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“No, I’ll come to you. You’ll be safer at your penthouse.” I was already sliding into my shoes.

“All right. Hurry.” Her breathy plea turned, even as the nasty voice in the back of my mind replayed the scenes of horror I had brought to life.

The dancing, burning man whose face melted like wax. The screaming prostitute I’d dangled high up over the Hollywood sign, laughing as her shrieks for mercy disappeared into the empty air before letting her fall to her death. The vampires I had hunted the way a man hunts game in the forest, attacking them when they least expected, sometimes holding them captive in remote locations until they begged for the mercy of death rather than face another day of starvation. And that was when I would drag them into the sunlight—weak, unable to fight me off—and watch them writhe and wail as the sun’s rays blistered them on contact and eventually turned them into piles of ashes.

She wouldn’t want me to hurry if she knew I was capable of those things and so much more. But that didn’t stop me from getting in the first cab to come my way and hurrying to her. It didn’t stop me from going straight to her penthouse and pulling her into my arms the moment the door was open.

I looked around while I kicked the door shut behind us. “We’re alone,” she whispered, answering my silent questions. “He’ll be dazed for a while, but he won’t feel a thing. Or hear a thing, either.”

“You cast a spell on him?”

“I need to be with you.” She slid her hands under my jacket and pushed it over my shoulders, to the floor. I lifted her up until her legs could wrap around my hips, and she pointed down the hall to her bedroom.

I could close the door behind us and block out the rest of the world. I could turn my attention to her, focus on Vanessa and her pleasure, and mine.

I could pretend nothing else existed but us as I lowered her to the bed and she pulled me down with her.

We both could.