With a chilling roar of frustration, he jerked away from her, the stake dropping from her hand to clatter loudly against the floor. Turning his back on her, he stalked across the room and started pounding his fists into the barricaded door until blood was flying from his knuckles, smearing across the steel-gray metal.

  Running to him, Lainey draped herself across his back, begging him to stop hurting himself. He kept on as if he didn’t even hear her, until he suddenly pushed away from the door, the action so quick she nearly stumbled back on her bottom, only just managing to stay on her feet. She watched as his head shot back and he sniffed at the air. Then he lurched forward and put his ear to the door, listening.

  “What’s happening?” she whispered, terrified that more wolves had come for them.

  Without answering her, he moved away from the door and headed toward the bed, buttoning his jeans along the way. Picking the handgun up from where she’d left it sitting on the floor hours ago, he made his way toward her and shoved the weapon into her hands for the second time that day. “Shoot anything that comes near you,” he growled, his voice sounding even deeper than it had before, his eyes glowing with a golden light that she now understood was a result of the wolf bite. “I mean it, Lainey. Even if it’s me, you fucking shoot.”

  “What’s g-going on?” she stammered, more terrified for his safety than she was for her own.

  “My brothers are here.”

  As if on cue, she heard the vicious sounds of fighting coming from beyond the door.

  Releasing his deadly talons from the tips of his fingers, he added, “I have to help them.”

  “No! Just…wait with me, Nick. Please! I don’t want you going out there!”

  Ignoring her plea, he ordered her to stay in the room and headed back over to the door. It took him only a moment to wrench the bars off, unfasten the locks and pull it open. She made one move to go toward him, but he turned his head to snarl at her, and she could see the animal in his glowing eyes. He was already changing, and she heeded the warning in that visceral gaze, stepping away until the backs of her knees hit the bed. She went down with a thud, sitting on the edge of the mattress, tears streaming down her face as she watched him disappear around the edge of the door. He quickly shut it behind him, no doubt expecting her to get up and lock it again, but she couldn’t move. All she could do was sit there and listen to the excruciating sounds of the battle, and it was the most horrifying thing she’d ever heard, seeming to go on forever…

  And then there was a blessed, peaceful, terrifying silence.

  Forcing her body into action, Lainey set the gun down on the bed, got to her feet, and wiped the tears from her face as she crept toward the door. It took what felt like ages for her to pull it open, and she prayed the entire time that she would find Nick standing unharmed on the other side.

  Please don’t let him be dead. Please, please, please let him be alive.

  As soon as she had the door opened enough that she could squeeze through the gap, she slipped into the shadowy tunnel, the only light coming from the room behind her. But it was enough to illuminate the tall, olive-skinned male who was standing about five feet away, his shoulders propped against the opposite side of the tunnel, his hands pressed against a bleeding wound in his side. When he turned his head to scowl at her, she gasped at the resemblance to Nick that she could see in the man’s face. He just looked a bit younger, his dark hair long enough to touch his jaw.

  This must be one of the brothers, she thought, while the male shouted, “Nick! She’s out!”

  She saw a flash of movement at the corner of her eye, her skin tingling as she turned her head and realized there was suddenly someone standing right next to her. A huge someone…who just so happened to own her heart.

  Tilting her head back as she pulled in a deep, trembling breath, Lainey gazed up at the hard, savage, blood-spattered face that was staring down at her, and knew she should be terrified. In this “hybrid” form, Nick was even taller than he’d been before, and broader, his talons replaced by long, gleaming claws that dripped with blood and could have easily sliced her in two. But while her heart was racing, there was no way she was going to run. Instead, she reached out and ran her fingertips over the new bluish-black tint of his skin. It was undeniably sexy, reminding her of the hero in the Underworld movie she’d been watching in her room at the inn, his eyes burning that same molten shade of gold that she’d seen before, his long, sinister fangs gleaming white in the pale glow of light coming from the bunker.

  He was so powerful, he probably could have killed her with nothing more than a flick of his wrist, but she wasn’t afraid. There was enough of her Nick in this primal beauty for her to feel nothing but relief and need. And more love than she could have ever imagined.

  “You made it,” she whispered, reaching up and cupping his dark cheek in her hand. His now shoulder-length black hair brushed her wrist as he affectionately turned his face into her touch, nuzzling her palm.

  “Nick!” another male shouted from behind him. “More wolves are coming!”

  He snarled deep in his chest as he leaned down and took a rough, hungry sniff of her scent at the side of her throat, the action striking her as erotically intimate. Then he pulled back and stepped away from her, his golden stare holding hers as he spoke to the tall, blood-covered male who was now standing beside him. The vampire had long, shaggy blond hair that reached his massive shoulders and a short beard. But his eyes were the same piercing shade of blue as Nick’s, and she knew this was brother number two.

  “Get her the fuck out of here, Val,” Nick commanded the male in a low, graveled voice, “and guard her with your life. I’ll meet the three of you back up at the house when I’m done.” Then he turned and disappeared in a blur of speed.

  Within seconds, they heard more bone-chilling howls, and Lainey knew he was fighting the wolves on his own. Determined to help him, she’d just turned and started back for the bunker, where she’d stupidly left the gun, when a pair of strong hands gripped her waist and spun her around. As if she weighed little more than a feather, they lifted her off the ground, her breath whooshing out of her chest as she landed over a hard, broad shoulder.

  “No!” she screamed, beating on Val’s back, furious that he would take her away. She didn’t want to leave when Nick was in so much danger. Couldn’t stand the thought of not being there to help him if he got injured. Of never being able to tell him that he’d changed her life. That she’d fallen utterly and completely in love with him. And that if he died, she didn’t know how she was going to go on without him.

  But no matter how she screamed and thrashed, his brother didn’t care. He just carried her out into the moonlit darkness of the night, leaving her heart in jeopardy behind them.

  It was almost daybreak by the time Nick had dispatched the last werewolf, buried the bodies in one of the deepest, most difficult to reach caves, and made his way back to his cliff-top home.

  He entered the house through the French doors that opened into his master suite, snagging a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt. An hour ago he’d started to return to his normal appearance, but the fabric of the clean clothes still chafed against his skin. His senses continued to be heightened beyond even his vampire abilities, the slightest brush of cotton against his dick making him shudder. He couldn’t imagine how incredible it was going to feel when he had Lainey’s soft, sumptuous body spread out beneath him, all velvety and lush. Damn it, he couldn’t wait to feel her period, needing to hold her in his arms so badly he was shaking.

  Despite the fact that he’d managed to control himself in his new “hybrid” vampire/wolf state, Nick knew the best thing he could do for her was to stay away – but it wasn’t possible. It no doubt made him a selfish bastard, but he’d finally admitted to himself that he needed her too much to lose her. So he’d just have to figure out a way to protect her from his enemies, whatever it took.

  But when he opened his bedroom door and stepped out onto the open upstairs landing, Nick couldn’t detect her scent, and he knew in an instant that she wasn’t in the house.

  “Where the fuck is she?” he bellowed, his heart banging against his ribs as he waited for his brothers to show their faces. Seb came from one of the guestrooms down the hallway on his left, while a stone-faced Val started up the wide stairs that hugged the wall on his right.

  “She left,” Seb told him, propping his bare shoulder against the wall. He’d been clawed open by a werewolf during the fight, and he kept one hand pressed to the white bandage that was wrapped around his middle.

  Nick glared at his younger brother, daring him to say those words to him again. Quietly, he asked, “What did the two of you say to her?”

  “We didn’t say anything,” Val muttered, reaching the top of the stairs, his eyes hooded as he pushed his hands deep into the front pockets of his cargo pants. His tone was flat. “She simply refused to stay. Said this was all too much for her and demanded we let her go.”

  “Bullshit!” Nick snarled, his chest heaving. “That woman has more courage in her little pinkie than you could ever even begin to imagine! She’s not like the women you’ve known. She’s… Damn it, even if she didn’t want me, she would have had the guts to stay and say it to my face. So what the fuck did you do to make her run?”

  Seb cut a worried look toward Val, then cleared his throat. “We didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, Nick. But we were worried about you.”

  “And just what is your idea of the bloody truth?” he growled.

  It was Val who answered him. “We could tell by the way you looked at her,” he said, his hard tone thick with bitterness. “You were willing to tie your life to a human. To give up your immortality for her. I don’t know what the hell you were thinking, Nick. But we’re not just going to stand by and let that happen.”

  He was across the landing in a burst of speed that was probably too fast for even a vampire to see. Wrapping his hand tightly around Val’s throat, he pinned him to the wall and roared, “That wasn’t your decision to make, you meddling son of a bitch! When will you ever learn?”

  “It wasn’t like that, man! We did it because we love you!” Seb shouted at his back, trying to pull him off Val. But Nick wasn’t budging. From the cold look in Val’s dark eyes, he knew exactly what his big brother had been thinking. And, God help him, Nick refused to head down that same dead-end road.

  “If you cared anything about me at all,” he said around his rough breaths, releasing his hold on Val as he took a step back, “then you would have done as I asked and protected the woman who I pray to God is going to be my wife.”

  He didn’t wait around to hear whatever Val had to say for himself. He simply turned and started making his way down the stairs, knowing he could grab everything he needed from his home office.

  “And just where do you think you’re going?” Seb demanded from midway down the stairs when Nick came out of his office a mere ten minutes later, fully dressed, holding a leather duffel bag in one hand and his car keys in the other as he headed for the front door. “You can’t leave now. You need rest,” Seb argued. “Don’t be a jackass, Nick. You’ve got to be running on fumes.”

  Refusing to believe that Lainey had given up on him, he growled, “I’ll rest when I’ve gotten her back.” But with his hand on the doorknob, he stopped as a horrible thought occurred to him. Struggling not to panic, he cut a deadly look toward Val, who had appeared in the doorway to the kitchen with his hand clasped around a cold bottle of beer. “Did you cloud her mind?” Nick demanded in a raw voice. “Did you make her forget me?”

  Val’s jaw hardened, but Seb’s gritty laughter drew Nick’s attention back to him. Having given up on trying to make it down the stairs, his younger brother had taken a seat on one of the steps, the wound on his abdomen bleeding through his bandage. “Val told her he could cloud her,” he shared. “He claimed it would make it easier for her to move on.”

  Nick’s hand tightened on the doorknob with so much force that it dented. “And?”

  Though he still looked worried as hell about him, Seb’s blue eyes glittered with humor and admiration. “And she threatened to send his balls into his throat if he tried,” he admitted in a wry drawl. “It was pretty impressive. For such a little thing, she’s fucking fearless.”

  Breathing out a ragged sigh of relief, Nick knew that fearlessness was exactly what he was banking on as he walked out of his house and slammed the door shut behind him, determined to find Lainey as quickly as possible.

  But it ended up taking a hell of a lot longer than he’d expected. By the time Nick finally located her, almost a week had passed since they’d escaped from the bunker. As he stared up at the softly glowing bedroom window in the rustic farmhouse that was situated in eastern Alabama, the air was warm and thick, redolent with the scent of apple trees and a summer garden. He’d never been to Alabama before, but he loved what he’d seen of it so far.

  He loved the sight of the woman silhouetted in that upstairs window even more.

  Because her grandmother’s third husband’s name – she’d apparently had five of them – had been used on all of the public records for the farm, Nick had had a hell of a time tracking it down. Of course, he’d gone to Lainey’s condo in San Diego first, but there’d been no sign of her there. He’d even checked in at the bookstore where she worked, but no one had heard from her since she’d left town for her trip up to Moonlight Bay. Then he’d checked Ryan’s house in LA, but she hadn’t been there either.

  Long, frustrating, eviscerating days of searching had followed. And now he was more terrified than ever that she’d changed her mind about wanting him.

  Unwilling to wait a second longer to learn if that was true, Nick reached for the rungs of the ivy trellis that snaked up the side of the house, hoping the thing was strong enough to hold him. The fall wouldn’t kill him, but sprawled on his ass in her grandmother’s flower garden was hardly the impression he was hoping to make tonight.

  If he weren’t so desperate to see her, he would have just knocked on the front door. But he didn’t think he could do the whole “meet her grandmother” thing until he and Lainey had had a chance to talk things over. In person, face to face, which was why he hadn’t called her. And God only knew there was a lot he needed to say.

  “Nick!” Lainey gasped the moment he started climbing in through the open window. Her fair skin was flushed with color as she stared at him from across the room, her breathing alarmingly rapid. Then she crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.

  “Son of a bitch,” Nick grunted, rushing over to scoop her off the hardwood floor. She was completely boneless in his arms, out for the count in her cute pink nightgown, and he felt a wry smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d held Lainey Maxwell’s unconscious body in his arms – but when she woke up, Nick was determined to do whatever it took to keep her there.

  Lainey was lost in that poignant moment of dreaming when you knew you were about to wake up, but didn’t want to. In this dream world, Nick had finally come for her, and she wasn’t ready to open her eyes, abandoning the fantasy to face reality.

  She’d often heard people say that you could run, but you could never hide. She’d heard the words used in reference to things like fate and justice and karma. But she’d never thought about how true they were. Had never realized they could apply to something as huge and overwhelming as pain…and love.

  It seemed like madness, pure and simple. The crazy-assed idea that she could have fallen in love with a man – a vampire – who she’d known for little more than a snap. But it was true. And now that she no longer had him, and almost the entire breadth of America separated them, she felt more pain than she’d believed was physically possible.

  It was a different kind of pain from the grief she felt over the loss of her brother. More…well, urgent – because she knew Nick was still out there, living his life without her.

  She was dark inside. Cold. Alone, even when she wasn’t. Lainey honestly hadn’t known that emotions could hurt like this. Like a physical thing within your body that pulsed and contracted and constantly battered you, until all you wanted was to cut it out with a knife.

  Still refusing to open her eyes, she pulled in a deep breath and almost cried out when Nick’s warm, mouthwatering scent filled her head. Oh God. Could it…? Could it somehow be real? Could he actually be there with her?

  Cracking her eyes open, she took a quick peek and nearly choked when her heart shot into her throat the second she realized she was lying across his lap, cradled in his arms. “Nick?”

  “Did you pass out because you’re afraid of me now?” he husked, his dark, intense gaze shadowed with concern.

  She couldn’t help but laugh as she shook her head. “Of course I’m not afraid of you, you dolt. I’m just so freaking happy to see you! I’ve missed you like crazy.”

  “Then we can talk after,” he said in a low voice, already working on the buttons that ran down the front of her short nightgown. “Right now, I just need to get inside you. I need to fuck you, Lainey. Badly.”

  “No, wait!” As she sat up, she saw that he was sitting on the small chair in front of her dressing table. He was still working on the tiny row of buttons that ran down her bodice, and she grabbed his thick wrist as he reached the last one, waiting for him to look at her. When he finally lifted that hungry, smoldering gaze from her cleavage to her face, she asked, “You’re not…here to cloud my mind, are you?”

  “No.” With a tender look in his beautiful blue eyes, he lifted his hand and gently tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “I wouldn’t do that to you, sweetheart.”

  “But Val said—”

  “I know.” His lips curved with a brief, but satisfied smile. “And Seb told me you threatened to send Val’s balls into his throat if he tried it.”