She’d struggled against his bite at first, but then she’d allowed death to take her, hoping the next life would be kinder. Only when she’d woken again had she realized what had happened to her. The stranger had turned her into a vampire—an infertile vampire, a fact she’d had to come to terms with the hard way.

As a human, she might have had another chance at a child and at making a man happy, but as a vampire, no such hope existed. And men were men, no matter what shape or form they came in. They fucked her, and she fucked them. But when all was said and done, even her sire had given her the marching papers. Too clingy, he’d called her. Too needy.

Not anymore. Now she was as tough as any vampire male, and nobody would ever see otherwise. The fragile woman inside was dead to the world.

***

Just like Gabriel had told her, the girl Yvette was to protect was young. What he’d neglected to mention was that Kimberly was also extremely beautiful. A twinge of jealousy hit Yvette the moment she set eyes upon her charge. This girl had everything: a thriving career, beauty, and a human body to bear children. Life was cruel. She wished now that Gabriel had let Zane use mind control to make the girl forget about her dislike for him. Yvette really didn’t need a constant reminder of what she couldn’t have. She would have much rather protected some wealthy, overweight executive with a bad haircut, body odor, and a beer gut.

Her consolation was that the assignment would last only a week before Kimberly would return to Los Angeles to work on her next movie.

“This is so much better,” the girl blabbered. “Frankly, that other man, Zane, or whatever his name was, he was really strange. I didn’t like him at all. The way he looked at me, I tell you, he made me really nervous. And I really don’t get nervous. Normally. The one other time I really got nervous was when I had to audition for …”

Yvette tuned out Kimberly’s chatter and looked out of the tinted window of the limousine. This was just peachy. Not only did Kimberly have everything humanly possible, she talked constantly. She only hoped the girl didn’t actually expect her to listen to her chit-chat and respond. She swore she’d make Gabriel write a big bonus check for this one.

“… so I said to him, ‘back at the orphanage we had that game …’ ”

Yvette offered a fake smile and nodded as if listening intently while she scanned the goings-on outside. The limo was stuck in traffic on California Street and was slowly inching its way up toward the Fairmont Hotel.

“… thought I was only nineteen, when I’m really already twenty-two, but it didn’t matter, because they wanted somebody mature for the role …”

A waterfall couldn’t have produced a steadier stream of words. Yvette gave her another sideways glance. Perched on the comfortable leather seat, Kimberly wore a pink evening gown. It suited her. Her wheat blonde locks fell over her naked shoulders and looked perfectly natural. Only the faint smell of chemicals, picked up by Yvette’s sensitive nostrils, hinted at the fact that blonde wasn’t Kimberly’s natural hair color.

For the first time in a long time, Yvette was wearing a dress. It irked her, but Kimberly had insisted, saying that if she showed up in a pant suit, she’d stick out like a sore thumb, and everybody would think she was CIA.

So Yvette had rummaged through her closet and found a little black number that would do the trick. It was an old halter dress with a plunging neckline and a naked back. If anybody gave the dress a closer look, they’d notice it was vintage. Well, they hadn’t called it vintage when she’d bought it back in the 60s. Why she’d held on to the useless thing she hadn’t worn in nearly fifty years, she didn’t know.

She should have given it to Goodwill years ago. It wasn’t like she’d worn a dress or a skirt in the last few decades; leather pants were her favorite attire. Coupled with the same high heels that adorned her feet now, she was always ready to kick ass in her leathers. In the halter dress, albeit a black one—the only color she felt truly comfortable in—she felt uneasy. As if she was faking it. And maybe she was. For the sake of her client, she had to pretend that a dress was a perfectly normal piece of clothing for her, when inside it made her feel vulnerable. And on display.

“Ma’am,” the driver interrupted her thoughts. “I don’t think we can get any further. The cable car seems to have broken down and is blocking the road.”

Instantly alert, Yvette peered out through the tinted windows, scanning the street ahead for any immediate dangers. “Wait here,” she instructed Kimberly and stepped out of the car. She looked up the street and realized that the next intersection was blocked by the cable car coming up from Powell Street. Nothing looked out of place. She’d gotten used to the fact that the old cable cars broke down from time to time.