“How stupid do you think we are? Your offices are crawling with security.” Riker squeezed her arm to that wire-fine line between mere discomfort and pain.
“You’ll do it from here.”
Indignation at his order pierced her bubble of fear, and she squared her shoulders in defiance. “I don’t negotiate with vampires who break into my house and kill my friends.”
Riker smiled, the coldest smile she’d ever seen, which was saying something, since, as CEO of a multi— national conglomerate, she swam with grinning sharks on a daily basis.
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. This isn’t a negotiation. You cooperate or you die. It’s that simple.”
The other vampire appeared at Riker’s side. “If you’re going to torture her into giving us what we want, you might want to do it somewhere else. Our secret is
out. Two armed males approaching from ten o’clock.”
“They won’t be alone,” Riker said.
Myne’s long fingers found the hilt of the dagger at his hip, and a deep, rumbling purr pumped from his chest, which was still wet with Roland’s blood. “Bring ’em on.”
He relishes this. What a bastard. And what the hell was up with his fangs?
“My fangs?” Ginsu asked, and she realized she’d spoken out loud. “What, do I have something in them? Yo, Rike. Do I have a piece of that Roland dude in my teeth?”
Abruptly, stupidly enraged, Nicole lunged, but Riker caught her before she could punch Ginsu in the mouth.
“Last chance, Nicole,” he warned. “Call off the guards, and make the calls, or you’re coming with us.”
As if her body suddenly remembered she was in grave danger, a fresh shudder of fear wracked her. Her options were limited, and the few she had sucked. If she went with Riker and Ginsu, she’d probably die.
Then again, if she assured the guards that everything was okay, Riker and his steak-knife-toothed friend would likely kill her after she made the calls anyway.
So her choices came down to death . . . or death.
That left her with choosing the timing, and maybe the method, of her demise. The vampires would kill her after she finished with the phone calls, but maybe if she went with them, she could use the travel time to plot a way to signal for help or find an opportunity to use the one weapon she had for an escape.
Riker’s eyes flared at the same time she tasted blood. Dammit, she was biting her lip again. In front of a vampire. Might as well ring the damned dinner bell.
“Human,” Riker snapped. “Call off the guards.”
“Go to hell,” she said, with a lot more calm than she felt. But if she was going to die, she was going to go down fighting the way she hadn’t been able to when she was a child.
“You first.” He gripped her chin roughly in his palm and held her face up so she was forced to look at him. And then . . . Blackness.
Chapter 4
Fuck. Never before had Riker’s favorite four-letter word been so appropriate. Because fuck, they were fucked.
He caught Nicole as she slumped against him, a victim of his hypnotic ability. Given how terrifi ed she’d been, he’d expected her to capitulate to his demands and make things easy. But no, nothing could ever be that easy for him, could it?
“Man, I wish I had your hypno-talent,” Myne said, as he moved swiftly to one of the windows. “Handy for feeding.”
Riker barked out a laugh. “You wouldn’t use it. You like your food to fi ght back.”
“Adrenaline adds a pleasantly piquant note to the blood,” Myne said in an obnoxious French accent, as if he was a food critic describing a tasty menu item at his favorite restaurant. “Also, six more dudes are approaching from the main gate.”
Myne wheeled around in a blur; his speed made a mockery of most vampires’ already enhanced movement. Being a born vampire instead of a turned one came with a shit-ton of perks.
“We can slip out the back. There’s a row of hedges that’ll keep us in the shadows.” Riker had often taken advantage of the area designed to conceal the gardeners’ equipment when he used to sneak onto the property to visit his mate.
Myne glowered at the woman in Riker’s arms. “I don’t like this. She’ll slow us down.” He paused, probably hearing the guards’ shouts outside. “Leave her. We can work over the other Martin.”
Bad idea. The minute word got out about Riker and Myne’s breakin, Charles Martin would ramp up security measures and take every precaution to avoid a similar incident. No, it was Nicole or nothing.
“We won’t be able to get close to the bastard.”
Riker hefted Nicole more securely against his shoulder as Myne palmed two long blades from the sheaths on his back.