“Are you all right?” she asked, clearly concerned. Could she hear the rush of blood in his veins? Feel the way his heart skidded out of control?

“Yes,” he managed to croak out. “Fine.” He did. He loved her.

Eve would object. A few of the others, too. But he couldn’t help his feelings. They were there, and they were strong. He wanted Victoria safe, he wanted her with him, at night, during the day. He wanted to know everything about her.

She was smart, beautiful, warm. She’d fought for him when no one else ever had. She’d never looked at him as if he were weird or different. No, she’d always looked at him as if he were perfect, even lovable in his own right.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

He couldn’t tell her. Not yet. How deeply did her feelings for him run?

“About your death?”

He tensed at the reminder.

“It’s all I’ve been able to think about since you told me.” Her chin trembled as if she were fighting tears.

Those tears both delighted and sobered him. To cry for him, she must feel deeply for him. But they didn’t have much time together. Maybe there was a way to save himself, he thought, though he knew better. He just wasn’t ready to give her up yet. “Can I be changed to vampire?”

“Oh, I wish. But unlike what your books and movies portray, it has never been done successfully. Our blood is different than yours, and humans simply cannot tolerate the amount needed to make the transformation. They go insane.”

Then there was no better candidate to give the blood to than Aden. According to his doctors, he was halfway there already.

Victoria sighed, and it was a wistful sound. “The first were created in my father’s time. When he realized what he was, what had become of him, he forced his elite soldiers and the females of their choosing to drink as he had done, as his pets had done. Some of them changed, some did not. Over the following years, many others tried to change additional humans, but all died.”

“Seriously? Not a single survivor?”

“Correct. The only new vampires are those that are born from a vampire mother.”

“But it stands to reason that if vampires were created once, they could be created again.”

“True. But no one knows what recent attempts are lacking. Either the tainted blood my father and his men consumed is no more, or human bodies have evolved, becoming resistant. Sometimes, for reasons we haven’t yet figured out, the vampire involved even dies with the human.”

So that was out. He wouldn’t risk Victoria. He sighed. What was he going to do, then?

“Turn left here,” she said.

He did, and soon found himself meandering along a dirt road on the outskirts of the town square, the backs of buildings facing another strip of forested land. Gravel crunched under the tires, and the car bounced. No one was in sight. Only a red corvette.

“Park here.”

He eased to a stop and turned off the car. They unbuckled simultaneously, and he peered over at her. She wore a black T-shirt, as usual, and was clutching the hem. Seeing her fingernails reminded him of the polish in his backpack.

Aden reached to the back of the car, unzipped his pack and dug inside. When his fingers curled around the small, cool glass, he tugged it free, praying it was as pink and glittery as John had promised. It was. Thank God.

“Before you show me whatever it is you plan to show me, I wanted you to have this.” Gulping, suddenly nervous, he held it out to her. “For you. Well, your toes.”

She looked down at it, up at him, then down again, her mouth opening and snapping closed several times. “Me?”

Did that mean she liked it? “You mentioned the colors inside Mary Ann’s house and well, I thought maybe you—”

“I love it!” she said, throwing herself into his arms and raining little kisses over his face. When one of those kisses landed on his mouth, she stilled. Her smile fell away. She pressed another kiss to his lips, this one soft and slow, her tongue slipping inside.

He was cut and bruised, and the kiss hurt, but he wouldn’t have stopped her for anything. He just wrapped himself around her and held on, savoring the contact. He inhaled deeply, drinking in the floral scent of her hair, enjoying the heady flavor of her. All that heat…

There was a tap at the window.

They jumped apart as if burned. Aden was reaching for his daggers when he spotted Riley’s harsh, intense face. Mary Ann stood behind him, paler than he’d ever seen her.

Frowning, he opened the door and emerged. The cool interior of the car gave way to the heat of the day. One thing he hated about Oklahoma was how one day could be bone-chilling and the next a sauna.

He hadn’t heard Victoria move, but suddenly she was beside him. “Well?” she asked.

“It’s only getting worse,” Riley said.

Victoria stiffened, and Aden wrapped an arm around her waist.

“What is?” he asked. He was finally here. Someone needed to tell him what the hell was going on.

“Come. I’ll show you.”

Aden ran his tongue over his teeth. Would no one give him a straight-up answer?

Riley turned, took Mary Ann’s hand and stalked through the alley between two of the buildings, remaining in the shadows. “We shouldn’t have brought you here at all, but we needed you to see what’s out there and be able to identify the different species at a glance.”

Confused, Aden followed, never releasing Victoria. He remained on guard, ready to attack anything that moved. To his surprise, nothing leapt out at them. Also to his surprise, he saw only crowds of people walking in every direction when he reached the front of the buildings. More people than he’d assumed lived in this small tri-city area, sure. But where was the harm in that?

“See that woman?” Victoria pointed to an average-size female with plain brown hair, plain features, a brown top and faded jeans. She would have blended into any crowd, unnoticed, completely forgettable.

“Yes.”

“She’s a witch and she’s cloaked herself in magic. What you see is not what she truly looks like.”

His attention sharpened on her, and he noticed the alertness of her gaze as she scanned those around her. There was even a glow that enveloped her, slight though it was, as if the sun was drawn to her more than any other. She studied everyone she neared, even reached out and touched a few, as if expecting to be jolted. When nothing happened, she would frown with disappointment and move on.

“How do you know what she is?” he asked. “How can you tell?”

“You have to train your eyes to look past the surface,” Mary Ann said, as if she were quoting something she’d already been told. She probably was.

“Witches can bless with one hand and curse with the other,” Victoria explained. “Some wield more magic than others, but all are dangerous.”

“I’ve been listening to a few conversations,” Riley said. “The witches want to capture you, Aden, though they don’t yet know who you are, to use you to increase their powers. They think whoever summoned them is a mighty wizard. My advice is to avoid capture.”

“Oh, really? ’Cause I never would have thought of that on my own,” he said dryly.

Riley continued on as if he hadn’t spoken. “If you’re captured, when they finish with you, you will be a shell of your former self. They will drain you.”

“So noted.”

“The man behind her is fairy,” said Victoria. The disgust in her voice was palpable.

Aden quickly shifted his focus. The man—or teenager, probably eighteen—was tall and muscled, his skin boasting just a hint of glitter. He had golden hair and golden eyes. Everyone who passed him, male and female alike, stared at him, craning their necks to watch him as long as possible. Except for the witch, Aden noticed. She ran in the opposite direction.

“Like vampires, fairies are drainers,” Victoria continued. “Only instead of blood, they live off of energy. Vampire, witch, it doesn’t matter. Well, that’s not true. They do not drain humans. They consider themselves protectors of humankind, gods among men.”