Gun shots sounded from somewhere else in the house, and the women all screamed and ran for the front door, only to find their way blocked by Freddy’s bulk. Not realizing he was there to help them, they cowered away, backing into a corner and clinging to each other, crying. Their terror was a palpable thing to Aden, like a bad taste in his mouth. They didn’t know if they were being rescued, or if something even worse had befallen them. But Aden didn’t have time to reassure them.

Meeting the terrified gaze of the human in his grip, he said, “Hell’s too good for you.” Squeezing so tightly he could feel the pressure of his own fingers meeting through the man’s flesh, he snapped the human’s spinal cord, then reached out with a thought and exploded his heart in his chest.

He dropped the piece of empty flesh, then turned to search the faces of the trembling women, confirming what his instincts had already told him. Sidonie wasn’t among them.

He’d taken the first step down the hallway when he heard her voice behind him.

“Aden?”

He spun around. She was leaning against the open door jamb of the kitchen. And she was covered in blood.

CARL PINTO DIDN’T cry out or even groan when Sid shot him. He gave her a shocked look, shuddered so hard he shook her with the force of it, and collapsed to the kitchen floor. He would have dragged her down with him, but Sid shoved away from him at the last minute, eyeing him warily as she backed away. She stood there for a moment, staring, waiting for him to go poof the way she’d always heard vampires did when they died. But he remained stubbornly corporeal, lying there on the floor, blood soaking his shirt, twitching like a man having a really bad dream.

Sid didn’t know what that meant. Would he be dead soon? Or would he suddenly rise like some movie villain to grab her ankle just when she thought she was free of him? She only knew he was down for now, and she intended to make sure he stayed that way. Her hands were shaking so badly she was barely able to press the magazine release on her Glock, and she nearly fumbled the empty mag when it dropped out of the grip. Drawing a deep breath, she forced herself to concentrate and shoved the empty mag into the pocket on the bellyband. It took her three tries before she managed to get her fingers around the backup magazine and slammed it into place. But by the time she was working the slide to chamber a round, she was feeling more confident, the hours of practice she’d put in on the gun range finally kicking in.

She started to lower the gun, intending to empty another ten rounds into Carl Pinto, when she heard women screaming behind her. The slaves! She’d left them in the bedroom, had hoped when she heard the fighting break out that they’d stay there until it was over.

Sid hurried to the open archway in time to see one of Pinto’s henchman with a gun pressed to the neck of one of the teenagers who’d been trapped in the room with her. And facing the gunman, his back to Sidonie, was the most welcome sight she’d ever seen. Aden. Her heart swelled with such relief, such complete confidence that she was safe, that she finally understood why all of those fairy tale princesses collapsed in tears at the sight of their heroes.

And what a hero he was. She gasped as Aden used his vampire speed to grab the slaver’s gun, seizing him by the throat and freeing the captive girl. Aden waited until all of the women were huddled in the corner, then . . . Ew. Okay, that was pretty gruesome, but it did the trick. The slaver collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut and, since he was human, leaving him quite dead.

Aden was about to start down the hallway to the bedrooms when she called out to him.

“Aden.”

He spun at the sound of her voice, his eyes flaring blue with power as he took in her blood-soaked clothes, her battered condition. She lifted a hand to her face self-consciously, but before she could say anything, he was there, wrapping her in his arms, holding her against his broad chest, and whispering things she couldn’t understand in her ear.

Sid let the tears come then, let all the fear and stress of the last few hours fall away as she held on to him. She would be strong again in a few minutes, but for now she let herself be the rescued maiden and cried with relief.

Aden pulled back until he could see her face. “Did he hurt you?” he asked, cupping her face in one big hand, rubbing a careful thumb over her tear-stained cheek. “Did he—” He drew a breath, searching her eyes, and she knew what he was asking.

“He didn’t touch me,” she said quickly. “Not like that.”

“The blood—”

“It’s mostly his,” she said turning to indicate Pinto who didn’t seem to have moved, but who still wasn’t dead, damn it.

A deep growl rumbled out of Aden’s chest as he stared at the fallen vampire.

“I shot him in the heart a bunch of times,” she said in exasperation. “But he won’t die.”

Aden grinned and ran a hand over her tangled hair. “Do your parents know you’re this bloody-minded?” He laughed when she swatted his arm and added, “You’ll do nicely.”

His expression turned grim when he switched his attention back to Pinto who, Sid was startled to see, was beginning to stir.

“He’ll recover if we don’t kill him,” Aden said. “But he’s your kill. Do you want the honor?”

“No,” she said immediately, patting his broad chest. She could live without that particular honor. “I did my part. He’s all yours now.”

“Good,” he said, and there was such malice in that one word, such cutting satisfaction, that Sid shivered, even though it wasn’t aimed at her. “Watch,” Aden murmured.

And Sid watched.

His gaze fixed on Pinto where he lay on the floor, twitching, Aden lifted his hand, palm up, almost like an invitation. But then his fingers closed slowly, and suddenly Pinto wasn’t only twitching anymore. His eyes flashed open, and he squealed like a pig as he tried to shove himself up from the floor, tried to roll onto his belly and crawl toward the open door, bent on escape. Aden’s fingers clenched into a tight fist, and Pinto’s back bowed as he screamed in agony, begging, sobbing, before collapsing like a rag doll, his cries becoming high-pitched and mindless, all semblance of rationality gone.

It took a few minutes, while Sid stared in mingled horror and satisfaction, but Pinto finally, finally, died, becoming nothing more than a pile of dust on the cracked linoleum floor.

Aden’s arms came around her, pulling her away from the mess that had been Pinto, hustling her through the destroyed living room. “The women will be taken care of,” he assured her, seeming to understand that their welfare would be her first concern. “But I’m getting you out of here.”

Sid nodded, sensing he was riding the sharp edge of violence, that as much as he wanted to see her safe, he needed it even more. For all his tough guy, female-hating image, Aden had a protective streak a mile wide. He needed to protect the people he cared about. He cared about those women, because he hated slavery of any kind. He cared about his vampire children. Sid had seen the way he looked at them, heard the respect in his voice when he spoke to them. And he cared about her. She’d seen the relief on his face when he’d realized she was alive and more or less unharmed, the pride when he’d offered her the honor of killing Pinto. He cared, and he needed to see her safe.

So she let him hustle her out the door and down the sidewalk. They were moving fast, with Bastien a few steps ahead of them. The others had stayed behind, presumably to take care of the captive women and clean up any evidence that they’d been there. She’d gotten the impression that vamps were very big on cleanup, leaving no footprints for anyone to follow. No wonder so few people knew anything about them.

It reminded her of the nightmare at Aden’s office.

“Is everyone dead?” she asked, nearly stumbling to a stop as the thought hit her.

Aden didn’t even slow down, just looped an arm around her waist and kept going. “Is who dead?” he asked absently, and Sid noticed for the first time that he’d grown more tense, not less, since they left the house, that he was scanning the street, as if expecting trouble.

“Is someone—” she started, but she never finished her sentence, because he suddenly wrapped both of his arms around her and spun away from the SUV.

“Bastien, down!” he roared, the end of his words lost as all three of the SUVs they were heading for suddenly blew up in a maelstrom of fire and debris. Sid screamed as the explosion rocked the night, blowing them off their feet and sending them sailing through the air. They hit the ground hard, Aden’s arms still around her, cushioning her fall, as pieces of burning metal and molten glass rained down around them.

“SIDONIE, STOP,” Aden growled. Realizing she couldn’t hear him over her own screams, he put a gentle hand over her mouth. Her eyes were huge and terrified as they finally focused on him, but she nodded convulsively and sucked in the last of her cries with a gulping breath when he lifted his hand.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

More frantic nodding, her fingers digging into his arm.

Aden held her tightly. She was trembling. She’d survived Carl Pinto, had nearly taken the damn vampire out herself, and this was her reward. They couldn’t even walk down the street without some asshole trying to blow them up.

Aden stood, taking Sidonie with him. They couldn’t stay here in the open. Instinct already had him searching the night, his power reaching out to find his latest would-be assassin. He would be nearby. He’d have wanted to witness Aden’s demise for himself, either to claim the kill in the challenge, or to report to whatever coward he worked for.

Aden heard Sidonie whimper, realized he was squeezing her too tightly, and consciously relaxed his grip. He was beyond furious.

“God damn it,” he muttered viciously. He looked up and found all four of his vampires surrounding him, the three he’d left in the house having rushed out at the sound of the explosion.

“Bastien!” he called. His lieutenant limped over to his side, and Aden glanced down to see blood soaking his pant leg.