicile where you first encountered him.” He shook Randy who gave a choked, half-unconscious moan. “I followed him and watched as he marked your vehicle.”

  “So, you watched him key my car and didn’t do anything about it? Thanks a lot,” Mei-Li muttered.

  “I wanted to see what else he would do. I followed him here and watched to see if you could fend off his attack on your own. You could not.”

  “What?” Mei-Li was really angry now. “You stood there and watched him attack me? What is wrong with you?”

  “There is nothing wrong with me but there appears to be something considerably wrong with you—you cannot defend yourself nearly as well as you at first led me to believe.”

  “I was doing my best,” Mei-Li protested.

  “Your ‘best’ was about to get you sexually assaulted—I believe that was what he was alluding to, was it not?” He shook Randy again.

  Mei-Li felt her cheeks getting hot and she was suddenly aware that her shirt was still gaping open, showing her white lace bra.

  “Just put him down,” she begged, clutching her shirt closed. “You can’t kill him—especially not here on my front porch. He’s an abusive asshole and he absolutely deserves it but think of all the paperwork involved. I’d never be done with it. We need to let the police deal with him—send him back to jail.”

  “I will not kill him on the condition that you come quietly with me,” Six said. “I do not wish to make a scene when I take you.”

  “What? When you take me where?”

  “To Z4—Zeaga Four. For our Claiming Period.”

  “What? No! You said you weren’t claiming me!”

  “I said that before I saw the kind of danger you were in. Am I right in thinking that you deal with this kind of scum on a daily basis?” He nodded at Randy whom he was still holding casually over his head, as though the two hundred and fifty pound man weighed no more than a child.

  “Randy Dungston is like a lot of men I have to deal with,” Mei-Li admitted thinking of all the drunk and abusive husbands, fathers, and disgruntled ex-boyfriends that littered the lives of the children in her care. “But I can handle them—I can handle myself.”

  “That will be unnecessary. From now on I will be taking care of you. This is natural and right—a Kindred’s instinct is to protect the female he claims.”

  “But you can’t claim me!” Panic gripped her by the throat. “You can’t!”

  “I am through arguing with you. You will come with me.”

  “But…but my clients—the children on my caseload! If I’m not here to watch over them—”

  Six nodded. “I understand your concern for them. Don’t worry, I will take care of this male before we go.” He shook Randy like a bag of rags.

  This sounded ominous to Mei-Li.

  “I told you, you can’t kill him! Even if he deserves it that’s not how we do things here. See, there’s something called due process—”

  Her words were cut off when Six dropped Randy heavily to the porch. The big man’s head bounced against the wooden boards and he groaned, his eyelids fluttering.

  “Hey,” she protested. “You can’t just—”

  Paying no attention to her, Six leaned over the supine figure and took one of Randy’s arms in both his hands. Mei-Li saw his metal hand flex and then with a calm, practiced gesture he snapped Randy Dungston’s bone in two, right between the elbow and the shoulder.

  “Oh my God!” Mei-Li gasped. At the same time Randy woke up with a howl and started screaming.

  “Ow! Holy God! Sweet Jesus—what?”

  With a muffled crunching sound, Six broke his other arm as well, this time between the elbow and the wrist.

  “Fuck!” Dungston screamed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  “What are you doing?” Mei-Li cried. “You can’t…I don’t…”

  Methodically, Six walked around the wailing man and planted one huge, booted foot on his right leg, right between the knee and the hip. As Mei-Li watched, he stomped down, breaking Dungston’s femur as casually as a man might snap a particularly stubborn piece of firewood.

  Randy had been trying to get up but this stopped him cold. He lay on the porch and screamed and howled, begging Six to stop. Six, however, was already planting his boot on Dungston’s other leg, between the knee and the ankle.

  Mei-Li watched in horror as Randy Dungston flopped on her porch like a wounded starfish. All his limbs were bent the wrong way, as though they had somehow turned to rubber. It made her sick to her stomach and Six still wasn’t done.

  “Stop, stop!” she begged, catching one muscular arm and dragging on it. Though Dungston was a bastard, she couldn’t stand to see him or anyone else tortured. “You can’t do this—you have to stop!”

  “Why?” Six’s face when he turned to her wasn’t cruel or malicious—he didn’t look like he was enjoying this. He simply looked determined, like a man who had to do a mildly distasteful job but was set on seeing it through to the end.

  “Why? Because we don’t do this here—we don’t torture people!” Mei-Li exclaimed. “And…and I thought you said you wanted me to come quietly—well this is not quiet!”

  “True.” Six looked thoughtfully at the squalling, flopping Randy. Mei-Li was certain that at any time one of her neighbors was going to call the police. In fact, she couldn't understand why nosey old Mrs. Hurley who lived next door hadn’t already. Having the police come might be a good thing—maybe they could stop Six from taking her. On the other hand, she thought, looking up at him, they would probably just get hurt or killed trying.

  As the thoughts swirled in her brain, Six leaned down to the screaming man and squirted something from a small tube between his wide-stretched lips. Randy’s eyes grew wide as a wad of gray-blue foam suddenly filled his mouth. It looked like he was trying to spit it out but it remained lodged firmly in place, effectively blocking his screams. The sudden silence seemed eerie, especially since the source of the former noise was still flopping around on her porch.

  “That is better,” Six said, turning to her.

  “Oh, God…” Mei-Li felt faint. She stumbled and would have fallen if Six hadn’t grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t touch me!” She yanked away from him. “What is wrong with you? Why did you do that?” She nodded down at Randy, still writhing mutely on her porch.

  Six shrugged his broad shoulders. “You said I couldn’t purge or terminate him so I put him out of commission. In this way you will know that the young ones you are leaving behind are safe.”

  “You think Dungston is the only asshole I have to deal with?” she demanded. “You think I’ll go with you because you broke his arms and legs?”

  “I think you’ll go with me because I have a