"Piece of cake, right?" she said breathlessly. "Mmn, what I wouldn't give for a piece of cake right now."

It surprised a chuckle out of him. Never mind all the gourmet foods she had generous access to she always had been a fiend for chocolate cake made from a box mix, with sour cream frosting.

"When we get out of here, I'll bake a cake for you, myself," he promised. "One with a file in it."

Her flat stomach flexed as she snorted. "Now, that I would have to see, although I don't know about eating any of it. You don't know the first thing about how to bake a cake, or for that matter, how to bake anything else."

"Don't be too sure," he murmured. "Baking is just chemistry, and the directions are printed on the box, right? Besides, I watched you do it a couple of times."

"Sure you did," she retorted. "You watched me all of twenty years ago, and you never had a vested interest in the process."

She was wrong. He'd had a vested interest in everything she did. What she wore, the way she moved, the things she loved. The times they had spent in the kitchen, as she fixed herself something to eat and he opened a bottle of wine for them to share, were some of his favorite memories of when they had been together.

He hadn't let himself think of those times in years, but he did so now, immersing himself in the memories. The way she had thrown back her head to laugh. The time she had teased him into dancing while her pasta water boiled away, forgotten, and the pan had burned.

After they had put out the small kitchen fire, he had growled, "To hell with it."

With one sweep of his arm, he had cleared the kitchen table and lifted her onto it. Laughing, she had lain back, her arms over her head, while he knelt between her legs to feast on her gorgeous, delicate flesh. When he had risen at last to sink his aching erection into her, she had clasped him tight in wholehearted welcome, with her arms and legs, body and soul.

As he thought of how she had hugged him, his eyes grew damp.

The last manacle fell from his wrist.

"There," she whispered, her breath catching on another sob. "Oh thank God, there."

Eight.

F.

inally free, he wrapped both arms around her and sank to his knees, only loosening his hold just enough so that she could slide onto his lap. Then he clenched her against his chest again. Her arms slid around his neck, and she held him just as tightly.

"I've got you, Melisande," he whispered.

Her quick, ragged breathing sounded in his ear. "I've been so, so scared."

"I know. I've been scared too." Without fully being aware of what he did, he sank one fist into the back of her curly, tangled hair and pulled her head back so that he could look deep into her eyes. He whispered, "Jesus, he was going to rape you, and I couldn't have done anything to prevent it."

"Don't think like that," she said, as she framed his face between her hands. "It didn't happen. I didn't let it happen. But oh God, Julian, when she was cutting you, I went half out of my mind. I thought it would never end and when she let the ferals into your cell, I was so afraid they were going to kill you."

"Stop it." His voice turned harsh. "It was nothing, and it's over with now. It's all done."

She opened her eyes very wide. "I. Can't. Stop. This. And I'm not even going to try. I've been promising myself this meltdown for two damn hellish hellish HELLISH days, and nothing's going to keep me from it now."

He stared at her in utter perplexity. She looked terrible. She looked adorable.

She looked stripped down, totally raw, like she didn't have a single barrier left between her and the world, and he couldn't take it any longer.

He covered her shaking mouth with his, and when he felt the soft curve of her lips move in response to his, it felt so damn good, just as he had remembered it, just as he had always known it would.

No, it didn't feel just as he remembered it felt better. It felt like a vital, necessary part of his life had come back to him. Ravenously he parted her lips with his tongue and conquered the private recesses of her luscious mouth.

And she kissed him back.

Her active, eager involvement, the sensation of her tongue colliding with his, set fire to all of his nerve endings. After having been so parched for so many years, he drowned himself in her.

She gripped him at the back of his head with both hands while she wrapped those long, slender legs around his waist, and in response, he growled low in his throat while his cock swelled to stiff attention, pushing at the restraints of his jeans.

He needed to lay her down on the floor, spread her legs and feast on her tender, private flesh again. He needed to hear her breath catch and sigh, while she stroked her fingers through his short hair. He needed to bury himself so deeply inside of her, he never truly came back out. He...

As he framed her face with both hands, he felt something wet slide over his calloused fingers. The sensation jolted his eyes open. She was leaking tears, and the muscles in her arms and legs trembled.

It brought him back to his senses. While he might be a bastard, and his soul might be incomplete, he wasn't completely heartless. He wrapped his arms around her again until he was simply hugging her, and rocked her in a gentle, soothing movement.

"It's all right now," he repeated. "Melly, I promise you, everything is going to be all right."

"I can believe you now." Pulling back slightly, she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands.

After having gone so long without holding her, he was reluctant to let her go even that much, but fresh sounds came from the direction of the gate as the ferals began to return, reminding him of the challenges they had yet to face.

"You need to eat the rest of that sandwich," he told her. "And I need to clear out the feral infestation so we can get the fuck out of here."

Her expression calmed into resolve as she listened to him, and she nodded. "Before you do, you need to take more blood."

Immediately, he said, "Absolutely not. You're in no condition for me to take any more from you."

"That's not true." When he started to argue, she put her hand over his mouth. "Listen to me. You have to. You were hurt so badly, you weren't healing, and yet still, you barely took enough blood to close up your wounds. Not only are there too many ferals, but we really don't know when Justine is going to come back, and she's every bit as old as you are. You might be the Nightkind King with all the Power you've gained from taking blood oaths, but she hasn't been injured like you have." She searched his gaze. "It's not like you can safely feed from the other Vampyres, is it?"

Closing his fingers over her slender wrist, he removed her hand. "No. They're feral because they've had too much drug-contaminated blood. I can't risk it."

She shrugged. "There you go. You need to do it for both our sakes, because I'm counting on you to help me get out of here."

His mouth tightened, but her logic was inescapable, so after a moment, he nodded. "Fine, I'll take more blood but only a little, and only after you've eaten."

"Okay." Not meeting his gaze any longer, she pulled off his lap to explore the contents of the grocery bag.

Only then did he remember that he was supposed to hate her. It was a little late in the day to be recalling something as essential as that. Rolling to his feet, he rubbed his face and regarded her thoughtfully.

He thought about saying something dismissive about the kiss, but he couldn't help but note how studiously she avoided meeting his eyes.

All right, then. Message received. It looked like they were going to pretend it never happened.

Confused, he scowled at her. He didn't know if he felt relieved or not. The aggressive, predatory part of him wanted to push for any advantage he could get, but his hands were still damp from her tears.

He clenched them into fists. Then he went to complete the job she'd started on demolishing the frame of her cot.

Within a few moments, he had snapped off two of the remaining three legs to use as stakes. He paused to look around. Aside from the cot and the blanket, there was virtually nothing else in the bleak cell. She really had pulled off a couple of miracles, with very little to work with.

There was a fresh scar on the rock at the back wall, and he strode over to investigate the spot. It was where the bullet from Anthony's gun had struck. Julian rubbed the area with the ball of his thumb. She was so damn lucky the asshole had chosen to give her a warning and not shoot her outright, and doubly lucky that she hadn't been hit by the ricochet.

Turning away, he picked up the blanket and the thin mattress. After tearing a strip of cloth from the edge of the blanket, he rolled the bedding into a tight bundle and tied it with the strip.

Now it was Melly's turn to ask him, "What are you doing?"

He glanced at her. "We have no idea how big this tunnel system is, or how complicated it might be. We also have no idea where we are in it, so we don't know how long it's going to take for us to find our way out. If we need to take a break and rest, it'll be a lot more comfortable to do it on a mat than on bare stone."

Her shoulders sagged. "I hadn't thought of that. When I first broke out of my cell, the tunnel system seemed pretty big."

"I'm not surprised." He walked back into the cell where he'd been chained. "If this is anything like the other tunnel system, some of it is natural, but Justine's definitely added to it over the years. This area and these cells are man-made."

"I hate her so much." She popped the last of the sandwich in her mouth and peeled a banana. "I'm not used to hating somebody that passionately. I hope I get to see her turn to dust."

The drawn, tight look to her features had eased, and a healthy flush of color banished the paleness from her golden skin. Squatting beside her, he opened the bag to look inside. There were more bottles of water, chocolate bars, a bag of granola mix, some single-portion packages of cheese, a couple more sandwiches wrapped in the distinctive paper of a well-known deli in San Francisco, another banana and a few apples.

"Look at that," he said. "He really brought you good food."

She said bitterly, "I guess this was supposed to be my reward for doing whatever he wanted."

Julian met her gaze. Letting go of the bag, he stroked her hair off her face and pressed his lips to her forehead.

"I have such extreme, conflicting urges," he murmured. "I still need to tear him limb from limb, but at the same, I also wish you could have gotten the chance to stake him twice. Because damn, Melly, now that I know you're all right and my heart isn't going to explode out of my chest, I can tell you, it was a mighty fine thing to witness what you did."

Leaning against him, she sniffed. "I done good, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did." He laid his cheek on top of her head, and they rested together like that for a few minutes, without words of anger or pain spoiling the air between them.

There was, however, plenty of sexual tension. He would have to be truly dead not to notice the way her soft, plump breast felt as it pressed against his bare chest, or the way her fingers curled around his bicep as he stroked her hair.

But it was a tension he held under strong control. Not that long ago, she had been in tears, and he still had a pack of ferals to kill.

That left room for her words to come back to him.

I told you I wasn't going to leave you.

No matter what you might think of me, or what anybody else might have said, I always keep my promises.

She had made promises to him before. Not forever promises or formal vows they hadn't gotten that far in their relationship but still, she had said things that he had internalized and relied upon. And he had believed her when she had said them.

If keeping her promises meant so much to her, why hadn't she kept those promises she had made to him then?

It felt excruciating to have Julian hold her, to kiss her on the forehead, to stroke her hair. Melly felt as if she were the one who was being staked, as a heavy nail of pain drove into her heart. Worse, she welcomed the pain, just so that she could feel his arms around her again.

Any moment now, she was going to get a spine and reject his overtures, but not just yet, not when he held her with such evident, overabundance of care, as if she were a person who had incalculable value to him.

Then she did something dumb. She closed her eyes and pretended the last twenty years had never happened, and that all of the emotions she felt for Julian were strong, bright, shining and true.

But she couldn't maintain the pretense, because the twenty years had happened. She had become a different person. She was older, more cynical and guarded, and this powerful man who held her so gently, and treated her so kindly, was still the same bastard he had always been. A leopard did not change his spots. A battle-worn lion did not lose his scars.

Oh, soldier, how did we come to such a place?

With a shock, she realized she had murmured that aloud, as he whispered into her hair, "Damned if I know."

Well there, she had a spine after all, because suddenly it decided to start working again. She stiffened and pulled out of his arms. "You need to feed," she said abruptly. "Then while you go kill things, I'm going to eat a candy bar. After that, we're going to waltz out of here. Got it?"

He had lines on either side of his mouth that deepened as he almost smiled. "Got it."

She held out her wrist. He took her hand in his and held it, as he speared her with a hard, intent gaze.

"We need to get one thing straight, you and I," he said, his voice soft and ruthless. "And we're going to do it before I bite you, so we don't have the bloodlust interfering with either of our thinking. I have every intention of taking you again. And taking you. I'm going to make you want it so bad, when I finally sink my cock in you, you'll cry from the relief."

She felt her eyes widen from shock. Once again, he knocked her breathless. Senseless. Her mouth worked, as her brain tried to sputter out something pithy enough with which to lambast him.

She had to lambast him. She had to drown out the teeny, tiny part of her that had clapped its hands and squeaked finally, yay!

After a Herculean effort, she managed to whisper, "You're delusional if you think I would ever let you take me again, after the way you've treated me. You see this?" With her free hand, she waved her fingers in the air down the length of her torso as she shook her head. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You're neeevvver getting this goodness again."

At that he gave her a real smile, a slow one, full bore, that creased his rough face. The impact hit her hard, in all her most vulnerable places. In desperation, she thought, how am I ever going to stand strong against him?

As his fangs descended and his eyes flashed red, he told her, "We'll see about that, princess. We'll see."

With that, he bit her wrist, not brutally, but with an elegant, lethal efficiency. Before the pleasure hit, she had room to wonder, And I thought Anthony was remarkably stupid. How much more stupid is Justine, to make such an enemy out of this man?

Then the sweetest, most delicious euphoria stole into her veins. She didn't welcome it. She was still angry. With her free hand, she slid her fingers through his short salt-and-pepper hair at the back of his head.

She whispered, "And you dare to accuse me of cheating. How many people have you seduced just like this?"

Anger flashed in his reddened eyes. He glared at her even as his mouth pulled on her with such knowledgeable care. Gods, she wanted to smack him.

Or kiss him.

No, definitely smack him...

As she tore off his jeans, straddled his prone body and took him.