She’d done it.

“I need to understand what she did to you.”

Wow. Hold up. His gaze dropped to her right hand. That woman needed to put down the scalpel and step back from him.

“I have to replicate it. I have to see . . . Are you human again?” She shook her head. “I don’t think you completely are, not with those fangs.”

His tongue ran over said fangs. The two sharp canines were much better than the mouthful he’d had before.

“Do you want blood?”

She came closer with that scalpel.

“Keep it away from me!” He wasn’t in the mood to get sliced.

The blonde blinked. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She took the scalpel and sliced it over her skin.

Her blood trickled over her arm.

“I’m just going to see if you’re hungry.”

The blood glistened, dark red. And Vaughn realized that he was . . . He was hungry.

She held her arm over his face, and he opened his mouth, suddenly desperate for that blood.

“Vampires usually need a lot of blood after an injury. You still haven’t healed fully yet.”

He hadn’t even felt an injury.

“But maybe that will change with a little blood.” Drops of her blood fell into his mouth.

So damn good.

“Interesting.”

After those few precious drops, she stepped back and began wrapping her injured arm in long, white strips of cloth. “You sure act like a vampire, but you don’t look primal.”

“I’m not,” he gritted out. When he’d been in that primal haze of bloodlust and endless hunger, speech had been all but impossible. The longer he’d been primal, the harder it had been to pull up speech. As if ... as if with each passing day, he’d become more of an animal.

And, sure, that woman’s blood was like honey on his tongue, but he wasn’t foaming at the mouth to have more.

I have control.

He wasn’t planning on losing it anytime soon.

“Since I’m not primal, I’m not a threat.” Vaughn tried to keep his voice calm and reasonable. Reason might work with this lady. “You can let me go.”

She shook her head.

He heard the squeak of a door opening behind her. Footsteps came toward him, and he smelled smoke.

Vaughn glanced to the left and saw the same SOB who’d shoved a stake into him. He hadn’t seen the man’s face until he fell into the dirt—and nearly died.

“Cassie cured you,” the man said.

What is his name? Jon—and he is a lieutenant colonel.

“He’s still a vampire,” the blonde said quickly. Her wound was completely wrapped now. “Just not primal.”

The SOB came closer. “How’d she do it?” he demanded of Vaughn.

“Hell if I know.” That was true. All he remembered was the hunger and . . .

Fuck, did I bite a kid?

He thought that he might have, and shame burned through him. Vaughn never wanted to be like that again.

Death would be better than being primal.

Jon’s blue eyes locked on his. “We’re going to cut you up and find out. I’ll let Shaw slice you open, and then she can piece you back together.”

Isn’t he a cold-blooded prick?

Vaughn glared at him.

“Or maybe I’ll let her take an . . . easier approach,” Jon said with a chilling smile. “You help me, and I don’t torture you as much.”

Was Vaughn supposed to believe anything the guy who’d staked him said?

Jon stepped ever closer. His face had been burned so badly. But he acted like he didn’t feel the pain as he demanded, “Where would Cassie go? She ran from her lab. Where did she run to?”

“No clue,” Vaughn muttered. He wasn’t telling this guy anything.

Jon shook his head and sighed. “That’s the wrong answer.” He glanced at the woman. “Shaw, cut open his chest.”

Shaw didn’t move.

Neither did Vaughn.

“Shaw!” Jon snapped.

“He’s a cured primal,” she whispered with a nervous glance at Vaughn. “Don’t you see what Cassie has done? We need him alive. We have to replicate—”

“Do I look like I give a shit about curing the primals?” Jon snarled. “I can kill them all with a thought.”

Vaughn’s gaze swept over the man’s face. “Those look like some pretty bad burns.” On his face and his arms.

Jon stiffened.

Vaughn smiled. “Someone pissed off a phoenix, huh?” He knew about the phoenixes. Down in New Orleans, his best friend had a phoenix for a sister.