He said the name so sweetly, as though it were a father or a lover. For all Balthazar knew, it was some of both. The name never ceased to send a chill through him—part dread, part hate. Redgrave.

“Where is he?” Balthazar demanded. His voice was almost a growl now.

“Not near enough to watch you die.”

The blow slammed into Balthazar’s chest—both hands, spread broadly, nearly enough force to crack ribs. It sent him flying backward, not far, but enough for Lorenzo to skitter free. Within an instant they were both on their feet, facing each other. Balthazar still clutched the stake; it was as close as he would get to an advantage from now on.

Lorenzo de Aracena, of sixteenth-century Spain, a would-be poet and a dirty fighter. Often subservient to his sire—Redgrave, the darkest vampire Balthazar had ever known or hoped to know—but just as often renegade. Sometimes his sire pushed him away for his own reasons; Lorenzo always went limping back eventually, eager for someone to tell him what to do, what to think, whom to kill. He would always be someone’s slave. Most vampires were, in the end.

Balthazar wasn’t. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to kill Lorenzo, but he was damned sure going to try.

“Do you want the girl for yourself?” Lorenzo smiled, almost politely. “That’s impossible, I’m afraid.”

“She’s not going to be yours,” Balthazar replied. He kept his voice even as well. Inside, though, he was uncertain—it was strange of Lorenzo to challenge him about Skye in particular. For the two of them, just seeing each other was reason enough to get into it. But why claim possession of Skye? She was just a girl, just a convenient victim chosen at random.

Wasn’t she?

“So many possibilities,” Lorenzo said. “So many opportunities. Too rich to waste on a battle with you.”

And then he vanished. As if he’d disappeared into thin air—a gift some few vampires aged into, but only after a couple of millennia. Lorenzo didn’t have that talent; he’d just streaked into the night without a sound. Balthazar turned and ran in the direction Skye had gone.

He hadn’t learned what the guy was up to, only that it wasn’t good—and that Skye still needed his protection.

Balthazar caught up with her not far away; she’d stopped by a large dark horse, evidently hers, and kneeled by its front hooves. Lorenzo was nowhere to be seen, and the woods around them were silent. The danger seemed to have passed for the moment, but she couldn’t have known that. He said, “You’d have done better to run.”

“If you won the fight, I didn’t have to run. If you lost, it wouldn’t have done any good. The other vampire was faster than me.”

Which was a good point, actually. He liked her steadiness in the face of danger. “Is your horse hurt?”

“Eb’s okay, I think.” Skye sounded as relieved as though she were talking about a good friend, not an animal. “But I want to be sure—and I’m so freaked out I can’t tell if he’s shaking or I am.”

“Let me check.” Balthazar clucked his tongue—an old habit, one he’d almost forgotten, but it still worked. Eb allowed him to run his hands along his legs, which were sound. “You were right. He’s not hurt. Only startled.”

Only then did Balthazar really look at Skye. Her long hair—deep brown, if memory served—looked almost black as night drew on. Although her breaths still came quickly, she was surprisingly composed given what had just happened to her, and how much worse it could have been. Her cheeks were flushed from the exertion of her headlong chase.

“We need to get out of here,” she said. “Do you know how to ride?”

“It came in handy before the invention of the car.”

“Oh. Right.” That caught her off guard for only a moment. “Eb can carry us both as far as the stable. Come on.” Skye looked up into the darkening air as if another vampire might come plummeting toward her at any second. Though Balthazar didn’t sense any others nearby, he thought she had the right idea about leaving this place as soon as possible.

So when she swung up into the saddle, Balthazar didn’t hesitate. As soon as she had her seat and Eb was steady, Skye offered him her left arm. The reins remained in her right hand; her control of the horse was such that she was able to slide her feet out of the stirrups and hold him steady just through that mysterious communication between human and animal. Balthazar put one foot in the stirrup and mounted easily—he hadn’t done this in a long time, but his muscles retained the memory, and then he was next to Skye. They were sitting so close that they touched, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder, and for one moment he couldn’t help noticing how warm she was. How fast her heart was still beating.

“Hang on,” she said, readjusting her feet so that she had the stirrups—taking command again.

“I’m ready.”

With that, she spurred Eb back into action, and the horse began taking them back toward civilization. Back toward safety, Balthazar would’ve said—but he wasn’t totally sure of that at the moment.

Her breath made clouds of fog in the bitterly cold air. His didn’t.

The stables turned out to be not some major commercial enterprise, the way most of them were in twenty-first-century America, but a smaller structure built of wide planks of wood not far behind Skye’s home. Though the lighting was electric instead of candles, it ran through heavy black lanterns that conjured up old, pleasant memories. The scent of hay took him back.