“Lainey!”

  She could have sworn she heard someone shout her name, and a second later the crushing weight was lifted. Dragging in a much-needed breath of air, she started to get back onto her hands and knees when something picked her up as if she weighed little more than a feather. Then it shoved her against the wall before moving away. With her hair hanging back in her face, she felt her knees buckle, and a moment later she was lying on the ground again, the bone-chilling sounds of what had to be a vicious fight echoing in her ears. But she found it difficult to focus, as if she was drifting in and out of consciousness. Were the monsters fighting each other? For what? For her?

  She tried to crawl away, keeping her head low, not wanting to watch the gruesome scene. Blood covered the sandy floor, dripping from the walls, and she knew she was in shock. When a body hit the side of the cave, then landed in front of her, she crawled around the fur-covered beast and kept on going until something rank and hairy swept her off the ground, throwing her over its broad shoulder. Her stomach heaved, and then there was a terrible collision, like her abductor had been slammed by a Mack truck and she was suddenly falling again, feeling like she was on some kind of life-threatening carnival ride.

  She landed with a painful thud, her breath knocked from her lungs as a spray of something hot and slick splashed over her. She felt a hard object under her hip and reached down, coming back with one of the glow sticks clutched in her hand, its eerie green light shining through her tangled hair. Before she could use it to get her bearings, though, she was swept up into another powerful pair of arms, but the chest she was crushed against wasn’t covered in fur. It was hard and hot, and as she lifted her free hand, finally managing to push her hair away from her eyes, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  I must be dreaming, she thought, because this can’t be real.

  A bloody, furious-looking Nick Santos couldn’t possibly be holding her in his arms, running through one of the winding tunnels like a madman. But he didn’t look like he had that afternoon. Bathed in the eerie green light of the glow stick, she could see that his sunglasses were gone, his narrowed eyes burning with a blue, preternatural light, a sinister-looking set of fangs gleaming beneath the sculpted curve of his upper lip.

  Licking her own lips, she managed to mutter a single stammering word. “W-werewolf?”

  He gave a curt shake of his head, not even bothering to look down at her as he kept running from the monsters she could hear chasing after them, their harrowing howls echoing through the tunnels. She thought that headshake was the only answer Santos was going to give her, until he worked his bruised jaw a few times and growled, “I’m not a werewolf, Lainey. I’m a vampire.”

  “A v-vampire?”

  He replied with a sharp nod, still running.

  Lainey’s response was little more than a soft, hoarse croak. “Well, shit.”

  But she didn’t catch whatever he said next.

  Because she’d already passed out.

  Chapter 2

  Pacing from one side of the metal room to the other, Nick Santos kept a careful eye on the female he’d chained to the king-size bed wedged into the far corner and gritted his teeth.

  Fuck! How in the hell did I let this happen?

  A mere hour ago, he’d been taking his nightly run out on the beach, going hard and fast, hoping to work off some of the tension that had been riding him since earlier that day. It’d been hours since his little head-to-head with Lainey Maxwell, yet he hadn’t been able to banish the human’s face from his mind. Or her damn scent from his nose. When he’d argued with her that afternoon, she’d looked like a colorful, delectable ice cream cone that he’d wanted to lick from head to toe, savoring all that creamy skin and those ripe curves with deliberate slowness.

  Unfortunately, those were not the kind of thoughts he normally had about human females, and he’d let it screw with his head. He should have fucking known she would try some stupid stunt like she had tonight, going into the caves by herself. And look where it’d gotten her.

  Careless, infuriating, mouthwatering woman.

  More times than he could count this past week, Nick had seen Lainey Maxwell prancing that sweet ass of hers all over Moonlight Bay, playing clueless and cute, and he’d known it was an act. Not that she wasn’t easy on the eyes. But he wasn’t buying her whole “ditzy blonde” routine, because she’d been carefully asking questions about Ryan Martin from the moment she first hit town.

  Was she the journalist’s girlfriend? His fiancée? And what the hell was she doing trying to track him down herself? She should have left the investigating to the cops. They didn’t have any more of a chance of solving Martin’s disappearance than they did the others in the area, but that was beside the point. If she’d trusted them, the fool woman would at least be safe, instead of in the shit situation she was in now.

  Though he’d planned to spend a good portion of the night patrolling the caves, Nick had gotten called away on a quick mission late in the evening, arriving back in town just in time for his nightly run. But he hadn’t been on the beach for more than ten minutes when he’d caught the scent of the wolves, and he’d instantly wanted to go for their blood. For weeks now the bastards had been thumbing their noses at him by using his own goddamn caves for their kills whenever he would leave town on a hunt. But they’d fucked up tonight. He’d obviously made it back sooner than they’d thought he would, and he’d believed he finally had them.

  But from their scent, Nick had known there were too many for him to take on single-handedly. Especially when he and his brothers had been given the directive to bring the wolves in for questioning rather than outright execution. The Vampire Council the three of them answered to wanted to know how the beasts had chosen Moonlight Bay for their new killing ground, since they shared Nick’s belief that the pack had learned his true identity. In his line of work, it was imperative that the preternatural killers he hunted never knew where he made his home, and the Council were eager to learn how such a dangerous breach had happened.

  Hating it, but fully aware that he needed to call his brothers for backup, Nick had reached into the pocket of his trackpants for his phone, only to realize he’d left it back at his house. Another frustrating sign that his fascination with Lainey Maxwell was screwing with his head, because he never made mistakes like that. Cursing under his breath, he’d just started to run back for the phone when he caught something light and sweet under the heavier, animal scent of the wolves. He’d known in an instant who that intoxicating scent belonged to, and a cold terror had gripped his insides, as if the woman were something he badly needed to keep in this world.

  At that point, he’d had a hell of a shitty choice to make. Reveal his true nature to the human female by attempting to rescue her…or turn his back on the troublesome woman, leaving her to suffer the consequences of her recklessness on her own.

  Of course, it was really no choice at all. Which meant he’d run into a lethal situation with no care for his own safety, blatantly ignoring the orders he’d been given in regard to the pack. And while he and the human had miraculously survived, the situation was anything but ideal. Yeah, he’d been lucky enough to get her here and seal the door behind them before the bastards caught up to him – but now there was a time bomb ticking on her life, and she was trapped inside this bunker with it.

  And they were definitely trapped. The wolves’ harrowing howls were echoing through the small air vents that led to various tunnels, their deadly claws making godawful screeching noises as they tried to batter their way through the reinforced door.

  You can keep on knocking, you pricks, but you won’t get in.

  Only problem was, he and the human couldn’t get out either. And he could already feel himself starting to—

  No, damn it. Don’t even think about it!

  When she gave a soft moan, slowly coming to, Nick braced himself for what was sure to be a screaming tantrum fueled by shock and terror. She shifted restlessly against the bed’s gray, military-issue blankets, making her addictive scent even stronger.

  From the middle of the room, he watched her eyelids tremble, then slowly open, her head propped up enough that her confused gaze could whip around their surroundings, before landing on him with a wide, fascinated look of shock.

  “Don’t panic,” he scraped out, the thick sound of his voice catching him by surprise. Clearing his throat, he added, “I just saved your life, Miss Maxwell. Wouldn’t make much sense for me to turn around and kill you, now would it?”

  “I g-guess not,” she stammered, cutting a dark look up at the shackles that looped around her wrists, each manacle connected to a thick chain that was secured to a heavy metal hook high on the wall above the bed. The chains had been pulled tight enough that her arms had to rest above her head, and he tried not to notice the provocative thrust of her breasts that was a result of the position. Tried…but didn’t come anywhere close to succeeding.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, still standing in the center of the room, not daring to move any closer. “Do you hurt anywhere?”

  She brought her gaze back to his, seeming not to know what to make of his concern. “I’m…fine,” she murmured, sounding a bit rattled, though not nearly as terrified as he would have expected. He wondered if maybe she was still in too much shock to fully process what was happening. But while she’d clearly been through a horrifying experience, at least she was no longer covered in blood.

  After removing her shoes and cutting off her drenched hoodie – it’d thankfully been covered in wolf’s blood and not her own – Nick had used a warm washcloth to wipe the spatters of crimson from her face and hands, though her hair had been more difficult to get clean. While he’d worked, it’d been hard as hell not to lose the cloth and touch that soft skin and silken hair with his bare hands. So much so that by the time he’d finished the task, his hands had been visibly shaking, which was unheard of for his kind. He’d opted to leave her jeans and T-shirt in place, knowing better than to tempt himself by redressing her in something of his own, and they hadn’t been splattered anywhere near as badly as the hoodie.

  Determined to get his mind off the way she looked all trussed up on the bed and into safer territory, Nick crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Since you’re all right, now might be a good time to go ahead and tell me who you really are.”

  Her eyes still had that shocked look in them, but her voice came out a little steadier than before. “Ryan’s sister.”

  “Ryan? You’re talking about Ryan Martin?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, subtly tugging at the chains, as if she didn’t want him to notice. “Martin is his p-pen name. He started using one when he got death threats because of some articles he’d written. He didn’t want to make it easy for some jackass to track down the members of his family.”

  Nick scowled, wanting to throttle her for being so careless with her safety. “You came here looking for him, didn’t you? That’s what you were doing in that fucking cave! Am I right?”

  “There’s no need for you to go all potty-mouthed on me, Mr. Santos.” She sounded feistier, her long-lashed gaze now as sharp as his.

  “I’ll speak however I damn well please, lady. And call me Nick.”

  “My name isn’t lady,” she growled, her breasts quivering as she tried to wriggle herself into a sitting position against the pillows. “It’s Lainey!”

  “I know that!”

  “Then use it!” she shouted.

  “Christ, I don’t believe this shit,” he muttered, shoving both hands back through his hair, before dropping them to his sides. Shooting her a frustrated glare, he snarled, “I’ve got you chained to a fucking bed, and you want to argue about your name?”

  She gave him a withering look. “If it’ll make you feel better, you could always unchain me.”

  “Like hell.”

  “You told me not to panic” – another mouthwatering jiggle before she collapsed back on the bed, glowering up at the chains – “but restraining me like this hardly inspires confidence about your intentions.”

  “The chains stay. And since they’re for your protection, I wouldn’t waste your breath arguing about it.”

  “Oh, come on,” she scoffed, lifting her head to glare at him. “They’re for my protection? Seriously? Do I look like a freaking idiot?”

  No. She looked…

  Shit. Scratch that train of thought. No way in hell was he going there. The last thing in the world he needed to be thinking about was how incredible she looked stretched out over that bed, her tight clothes hugging every lush inch of her sweet little body.

  When it became clear he wasn’t going to answer her question, she said, “Will you at least tell me where we are?”

  “In one of my caves.”

  She cast a suspicious look around the grim, gray room, and then studied the various chains that hung from the walls by long, sturdy hooks that few creatures would have had the strength to break. “This doesn’t look like a cave.”

  Feeling increasingly restless, Nick crossed his arms again and explained. “I’ve built a bunker inside one of the larger caves that’s buried deep in the cliffs. The walls, floor and ceiling are reinforced steel and titanium. So nothing’s getting in, no matter how hard they try.”

  A shadow of fear moved through her light-brown eyes. “Does that mean those things that were chasing us aren’t…dead?”

  His jaw hardened. “Not all of them, no.”

  “Oh.” She swiped her tongue over her bottom lip, leaving it glossy and pink. “Are they, um, still after us then?”

  As if in answer to her question, a bone-chilling howl sounded outside the thick, reinforced door.

  “I guess that’s a yes,” she said breathlessly.

  Forcing his attention away from that juicy lip, Nick locked his gaze with hers. “The good news is that we’re protected in here,” he told her. “The bad news is that we’re essentially trapped. There’s no cell phone reception either, so calling someone is out of the question.”

  Of course it was. If they could call for help, Lainey assumed Santos would have already done it. From the tense looks he kept cutting her way, it was obvious he’d rather be anywhere in the world than trapped in this bunker with her. Hardly flattering, but then, she hadn’t expected any different from the man…er, vampire. Not when he’d made it so clear that afternoon that she wasn’t his type.

  And while she’d heard the term “vacation hell” before, she was pretty sure it had never so appropriately applied to a situation as it did to this one. So many questions were crowding together in her brain, she could hardly focus. How was it that nobody knew vampires and werewolves truly existed? And what exactly did being a vampire entail?

  More than a little unnerved by the situation and everything she’d been through, Lainey asked one of her more straightforward questions first. “What is it that you use this place for?”

  He cast her an uneasy look from the corner of his eye as he started pacing, and for the first time since she’d lifted her lashes in this bizarre room, Lainey noticed the bloody gauze wrapped around his right biceps, just visible beneath the sleeve of his black T-shirt. “Interrogations,” he said in response to her question.

  Um, yikes. From his cold tone, she could tell it wasn’t a topic she wanted to pursue at the moment. Maybe later, but right now she was just trying to process everything else that was happening. She didn’t need to start thinking about what kind of “interrogations” a vampire would hold in an underground bunker that had chains hanging from every wall.

  “Can’t we…you know? Just sneak out through a back door or something?” she asked.

  Shaking his head, he ran one of his large hands through his dark hair again. “There’s no back door, Lainey. No escape route.”

  “You didn’t think to put in an escape route when you built this place?”

  His response was wry, as was the look he cut her from those impossibly sexy, dark-blue eyes. “After this clusterfuck, you can be sure it’s going on the top of my to-do list.”

  Lainey started to laugh, but the sound quickly dissolved into something wrenching and raw. From the moment she’d opened her eyes, she’d been focusing on the shock and fear coursing through her system. But the crushing truth she’d learned about her brother in that nightmarish cave was never far from the surface. Like a dam suddenly buckling from too much pressure, her emotions rushed to the surface, her laughter becoming the choked sobs of someone who had lost something they dearly loved that could never be replaced.

  When she finally managed to calm down, Santos spoke in a low voice. “I’m sorry about your brother.”

  She sniffed, using her upper arms to dry her damp, puffy cheeks. “Thanks.”

  “You were close?” he asked, sounding a bit closer to the bed than he’d been before.

  She nodded as she pressed her head into the mound of pillows, staring up at the metal ceiling with burning eyes. “Always. He was never one of those pain-in-the-ass older siblings who detests the sight of their little brothers or sisters. Our mother died when I was only two, and Ryan took me under his wing. I was lucky to have an amazing dad and grandmother, but it was Ryan who walked me to and from school. Who dealt with bullies, making sure no one ever messed with me. He… He was awesome, and he was my rock.” She raised her head to look at him, her voice thick with pride as she croaked, “I bet he gave those assholes a hell of a fight when they attacked him.”

  Standing with his hands in his pockets, no more than a few yards from the side of the bed now, he said, “I’m sure he did.”

  “Did you try to warn him?” she asked in a sudden rush, her mouth barely able to keep up with the words as they poured out of her.

  “About what?” he muttered warily.

  “The…werewolves,” she replied hoarsely, blinking away her tears. “About what he was going up against.”