Nicole stopped screaming, but the whole room vibrated with the sudden wild rush of fury that Sam knew came from Keenan.

Sam and Keenan grabbed the hound. They dragged it off Nicole even as the hound snapped and bit.

Then Seline was there. Her hands locked around the hound’s body. “Leave her alone! Leave them all alone!” Fury hardened her words. “Just get the hell away from us. Go back to hell!”

The hound whined. Its head lowered.

Then the beast vanished in a blur of smoke.

About f**king time.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sam hadn’t been lying to her. Seline stared at her hands and realized her fingers were stained with ash.

She’d just sent a hellhound back to hell. She controlled a hellhound.

Oh, damn.

“Baby, are you okay?”

She glanced up at the voice, so deep with concern. Keenan had his vampire in his arms. Seline could see the blood pouring from the woman’s throat. Okay sure didn’t seem like the right word. More like get-me-to-a-hospital-stat.

“Drink from me,” Keenan said, his hands so gentle on the woman.

Nicole’s head sagged back weakly, and Seline glimpsed her fangs. Then those fangs sank into Keenan. He shuddered. Not with revulsion, but with what she was pretty sure had to be pleasure.

“She’ll be all right.” Sam’s voice didn’t carry any concern. “Angel’s blood—even if the angel has fallen—is incredibly strong.”

Something to remember.

“How did I send him back?” Her gaze darted to the floor. To the scorch marks and the deep grooves that the hound’s claws had left.

“Guess you just had to get mad enough,” he said. “Mad enough to let that control of yours crack.”

Crack? It had fragmented there in that last terrifying moment. If she hadn’t been able to pull the hound back, Nicole would have died in front of her. “I didn’t want more blood on my hands.” She didn’t know Nicole. Just because the woman was a vamp, it didn’t mean she deserved hell.

Who did these days?

Sirens screamed in the distance.

“Humans . . . on the way to the rescue.” Keenan said this even as Nicole continued to drink from him.

“You’ve got her?” Sam asked with a nod at Nicole.

“Always.” Keenan’s answer was immediate.

Sam’s lips twisted. “Then get her out of here. Meet up with me at dawn, at Pedro’s place.”

Keenan’s brows rose. “You trust that shifter?”

“More than most.”

Keenan nodded and carried his feeding vampire toward the back door.

Seline didn’t move. She wasn’t sure where to go or what to do. Energy still pumped through her blood. She’d taken too much when she kissed Sam, she knew she had, but he didn’t look weak.

If the hound had killed him, Sam’s death would have been on her. She straightened her shoulders. “You need to go. Get away from me. What if I accidentally bring the hound back? You just—go.”

One dark brow climbed. “And what are you going to do? Stand here and wait for the cops?”

Maybe. Perhaps she deserved to be locked up. “You said the coyote shifter was dead?”

“Not by your hand. The hound killed him.”

The sirens were louder. “I meant to kill him. I took as much power from him as I could.” It was time for Sam to realize just how dark she was on the inside.

“If he’d still been breathing when I found him,” Sam said, “I would have killed him.”

His admission had her eyes widening.

Sam’s stare had dropped to the front of her shirt. “I can see the marks he put on you.”

She could feel them. “Just scratches. They’ll fade.”

Doors slammed outside. She glanced toward the front door. “How will we explain this?” Her gaze came back to him.

“We won’t.” He still didn’t move. “The cops will say the people who talk about a monster attacking them are all just high. Other events always have a way of being covered up.”

She knew many humans only saw what they wanted to see. “And the dead shifter? What happens when he’s found?” The front door rattled. She glanced over and realized that thick tables had been pushed in front of the entrance.

Sam. She hadn’t even realized he’d used his power to bar the door.

“There won’t be anything left of him by the time he’s found.”

Again, the way of their world. The real animals would have their turn.