Matt smiled. “They thought it was really cool. They didn’t want to make either of you mad.”

  Relieved, Jacqueline said, “Good.”

  Dane rubbed her back. “Yeah, if they hadn’t been cool with it⁠—”

  “They would be history,” Trey said. “I mean as far as us dating them.”

  After dinner, they got ready to meet up with Stacey and take down the vampire she was after. “We’re going to let her have the hunter’s fee, aren’t we?” Jacqueline asked Dane.

  “Yes. Stacey asked us to help her so I think that’s only fair,” he said.

  “You took half of my bounty fee for getting rid of Axel.”

  “You took half of my bounty fee for getting rid of Mabon.” He smiled at her.

  She smiled back at him. His brothers chuckled.

  “What do you all do when you go after a rogue together? Split the bounty money between the four of you?” Jacqueline asked.

  “When we go together, we’re usually after a gang of rogue vampires, so yeah, we split the proceeds because there’s enough money to go around. Though we get paid a lot for every case because of the danger of taking them down,” Dane said.

  Trey said, “I would have given you the full bounty on Axel, Jacqueline.”

  Dane laughed. “Hell, he was on my take-down list also.”

  “Dane earned it. We both did. And he did pay half of his bounty on Mabon when he did all the work.” Jacqueline squeezed his hand.

  Then they arrived at the grocery store. Stacey got out of her car and gave all the guys a hug first, then finally hugged Jacqueline. Jacqueline knew where she stood on the totem pole—on the bottom—because Jacqueline was into handsome guys. Dane and his brothers were all real lookers.

  “Thanks so much to all of you for coming to help me with this. I thought only Dane would be, but I understand how he was stepping in to help a fellow therapy group member.”

  Jacqueline was amused. Stacey really liked men.

  “Okay, so I put a tracker on Italia’s car and also her mate’s. They’re at the Blue Moon vampire club. They take separate cars when they go there so they can leave when they feel like it. I thought we could wait there and watch for them to leave. If Franklin leaves first, we need to have one vehicle follow him, and then the other needs to follow Italia. She’ll probably wait for him to leave and then go right after that,” Stacey said.

  “Who of us is going after whom?” Matt asked.

  “Since Italia’s the one we have to eliminate, I want to follow her and then Dane can see where Franklin goes. If he picks up a woman, he’ll be with her, then he leaves her house, the police believe he returns home and then Italia kills the woman her mate had been with,” Stacey said.

  “Okay, that sounds good.” Now Dane understood why Stacey had needed someone to help her with the case. They never knew how they would have to take down a rogue until they did their research. He was glad they had agreed to help her. Stacey couldn’t have done this alone.

  “We’ll divide up and some of us will go with Stacey and the others will go in Dane’s truck,” Matt said.

  “I’ll go with Stacey,” Trey said.

  Ryan said he would go with them too.

  Then Trey and Ryan got into Stacey’s car with her. Jacqueline was glad that they were there to protect her if anything went sideways. She was also glad Dane wasn’t going with her in her vehicle.

  As they followed Stacey’s car, Matt said, “She’s intriguing.

  Dane glanced at Jacqueline. “She’s a nice person, but I’m not interested in her.”

  Matt laughed. “She would be a handful.”

  “Yeah, too much of a handful.”

  “Maybe I would be,” Jacqueline said.

  Dane smiled at her. “My kind of a handful.”

  “That’s what you think.” Jacqueline wanted to make sure he understood that them being a couple wasn’t a sure thing yet!

  When they arrived at the vampire club painted a cornflower blue and featuring a large white moon, Stacey called Dane and he put it on speaker. “Italia’s car is that red Cadillac. The blue Jeep on the other side of the parking lot is Franklin’s. According to when I saw them going inside the club, they’ve been there for about a half hour.”

  “We’re used to waiting to take down rogues, so no problem,” Matt said.

  An hour later, Stacey called Dane again and he put it on speaker. “The man in the black jeans, checked shirt, black cowboy boots, and hat, that’s Franklin. Some say he was a cowboy a couple of centuries ago.”

  “Okay, we’re following him.” Dane waited to start his vehicle until Franklin drove off. Then he followed him. “I guess he never picks up a blood bond at a vampire club while his mate is there.”

  “No, he appears to be sneaky about it. Maybe it’s always a one-night stand and he never realized that his mate eliminates the woman afterward,” Jacqueline said. “But what if he’s all in on this? It spices up their life? He gets to do what he wants, and she gets to do what she wants. It’s a mutual game between them and he knows all about what she’s doing.”

  “Uh, yeah, I agree with Jacqueline on that,” Matt said. “I wonder if he’s on any lists.”

  “Unless it can be proven that he and his mate are in collusion, then maybe not,” Jacqueline said. “He may know exactly what she’s up to but proving it could be difficult to do without questioning both of them separately. I suspect questioning either of them isn’t going to be an option. Especially with Italia because she’s already on a list. She’ll only have one thought in mind—kill the hunters who come after her and keep from being eliminated. And if she’s loyal to Franklin and doesn’t want us to go after him next, she won’t tell us that he is part of this whole murder scheme.”

  Then they saw him stop at a home in a nice residential area.

  “No,” Jacqueline said.

  “Yeah, blood bonds come from all walks of life,” Dane said.

  A woman came out of the front door wearing a silky, red nighty and smiled at Franklin. She was about thirty, her brown hair streaked with blond strands, and she didn’t know what she was getting herself into.

  Franklin parked his car while Dane parked curbside a few houses down. “What if Franklin takes part in the killings? Maybe just his mate is blamed for them, like she’s jealous he would see another woman behind his back?” Dane said.

  “That would be even more insidious,” Jacqueline said. “But it could give the human woman more of a sense of security if she thinks she’s only going to be with a male for a good time.”

  “Do you think she might not even know that Franklin is a vampire? I mean, he’s a good-looking guy and she might just think he’s human,” Jacqueline said. “It would be easy for him to convince her of it.”

  “Let’s make sure that he isn’t the one who is responsible for killing the victims,” Dane said.

  They left the pickup and headed for the house, skirting around the right of the one-story stucco house with a large water fountain out front, a green boxwood hedge all around, until they moved to the back door. Matt had a lockpick and unlocked the door. He carefully opened it.

  They heard a man and woman talking in the living room and they headed in that direction to make sure the woman was okay. The thing was, they couldn’t do anything to him if he was just having sex with her, just biting her, and giving her pleasure. But if he did it against her will? That was another story.

  When they saw Franklin kissing the woman, Jacqueline felt like a voyeur. She glanced at Dane. He was frowning at the couple. Suddenly, the front door was thrown open and Italia flew into the room with murder in her eyes. Jacqueline thought Franklin would stop his mate from hurting the woman, but instead he stepped back and the human woman screamed. Then the human collapsed on the couch in a faint. At the same time, Jacqueline appeared in front of the woman to stop the vampiress from hurting the human. Both Italia and Franklin looked shocked to see the group of hunters in the living room and then Dane transporting himself like a vampire.

  Stacey had finally moved in the same way to reach Italia, and she quickly shoved her sword into her heart. Italia turned into a wrinkled, dehydrated prune. Franklin jumped away from the human woman and his mate’s body, throwing up his hands as if he wasn’t doing anything bad, and that he had nothing to do with hurting anyone.

  Now Jacqueline wondered if he was just as involved but when she had stopped Italia from ripping the human’s throat out, he decided to play the innocent.

  Matt was texting on his phone and then he said, “You’re lucky this time. You’re not on any termination lists, but if you hook up with another vampire who kills humans that you’re luring into a situation like this, you’re going to be eliminated.”

  Franklin glanced at his girlfriend’s body, then vanished, not waiting for the hunters to change their minds. They heard his car peel out of the driveway. The police would have Italia’s car towed and impounded. A couple of officers were coming to take their statements.

  Jacqueline revived the human woman, who looked horrified to see the dead body on her floor and the hunters peering down at her. “Did you know Franklin was a vampire?”

  She shook her head vigorously.

  “Have you met him before?” Jacqueline asked.

  “On a dating site. Don’t tell my husband, please.”

  Jacqueline raised her brows.

  “He’s always away on trips. I know he’s seeing other women. It’s…it’s the first time I even tried anything like this.”

  “It would have been your last if we hadn’t intervened on your behalf,” Jacqueline said.

  The police and two homicide detectives arrived then and everyone, including the woman, gave them their statements.

  “We’ll keep an eye out on Franklin and if he’s involved in any more cases of murders of women, we’ll add him to a list,” the homicide detective said. “And, miss? You’re lucky these hunters have been following the rogues’ movements. You can never be too careful.”

  Lipstick was smudged around her mouth, and her mascara was running down her cheeks in black rivulets.

  That’s when Jacqueline saw a dollhouse sitting in the corner of the living room against the wall. “Do you have children?”

  “A boy and a girl, age seven and nine.”

  “You’re lucky we found you and rescued you before the vampiress killed you. No telling what she would have done to the kids,” Jacqueline said, wanting the woman to realize the danger she had put them in even if she didn’t care about her own safety.

  Then the police finished up with them, and one of the detectives said to the woman, “Do you have anyone you can call to stay with you? We’ve notified your husband, but he can’t get here any sooner than tomorrow night on a flight home.”

  “My…my mother.”

  Jacqueline wondered how her mother would take this whole business. But that’s when she got a communication again from Heskel. “Where are you? I learned you took down a couple of vampires last night and then you just vanished. I know which vampires are on your target list still, but you haven’t gone anywhere near them.”

  “It’s him, Heskel,” Jacqueline said to Dane. “He wants to know where I am again. He said he’s watching my target list of vampires, which he can’t do on his own, so he must have vampire friends or blood bonds watching them, waiting for me to show up.”

  “Ask him where he is,” Stacey said.

  Would it be that easy? Jacqueline doubted it. “I don’t want to communicate with him. What if he can learn where I am if I did?”

  “Hmm, like GPS? Maybe. I don’t know,” Stacey said.

  That was the thing. None of the turned hunters knew enough about it.

  9

  “I have Heskel’s home address,” Dane said to Jacqueline, Stacey, and his brothers. “We talked about his blood bonds and vampire friends—where their homes are. But what about his home? Maybe that’s where he is, believing we’ll be searching for him every place else, not believing he would be home.”

  “Let’s go there,” Jacqueline said.

  Everybody was agreeable. Dane sure hoped they could take the rogue down tonight.

  Then they got into the two vehicles and headed to the house that Heskel owned. His home was surrounded by about five acres, half an acre in front, about four acres in the back and some land on the sides, but not that much between homes. His home was maybe about seventy-five-hundred square feet, all brick, lots of windows, but all were covered with beautiful hurricane shutters. Typical of a home that was owned by a vampire who had to keep the sun out when it was shining bright during the day.

  Even Dane kept his blinds closed now that he was a vampire, and he had noticed that so did Jacqueline.

  “Wow, what a house,” Jacqueline said.

  “Yeah, these ancient vampires often have a lot of money. They’ve been able to save money for centuries, not like the rest of us,” Dane said.

  “Yeah,” Matt agreed. “He’ll have security cameras since he can’t watch out the windows. Because there are three cars sitting in the driveway, and not in the three-car garage, I suspect those are blood bonds. Though they could be Heskel’s vampire friends.”

  “I agree. And if they’re here, there’s a good chance that their master is also. At least I’m hoping so,” Dane said. “Let’s go.”

  Trey, Ryan, and Stacey joined them at the car. Then they all discussed what they were going to do.

  “We go in twos,” Matt said. “One person to watch each other’s back. Who wants to go with whom?”

  Dane immediately said, “Jacqueline is with me.”

  Trey said, “I want Stacey with me because she has some cool vampire moves. You’re on your own, Ryan.”

  Ryan smiled. “I’m with Matt.”

  “Did I just get picked last for teams?” Matt asked.

  Everyone smiled.

  “We don’t take out blood bonds,” Matt said. “If there are other vampires in the house and they stand back, we leave them alone. If they come after us, they’re dead. We’ll go in the back way together. Even though I like the idea of going in from different directions, and not getting backed into a corner, I want us to stick close to each other so we all have each other’s backs. But your partner is the one that you’ll be concentrating on. Does anyone have any different ideas?”

  “We need one of those infrared cameras to know where everyone is in the house,” Stacey said.

  “Yeah, we tried it once, but when we go into a fight, we often don’t have time to use one before we’re in attack mode,” Dane said.

  “Completely understandable. Let’s go,” Jacqueline said, and Dane knew she wanted to get this over with if they could tonight.

  They saw some security cameras, but the hunters skirted them, while the hunters turned vampires all vanished and reappeared in the backyard where they could check out the security cameras in the backyard. Heskel didn’t have any. Score!

  But Dane couldn’t deny how much he worried about Jacqueline. He knew she was a good huntress, but she was also the one that Heskel could control—to an extent. They still didn’t know how much if he really put his mind to it, or how much she could fight against it.

  Matt was in the lead with Ryan.

  They heard loud laughter and talking inside.

  How many were inside? And were they a mix of vampires and blood bonds? But mostly, would they fight the hunters and put their own necks at risk?

  Matt used the lockpick and carefully opened the door, and they were all glad it didn’t squeak. Dane couldn’t stand squeaking doors and was always putting grease on his when they did that. But in a way, a squeaking door could act as an early warning system.

  The laughter and talking was coming from deeper inside the house. The back door led into a den, and it was beautiful, the lights on in there showcasing oil paintings of ranches and cowboys, of cattle drives, and fields of Indian paintbrush. The couches were all brown leather and marble-topped tables with wrought iron legs.

  Then they moved toward the room where all the conversations were coming from. They kept Dane and Jacqueline in the middle to begin with and Dane knew they were trying to keep anyone from hurting her.

  “That’s him,” Jacqueline whispered to Dane, but Matt turned to look at her too. “In the room up ahead. I recognize his voice. It sounds just like his telepathic voice,” she said.

  “That’s who we’ll concentrate on then,” Matt said.

  They went slowly though, not wanting to alert everyone they were coming. Though it was killing Dane not to be able to rush in and kill the vampire to free Jacqueline from his control.

  They reached the end of the hall where Matt could see what was going on, the rest of them holding back. Matt moved back to speak to them privately. It was so noisy in the living area that no one could hear them speaking.

  “Five vampires—two on my list besides Heskel,” Matt said. “The one kind of in the middle of the whole group is Heskel. And it looks like about seven blood bonds are here. Ryan and I will go straight into the mess of them and target Heskel. Romanoff is off to the right near the fireplace holding a bloody cocktail and wearing a black tux. He’s a vampire on my list. Vandenburg is off to the left of the group feeding on a blood bond, both sitting on a forest green couch.”

  “We’ll take out Romanoff,” Dane said, Jacqueline agreeing.

  “We’ll aim for Vandenburg,” Trey said, and Stacey was ready for it.

  “Let’s go,” Matt said, and he rushed into the room before anyone even noticed he shouldn’t have been there.

  Stacey and Jacqueline vanished and appeared right next to their targets. Dane had to get with the program when it came to moving like that and quickly joined Jacqueline as she aimed her sword at the tux-clad vampire.

  Trey was racing to catch up to Stacey as three of the blood bonds screamed out and ran away. They appeared eager to get out of the hunters’ path and live another day. As soon Romanoff saw Jacqueline with her sword aimed at his heart, he disappeared and came around behind her. But that’s when Dane came behind him and thrust his sword into the vampire’s heart. Dane was beginning to think this was a winning way for him to team up with Jacqueline. Romanoff turned into a baggy skinned skeleton while Matt was fighting Heskel and Ryan was fighting an overzealous and loyal blood bond.