“So he fed on the first poor woman he found.” He could hear the painful sound of her swallow.

He caught her hand in his. Tightened his fingers around hers. “We’re gonna get him.” He didn’t tell her that there were dozens, hundreds, more twisted vampires out there like Roberts.

She’d figure that out on her own, later.

Right now, he was focused on taking care of the monster who’d made the mistake of stumbling into his backyard and threatening the woman he was coming to need.

Besides, the world would be a damn sight better once Roberts was eliminated from it.

Then he could always start hunting the next supernatural who crossed the line.

There were always others waiting. He’d learned that lesson early in his FBI career.

And the true monsters, well, they weren’t always Other.

Six

A week later, Miranda sat at the computer in Sam’s temporary office. The sheriff was still fishing, somewhere in Louisiana now, so Sam continued to run the show in Cherryville. She typed quickly on the machine, vaguely aware of the hum of activity just beyond the door. The stitches were gone now, but every few moments, her arm would ache as she punched on the keyboard. Other than those mild twinges, she was doing pretty well.

Okay, except for the nightmares she’d been having. Those were a bit of a bitch.

There had been no sign of Paul Roberts for the past seven days or nights. The man had gone underground, perhaps literally.

So it was time for her to take some action.

Cain was out with Santiago, interviewing some of the folks who had been at Pete’s the night Christie Hill was murdered. God, that poor woman’s funeral had been hell. Her mother had just stood there, shaking and weeping, while Christie’s younger sister, a kid who’d just graduated and had been one of Miranda’s best students at Cherryville High, had stared at the coffin with dry but desperate eyes.

Yes, definitely time for stage two.

And she wasn’t going to wait for Cain and his FBI buddies to give her permission.

A woman from the FBI had confiscated Miranda’s computer three days ago, and the systems at the school were locked up for the summer, but, luckily, good old Sam never secured his temporary office.

Her fingers tapped faster and faster as she created her profile. No, not her profile. The perfect profile to catch Paul’s interest. Because she knew he was out there, just looking for the right woman.

She’d been that woman once, and she’d be the unlucky one again.

Miranda was back on the site where she’d originally met Paul, but this time, she was a brunette named Angie Phillips. A woman who lived about forty minutes away, right near the beach. A woman who was thirty-three. Divorced. No children. An artist. And a serious lover of antiques.

Paul had talked about his antiques on their date. Damn, but he’d talked about them a lot. Particularly, his collection of ancient knives. He’d been collecting them all his life. He had knives datingback to ancient Egypt. Knives from the Middle Ages. The Victorian era. The Civil War.

Since he loved to cut his prey, the fascination made a sick sense to Miranda.

Now she just had to set a nice lure in her trap and wait for the knife-freak to show.

“What are you doing?”

Cain’s voice. She jerked, startled. Jesus, but the man moved like some kind of, um, cat.

He closed the door behind him. Lowered the blinds. Then turned the lock with a soft click.

His predatory gaze narrowed as he stalked toward her. “Miranda? Why do I have the feeling you aren’t just checking Sam’s e-mail?”

Her fingers stilled above the keyboard. “Because I’m not.” No sense denying it. Her chin lifted. “I’m doing a bit of hunting on my own.”

He grunted at that and continued to cross the room in those long, strong strides. He’d been keeping his distance from her since the shooting. No touches. No kisses. She’d caught him staring at her a few times, the same raw lust lurking in his eyes that she’d seen before Paul had screwed things to hell and back.

But the man had been holding on to a steel chain of control. And she was getting damn tired of it.

And tired of having both him and Santiago bunking on her couch.

There was more than enough room in her queen-size bed for Cain, and the man knew it.

So why the standoff? Miranda’s patience was long gone, and she’d never pretended to have the control that the man before her possessed.

Time to clear the air.

She stood quickly, sending the chair rolling back behind her. “What the hell is your deal lately?” Grandma Belle had been a woman used to speaking her mind, and Miranda thought it was long past time she did the same.

Cain blinked, then lowered those glittering eyes of his to her throat. “Your bruises are gone.”

“What?” Her hand lifted automatically and touched the no-longer-tender flesh. “Yeah, so—”

“The stitches came out this morning, didn’t they?”

A stiff nod.

He smiled then, the smile of one very pleased cat. And his dimple curved. “Good.”

The lust was in his eyes again. That need that had her breasts swelling and a ball of fire churning in her gut. She marched around the desk, angry he could arouse her with just a stare, angry that she’d wanted him all week while he’d kept that cold space between them.

Just angry, dammit.

Her arms crossed over her chest and the backs of her legs pressed against the desk. “What kind of game are you trying to play with me, Lawson?” Sam had told her about the background check he’d run on Cain. Until he was eighteen, her shifter had lived in Dallas, Texas. Then he and his mother had moved to Atlanta. He’d bounced around with the Bureau a bit after that, eventually winding up in Miami before he took his little retirement and headed to Cherryville.