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“I know,” she answered with a roll of hereyes.

The door swung open and Dante found himself face to face with the Master Vampire that he had sworn his allegiance to so many years ago. “Hey, Luukas.”

Luukas took in his dusty clothes, the animals he was wearing, Shea behind him holding bags of supplies, and raised one eyebrow. “I hope you’re weren’t planning on leaving those beastshere.”

“I was going to put them in my apartment.”

“Good.” He slapped Dante on the shoulder. “I’m glad you made it back to us,” he told him sincerely. Then he stepped back out of the way to let them enter.

Dante strode inside, only to come up short before he’d even made it out of the foyer. His fangs shot down into his mouth as the familiar scent of sweet human blood blasted him in the face, and for a brief second, he thought Laney had somehow made her way up here in the few minutes he’d been gone. He hissed, his eyes shooting left to right as his thirst hit him full force. The thirst he hadn’t quenched as he had planned, because he was too twisted up by the other things the female had done tohim.

And what he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do toher.

Before he realized what he was doing, Dante was standing in the bedroom door. The door that he had just smashed open. A small, dark-haired female was staring at him with wide, hazel eyes. She was wearing nothing but a thin robe that barely concealed her full hips and breasts, her damp raven hair tumbling around her shoulders. At first glance, only her hazel eyes and the pale tint of her skin differentiated her from Laney.

Dante bared his fangs, and she narrowed her eyes in challenge. His thirst raged, the blood lust messing with his head. A growl ripped through the room, and he realized that it had come from him. The female was unmoved. She faced him and smiled.

He took a step toward her, but that was as far as he got before something large and powerful flashed by him, knocking him to the side. Luukas appeared in front of the female, fangs bared and eyes wild. For a moment, Dante was confused, for it seemed that Luukas was threatening him. He dropped the dog, forgotten in his arms, and the cat jumped down after him. They were quick to get out of the way. Copying Luukas’s stance, Dante prepared to fight for hisprey.

“The witch is MINE,” Luukas growled in a low voice.

A muscular arm was suddenly around Dante’s throat and a quiet voice with a British accent spoke in his ear. “You’ll want to back off now, commander.”

Dante tried to throw Aiden off, but then Nik’s blue eyes cut off his line of vision to the female. Getting right in his face, Nik told him, “Dude. You really don’t want to go there.”

“Fun as it would be to let Luukas rip your bloody head off, we only just got you back,” Aiden chimed in cheerfully. “Let’s save it for another day, shallwe?”

Dante roared his displeasure at being kept from his meal. She smelled faintly of the female he’d left below ground, and he was suddenly dying of thirst. Hauling back his fist, he punched Nikulas in his pretty jaw and threw his head back in an attempt to shove Aiden’s nose up through his skull. Unfortunately, the vampire on his back saw it coming and moved his face out of theway.

“Really, commander? I’m hurt. I really am. I thought I was your favorite.”

With Nik out of the way, he had a clear view of the vampire blocking him from his meal. Luukas’s eyes glowed with a crazy light as he hissed and snarled from his protective stance in front of the female. She, on the other hand, didn’t look the least bit frightened.

“Stop!”

The shout came from his right, and Dante tried to turn his head in that direction, only to find that he couldn’t move a single muscle.

“Hallo, poppet,” Aiden said as he dropped off Dante’s back. “No need to get your knickers in a twist. We had it handled.” As he came into Dante’s line of vision and picked Nik up off the floor, he saw a tiny, prickly head with a black nose pop up out of the hood of Aiden’s ever-present hoodie.

“Is he okay?” the female he couldn’t see asked. “Nikulas! Are youokay?”

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, wiping the blood from his mouth with his arm. “Dammit, man. Why’d you have to hit me in the face? We never go for the face. It’s therule.”

The familiar scent of his female was stronger now, and Dante ground his jaw in frustration from his frozen position.

“Just keep him right there please, Em, until I can calm Luukas down,” the dark-haired femalesaid.

“Take your time, sis. I’ve gotthis.”

Luukas shifted his weight from side to side, ready to pounce at the slightest threat. The dark-haired female moved to stand in front of him. “Calm down, vampire. No one is hurtingme.”

Luukas’s crazy eyes stayed rock steady on Dante’s face, fangs bared in warning. But as the female put her hands on him and spoke in soft tones, he eventually stopped snarling, and his eyes lost their glow of crazy, though his fangs stayed distended.

“What the fuck is going on?” Dante gritted out from the haze of his bloodlust.

Aiden spoke from where he leaned casually against the wall. “Just that you’re threatening to eat the fated mate of our fearless leader.”

Fated mate? The words bounced around his head, but he couldn’t pin down their meaning. “What?” Fighting to get his own sanity back, he managed to gain enough control over his thirst that the burning in his throat was little more than a strong simmer.