His jaw locked.

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t being the most gracious victim.

Good southern manners had never been her strong suit.

Simon’s hand fell away and she pressed the frigid pack against her head. “Don’t worry…about me,” she managed. “I’m a fast healer.” For a human, anyway. She dragged her gaze away from him and scanned the room. Bare walls. No photos, no paintings. A TV, DVD player, game consoles. And in the corner…what was that? A porn magazine? “Ah, your place?”

A grim nod.

The ice shifted beneath her fingers. “Look, Simon, I appreciate you trying to come to my aid—”

“I saved your ass, Dee, again.”

True, though she was a bit sketchy on the details. “I don’t…I can’t remember what happened after I left the alley.” The vamps had jumped her. She’d fired her gun. Run out of bullets. Started staking.

Too many of them.

They’d knocked her down. Her head had thudded into the ground and—

“I woke up in her blood.” She didn’t even know the woman’s name. Another vic. So many nameless faces.

Simon began to ease back. Dee’s left hand grabbed for him. “I didn’t kill her.”

His head cocked. “Thought you just said you didn’t remember.”

Dee swallowed and hoped she was telling the truth. “I wouldn’t kill a human.”

“You had the stake against her heart last night.”

“To scare her, not to kill her!” Oh, bad idea. Shouting made the throbbing much worse. “Simon, trust me, I-I wouldn’t kill a human, not after what happened to—” She broke off, clamping her lips together. So, what? A bump on the head had made her super chatty?

“You want me to trust you?” he asked.

Dee realized her fingers were digging into his wrist. With an effort, she unclamped and nodded.

“You tell me why you’re so gung-ho against the vamps, and make me believe you’d never stake an unarmed woman. Then we’ll see about talking trust.”

The ice had begun to melt. A trickle of water slid down the back of her neck. “My story’s not so different from yours.”

He didn’t speak.

Fine. He wanted her soul naked—that was the way it would have to be. Because right now, she needed him. Until I can find out what the hell is happening. “When I was fifteen, I came home to find a bloodbath at my house.”

Mom? Mom? Where are you?

Dee ignored that soft voice whispering in her head. The voice of the girl she’d been a lifetime ago.

She cleared her throat and said, “My date dropped me off at the door. My first date.” He’d wrapped his sweaty palms around her shoulders and given her a kiss. Wet, sloppy, but her first kiss. Then he’d hightailed it out of there when he heard a thump from inside.

Vince had thought her dad was coming. The ex-marine, tough as nails guy who’d been cleaning his gun before they left.

“Dammit, I loved him so much,” she murmured. That stupid gun. She’d begged him to put the thing up before Vince arrived. People didn’t really do things like that, but he’d—

“The boy you were—”

A hard shake of her head. “No. Forget it.” She swallowed. “The lights were on when I went inside, but I couldn’t find anyone.” But she’d smelled a thick, hard odor.

Blood and death.

“I found my dad first. He was in the hallway. His throat had been ripped open.” So much blood. She hadn’t screamed when she’d seen him. She should have, she’d even tried, but her breath had been gone.

She’d dropped to her knees next to him. His precious gun had still been in his hands. Her dad never loaded the thing so it hadn’t done him a bit of good.

Simon’s fingers skated down her cheek and Dee realized she’d dropped her gaze. His hand curled under her chin and he forced her to look at him again.

Better him than the past. “I found my sister next.” She paused, felt the pain. “She was seven.”

They’d killed her in her bedroom, right there next to Sara’s pretty pink bed and her tall, white doll house.

“Some vamps get off on children’s blood. They think it makes them stronger,” he said. “Dee, look at me.”

She was, but she could still see Sara. “She used to drive me crazy. I was so much older and—” And Simon probably didn’t care. He didn’t want to know what a bitch she’d been to her kid sister. Didn’t want to know that she’d run straight to Sara’s room after finding her father, her heart burning her chest. When she’d found Sara, she’d fallen.

The scream had come then. Breaking from her mouth and shattering her.

“I screamed for her, for help, and then I heard the footsteps coming.”

So stupid.

“They would have heard you the minute you entered the house,” Simon said and his face hardened. “The bastards were just playing with you.”

She knew that now. They’d let her find the bodies, let the terror and grief break her, and they’d crept out to watch her. Sick, twisted freaks.

Then they’d attacked.

“Their mouths were stained with blood. When I saw their teeth, I-I didn’t believe what I was seeing at first.”

Because who would believe vampires were real? That they’d just slaughtered your family?

“We’ve been waiting for you, little Sandra Dee, waiting so long.”

Dee jumped and the ice pack tumbled from her fingers. “What? What the hell did you just say?”

His fingers fell away. “I said they were waiting for you, probably trying to make sure you were alone before they attacked. It’s the way the bastards work.”

Yeah, it was.

“How did you get away?”

Because of a miracle. Or, no, maybe because the devil had gotten bored and decided to stir up hell on earth. “My mother came down the stairs.”

Still alive. Dee had gasped those words. One vamp had held her right arm, another her left. She’d thought they were going to rip her apart. And the other vamp bastard—the one with the blond hair, coal black eyes, and the lying, kind face—he’d watched her with a smile.

Her mother had stumbled down the steps. Thick, gaping wounds covered her neck. “The vamps hadn’t been easy with her.” A rusty, broken laugh. “When are they ever easy?” A kind kill wasn’t generally an option for vampires. They liked prey to suffer.

Blood had soaked her mother’s shirt. Her face…“She was so pale. Trembling. And her eyes, they were—” Changing. Fading from a brilliant gold to dark shadows. She hadn’t known what that darkness meant. Not then.

“They laughed when they saw her. Told her that she couldn’t have a drink.” Mom doesn’t drink. The stupid thought had been the fifteen-year-old’s. Her mother never touched alcohol. Never.

His jaw locked but his gaze never wavered. “Finish it,” he gritted.

She didn’t want to. Dee squeezed her eyes shut.

Darkness.

Just like her mother’s eyes.

Were all vampires really bad?

Some hunters claimed a vampire lost his soul when he was transformed. That goodness died and only evil remained. A shifter had told her that once—he’d said the decay and the rot that he smelled from vamps came from the decay inside, where a soul should be.

Maybe the old fox had been full of bullshit, but she’d asked Jude and he’d said he caught the same stench any time a vamp was near.

Except once, he’d told her about a vamp in LA who—

“How did you get away?” he repeated.

Dee opened her eyes. “She—she had a weapon. That thump I’d heard before, she’d broken a table. I guess they didn’t think she had any fight left, but she did.” A bit of pride there. “When she reached the landing, she lunged and stabbed the lead bastard in the back.”

A moment of weakness. That was all she’d needed. Just a moment.

“Go, Sandra Dee. Go,” she whispered her mother’s last words. A sad smile curved her lips. “And I did. I ran and I left her there.” To die.

Rage and fear had twisted her stomach as she rushed down the hall and out of the house. “I left her,” she repeated, voice still soft. The other vamps had turned on her mother when she’d stabbed the leader, and their attack had given Dee that one moment to break away.

Kill them. The thought now was the same as it had been then. Kill them. She hadn’t wanted to get help. She’d wanted to find someone to kill the bastards in her house.

“I ran outside. Went to a neighbor’s.” They hadn’t been close. Not close enough to hear her first scream. If only.

Mark McKenley and his wife Julie had wanted to go to her house, right away. They’d called the cops, and Mark had taken off with his old hunting shotgun. Dee remembered rushing after him, screaming that the gun wouldn’t be enough.

“Something happened in my house.” She licked her lips. “Fire…the smoke, I saw it the minute I went back outside.”

Mom!

“Fire burns fast, you know. So fast.” Greedy flames, licking up the side of her house, peeling the paint away in thick bubbles, eating at her home.

“I know,” his gruff whisper.

Julie had held her back. Mark, sixty, with stooped shoulders and shaking hands, had burst into the burning house, screaming her mother’s name.

He’d stayed inside, until the firefighters arrived and dragged his body out.

Dead. Like the others.

My fault. She hadn’t even been able to look at Julie after that.

“The cops and firefighters didn’t believe me when I told them what happened.” Not that she could blame them. Hell, they’d probably thought she was crazy or high. “The story ran in the paper a few days later.” She’d read it with tears streaming down her face. “They ruled it a murder-suicide. After the fire stopped, the only remains they found inside were—well, they said they could identify Mom, Dad, and Sara.” Not her. Not now. “No sign of the vamps, of course.”

“Fuck.” Understanding in the guttural word. He knew where this was going.

“They said my mom killed Dad and Sara, then she shoved a knife into her own throat.”

Bullshit. Not her mom. Not the woman who’d sacrificed her own life so Dee could get away. “No one would believe me.” The steady throb in her head was driving her crazy, but she’d deal.

She always did.

“What did you do? Where did you go?”

To the streets. “I took off on my own.” With the stupid idea of finding the vamps who’d attacked her family and killing them. But, at fifteen, she hadn’t known how to live on the streets. She’d been close to starving a week later, dirty, cold. Her jaw locked. “I managed to get by.” A shrug. Like she could shrug away those dark years. “Then I met Jason Pak.” No, he’d found her. Stalked her and found her in that roach-infested apartment she’d bleed to pay for.

“Pak.” He echoed the name. Most folks in Baton Rouge knew of Pak, even if they hadn’t personally met the guy. Bad reputations carried too easily.

“The first thing he told me…He said I wasn’t crazy.” But she’d thought he was.

“And the second?”

Her fingers fisted. “He said he’d teach me to kill the bastards.”

Pak had always been a man of his word.

“I haven’t found those vamps yet, but I will.” One day. Then maybe she’d stop hearing Sara’s screams late at night. Maybe. Or maybe she’d just hear them until she died.

His gaze roved over her face. Her neck. “They didn’t bite you that night?”

“No.” Adamant. A good thing, too, because most folks didn’t understand just how dangerous even a little nip from a vamp could be.

Once a vampire took a victim’s blood, he had a psychic link with his prey. If he was strong enough, he could steal thoughts, memories, and send seductive whispers in the hours of darkness.

Some of them—those ancient Born Masters—it was possible they could even control their prey. Get humans to follow their every twisted command. Like sick, freaking puppets.

Dee never wanted to be a puppet. Never.

Taking a deep breath, she shoved off the couch. Their thighs brushed and she fought to ignore the wave of heat from that quick touch.

Her knees shook a little when she stood. For just a second, black spots danced before her eyes and the nausea rolled in her stomach.

“Dee?” He was there, rising, too, and putting a bracing hand on her shoulder.

Careful. Don’t get used to him being there.

Alone. That was how she lived her life. How she’d keep on living it.

She stiffened her spine and lifted her chin. “I’m all right.” Not a total lie. Dee was pretty sure there was no immediate threat of death.

Slowly, she turned to face Simon. She looked up at him. “After what happened to my family, do you really think I’d ever take a human’s life? I couldn’t do that. I’d be the same as—”

Them.

The vampires. Stealing life, spilling blood.

“I don’t remember what happened in that room, but I know I wouldn’t have staked her.” The vampires. Had they made her watch and she couldn’t even remember it? Had the woman begged her for help?

Simon weighed her with icy eyes. Silence filled the room, heavy and thick, then he gave a grim nod. “If you’d wanted to kill her, she would have been dead on the ground last night.”