A really, really long time.
Zane lifted his hands and tossed out a smile of his own. “Who’s first?”
They all attacked at once. Figured.
Dee sucked in a sharp breath and lunged forward. The seat belt cut into her chest. In the distance, the faint purple light of dawn streaked across the horizon.
Weakness.
“Dee? What’s wrong?”
She licked her lips. “Zane. For a minute there, I thought—” She’d thought he called her name.
“You should try to get some sleep,” Simon told her. “Save your strength.”
What strength? She could already feel the pull of the sun. The tiredness, the weakness. “You should sleep.” He’d been driving all night. Even outrun two troopers. Impressive. “Let me take the wheel for a while.”
He glanced her way. “I’m all right.”
She wasn’t gonna get into a pissing match with him. “Slow down and let me take the wheel.” The guy was sexy as hell, but bossy.
Good thing she liked him. Okay, more than liked him.
Don’t go there, not now.
Later there would be plenty of time to sort out the sick, tangled mess of her emotions. To see if there was anything between her and the vampire other than the thick, hot need.
A need she felt even now. Had felt since his fingers pressed against the top of her thigh hours before.
She knew he had to smell her arousal. Just as she’d caught his thickening scent.
And the big bulge in his jeans—yeah, another dead giveaway. But he’d ignored it. She was trying to do the same. Trying.
The car slowed. Finally. The speedometer eased back down, down…eighty, seventy…
They’d turned off the Interstate an hour ago. The SUV snaked down some lonely, twisting road that seemed to head nowhere.
But to death.
To Hueco.
The flash of headlights filled the SUV’s interior. Ah, after all this time on empty roads, they had company.
A motor roared and Dee tensed.
The lights behind them burned brighter, filling the SUV’s interior with a hot glow. The motor roared louder—coming for us. Not the friendly kind of company. “What the hell?” Dee jerked around. Someone was coming, all right, bearing down on them fast. Too fast. “Simon!”
The SUV raced forward, but, too late—
Never noticed the other car. Should have looked back sooner. Too worried about what waited ahead.
The car hit them. A jarring, brutal hit. Once. Twice.
The SUV flipped. Metal screamed. Glass shattered. The vehicle rolled across the road.
The air bags exploded. The world in front of Dee became a cloudy white.
Her claws ripped into the bags, cut them out of her way. She shoved the broken glass aside, managed to peer out the window—
And saw that another car had come from the waning darkness. No, not a car this time. A truck—coming right at them. At her.
Ambush. Fucking ambush.
Dee shoved against the metal, but the sun had already weakened her. Trapped. Pinned by the twisted door. “Simon!”
No answer. She turned to look at him. Not moving, slumped over the seat. “Simon?” A whisper now, not a scream.
No, no, this couldn’t happen to him.
Blood loss, the easiest way to kill a vamp.
The car slammed into them again. Then the truck hit.
Metal tore into her flesh, cutting past the skin, driving into the muscle and all the way down to the bone.
Simon.
This time, before the darkness came, this time, he was her last thought.
And her regret.
Chapter 14
It was the pain that woke him. The sharp stabs of agony and the nauseating throbs that shuddered through his body. Simon forced his eyelids to lift.
Bright.
Too fucking bright.
His eyes closed. What the hell had happened? He and Dee had been driving down one long, lonely ass stretch of road. They’d long since abandoned the Interstate. He’d had her sweet scent in his nose. He’d wondered when he’d have her again, then—
Lights.
The crunch of metal.
A scream.
Silence.
His eyes flew open. “Dee!” Should have been a roar, but it came out more like a weak growl.
The SUV twisted around him. Bent, broken. Metal dug into his side, cut into his legs and held him pinned in the seat. The steering wheel—shit, it felt like the thing was trying to go through his chest.
He couldn’t see Dee. The way he was trapped, Simon couldn’t even turn enough to see her.
And he couldn’t hear her. Not the rasp of her breath. Not the thud of her heart.
But he could smell—gasoline, rubber, and blood.
So much blood.
His. Hers.
Not Dee. No, not her.
The rays from the sun poured through the shattered windshield. He could feel the sun’s powerful drain on his strength. Human. That’s what he was right then.