Val fought Hirsch’s pitiless grip as he dragged her into one of the house’s tiny back bedrooms, but she might as well have saved her strength. The German easily forced her down on the twin bed and straddled her hips, pinning her with his weight as he jerked a piece of thin cord from a back pocket. Val aimed a punch for his nose, but he grabbed her fist before it could land and began lashing her wrist to one of the bedposts. She darted her head forward and clamped her teeth down on his muscular forearm.
He damned well wasn’t going to rape her without a fight. “Stop that, you little bitch!” Light detonated behind her eyes.
Val went limp, stunned by a slap she hadn’t even seen coming. Over the ringing in her ears she heard him growl, “You’re going to start learning your place right now, slut.”
Sucking in a gasp, she smelled his scent. Calvin Klein and something not human. She felt her arms and legs being spread, ankles and remaining wrist tied. Fight! Val mentally screamed at herself, but her dazed body refused to cooperate. Something grabbed the front of her shirt and jerked, lifting her half off the bed. Fabric tore. Oh, God, she thought as her head spun, he’s ripping off my clothes.
Suddenly Calvin Klein became peppermint, and something shattered directly over Val’s head. A rain of small objects pattered against her face. Opening her eyes, she saw fragments of porcelain hit the mattress beside her head.
Hirsch swore. “What? What the hell is…?" Then he snarled, “Abigail!”
Abigail? Val thought. What’s she doing here? She opened her eyes just in time to see a college textbook sail across the bedroom to slam into the German’s head.
The vampire flinched and leaped off her, looking wildly around the room. “Abigail, you little bitch, this is none of your affair!”
She’s Cade’s, Gerhard. Leave her alone.
Abigail floated in one corner of the room like something out of a horror movie, her hair streaming around a half-rotted face, her eyes yellow and bulging. Judging from the German’s wild stare, Hirsch found her as thoroughly unnerving as Val had when the ghost had played the same trick on her.
Abigail, what are you doing? Val thought, still confused from Gerhard’s slap.
I’m trying to save you, child. Be still.
I take back everything I ever said about you.
“She’s mine now!” Hirsch blustered, backing up a pace. “As for Cade, he won’t even have a dick—or a head—by the time I’m through with him.”
Assuming Ridgemont lets you live long enough to fight him. Your master is not going to like this, Gerhard.
He bared his teeth. “That won’t matter after I’ve Changed her."
"At the moment, Gerhard, that looks doubtful.”
Hirsch spun. A short, muscular man stood leaning against the doorframe, his powerful arms folded, desert robes draping his brawny body in yards of flowing white cotton. The face framed by his Arab headdress wasn’t handsome; his nose looked as though it had been broken a few times, and there was a thin, white scar over one cheekbone.
Something about those features snapped Val’s mind sharply into focus. Oh, God, she thought, going cold as she recognized him from Abigail’s visions and her own tormenting childhood memories. It’s Ridgemont.
Even the ghost recoiled as the master vampire strolled into the room. He flicked Abigail a dismissive glance. “Get you gone, spirit, or I’ll drink you down like a virgin’s blood.”
Abigail seemed to expand in size as she floated toward him, her face darkening and rotting even more until Val felt her stomach twist in revulsion. Keep your hands off her!
One of Ridgemont’s huge hands flashed out and closed, impossibly, right around the ghost’s thin neck. Terror twisted Abigail’s little face as she tried to jerk away, but he held her fast. He gave her a slow, mocking smile. “I’d think by now you’d know your place, child. Which could easily be across my trencher with an apple in your mouth.”
How the hell is he doing that? Val wondered in shock.
The ghost stopped struggling and met his eyes with defiance, her rotted features blurring back to their normal contours. Do it, then. I’m sick of being used as a stick to beat Cade with.
His grin revealed a horrifying length of fang. “Perhaps I will, at that. My plans are at endgame now—you’re no further use. And you’d be delicious. So much power….”
Oh, God, Val realized. He’s going to absorb her. And her destruction would kill Cade. “No! Abigail, go Beyond!”
He won’t let me. The ghost stared at Ridgemont, hopeless defiance on her face. He’s holding me here.
He must be exerting some kind of psychic energy, Val realized. If I could distract him…. “Let her go. I’ll do whatever you want.” Ridgemont lifted a brow and looked toward her. “Intriguing offer. And rash. Are you sure you want to…?” The ghost seemed to dissolve like mist between his fingers, only
to reform right over the bed. What are you doing? Val thought, staring up at her furiously. Go Beyond before he eats you!
Cade is on the way, the ghost told her, voice weakening. Hang on. Don’t push him, Valerie. I want to help, but he’s hurt me. I’m losing my grip on this plane.
Just go! Val thought, though part of her cringed at the idea of being left alone with Ridgemont.
Abigail bit her lip, looking torn. She didn’t so much fly away this time as vanish like smoke.
Watching the last wisps disappear, Val thought, Damn, I never thought I’d be sorry to see you go.
When she looked around, she found Ridgemont staring at her, an expression of profound amusement on his face. She wondered what the hell he found so funny.
Before she could ask, Hirsch demanded, “What are you doing here? You said you’d let me handle it.” He stepped in front of the bed as if to block his sire’s view of her.
“I did,” Ridgemont said coldly. “But you didn’t. You sent in an army of armed mortals while you stayed safe in this little hovel and amused yourself with the two children in the other room.” He lifted a brow. “The idea was to prove your worth in combat with the gunslinger.”
“He tried that. Twice.” Val curled her lip at the German’s back. “Cade kicked his butt both times.”
She heard a noise like a slap and started in surprise. Ridgemont was suddenly standing beside Hirsch, who was now facing her. The master vampire’s hand was locked around the German’s forearm, keeping his fist from striking her. They’d both moved so fast she hadn’t even seen the exchange.
“You haven’t won the right to beat her, Gerhard,” Ridgemont told him, his tone so matter-of-fact Val felt a chill.
“You swore she’d be mine if I could get her away from him,” Hirsch gritted. “You didn’t specify how.”
“You’re stupid, but not that stupid.” As casually as a man tossing aside a ball of paper, Ridgemont threw him into the wall. The whole house shook with the impact. “You knew exactly what I intended.”
Hirsch jerked himself away from the indentation his body had made in the plasterboard and coiled into a snarling crouch. “You’ve always favored the American over me. There’s something unnatural about it.”
“Oh, it’s entirely natural,” Ridgemont said, lifting an insulting brow. “The gunslinger is a warrior with a sense of honor. You’re a fool ruled by your fangs and dick.”
Hirsch opened his mouth to spit a retort, but before he could speak he crashed to his knees as if someone had kicked his feet out from under him.
As the German fought to rise, the master vampire slowly walked around behind him. “Do you think I’m such a fool I don’t know the one who gets the girl will challenge me?" One hand blurred out, fisting in Hirsch’s blond hair and jerking his head back until Ridgemont could peer down into his rolling eyes. “That’s exactly what I intend, you ignorant peasant. But you have to prove yourself worthy of her. I’ll not see her wasted on someone I’ll kill in ten minutes.”
“Do you think me a fool?" the German spat. “Even if I gut your pet, you’ll keep her for yourself—and I’ll remain in your thrall for another century.”
Ridgemont’s icy eyes narrowed. His free hand clamped around Hirsch’s throat, grip tightening until his captive gagged. “Do you question my honor?”
The German licked his lips. His gaze slid away. “No."
"Perhaps you’re not such a fool after all.” He released Hirsch and stepped back with a wintery smile. “Go. Find him. Prove you’re entitled to my gift.”
Hirsch looked at the closed curtains. “But it’s daylight!”
“If you want her so desperately, a little sunburn is not going to stop you. I can assure you, it hasn’t stopped the gunslinger.”
The German’s mouth tightened as he rose to his feet. He turned toward the door, then looked back at Ridgemont. “It’s early yet. He’ll still be healing. May I feed before I go out to hunt him?"
“I assume you refer to the two captives in the next room,” Ridgemont said, a note of warning in his voice.
Hirsch’s eyes flicked to Val’s naked body and lingered in a way that sent a chill up her spine. “Of course,” he said, his smile nasty. “There’ll be time enough for her once McKinnon’s dead.”
“An hour, no more.” The German disappeared from the doorway so fast it looked as though he’d vanished into thin air. “Puppy,” Ridgemont muttered.
Val opened her mouth to protest his handing the two girls over to Hirsch, but before she could say a word, he turned and lifted a brow at her. “It seems we have a little time alone.”
It occurred to her Hirsch’s victims might have the better end of the deal.
“What time is it?" Cade licked his cracked, swollen lips. Hank’s hazel eyes darted in fear, but his voice was flat when he spoke. “Three fifteen.”
Cade cursed silently. It had taken him hours to heal his injuries—hours Val couldn’t afford.
Where was she? And what were they doing with her?
God, he was weak. He managed to roll over and push himself onto his hands and knees. For a moment he knelt there, his head hanging, his arms and thighs trembling so violently they could barely hold him up. His mouth felt dry, his tongue felt swollen. Gathering the last of his strength, he pushed slowly to his feet, clawing at the tarp until it fell away. The sunlight of late afternoon stabbed through the trees and into his eyes, but he ignored it.
He needed to feed. Now. Fortunately, there was a ready source of blood waiting.
Cade looked down at Hank, who still sat on the ground, helplessly paralyzed. Glancing into the mercenary’s mind, he could sense the pain of stiffened joints, the numbness from sitting motionless for so long—and Hank’s utter terror at the sight of his vampire victim on his feet, his chest whole and unwounded despite the dried blood crusting his skin.
Why isn’t the bastard dead? the merc mentally gibbered. I shot him six times!
“But not in the right place.” Cade felt an unpleasant smile stretch across his lips. Leaning down, he reached out and lifted the big man’s square chin, forcing him to meet his gaze. “Scared, Hank?" The mercenary stared at him, unable to speak. He lifted part of the compulsion. “Answer me. Are you afraid?"
“Yeah,” Hank croaked.
“Good,” he whispered, his voice silken and menacing. “So is the woman I love. And you’re going to help me save her.” He bared his fangs. “In a way.”
Ridgemont sat down on the edge of the bed. Val swallowed, acutely aware of her nakedness, of the bruise she could feel rising on her face from Hirsch’s slap. He reached toward her. She flinched back instinctively, but his big, blunt fingers simply brushed her throat. “I see my spawn have been entertaining themselves.”
Val realized he referred to Cade’s bite as well as Hirsch’s heavy hand. “Some attentions were more welcome than others.”
He chuckled. “I’ll wager so.” His eyes drifted back down her naked body, and she drew in a breath at the cruel interest she saw in them. He rose, and Val instinctively shrank into the mattress. “Your heart is thumping like a rabbit’s,” Ridgemont observed, one corner of his wide mouth lifting in a malicious half-smile. “That’s a very erotic sound to a vampire. You’d be wise to calm yourself.”
She licked her dry lips and choked out, “I’ll keep that in mind."
"See that you do.” He bent down to pick something up off the floor. When he straightened, he held a limp, brown bundle. She flinched. But then he shook it out, she realized he held the bedspread Hirsch had stripped from the mattress before tying her down. With a neat snap, he flipped it over her.
Ridgemont met her eyes and shrugged. “I find I could do without the temptation. I suspect that after having you, I’d find it difficult to give you back.”
He picked up a ladder-back chair that sat in the corner, put it down beside the bed and sat down. Stretching out his muscled legs, he crossed his ankles and said casually, “Though I could easily persuade myself that abusing you for a while would drive Cade into a very satisfying frenzy.”
Val licked her dry lips and dared a question. “So why keep Hirsch from beating me?"
“The bastard pissed me off with his cheating,” he said with a shrug. “If he’d had the guts to go along on the raid, he could have flogged you with my blessing. One look at your welts would have been all the incentive Cade needed to rip out his heart and eat it.”
She blinked in surprise. “Hirsch is right. You do favor Cade."
"Well, of course. The German is all very well for a drinking companion, but I’d snap him like a twig in a fight, even with the power you’d give him. If I’m going to sacrifice the pleasure of your company, I’d rather it be to some good purpose.” His eyes lingered regretfully on the rise of her breasts under the blanket. “I’ll have to kill you when it’s over, of course.”
Val had actually begun to relax. At his words, her whole body jerked into a knot. “Of course,” she said faintly.
“Without the bond from transforming you, you’d be impossible to control,” Ridgemont explained. “Though I’ll probably fuck you a few times before you die.”
Just like my mother. Dammit, she would not let the bastard see how much that thought terrified her. Stiffening her spine, Val forced herself to meet his eyes. “That’s assuming Cade doesn’t kill you first. And I think you’re going to find him harder to defeat than you expect.”
Ridgemont shrugged. “Actually, I’m not at all sure I can beat the gunslinger once he Changes you. Which is the whole point. True, I’ll still have more power, but he’s cunning enough to find a way to defeat me anyway.” An odd expression crossed his face. Almost…pride?"Even without you, he almost killed me last week. A bomb isn’t quite what I’d had in mind, but I was pleased by his willingness to eliminate me in any way he could.”
“Pleased? You were pleased?" She stared at him, so startled she forgot to be diplomatic. “What kind of lunatic are you?"
“No lunatic at all.” He smiled slightly. “Just a knight stranded in the wrong century. Though being a twenty-first century female, I suppose that’s something you’ll never understand.”
“Uh, huh.” She eyed him. “Why don’t you enlighten me?"
He glanced lazily out the window. “Since I don’t hear a fight going on outside, I might as well.” Leaning backward with the air of a man settling in to tell a particularly entertaining story, he laced his hands behind his head. His thick biceps bulged under his sleeves. “When I was a member of Prince Richard’s retinue….”
“Was this before or after the Saracens captured you?" Ridgemont went as still as a snake, his eyes flattening with reptilian menace. “McKinnon mentioned that, did he?"
Oh, God, Val realized, staring at the murderous fury in the vampire’s gaze, I’m about to get my throat ripped out. She swallowed and sent up a quick, silent prayer. “Actually, it was the ghost. Abigail.”
Ridgemont relaxed, curling his lip. “That little brat is something of a pest.” He shrugged. “But she’s been a useful hostage since Cade won his freedom. Otherwise he’d have left years ago, and that didn’t suit my plans.”
“He is rather … fond of her.” Val carefully unclenched her fists. She’d diverted him from killing her—at least for the moment. “You were saying?”
Ridgemont eyed her for a long moment, his gaze flattening until her heart started pounding again. The moment stretched out, vibrating with agonizing tension as she began to sweat.
Then he smiled ever so slightly and snapped the tension like a guitar string. “When we were young men, back before Richard became king, we traveled the tourney circuit.” Ignoring Val’s involuntary sigh of relief, he settled back in his seat once more. “Earned quite a nice living taking other knights hostage. God, I loved those days.” His expression softened, becoming almost dreamy. “You have no idea what it’s like to have a war-horse between your thighs and a sword in your hand, going to meet another knight in combat. In the next few seconds, you will live or die, depending on your strength, skill and luck. Every sense is so acute, it seems the world has edges, like shards of glass.” Slowly the warm glow faded from his eyes. “I have lived eight hundred years, fucked and tormented more women than I can even begin to count, tempted the Inquisition and the Nazis, but I have never felt that way since. There are no more knights, and I am old and powerful. And bored. But Cade … given enough power, he would be a most satisfactory opponent.”
Val stared at him as the light slowly dawned. “You’re an adrenaline junkie. And you think he could give you the perfect fix.”
Satisfied, he smiled slightly. “Now you begin to understand."
"So everything you’ve done to him….”
“… Has been toward that end,” he agreed. “That’s why I took him when he charged in to save that silly girl more than a century ago, and it’s why I’ve spent all these years goading him.” His gaze intensified on her as if waiting for her reaction. “And it’s why I killed your parents.”
Stunned, she stared at him. “What?"
“Just any Kith female couldn’t have provided him with what he needs to match me,” Ridgemont said. “I had to find someone with a great deal of latent power. And you fit the bill perfectly, so much so it was obvious even when you were a child.”
“You did know I was Kith!”
“Oh, yes.” He grinned at her. “I saw you in an Atlanta shopping mall one night. You were walking hand in hand with your father, and I could see the power blazing off you. So much potential…. And in those days, you looked a bit like Abigail. Same coltish child build. You were perfect.”
Her stomach twisted with sick guilt. Mom…Dad… “For what? I still don’t….”
“At the time, Cade was still under my control, and had been for more than a century,” Ridgemont explained. “I was getting impatient, and I wanted to give him the incentive he needed to start breaking my grip.”
“Why didn’t you just let him go?" God, she thought, staring into his calm, reasonable eyes, he really is a monster.
The vampire shook his head. “It’s rather like building physical muscle. You gain strength by working against another force. Cade had to break my grip himself or it would mean nothing.” Rising to his feet, he began to pace, gesturing as he spoke. “Knowing how he is about his sister, I decided the thing to do was set him up to kill a child. I knew he’d do anything to avoid that.”
“But what if he’d failed?"
He shrugged. “No harm done."
"Except to me! I’d have been dead!”
Ridgemont lifted a blond brow at her. “I would advise you to wipe that condemning expression off your face if you want to live long enough to fuck the gunslinger again.”
Too furious to care what he did to her, she sneered. “You won’t kill me—it’d take too long to find another Kith female with as much power as I have.”
He stared at her, such anger rolling across his eyes that a shaft of fear pierced her outrage.
Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, you’re perfect for him. I doubt you’ll outlive him by half an hour before you goad me into butchering you, but I suppose I can’t have everything.”
She glowered. “I really want to watch him kill you."
"Somehow I doubt you’ll enjoy that fight as much as you think.” Val curled her lip. “We’ll see.”
“Yes. We will. Where was I? Oh yes. It was really simple good luck that I found you. If we hadn’t been living in Atlanta at the time….” He shrugged. “Then when I saw you, realized how much power you have, that was when the whole plan burst upon me. It was perfect. He would save you from himself, get free in a decade or so, gather his strength…. And then I’d put you in his path again.”
He planned the whole thing, Val thought, stunned. Every move, from the beginning, just like a chess game. “And it worked.”
He grinned smugly. “One of the best long-range scenarios I’ve ever put together.”
“But why murder my parents? You didn’t have to involve them.”
"Being Kith is a genetic trait. Your father had it. If I’d let him live, it was entirely possible he would have packed you up and taken you off, leaving me unable to find you again.”
Her father had been like her? She blinked, stunned. “But what about my mother?"
“I’d intended to let her go.” He shrugged. “But Hirsch got carried away. Luckily your grandmother was sufficiently compliant for my purposes.”
“My grandmother?" She stared at him blankly. “What does she have to do with this?"
He gave her that chillingly pleasant smile again. “Why, I used her to keep track of you for years.”
“Grandma was a spy for you?" She’d known the woman was a drunk, but….
“I didn’t give her much choice. She had a trace of psychic power herself, so it took a little work, but it was worth it.” He folded his massive arms and aimed a contemplative look toward the window. “I think she actually became aware of what I was doing at times. Not that it did any of you any good, of course….”
Suddenly Val realized she might be looking at the reason for her grandmother’s drinking problem. “Is there any aspect of my life you haven’t ruined?"
He contemplated the question, then grinned. “Probably not.”
Cade swore violently, staring at the little brick ranch as he crouched in the concealment of a field across the street. Judging from the dark power he could almost see swirling around the house, Ridgemont was inside.
When the hell had he showed up? Cade had scanned Hank’s memories half an hour ago—punching through the mental blocks Hirsch had set up hadn’t been hard—but the merc did not remember Ridgemont being present then.
He should have known taking Val back wouldn’t be that easy. To make matters worse, the vampires had already been busy, judging from the barely conscious thoughts of two female victims inside the house. Scanning them, Cade saw that Hirsch had just finished amusing himself.
The girls also remembered seeing Val, though he couldn’t sense her presence directly because of her Kith shields. Then he touched another memory in their minds, one that made his gut clench: they’d heard her scream. Dammit, if only he’d been half an hour earlier.
Unfortunately, getting here had been a bitch. He’d picked the location of Hirsch’s temporary lair from Hank’s mind easily enough, but transportation had presented a problem. His house was still swarming with cops processing the crime scene and trying to figure out where all the dead bodies had come from. There was no way Cade could get to the Lexus, so he’d had to make other arrangements.
After telepathically summoning a deputy to find Hank—Cade had reluctantly decided to leave the merc alive, since he didn’t kill helpless men—he slipped off to a neighbor’s house and asked to borrow the man’s car. The neighbor did not, of course, refuse.
Hirsch, out of either arrogance or impatience, had chosen a lair a short distance away, so it hadn’t taken Cade long to drive the route Hank remembered. He’d left the car parked the next street over and slipped across to reconnoiter.
The results didn’t thrill him. The surviving mercenaries were on guard outside, though anybody looking at them would think they were having an outdoor cookout. They’d traded the Rambo gear for shorts and unbuttoned shirts, some with T-shirts underneath, some bare-chested. Doing a quick scan to find out who was armed, Cade discovered all the shirts hid shoulder holsters, and there were enough automatic weapons hidden in easy reach to make an arms dealer jealous.
The whole homicidal gang milled around a barbecue grill, laughing and joking as they drained cans of beer from a cooler. But though they looked like college students enjoying a kegger, Cade’s vampire hearing picked out snatches of conversation about South America and the Middle East. Hirsch’s boys were talking shop.
He could probably battle his way past them, of course, but what would Hirsch and Ridgemont do to Val in the meantime? For that matter, what were they doing to her now?