“Better than you. You look like crap.”

Suddenly, dizziness spread in his head. Shit, he was going to pass out. No, couldn’t do that. Not if front of all his colleagues. And even less in front of Yvette. Couldn’t show weakness. He bit the inside of his cheek to distract himself from the pain in his leg.

“We need blood here,” Yvette instructed, waving toward Gabriel, who instantly rushed to them even as he issued commands to search for the witch. “Is Oliver with you?”

Gabriel nodded and waved to one of the vamps behind him. “Get him.” Then he turned back to Yvette. “We were worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“And your charge? Where’s Kimberly?”

Yvette turned her head to the open door behind her. “It’s safe to come out now.”

Over Yvette’s shoulder, Zane saw the girl appear. He recognized her, but something was different. While she clearly looked the same when he’d seen her a few nights earlier, something was very wrong. There was a strange air about her. But he didn’t get a chance to figure out what it was, because behind the girl two men appeared.

One he recognized instantly from the picture Samson had drawn: Haven, the man who’d kidnapped Yvette and Kimberly.

It had been a trap.

Zane took a deep breath, reading himself for another fight, when the whiff he took in jolted him.

Shit! Witches! Not just Haven, but all three of them!

“Get ‘em!” he yelled at the same time as he brought his arm up, the vial still clutched in his palm. He caught Yvette’s stunned look the instant he flicked his wrist back and released the vial the way a baseball player would throw a curve ball.

“NO!” Yvette’s scream pierced the sudden silence as she dove for it, trying to catch it.

But Zane knew his throwing arm to be as wicked as his heart. She had no chance of stopping him. Why she wanted to in the first place, he couldn’t comprehend. Stockholm syndrome, he briefly wondered, before he saw the glass shatter at the feet of the three witches. A green vapor rose from the liquid that was released.

A second later, all three collapsed.

Yvette reached them first, but if he’d expected her to lunge for the girl she’d been protecting, he was wrong. She reached for Haven. “Oh God! Zane! What have you done?”

She fell to her knees and lifted his body, pressing his head against her chest. “NO!”

Zane had never seen Yvette cry, and he hoped to God he’d never have to again. Her tears were pink as they streaked her cheeks, and her sobs sliced his heart in half.

She was crying tears for the witch, who’d kidnapped her.
Twenty-Four

Haven’s head hurt as if he’d been on a three-day bender. Not that that hadn’t happened before, but somehow he didn’t think it was the reason for his throbbing, watermelon-sized headache. What the fuck had happened to him? Last thing he remembered was Yvette telling him and his siblings that it was safe to come out. The fighting had already stopped and the witch inexplicable disappeared in the midst of it.

Forcing his heavy eyelids open, he took in his surroundings. An unfamiliar room greeted him. Richly furnished, not the sparseness of his earlier prison. The mattress underneath him was soft.

Haven jolted upright. He still wore the same clothes as before—pants, no shirt, because the witch had shredded that with her whip. Somebody had taken his boots off.

A sound next to him made him spin his head. Relief washed through him: Wesley was slowly waking beside him. Haven shook his shoulder.

“Wes!”

His brother’s eyes flew open. Instantly he sat up and looked around. “Fuck, where are we? What happened?”

Haven shook his head. “I don’t know.” He gave the room another look, before he realized something was amiss. “Shit! Where’s Kimberly?” He jumped off the bed, Wesley right on his heels.

“Kimberly!” he called out as he headed for the door and turned the knob. As it swung open, Haven found himself confronted by a hulk-sized guy with long, dark hair.

“Shit!” Haven cursed. “What have you bastards done with Kimberly?” He didn’t have to be a brainiac to figure out that the guy who was blocking the door was a vampire: one of Yvette’s colleagues for sure. At the thought of her, he felt a stab in his chest. Had she sold them out after all? Had she lied when she’d promised them they’d be safe? Why that thought hurt so much, he didn’t want to examine. He should have expected as much. After all, she was a vampire. A vampire who’d seduced him. A woman he wanted again.