“You will not be pleased to discover I have failed in my duty,” Jagr retorted, offering another bow. “Forgive me.”

Before Regan could guess his intent, Jagr was heading for the nearby stairs to the terrace, his back stiff and his shoulders bunched with tension.

“Jagr, wait.” She stomped her foot as he deliberately ignored her plea and disappeared through the open door. “Dammit. He is…”

“Complicated,” Styx helpfully supplied. “Yes, I know.”

Forgetting the fact that she was confronting perhaps the most lethal demon in the world, not to mention her current brother-in-law, Regan clenched her fists and headed in Jagr’s wake.

Walk out on her?

Not gonna happen.

“Well, I’m just about to uncomplicate him,” she muttered. “Excuse me.”

“Regan.”

The dark voice was pleasant, but edged with enough of a command that she instinctively halted to glance over her shoulder.

“What?”

His beautiful face was somber in the moonlight. “I would ask to meet with you and discuss your future.”

Future? Shit. She didn’t want to deal with the expectations her call had no doubt raised in her sister. Or any future that might include a family she’d never wanted.

Not when she had an obstinate, mule-headed, world’s most aggravating vampire to straighten out.

“I…” She halted her instinctive denial as she met the steady golden gaze. He wasn’t budging on this. It might as well have been tattooed across his forehead. She sighed. Great. Just what she needed. Another ruthless vampire with an agenda. “Yeah, fine. But later.” She headed for the door. “Much later.”

Sadie was beyond pissed off.

Nothing unusual.

Being pissed off was a constant state of mind lately.

No. Not lately.

She could pinpoint the precise time her life had gone into the shitter.

The moment Regan-freaking-Princess-of-Weres had hit town.

Damn the bitch.

This was all her fault.

She was the one who had called the wrath of the vampires down on the curs. She was the one who had brought Salvatore snooping around where he didn’t belong. She was even responsible for that damned gargoyle who was proving to be such a pain in the ass.

And yet, Sadie knew she would be the one held to blame for the entire fiasco.

Caine was not a cur who accepted failure.

Hell, the last person to fail him was stuffed and mounted to stand as a gruesome reminder of what happens to those who disappoint the self-proclaimed leader of the curs.

Which, no doubt, explained why Duncan had done a disappearing act, along with the witch.

Well, screw them.

Sadie didn’t run. She didn’t hide.

Not any more.

Caine commanded she capture Regan, come hell or high water, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

Unfurling the whip, she sliced another ribbon of flesh off Gaynor’s back as he cowered in a corner of the basement.

When they had returned to the tea shop, after yet another futile search for the pureblood, to discover her guards dead and the vampire missing, Sadie had lost no time in taking out her frustrations on the imp.

She couldn’t think straight with her temper blazing and her lust for pain clogging her mind.

Besides, she couldn’t risk shifting. Not when her time was running out.

“Stupid bastard,” she gritted, clenching the whip as she watched the blood pour down the imp’s shredded back. “You swore to me the vampire couldn’t escape from your prison.”

“He didn’t.”

“Ah.” Another crack of the whip. “You have him hidden in the closet?”

The imp screamed. “No.”

“The Dumpster?”

“No.” Gaynor pressed even tighter to the wall, looking remarkably like Culligan, as he whimpered and cowered beneath her strikes. “But he didn’t get out on his own. I can smell that female Were all over the cell.”

The knowledge that Gaynor was right did nothing to ease her fury. While Sadie had been out tracking the damned Were so she could convince her to concede defeat peacefully, Regan had outwitted them all.

Now Sadie didn’t have her prize, and her one bargaining chip was gone.

Regan would pay for that.

In blood.

“And how did she find this place?”

“I don’t know.”

“Liar.” Needing her punishment to be a bit more personal, Sadie stepped forward to kick the imp in the head. There was a satisfying thump as he reeled to the side. “You must have revealed something when you spoke with her. After all, no one would suspect that a demon with half a brain would be stupid enough to hide his most private lair directly beneath his very public tea shop.”

“Please…” Ridiculously, the imp tried to drag himself across the floor. “I said nothing, I swear.”

She followed his painful path, kicking him in the side. “So a clueless Were barely out of diapers managed to outsmart a centuries-old imp?”

Curling into a ball, Gaynor managed to gather enough balls to glare at her.

“She also managed to get past four of your curs.”

Sadie stilled, distracted by a sudden, unpleasant thought.

“Yes, she did,” she said slowly. “And her scent wasn’t outside the building. Why?”

There was a long pause as Gaynor struggled to breathe with his collapsed lung.

“Maybe she’s found a witch of her own,” he at last panted.

“Or taken mine,” Sadie growled, her eyes glowing in the dark as she considered the various possibilities. “Of course, all she really needed was to get her greedy little hands on one of the amulets.”

Gaynor grunted as he received another kick to the head. “Why are you punishing me? I didn’t give her a damn amulet.”

“Why am I punishing you?” Leaning down, she grabbed the imp by the hair and glared into his ruined face. “Because I can, you pathetic worm.”

Chapter 17

Jagr wasn’t surprised to discover his hands shaking as he braided his hair and slipped on a clean pair of jeans. The hot shower might have been capable of washing the filth from his skin, but it did nothing to wash away the lingering effects of his madness.

Or the horrifying memory of his fingers squeezing into Regan’s throat.

Nothing would ever wash that away.

He had come so close…

Too close.

Leaning against the wall of the bathroom, Jagr banged his head with enough force to crack the marble.

In his mind, the images of blood-soaked corridors tormented him. Those hours of slaughtering Kesi and her clan were still wrapped in fog, but not the long journey out of her lair. Or the unstable years that followed when his rampages would strike without warning, leaving anyone in the vicinity slaughtered.

Over the past centuries he’d allowed himself to believe that those days were behind him. He’d buried his rage deep, and carefully honed his control. Oh, he would always possess a dangerous temper and a ready willingness to use violence when necessary. But he never unleashed his full fury.

Not until tonight.

Again the image of Regan, her eyes wide and her lips parted as he crushed her throat, seared through his mind.

No.

He would never, ever take such a risk again.

Ignoring the unexpected wrench of agony at the mere thought of walking away from Regan, Jagr forced himself to leave the bathroom and returned to the connecting bedroom.

He tossed his satchel on the bed, digging out his remaining daggers before shoving his used clothes into the bag.

He was reaching for the clean shirt he’d left on a side table when the unmistakable scent of jasmine had him spinning toward the door.

Stepping into the bedroom, Regan allowed her gaze to skim over the open satchel on the bed before returning to linger on his still bare chest.

A heat flushed through Jagr as her emerald eyes flared with awareness, tracing the scars that ran the length of his stomach.

Before Regan, he’d always kept his scars well hidden. They were a badge of shame that no one was allowed to witness. But standing before this beautiful Were, he felt nothing but searing pleasure as she studied his hard body. There was no disgust, no pity, no aversion.

Just pure appreciation.

Wanting nothing more than to yank off the jeans that were the only thing covering him, Jagr instead forced himself to turn back toward the bag.

His desire for Regan might be a brutal force, but it was nothing in comparison to his driving need to keep her safe.

For the first time in centuries, someone else’s existence mattered more than his.

With an impatient click of her tongue, Regan moved to perch on the end of the bed, her expression impossible to read, though there was no missing the anger that snapped in the air around her.

“I thought I would find you here, you big lummox.”

He didn’t look up. It was bad enough to have her so close. To be wrapped in her exotic scent and feel the heat of her body.

To actually see her on the bed where he’d so recently spread her legs and plunged into her damp heat…damn, it was enough to snap what little control he had left.