After only a few sips, he eased his fangs out of her flesh and held still, his mouth resting in the place where he had bitten her. Even with the hostility that now radiated from him, he still took care this time to make sure the tiny wounds had stopped bleeding before he left her. She realized her hands were shaking and clenched them into fists to make them stop.

Then he lifted his head and snapped, "You did cheat."

She snapped back, "Like I said, you're delusional. I never cheated on you. I loved you with all of my heart, and you took that and trampled it into the ground. Even after the three months we spent together, you couldn't even give me the benefit of the doubt."

At that, strangely, all his hostility seemed to vanish. He looked deathly tired, more tired than any other man she had ever seen. "Didn't you stop to think that I might have loved you with all of my heart once, too?"

With a single sentence, he wrenched her heart out of her body. She cried out, "Then why couldn't you have had a little faith in me?"

"I had faith in a lot of things once," he said. "Including you. Then reality came along and trampled that into the ground as well."

As she stared, his expression went blank, truly blank, as if he had become too empty to show even tiredness. He bent to scoop up his stakes.

More disturbed than she had been in a long time, she said, "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to kill things." He spoke without emotion, like an automaton. "It's the one thing I still remain good at."

He snatched Anthony's keys up as well, and strode out of the cell. Moments later, the snarling began. She covered her ears and buried her face against her raised knees, while inside, she remained frozen in a place of stricken realization.

TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT ME TO DO, AND I'LL DO IT! he had said.

You're going to be okay, he had told her. You, not we.

He had come down here in the tunnels, fully expecting to die. Calmly waiting for it. Possibly a part of him had been hoping for it?

He's broken, she thought. Something, or a combination of things, has broken him. In spite of everything he had done to her, she had room to feel a horrified sense of compassion.

He had also gone into the darkness to fight over a hundred ferals for her, just as he had given himself up to Justine, without complaint or hesitation.

She was so tired. This wasn't supposed to be her fight.

But she couldn't take it.

Leaping to her feet, she snatched up Anthony's big flashlight, her stake and the gun. She checked the gun over quickly. It was a large .357 revolver, with seven bullets left. She should save two bullets in case Justine showed up. Unless she got incredibly lucky with a shot, those bullets wouldn't kill Justine, but they might help to slow her down if it came to a fight.

That meant Melly still had five. Five shots to the head or heart would mean there would be five less ferals that Julian would have to fight.

A glint of metal caught her eye. It was Anthony's whistle. After a second's hesitation, she snatched it up too.

Her heart rate revved up in preparation for battle. She strode out of the cell.

The scene at the gate was something out of a nightmare, dark and claustrophobia-inducing. Ferals upon ferals clawed over each other to get at Julian, who whirled, lunged and kicked so fast, she could barely track his movements.

Steadily and inexorably, he was taking them out, two by two. He was an unstoppable juggernaut, but there were too many of them for him to stake without taking some damage himself. They slashed and tore at him with fangs and talons, and blood flew everywhere.

It sickened and enraged her all over again.

She told him telepathically, I'm right behind you.

She caught a brief, piercing flash of his reddened gaze. He snapped, Go back to the cell and lock the door!

I can't do that. You're going to have to make sure they don't get through the gate. She set the flashlight on the floor and directed the beam toward the open gate where Julian fought. What if we tried blowing Anthony's whistle? It might back them off.

There are too many, he said. They're not just trained to back away. They're trained to expect food, and we don't have any to give them. We can't risk confronting them outside the only shelter we've got we've got to get rid of them.

Sometimes she hated that he was right.

She told him, Watch yourself. I'm firing to the right of you.

Some of the ferals turned their attention away from Julian and fixed on her. Taking careful aim at one, she pulled the trigger.

The revolver was a lot bigger than the trim semiautomatic pistols she used in target practice. Not only did it have quite a kick, but the report in the enclosed space was deafening.

The forehead of the feral she had shot exploded. More blood spurted everywhere, until the feral's body collapsed into dust. The noise made her ears hurt, but damn, making a feral disappear felt good.

Carefully, she took aim again. She couldn't afford to waste a single bullet. Refusing to let the emotional impact of the battle push her into shooting too quickly, she didn't pull the trigger until she felt confident of her shot.

Another feral vanished into dust.

Then a third. And a fourth.

After the fifth one vanished, she almost kept shooting. It was so difficult not to pull the trigger again when she saw how hard Julian was laboring. His broad, muscular chest and heavy, powerful arms were torn again with wounds. He was caught in the toughest kind of marathon, one that wouldn't come to an end until every one of his enemies was dead.

How many times throughout the years had he been forced to fight alone, without anyone to stand by him or guard his back? For so much of his long life, he had been a commodity to somebody to his owner in the arena, to his emperor, and then for so many centuries to his sire, Carling. Even now, he was a commodity to the Nightkind council, useful and yet never fully trusted, no matter how much he did for the demesne.

Sometimes he would have had people at his back. Yolanthe was unswervingly loyal. So was Xavier, and Julian had once commanded entire armies.

But all too many times, he would have had nobody. Certainly there wouldn't have been anybody in that ancient Roman arena, not for the young, half-starved alley cat Julian had once been.

Fighting back tears, she tucked the gun into her waistband.

She might not be able to do anything for that long-ago young man, but she could by gods do something for him now.

When she had a good, strong grip on her stake, she strode forward.

Nine.

T.

he pack of ferals had thinned markedly. Now there were only thirty or so, but those would be the hardest thirty to kill. They were probably the strongest and the smartest of the pack, while she and Julian were at their most tired.

Standing to one side of the open gate, just out of reach, Melly watched them closely until one strained too far between the bars in an effort to grab her. She snatched its arm, hauled it hard against the bars and lunged forward to stake it.

At the same moment, one of the others darted forward to snatch at her. Fire exploded along her shoulder and upper arm, as it raked her with its talons. Shit, shit, shit. Clutching her shoulder, she stumbled back.

Goddammit, Melly go back to the cell! Julian roared in her head. At the same moment, he lunged at the feral who had attacked her and tore its head from its shoulders. It vanished in a spray of dust.

Quickly, she inspected her new wounds. While they were painful, the deeper muscle underneath appeared to be undamaged. Experimentally, she flexed her arm. Ow, ow. It hurt like hell, but she could use it if she forced herself.

Don't be a wimp, Melly. Suck it up.

The good news was, the scent of her fresh blood had attracted more ferals away from Julian.

(That was good news? Man, their lives needed to get better fast.) She told Julian, I wonder when it's going to occur to you that I'm never going to take any of your orders.

Turning his head briefly, his gaze fixed on her new injuries. He hissed at her before lunging into another whirlwind flurry of fighting.

The sight of him took her aback. Gods, he could be a scary-looking son of a bitch sometimes. Easily the most muscular and powerfully built of all the combatants, he looked every bit as feral as the Vampyres he fought. She was only glad he was on her side.

You're already hurt again, he snapped.

So are you, she pointed out, exasperated.

One of the ferals was trying to inch behind Julian, its red gaze fixed on her. Ew, it was salivating.

With a massive kick, Julian launched its body into the air. It slammed into a wall and hit the ground, rolled over and started to stalk her again.

Adrenaline tried to dump into her bloodstream, and her body sneered at the effort. Finally, she had to face facts she was cooked. It took serious concentration for her to remain on her feet, and she didn't have the physical strength left to drive her stake into another Vampyre's heart.

Oh, hell. Pulling out the gun, she shot the feral between the eyes, and it collapsed into dust.

I wondered what you were saving those two bullets for, Julian said.

I was trying to hold them in reserve in case Justine returned before we got out.

He told her, Better to use them now when we know we need them.

There was a pause in the battle. Five ferals remained, along with Julian and Melly. Everybody was injured. They all took stock of each other.

Damn it, Melly said. She took the last shot, and another feral vanished in a sprinkle of dust.

The remaining four ferals were the smartest ones of all. They edged back down one of the tunnels, red gazes fixed on Julian's menacing figure.

"Oh, no you don't," he growled. He started after them.

Alarm pulsed. "Julian, no. Let them go."

"I'll be damned if I'll creep through these tunnels wondering when they might come at our backs." He tossed the keys at her. "Lock the gate."

Her hands were too unsteady to catch them, and they fell at her feet.

He ran after the ferals and disappeared into the darkness.

This time, she didn't have any choice but to obey him. She didn't have the energy to run after them. Nor did she feel capable of guarding the open gate by herself if more ferals appeared.

More ferals?

The thought caused her to sag where she stood. After fumbling with the keys, she found the right one and locked the gate. Then she slid into a heap against the wall while she waited for him to return.

In the normal course of events, she didn't have a single doubt that he could take all four of the ferals without breaking into a sweat. But he had been fighting for a long time. He was injured again, and before that he had been tortured and drained almost to death.

Closing her eyes, she huddled into herself and whispered, "He has to be okay. That's all there is to it."

The way he had kissed her earlier. She touched her lips with unsteady fingers, reliving the moment.

The world was full of beautiful, strong, wise women, but he had held her and kissed her like she was the only woman in the world. The only one. And she had kissed him back in just the same way, because for the last twenty years, he had been the only man.

Not for the first time, she thought to herself, I have to get over him and move on.

The thought didn't carry any weight. It never had.

Let's face it. I'm as much in love with him as I've ever been, maybe even more so, because after so many years, I sure don't look at him through rosy-tinted glasses anymore. I see every single one of his flaws all too well, and I love him anyway.

Now what am I going to do?

"Melly."

The sound of his voice, roughened and gravelly as it was, ran over her like a physical caress. Shivering, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

He stood with a hand holding one of the bars of the gate. In his other hand, he gripped his two stakes. His jeans were filthy, and so was the wide expanse of the bare skin on his chest. Only some of his wounds had healed, she noticed. Precious blood trickled from others. He was dangerously depleted again.

There was worry in his wolflike gaze as he watched her. He said, "Toss me the keys."

She made an immense effort and flung them at the gate. They skittered across the floor until he stopped them with the toe of one boot.

As he unlocked the gate, she asked, "Did you get them?"

"I got one. The others got away. Maybe I could have gotten them too, if I'd kept going after them, but I didn't want to get too far away from you." He knelt beside her. "I need to look at your shoulder."

"I'm not hurt as badly as you are. I'll live," she said, although she let him ease the edges of her top away from her skin. "I was sitting here thinking. You know, I was always the good twin. Bailey was the one who took risks and broke the rules. Now she's off having adventures in Jamaica."

"Not at the moment, she isn't. She's in LA, helping your mom look for you." He wore a fierce frown as he inspected her wounds.