“What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Duncan’s not answering his cell phone.”

  “Maybe he’s somewhere where he’s not getting a signal.”

  “There’s nowhere out of reach between here and there. I don’t like this. I’m going to try the lycan mansion.”

  He dialed and spoke to someone for a few seconds, then hung up and cursed.

  “The guard said Duncan left over an hour and a half ago and said he was headed right back here. This isn’t good. He should have been back by now, or called. And he wouldn’t have gone anywhere else. Something’s wrong.”

  “Go,” Sara said to Adrian. “I know you want to look for him or figure out what’s happened. Annmarie and I can stay here and guard Harlee. Go on. She’ll be fine.”

  “Sara’s right, much as I hate to agree with her,” Annmarie said. “Go find Duncan.”

  Adrian nodded. “You’ll be okay?” he asked Harlee.

  She rolled her eyes and opened the door. “There are a billion guards roaming the halls. An army couldn’t get to me. Go find him. I’m worried.”

  He left and she closed the door, sitting on the bed with Sara and Annmarie, feeling like a stupid, helpless female.

  “Well, this sucks,” Harlee said. “Why is it the men are all out figuring out who the assassins are and the women are wringing their hands while locked up in the bedroom?”

  “Good question,” Annmarie said with a wry smile. “We’re just as strong and capable as they are. We should be able to work this out in our heads. Besides, we have the pussy. That gives us extra brain cells.”

  Harlee laughed out loud.

  “Now, ladies,” Sara said, holding up her hands. “Something must have happened to Duncan. And Adrian is just making calls. Let’s just do what they asked us to do.”

  “Oh go knit something, you dimwit,” Annmarie said, then turned to Harlee. “Okay, so what have we got here? Let’s piece it together from the beginning.”

  “I’m going to check on Robert,” Sara sniffed, storming out the door in a huff.

  “I thought she’d never leave,” Annmarie said.

  Harlee giggled.

  They spent the better part of an hour going over everything that had happened from the time Stefan was killed until Duncan failed to show up. They ended up ruling out the human government, deciding it had to be an inside job, but they couldn’t determine whether it was inside the lycan or vampire house.

  “It could be a combination of both,” Harlee suggested.

  Annmarie wrinkled her nose. “I find it hard to believe that any vampire or lycan would join forces like that. It’s not unheard of, but we just don’t…mingle that well, if you know what I mean. Or at least we haven’t before.”

  “But control of both organizations is a very big lure. Putting differences aside for a prize like that might be worth it,” Harlee suggested.

  Annmarie shrugged. “Good point.”

  But who would want to do that? She didn’t know enough of them to even make the suggestion and that was more frustrating than anything.

  “So, you’re in love with my cousin.”

  Harlee’s eyes widened at the abrupt turn in subject but she nodded. “Big time.”

  Annmarie shook her head. “You are so fucked.”

  Harlee laughed.

  “Have you told him yet?”

  “I haven’t had time with all this going on.”

  “And how does he feel about everything?”

  “I don’t know. It was all so wild last night. And the biting and the drinking of blood. Wow.”

  Annmarie arched a brow. “Who drank whose blood?”

  “Both of us. Why?”

  “No reason,” she said, smiling. “Interesting.”

  “You know something. Tell me.”

  “Not my place to tell. Really, really interesting. Who’d have thought it?”

  “Thought what?” Now Annmarie had her curious. She knew something. Something about the dual biting. “What about the biting, Annmarie?”

  Annmarie was about to speak but they were interrupted by a shrill alarm. The sounds of shouting had them both starting and flying off the bed toward the door. Annmarie put out her hand and shouted, “Stay here! I’m going to see what’s going on! Lock the door behind me and don’t let anyone in but me, Adrian or Sara, okay?”

  Harlee nodded and did as Annmarie asked, bolting the door behind her, then began counting the minutes. If somebody didn’t come back here shortly, she was going out there to see what the hell was going on. She wasn’t helpless. She was a trained agent. Put a goddamned gun in her hand and she could take care of herself. She could fire a weapon.

  She could help, dammit! She reached for the door handle, scared shitless when she heard a knock. She jumped then said, “Who is it?”

  “Sara.”

  Breathing out a sigh of relief, she unlocked the door and opened it. Sara slipped in and closed the door behind her, locking it.

  “What’s going on?” Harlee asked.

  “Someone breached the security perimeter. All hell is breaking loose around here. I’ve been instructed to take you to a safer location. We’re locking everything down.”

  “This is crazy,” Harlee said, running her fingers through her hair.

  “I know,” Sara said, motioning for Harlee to follow her.

  She headed to the far wall and Harlee frowned but followed anyway. Sara pulled the corner of a picture askew and a panel in the wall moved.

  “Well, that’s cool.”

  “Always helpful to have an escape plan,” Sara said with a grin, flipping a switch and illuminating a narrow set of stairs.

  A musty smell greeted her as she entered the stairwell. The steps were concrete and her voice echoed as she spoke. “What about Adrian and Annmarie?”

  “Adrian is seeing to security and Annmarie is with Robert. They’re meeting us down here shortly. Robert is fine and he’s well guarded.”

  “Good.” Prickles of sensation caused the hairs to stand up on the back of her neck. Something wasn’t right but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She suddenly felt like going down here was wrong.

  “Sara,” she said, suddenly stopping.

  Sara looked up at her, concern on her frowning face. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Something. Just a weird sensation.”

  “That’s just your new power. You’ll get used to it. You’re sensing danger and rightly so. We need to hurry.” She turned away and kept moving.

  Harlee stood there for a few more seconds, debating whether to head back upstairs or follow Sara. If she went back upstairs, she knew what would happen. She’d run into Adrian who’d call her ten different idiots for not following orders.

  Shit. She hated being new at this and not knowing what to do. Why didn’t being a vampire come with some kind of instruction manual? At least when she was a human what she was supposed to do and not do was written down in black and white. Now she had to operate on instinct, and she didn’t know if her instincts were right or wrong right now.

  She followed Sara, hoping she hadn’t fucked up and made the wrong choice.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and Sara pulled out keys and approached a thick, ancient door that looked to be made out of solid oak.

  “How long has this been here?”

  “Too long for me to even remember. The newer part of Dark Moon was built over what had stood for centuries, pre-dating most of our existence. This was a hideaway for the early vampires who had settled here from Europe.” She slipped the huge key in and turned the lock, then yanked on the door. Dust flew out at them and Harlee choked, helping Sara pull back the six-inch thick door. Sara reached in on the floor and felt around, pulling up a lantern and used a match to light it, then led Harlee into a small room filled only with an old oak table and matching set of chairs. Along the wall were old shackles midway and on the floor.

  “Looks like an old torture chamber or something,” Harlee remarked.

  “No kidding,” Sara said. “I’ve never been down here.” Sara inspected the iron shackles, wrapping one around her wrist. “Get a load of these things. They’re heavy!”

  Sara handed off the lantern to Harlee, who lifted it toward the shackles. She let Sara wrap one around her, feeling its weight. “Wow, they are heavy.”

  Harlee winced when she heard the click of the shackle, knowing instantly she’d been had. Sara wrenched the lantern from Harlee’s grasp, slammed Harlee’s hand against the wall and fixed the second shackle around her other wrist.

  Pain shot up Harlee’s arm as she fought, but Sara was strong and Harlee was nearly doubled over in agony. Fuck! How stupid could she be?

  When Sara lit the other lanterns in the room, she didn’t need to see the light shining on Sara’s face to know what she’d see there.

  Pure, venomous hatred.

  “Too easy,” Sara said, satisfaction on her smiling face. “Such a child, such trusting innocence. You played right into my hand.”

  “I can’t believe you tried to kill your own brother!” Harlee spat, kicking Sara’s shins. She knew she couldn’t hurt her, nevertheless it gave her some comfort to cause her a minimal amount of discomfort.

  Sara’s eyes narrowed and she stepped back. “You couldn’t possibly hurt me in any way, little girl, so don’t even try. And my brother, along with a lot of other people, stand in the way of what I want most.”

  “What’s that? Power?”

  “Of course. Power is the most attractive thing. With power I can have anything I want.”

  Sara’s eyes had begun to shine in that way Harlee had seen in her patients all too often over the years, when madness took over and sanity disappeared. She had hidden it very well.

  “You might think you can have everything you want, honey, but you’ll never have Adrian.” Harlee knew it was a cheap shot, but it was the only weapon she had. And keeping Sara off balance could work to her advantage.

  Sara whirled and clutched her by the throat, her fangs emerging. “I can have anything, anything I want, including the man I want, you bitch!” she hissed. She pulled back and slapped Harlee across the face so hard her lip split. Harlee tasted blood and her eye began to swell shut, but she refused to wince in front of the deranged woman.

  “He’s mine, Sara. I love him and he loves me, and nothing you do can change that, no power you wield will make him yours.” Though Harlee didn’t know that to be the case, Sara didn’t know that.

  “Not true. Once you’re dead he will want me. You won’t matter to him.”

  “I will always matter to him. I’m his mate now.” That’s what Annmarie had intimated at. She might not have a vampire owner’s manual, but she could at least put two and two together in that respect.

  “You are not!” Sara’s eyes widened and she came at Harlee with a gun drawn, swinging it at Harlee. Harlee kicked at Sara’s arm and the weapon went off as it hit Sara. A burning fire rushed through Harlee’s leg. Harlee gasped but didn’t cry out.

  “You did not mate with him,” Sara cried. “Tell me you did not mate with him.”

  Harlee’s fangs slid down and she hissed at Sara, fighting the chains that bound her. “Of course I mated with him,” Harlee spat out, wanting to hurt Sara, lashing out at the woman and wanting to feed the madness she saw there. If she could keep Sara off kilter, maybe there was a way to escape. “He doesn’t want you, Sara. He wants me.”

  “I knew the vampire side of you would be dominant. I knew it. One more person to stand in my way. First Robert favored Amelia, and then you had to come along, making yet another person I needed to get rid of.” Sara stormed back and forth, muttering to herself as if Harlee wasn’t even there.

  Harlee stared down at the blood pouring down her leg, hoping she didn’t bleed to death, hoping to hell someone figured out where she was before this lunatic bitch killed her.

  “Honey, it doesn’t matter if you kill me. You will never make it to the top. You are too fucking nuts.”

  “No,” Sara said, turning on her again. “I will rule the vampire nation! You will die.”

  “Why are you believing the little bitch’s lies, Sara? She’s just upsetting you.”

  Sara turned at the sound of a male voice. “She is lying, isn’t she, William? Tell me she’s lying.”

  Now it all made perfect sense. William. The other half of the puzzle.

  He stood in the doorway looking perfectly healthy.

  “Of course,” Harlee said. “William took care of the killings on the lycan side, and you on the vampire side. It would take both of you to pull this off, and you both had something to gain.”

  “See, Sara, I warned you she wasn’t as dumb as she looked,” William said, stepping up to her to lick the blood from the side of her lip. Harlee wrenched away, revulsion turning her stomach, but William held her face in a vise-like grip.

  “Get your disgusting hands off me,” Harlee said, allowing the lycan within her to free itself, mixing it with the vampire to increase her strength. She pulled at the chains, feeling her power double her strength, stopping the blood flow of the wound in her leg and breaking the chains holding her. She growled at William and pushed him backward. His eyes widened and he fell to the ground.

  She couldn’t beat both of them, but she could maybe take down one of them. Her power might be new and raw, but she had some at least. She kicked at William while he was on the floor, mindful of Sara scrambling for her weapon. Leveling a blow at William’s face with her foot, she heard the satisfied crunch of his nose breaking under her booted heel and his resulting howling cry.

  She took off after Sara, launching herself at the woman just as Sara reached her gun. Landing on Sara’s thighs, she used all her strength to wrestle the gun from Sara’s grasp, then did the only thing she knew how to do. She held onto Sara’s wrists and bit down on the woman’s throat. The lycan and vampire mingled within her, and she tore the woman’s throat open. In seconds Sara lay limp beneath her and Harlee stood, blood dripping from her mouth. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, feeling no remorse for what she had done.

  Panting for breath, she turned to find William, his face swollen and bloody, pointing a gun at her.

  “You’re dead, bitch.” His face began to change and he grew taller, broader, the lycan within him bursting forth. She knew she didn’t have half the power and strength he had.

  At least she managed to get one of them. Too tired to fight anymore, she closed her eyes and awaited her impending death with resolve, but just then something brushed by her and her eyes flew open. William screamed as Duncan in partial wolf form flew through the air, a loud piercing howl resounding through the room. In an instant, William lay sprawled on the floor, dead, his throat torn away, much as she’d done to Sara.

  Her strength gone, she crumpled to the floor, fighting for breath.

  From behind her, Adrian rushed to her side and picked her up, cradling her against his chest. “It’s over, baby, you’re all right.”

  Duncan shifted and stood over William, looking at Harlee with concern.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “Thank you. Are you all right?”

  “Bastard conked me on the head but I’m fine,” Duncan said. “Can’t believe the sonofabitch managed to pull one over on me. Glad I had a chance to rip his fucking throat out.”

  “Me too,” she said, then looked up at Adrian and smiled, but that’s all she could manage as the pain and weakness took over.

  Shit. She hated weakness. Didn’t the vampire owner’s manual say something about not being weak anymore?

  She closed her eyes and passed out.

  FIFTEEN

  Harlee woke and stretched, realizing the sun streaming in through the windows of her bedroom was becoming a bit bothersome. Okay, so being a vampire meant her sun-worshiping days were over. She squinted and rolled out of the bed, shielding her eyes while she walked over to the window and shut the blinds.

  “That’s better,” she mumbled, realizing that her leg was already healed. She looked down and saw a tiny pink spot where yesterday a big gaping hole stood. “This lycan and vampire thing is pretty darn cool.”

  And she was talking to herself. That was new too.

  “You’re talking to yourself. And I guess I should stop walking in on you while you’re naked. Too bad. I’ll miss that.

  She whirled at the sound of Duncan’s voice and grinned. “Why? Is seeing me naked something you’re not used to by now?

  His brow shot up and he looked her over from head to toe, advancing on her with a stealth-like grace she’d grown to admire.

  “I could never grow tired of admiring a body like yours.” He stopped in front of her and laced his fingers around her waist, drawing her close and pressing a kiss to her lips that made her sigh. When he drew back, she saw a brief flicker of regret in his eyes. “But that gorgeous body doesn’t belong to me and it never did.”

  Now it was her turn to arch a brow. “Really. And just who does my body belong to?”

  “As if you didn’t know. Your dominant power is vampire, darlin’. And your love for Adrian is evident. I saw it the night we all joined. It was obvious.”

  “I see.” Nothing like being told who she belonged to. She wasn’t sure if she liked that or not. She wasn’t somebody’s possession, and she didn’t like being ping-ponged between the two of them as if she didn’t get to choose.

  Not that she hadn’t chosen. Or rather her heart had chosen. Whatever.

  “Everything wrapped up?” she asked, deciding to ignore the subject of her heart.

  “Yeah. Lester is a basket case. Apologizing to everyone for William’s part in all of this, horrified that his son killed Stefan and was involved in trying to kill Robert. He had no idea of the lengths to which William and Sara would go to control the lycan and vampire nations. Hell, none of us had any clue. Robert had no clue how delusional Sara had become. We all knew she had a bit of a screw loose, but not that much. And we knew William was ambitious, but not that he planned to pin all the assassinations on his own father.”