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She was trying so hard to be something better than what she’d been; he couldn’t help wonder—was he really going to fuck all that up for her?

Carly swore that wasn’t going to happen. She insisted that although Ana was going to be risking a lot to help them, she’d get what she really needed in the end—the better life she’d been seeking, but one unhindered by an unhealthy attachment to her sister, who was also living under an assumed name—Helena Esperanza. Ty hoped that would be the result, but despite Carly’s optimistic spin on things, he felt that a happily-ever-after probably wasn’t in store for Ana any more than it was for him. He’d damn well do everything in his power to protect her and the other female recruits, but he knew better than most that sometimes there were things you couldn’t protect against, things far worse than dying.

Unfortunately, Carly was right about the fact that they needed Ana. All their attempts to get inside Salvation’s Crossing had failed, including Ty posing as a wealthy man interested in funding Hispanic rights activities. His cover was extensive and airtight. Anyone checking into Ty Nunes would find ample documentation of his birth, privileged childhood, and even more privileged adulthood. There were several articles on the Web identifying him as a billionaire with a social conscience. There were also tons of pictures of him with gorgeous girls on his arm, hanging out with celebs, paparazzi flashing away. As far as Salvation’s Crossing should be concerned, Ty the famous philanthropist was a reality.

Even so, he hadn’t even gotten a return phone call or thank-you-for-your-interest email telling him politely to go to hell.

Because of Ana’s background and—though it was unknown to her—her connection to the cult, she could ultimately be the key to Belladonna getting inside.

One month from now, the public leader of Salvation’s Crossing, Miguel Santos, aka Miguel Salvador, the man who’d first introduced Ana to gang life, was going to make a rare public appearance at a fund-raiser for the Hispanic Community Alliance.

An event that Ty hoped Ana would attend as his date. Miguel’s failure to respond to Ty’s phone calls and emails signaled suspicion. With Ana on his arm, maybe, just maybe, Ty would be able to convince Salvador that not only was he interested in Hispanic rights, but that he was a trustworthy vampire interested in a new food supply line, as well.

It wasn’t a foolproof plan, but the only alternative would be full-scale covert ops and forced entry. Given Belladonna’s limited numbers and resources, as well as the FBI’s instructions to keep their missions—their very existence—on the down low, that wasn’t going to happen.

Ana was their best chance of getting what they needed.

Ana.

He couldn’t help himself. Despite the fact that his body had finally started to calm, he deliberately conjured the memory of the kisses they’d shared.

Kissing her hadn’t just been about shaking her up or capitalizing on the attraction he sensed she felt for him. It hadn’t been about coercing her into agreeing to work for Belladonna. No, despite his resolve to remain clean—to drink only animal blood and refrain from having sex—he
wanted
her. Wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything. Wanted her enough to kiss her
not just once, but twice. And he’d barely been able to stop himself from doing it again.

Just like that, the memory of kissing Ana caused Ty’s lust for her to return with a vengeance. His hands and teeth began to clench as he fought the strong urge to turn around and retrace his steps. He needed to find Ana. He needed to do more than just kiss her. He needed to mark her and make her his.

Mark her by biting her neck and drinking her blood.

Make her his by taking her, over and over again, until no one could deny the truth of their connection.

His primal reaction confused him. Scared him.

Six months ago he’d been a man. A human. He’d understood himself.

Now, he didn’t know where the line between Ty, the former human, and Ty, the vampire, was drawn. Was there even a distinction? His brief moments of closeness to Ana had triggered his vampire urges, but apparently being away from her did the very same thing.

His fangs unsheathed. He groaned and staggered, nearly coming to his knees.

His body shook as if he were caught in the throes of a major earthquake, and determinedly, he placed one foot in front of the other, pressing forward.

Instinctively, as he felt the power of the monster within him growing, Ty walked faster. He was crossing the street when a wave of dizziness hit him.

He suddenly felt parched. Starving. His stomach began to cramp, threatening to eat him alive from the inside out. He’d felt this feeling before. He knew what it meant.

His lust for Ana had triggered more than his vampire need for sex. It had triggered his need for blood, as well.
Human
blood.

Damn it, no. He wasn’t fully vampire, he told himself. Part of him was still human, and if he wanted to keep
that part of him alive, he had to maintain control. He had to hurry …

There were several bottles of animal blood in the flat’s fridge. He increased his speed. He was almost there when a shout came from behind him. He whipped around. A homeless man reeking of alcohol stumbled down the street. Fresh wounds were visible on his forearms and legs. He was bleeding, and the scent of that blood drifted on the wind and embedded itself in Ty’s nostrils.

Ty stumbled back. “No,” he whispered. “No.” But even as he said the words, he sucked in another whiff of the guy’s scent and trembled.

“Hey … hey, man,” the man called out. “Can you spare some change?”

Ty opened his mouth to say no again. A hiss came out instead.

The man’s eyes widened with fear and Ty felt that same fear take hold of him.

Before Ty knew it, he was moving toward the stranger. Not walking. Not even running. But barreling toward him with inhuman speed.

The smell of the man’s blood and his dark memories combined with his interaction with Ana, his hunger for her, called forth his deepest primal urges, the ones that he normally kept controlled by sheer force of will. He opened his mouth. Barely managed to choke out, “Run. Get out of here.”

Luckily, the homeless man heard him and didn’t question the command. He turned. Tried to flee.

But that, unfortunately, only made Ty’s predatory instincts kick into higher gear.

Blood. He has the blood you want. The blood you need.

Get it. Get him
.

Now
.

Before Ty knew it, he’d dragged the man between two buildings and had him trapped against a wall face-first, the same way Ana had trapped him earlier. But instead of letting him turn around, instead of backing away the way she had, Ty punched his fangs into the man’s neck and began to drink.

The whimper that escaped Ty was one of despair but it quickly turned into satisfaction. The metallic bitterness of the man’s blood was an explosion of nirvana on his tongue.

He drank. And drank. And drank.

With every swallow, thoughts of his human life vanished.

He lost himself in the pleasure of drinking blood how it was meant to be drunk, fresh from the vein. From a warm body. From a human who was weaker than him … a human who was meant to serve him …

Ty gasped, horrified enough by his thoughts that he somehow found the strength to pull his fangs out of the man’s throat. The sound of a car backfiring and distant shouts made him jerk and look wildly around him, but there was no one in sight. Didn’t mean someone wouldn’t show up soon and discover him. Discover what he’d done …

With a shudder, Ty returned his attention to the man he still held. As soon as he’d bitten him, the man had gone compliantly silent and even now dangled in his arms. Ty stared at him, his previous thoughts echoing in his ears. The way he’d thought of the man as a
mere
human, as something weak and existing only for his own benefit, had him stumbling back, his arms falling to his sides.

The man crumpled to the ground, groaning. Blood trickled from the puncture wounds in his neck, but Ty could hear his heart thudding and his blood flowing. He was okay. Ty would leave him here, and the man would
never know what had happened. At most, he’d assume he’d been so drunk he’d hallucinated a feral monster attacking him …

Shakily, Ty swiped his sleeve across his mouth, noting the light streaks of blood there. He expected himself to throw up, because his thoughts had indeed sickened him. Instead of puking his guts out, however, he felt a renewed energy and vitality zipping through his veins. His senses, already heightened, became even more acute.
This
was what was intoxicating. Addicting. Even more than the taste of the blood itself, how could anyone resist this feeling of strength? Of sheer power?

He could feel the moisture in the air changing, telling him it would rain before dawn. He could see the fleas on the cat that balanced on a Dumpster thirty feet away.

And he could smell …

He took a deeper breath.

He could smell someone approaching. His mind screamed at him to run. With a final glance at the homeless man he’d terrorized and a muttered curse, Ty obeyed. Strengthened by the blood, he ran fast. Past his flat. Past Ana’s house. Past anything resembling a residential neighborhood until he came upon a remote warehouse. He jumped the fence and found an unlocked door. As he stepped inside, the cool, dark air welcomed him like a mother’s embrace. Leaning against an interior wall, he sank to the cold concrete floor. Closing his eyes, he cursed what he’d become.

What he’d lost.

Not just his humanity. Not just his chance to have a relationship with a human female like Ana.

He’d lost the only family he’d had left. His sister, Naomi. She was dead because of him.

When the men had approached them on the street six months ago, Naomi had urged him to walk away. Only he hadn’t. Instead, he’d—

A faint shuffling sound came from behind him.

Instantly, thoughts of that night shattered and he was focused solely on the here and now. Ty shot to his feet. Listened.

When the sound came again, this time from somewhere to his left, he stepped toward it. As he did so, his nostrils caught a new scent—something with a hint of mint.

He stiffened when a voice drifted out of the darkness.

“Well, look what we have here, Niles. It’s the vampire. The one that left his prey in that alley with puncture wounds still in his neck, but only after he drank from him with all the skill of a newly born babe at his mother’s tit. All desperate hunger and no finesse.”

Automatically, Ty reached for his gun. Before he could withdraw it, however, something flew out of the darkness and knocked him down.

“Don’t waste your time, mate. Guns won’t work on us,” the same male voice intoned.

Ty scrambled to his feet, body crouched against another attack.

The sound of male laughter came from the opposite side of the room. Ty whirled around, then back again, trying to decipher movement in the darkness just as someone flipped a switch, washing the room with a faint yellow light. Two males stepped out of the darkness to flank him on either side.

Not just two males. Two
vampires
.

Shock held Ty paralyzed. Except for his time in captivity, Ty had never actually seen another vampire aside from Peter, at least not one who wasn’t hiding what he was. But these males?

They were both tall and lean, with the same silver hair that Ty now had. But Ty dyed his hair dark. He also wore contact lenses to disguise the eerie silver pupils that went along with his black eyes, which had once
been blue. Even from twenty feet away, Ty could see the males weren’t bothering to hide their unusual eyes any more than their hair. Why? Because they were concealed in the dark building? Or because they could somehow camouflage themselves from human eyes? How else had they witnessed him leave the homeless man in that alley without Ty knowing they were there?

His curiosity was tempered by caution, but also, despite himself, by the faintest stirrings of hope. In the faint glow of the buzzing overhead light he could see the two vampires wore matching gold medallions—three linked triangles, two on top and one directly beneath the others. Were they part of an organized group? Vampire leaders? Could he get information from them without letting them know about Belladonna’s purpose?

He’d already taken a step forward before he forced himself to stop.

No, he couldn’t take such a risk. By their words and their expressions, these vampires were a definite threat. So that was how Ty would have to treat them. As if they might be one of the Rogues he’d been ordered to bring down. Facing them squarely, his body tensed for an attack, Ty remained silent.

He concentrated. He tried to read the minds of the vampires in front of him.

Nothing.

Damn it. Peter was much more skilled at mind reading, maybe because he didn’t share Ty’s misgivings about the intrusive act.

Then a horrible thought occurred to him. He’d tried to read their minds and failed, but what if they tried to read
his
mind? Damn it!

It had always been a possibility—that Belladonna’s purpose would be discovered by a mind-reading vampire, one that wouldn’t appreciate the fact they were hunting their own, Rogue or not. One that would try to
stop them. In the end, the potential risk hadn’t mattered. Belladonna needed agents out on the street. It was just as possible a vampire would read any one of those agent’s minds, including Carly’s, just as much as Ty’s. So what to do now?

He could try to outrun them, he supposed. But he wasn’t sure he’d be faster than they were.

The one called Niles snorted. “Apparently he’s the strong, silent type. But I don’t recognize him, Lesander. Do you? Maybe he’s visiting from abroad. Maybe that’s why he left his dinner for us to clean up. Because he doesn’t care if humans in the area begin to suspect our presence here. Only …”

He suddenly stopped talking and narrowed his eyes.

“No, wait. He’s not one of us. I can—I can still smell a hint of human. From him, not his dinner.” Niles looked at Lesander, his expression grim. “He’s been turned.”